Tarantino is a f****** genius. His new film 'Death proof' which is essentialy two movies in one is just great. When Neil Marshall's 'The Descent' went into girl power mode in the second half it was almost as laughable as 'Dog Soldiers'. But when Tarantino does it, boy does he know how to do it!

I don't want to say too much about the plot of this film, as I don't want to spoil it. All I will say is that the first 'mini film' follows the same sort of pattern as a typical teenage slasher movie (and ironically has Eli Roth in as a character) and the second half then looks like it will follow the same pattern, but instead flips the audience and their expectations on their head and ends with one of the funniest finales I have ever seen.

Tarantino also has some painfully long dialogue scenes at the start of each 'mini film' between groups of women which almost say to me "Now you know how it feels to be a woman and watch the dialogue scenes in testosterone fuelled movies." I didn't know what the hell these women were talking about and was bored to tears. But I feel he made his point to me nicely in this movie, assuming he was trying to make one. Maybe I am just reading too much into this? Who knows. I still say: genius. Oh yeah - and check out Tarantino's role as the bartender. Hilarious.

Looking back, the Austin experience was great. We got to meet some very cool people and have hopefully started relationships that will last into the future. Hiram made some very good contacts and I think that the festival is probably the best place to do this. At Cannes it is difficult to run in the same circles as those that are already very successful. It's all about getting into the right parties. Austin is much more laid back and you feel you can approach anybody any time.

I actually felt very sad at having to leave Austin. It made a real impression on me, and I think it is a wonderful resource for the aspiring screenwriter. I hope next year to attend as a panelist and help shape the festival into one which also helps serve and promote up-and-coming filmmakers too. It also needs to help screenwriters find producers too. Then it would be almost perfect.

Today I attended a few panels on financing and contracts, before heading out to the awards luncheon. Zombie Diaries didn't win anything and to be honest I didn't expect it to. The film that won looked like a festival winner from its synopsis, and it was also the second feature in 2 years to have an austin-based director at its helm. A very disappointing thing was that almost none of the people who won an award were there to collect it. But it's a good sign: if you are so busy you can't attend a big festival where you are up for an award, you must be doing something right!

Oliver Stone got up and made an exceptional speech which I found very inspiring. I also was pleased to see that 3 of the other 7 people on my table were people I had met before at the festival. The seats were assgiend randomly, so I figured going on that, that I had really done quite a lot of networking.

I bumped into the journalist (Laura) one last time and wished her well, and then headed over to B-Side where I said goodbye to Steph Layton and the team there (awesome people). I then pulled away from the Driskell Hotel with Hiram, and began to start winding down from the whole Austin experience. Hiram, Liz and I went to the world famous 'Amy's' ice cream shop (four times as much fat as regular ice cream!) and I invented a new flavour of ice cream called 'The Zombie Dairies'. It is basically Kahlua Ice Cream mixed with Vanilla Ice Cream, with a heavy dose of Chocolate fudge, and nuts. They created it for me and we handed some out to locals and they loved it! When I go back to Austin, the first thing I am doing is getting me a 'Zombie Dairies'!

We then went back to the college campus that Hiram and Liz were staying at and relaxed by the swimming pool. It was beautiful hot weather and blue skies. We ended the Austin stay with a meal at a local mexican opposite 'Amys' (The name eludes me but I bought two t-shirts so I should know better!). I then went home, packed and got an early night.

I was so knackered today that I only made it in for 10:45. The panels on this day weren't really much to write home about, and the only real event worthy of noting was the Austin Pitch competition, which I attended. One of the panelists giving feedback to the pitchers was Katie Fetting, someone who I find quite inspiring. She was a finalist on Project Greenlight and has a *brilliant* sense of humour. After the competition I picked up on how one of the pitches could be enhanced and asked if Katie would mind chatting about it, and she was very open to the suggestion, and provided me and the pithcer in question with great feedback. The pitcher was actually Jen Howard, producer of Beyond The Pale.

Jen asked what I was up to for the rest of the day. I mentioned that I was going to be playing some pool and then hoped to see Control at 9:30pm. She said her film was going to be playing right around the corner at 7:00pm so I agreed to come along and see it. The movie looked like a cross between a Chris Guest movie and Rushmore.

On my way walking to the pool hall, who should I see? That guy from Ghostbusters! Er - I mean, Scott Alexander, distinguished screenwriter! I invited him for a game of pool so he joined us and bought a round of beers. Great chap! I didn't get too much of a chance to talk to him, but we had a brief chat about The Zombie Diaries and what I hope to work on next with Kev. I also met up with a local filmmaker by the name of Jake who was working on a project with local students and wanted to chat about general tips I had. Victor Fanucchi then showed up and we had a few more beers before heading out to watch his film.

The screening of Beyond The Pale went very well. People laughed at all the right bits, and I found the film to be an excellent critique of academia. The film was shot in a mockumentary style and really felt like it could have been made by the great Chris Guest himself. Hats off to Victor and Jen! The middle part of the film did drag quite badly (the meandering second act) a sentiment echoed by everyone I spoke to after the screening, but in defence of the filmmakers, I always find the second act the hardest thing to write. I know where my characters are starting from, and where they are going to, but the stuff in the middle is always tricky. Especially with modern attention spans.

So at this point, I am feeling very tired. The jet lag is kicking in. The 4:00am start from yesterday is kicking in. The late night screening is kicking in. "That's ok" I thought. "Control will blow me away!".

Control was one of the most beautifully shot films I have ever seen. It also moves along at a very slow pace. Think 'Solaris' - beautiful, slow and engaging. But unfortunately for me I was not in the mood. I became quite agitated in my seat. Hiram and Liz loved the movie and came away proclaiming it to be perfect. I thought on the whole it was excellent, but I felt it drag. Maybe it was just me and my tiredness? I'd like to see it again when I have more energy.

We met Orien after the screening and gave him a copy of The Zombie Diaries. He had brought his family and I didn't want to intrude on their conversation, so I gave Hiram the DVD to hand to him and departed the Paramount Theatre. Tomorrow is my last day. I'm going to sleep well tonight and then tomorrow we can enjoy the day.

Today I was up at 4:00am as Hiram and I had an interview with NBC at 5:30am. A cool AFF guy called Arles picked me up from my hotel and drove me downtown to the Paramount Theatre. Hiram and I spoke for about 2 minutes, and the station then faded up clips from our movie and mentioned where the film would be showing. It was a great little bit of PR. After that it was straight back to bed for me!

I managed to get myself up for the first panel of the day which started at 10:45am entitled: Finding The Voice: Dialogue. Dialogue is something I always thought I wrote well until it came to editing The Zombie Diaries. Kevin and I learned a great lesson: less is more. The panel who I was hoping would shed some light were: Nicholas Kazan (Writer, Reversal of Fortune), Aline Brosh McKenna (Writer, The Devil Wears Prada) and Terry Rossio (writer, Shrek, "Pirates" trilogy).

This was a weird panel. Terry mentioned how he agonised over every word when he writes, whereas the other two panelists said they know when they are writing well when they are writing quickly. It was good to see that there is no one correct method.

Some little nuggets of information were: Good dialogue comes from a good scene with clearly defined goals; Good dialogue comes when the writer ensures the characters are actually listening to each other; Good dialogue comes when one thinks of each character's perspectives through the story.

After this panel I headed back to the B-Side filmmaker lounge to relax and enjoy some tea. It was nice and quiet until the place was descended upon by about a dozen filmmakers and one particularly irritating young screenwriter who insisted on debating (at high volume) the strategy of paper-scissors-rock with his even more irritating teenage voice.

The "Round table" events are where regular folk gather round one of eight tables, and then each table is joined by an expert in some field. Whilst queuing, Adam and I met a cool independent journalist, Laura, who was there to meet and talk to filmmakers. The three of us just managed to squeeze into the round table, where we met three distinquished experts:

• Colin O'Reilly - co-producer of Blades of Glory and just totally awesome guy - now runs his own company, Menlo Park Productions. This is the kind of person I would like to work with in the future - he seems very honest and reads absolutely everything you can throw at him.
• Lauren Levy - creative executive at Miramax. Lauren's round table consisted of her explaining her 'bottle of wine' strategy which is basically to use the concept of 'six degrees of freedom' to network your way into the industry and to be sure to send a nice bottle of wine to those people that help you along the way. I was both impressed and slightly intimidated by her - you could litrally feel the energy and drive radiating out of her.
• Glen Reynolds - owner of Circus Road Films. Glen explained what a producer's rep is and what they do. He knows Travis over at Imagination really well, and we had a brief little chat about that. Again, another great guy I could see myself working with.

At 3:15pm, I met with Hiram and Liz, and went off to the panel, Meet and Greet: Narrative Competition Filmmakers. This was really badly organised, and after waiting for 10 minutes for an organiser to turn up, the panelists (i.e. Me and the other filmmakers) decided to begin an informal panel and ended up with more of a general discussion. The other panelists consisted of: Brendan Foley (director, The Riddle); Victor Fanucchi (director, Beyond The Pale); Jen Howard (producer, Beyond The Pale) and Alex Orr (director, Blood Car). There may have been others there, but when we asked for a show of hands, I think these were the only people that admitted to having a feature film in competition (there was also a filmmaker with a short called The Anatomy of a Frog which was in the shorts competition). It was pretty cool - we all talked about how we came to be in Austin, production nightmares, costs, budgets, distribution, sales agents, etc.

After that we headed out for a BBQ where we were all given a free hat, and a great outdoor meal. I did a small interview, ate like a pig, and spoke to some really cool people. Hiram introduced me to Orian Williams, producer of Control and Shadow of the Vampire. What a lovely chap he was too. Hiram also believed he had spotted the bloke who gets electricuted whilst taking a psychic test, at the beginning of Ghostbusters. How wrong he was. It turned out to be Scott Alexander, co-writer of Cell, 1408 and The People Vs Larry Flynt.

"I think it's three waivy lines" - Scott Alexander guesses the symbol on the back of cards in Ghostbusters? I think not.

After the event was over, we bumped into Laura (the journalist) again and ended up spending the evening drinking coffee (or in my case TEA) and talking about everything from chess to accents to austin. We had some time to kill: at 10pm we were due to screen Zombie Diaries..

And so at 9:30pm, Joanne, a local writer, along with her husband, gave Hiram, Liz and I a lift up to the Dobie theatre. We were pleased to see the awesome new Zombie Diaries poster up on the wall, which we later took down and placed in a more austin-centric position!

There were a few things that annoyed me about this screening. Firstly, the theatre was in the arse-end of nowhere. Secondly, the projectionist hadn't got the digiBETA ready properly so the film took ages to start. Third, we weren't alowed to introduce the film. Jesse Trussel came on and basically said "It's awesome super low budget" but there was so much more I would like to have said about the production. And finally, the Q&A wasn't announced until the very last credit had rolled, by this time 2/3 of the cinema audience had left. These are minor points that I hope Austin can work on for next year.

Watching the film for the - what - 200th? time really bored me. In-fact next time the film screens anywhere I am not going to watch the film. I need to take a break of about a year or two before I can watch it again. This was Liz's first chance to see the film, however. Being married to the ego-maniac that is Hiram means she has so far only seen the bits with him in. And that goes for the 'making of' documentary too! Anyway she really enjoyed the film. And the people who managed to stay for the Q&A had some great questions which were cut short due to poor time management again from AFF.

However - all that being said, there were some great things about the screening. The sound system was decent. And by that I mean people were jumping all over the place. One person was crying at one point due to the child murder scene, and at the end one person left the cinema in tears. Hiram asked someone what was her problem. "She really didn't like your movie, " was the reply. "She kept jumping and it scared the crap out of her". Bizarre! Zombie Diaries is atmospheric, but even I as the director wouldn't go that far! But hey! I'm not complaining!

Hiram Bleetman, his wife, Elizabeth, and myself all jetted into Austin, arriving yesterday after a minor scare where we thought our plane had been cancelled! Hiram wasn't originally supposed to be bringing Elizabeth. Originally the plan was that him and I crash with a mate of his. Hiram only announced the revised plan to me a few days before we left, so I then had to find accomodation at the last minute, and thus ended up in the glamourous Travel Lodge, about 10 minutes drive from downtown Austin, although in the end I actually quite enjoyed it! The AFF were happy to let me crash with some students, but I like my own space and freedom.

The first day at the festival began at midday. The AFF crew had a 30 minute panel where they welcomed us and introduced the festival and highlighted some of the key events that would be taking place. I bumped into Jesse Trussel (The festival programmer) outside and he was then able to answer further questions afterwards. The great thing about the AFF is that all of the events take place in or around The Driskell Hotel so it easy to move from one panel to the next. The driskell is right next to one of the most architecturally impressive buildings I have ever seen - the Frost Bank Tower.

After the opening, I took a walk to the offices of B-Side Entertainment, who were running a 'filmmakers lounge' with free food, drink and net access. I met some really cool people, and even persuaded Steph Layton, a B-Sider who was meeting and greeting the filmmakers, to go get me some good old English Breakfast tea, which she then did! I can't be without my tea for more than 24 hours!

The first panel of the day was Common Mistakes Writers Make. Having probably made them all, I decided to go along anyway and see what the experts had to say. The panel consisted of Dan Petrie, Jr. (writer Beverly Hills Cop), Gayla Nethercott (agent at Don Buchwald & Associates), and Alex Smith (co-writer/co-director The Slaughter Rule). Some fun things that came out of this were the concept of the 'meandering second act' and also writers doing daft things like submitting CDs along with their scripts to get the reader 'in the mood' LOL.

I was also pleased to see some of the world's most successful writers mention that 99% of all books on screenplay writing are bollocks just engineered to make money. The key, as Dan Petrie said, was to understand the three act structure. He said any alternative ideas were good to open up one's mind, but these 'systems' should be followed diligiently at one's own risk.

After the panel I bumped into two really cool guys, Adam Deyoe and Eric Gosselin who had directed the horror 'Street Team Massacre'. These guys were just awesome, and a real credit to the independent filmmaking scene. I wish more people shared their humility and enthusiasm. We talked for a while about their movie and Zombie Diaries, but then we had to head off for the next panel at 2:45 entitled: The Art of The Pitch.

This panel interested me greatly, as Kevin and I will soon have to start pitching our next projects. Alex Smith joined this panel as well, and was joined by Curtis Burch (who has developed projects such as The Fugitive, The Running Man and Unlawful Entry) and now owns his own company, Latitude Productions.

It was quite interesting, as Alex had actually pitched some projects to Curtis before, and so they were able to give an insight from both sides of the table. I have decided to try and attend one of the pitching competitions at Austin this year to get a feel for how aspiring screenwriters and filmmakers are pitching their work.

The day ended with Hiram, 'Liz and I heading over to a restaurant entitled 'The Iron cactus' where I had one of the best mexican meals ever. And that is an endorsement, people! Afterwards we headed to Buffalo Billies for a few games of pool. We didn't stay out very late, as we have a 4:00am start tomorrow.

Kev is currently at the Sitgest Film Festival with Sophia Ellis where he is supporting the screening of The Zombie Diaries. The international sales effort is about to begin shortly, but as we move into November, Kevin and I will let go of the film and leave the future of the movie with our boys in Beverley Hills. We know they will do a good job on the film. Just check out the new poster they have created. Simply brilliant.

If someone had told me back in 2001, when I first set up this website, that I would make a movie which would make over £100,000 profit, I wouldn't have believed them. But it happened. Zombie Diaries was a smash! Clever marketing (Which has created a slight backlash against the film due to the misleading British cover) and good/great reviews (The film is absolutely "criticially acclaimed") meant the film landed at #4 in the official Virgin mega-store chart on its first week. It then dropped to #14 and then to #21 but sales have stayed strong week on week.

Kevin and I will also see the film go into profit from the first territory sale, with our sales effort just to begin on the rest of the world. That combined with the overwhelming critical acclaim means we are looking very good investments for the future. I know for sure if someone gives me 100k - even 500k - I can double their money for them, at least.

In terms of constructive criticism we have got some very good remarks back. There were too many characters, and some of the performances could have been better. In fairness Kev and I should have probably spent more time casting 3 or 4 of the roles, but this was our first little feature film made on a tight budget over weekends, so overall I am very pleased with the results. Hell - I can even rent my own movie from Blockbuster!

MakingTheFilm.Com is coming up for it's 6th birthday, and to achieve what Kevin and I have in 6 years is phenomenal. I have met some very arrogant people in the industry who have looked down their nose at me. I have met people who have said "you can't do this" or "I have made those kind of films before" and yet we have surpassed the lot of them. I would say this journey over the last 6 years has been one of a fantastic learning curve, but also one of succeeding against the odds. I was asked in the Q&A at FrightFest what the budget was. I explained how I almost lost my marriage. And it's true. You sacrifice a lot when you decide to really make a go of something like this, and I am lucky that my wife and my family were as supportive as they were.

The final diary entry will be posted on Novermber 01 when this website becomes 6 years old. I hope you have enjoyed the journey of me making the film.

What a day! I turned up at Leicester Square around 10:15am to witness a tremendous world record attempt at a Zombie Walk. I think around 650 people dressed as the undead were there on the day. The screening of The Zombie Diaries then took place at 11am and all of the 900 seats were full.

Kevin and I took to the stage to introduce the film, and then did a short Q&A afterwards. I must admit I was kind of bored sitting through the film again. I have seen it so many times I am kind of at a point where I want to move onto a new project. The day will live long in my memory, however, as aside from the zombie walk, it was the first time I ever got to sign autographs which felt a bit weird, and Kev and I ended up being interviewed by the BBC and CNN.

It was a great experience and we got to meet lots of fans and then went off to the pub for a few beers. I have been trying to cut down on my beers lately, but I made the exception for this day. After all, it's not every day your film premieres in Leicester Square to a sold-out audience (Our film was one of only 4 to sell out, the other three being the closing film THE ORPHANAGE and the two films that opened the festival). I think we made Alan Jones and co very happy men, and good on them for choosing to screen our little indie flick.

For more information on this day, go to Hakan Besim's filmmaking website where you can access all the videos and photos from the day.

Mike Hewitt is organising a world record attempt at a Zombie Walk in London to celebrate the FrightFest screening of The Zombie Diaries. I managed to record part of his interview today off of the radio but missed the first 20 seconds or so which will appear silent on the mp3. The interview is about 5 minutes long and can be accessed by clicking here; listen in to find out more about how you can participate on August 27th!!

Man it was a killer getting this finished. The deadline was today. Last night poor Kev was up to 2am helping me complete and master the documentary. Overall the quality is excellent - it is very informative and I have managed to integrate elements such as the special effects, the extras, and so forth in with the overall structure which shows how the film was made and the three main segments that make up the movie.

Getting the Making Of to work was very hard. The first cut I showed Kev on Saturday was 65 minutes long without credits. Kev said it felt too loose. He recommended I cut more often, and if there is a chance to do so, that is probably the correct moment. Well, I followed his advice and it worked a treat - new running time is 55 minutes including credits and bloopers and feels like a totally different documentary. Our only reservation is that there wasn't enough time to use the sound from the DAT, so the sound if off of the camera. It's OK, but the International Release will have a much slicker feel.

Things are moving along well in other areas. We now have full use of Leicester Square to go ahead with our World Record Attempt for a Zombie Walk. We need 900 people to beat the the record. Westminster Council have liased with Revolver (Our UK Distributor) and we now have full police backing as well. We've had a few reviews recently too. The best was a full-on 10/10 score on Horror-Movies.Ca.

Today Kev and I got together to do our directors commentary. Kev has been working on editing and mixing the cast commentaries as well as putting together all the deleted scenes for the DVD release. We're both working extremely hard to ensure the DVD is absolute quality when it is released.

The commentary started off well until we realised the TV wasn't on MUTE so we had to restart it. But then we got the giggles and had to keep restarting. When we finally regained our equilibrium, the DVD started playing up, so Kev had to burn another. Eventually we got there in the end and the commentary was completed successfully.

I came very close to finishing the "Making Of" this weekend but have had to ask Revolver to move the deadline back. With the evenings this week plus the coming Saturday I should be able to produce a very slick end-product. The running time is about an hour, but we can fit over 200 minutes onto the final disc, so there is nothing to worry about.

The last two days were taken off work so I could focus on editing the Makign Of into a slick documentary. The recent surge in film activity has started to cause problems at my workplace, with me being unfocussed and distracted a lot. I thus ensured that I made the most of my two days vacation so that I do not have to compromise myself and my job anymore. Sometimes spreading yourself too thinly can have disastrous consequences; hopefully I'll be much more focussed from now on, as the edit is almost complete.

This weekend I travelled to Seven Sisters to interview Stephen Hoper and Rob Whitaker about the audio work they did on the film. I then journeyed to the other side of London interview Scott Orr, Mike Peel and Cesar Alonso about the special effects work they did for The Zombie Diaries.

Sunday I began editing the whole thing together, which must be finished for July 16th for Revolver.

This weekend I worked on "The Making Of" featurette for The Zombie Diaries. On Saturday Hakan Besim came to Letchworth where he interviewed Kevin Gates. On Sunday we both travelled down to Walthamshow (6:30am start!) to interview the cast from "The Outbreak" sequence. Hak was a big help, and as always his contribution to the film is much appreciated.

In the evening I went to James Fisher's flat with Russel to record their interviews. In what was quite a shock to the system, the people living above James got into a big domestic. The mother (Who was like Stiffler's Mum) was screaming at her son and kept saying "Get Out" in a demonic voice. We had to wait 30 minutes for the argument to subside. Thankfully I got it in the bag, and finally made it home at 9:15pm! What a day!

Today I spoke with Simon Dale from Total Kiss FM, who I originally got talking to a few months ago, when I was trying to track down a piece of music for my friend, Sasha Mitrovic. Today we spoke about the possibility of Kiss FM running an on-air and web promotion on the run up the film's release (August 27). Revolver's marketing people got in touch and hopefully we'll have something arranged soon.

Today we also got the new artwork which is being used for both the DVD cover/poster and the Fright Fest Screening art. This was commisioned by Revolver.

When I was in Cannes, Pierre David recommended I talk to Martin Myers on my return to the UK. Today I met him for lunch. Martin Myers is a great chap who has been heavily involved in the film business for many years (working on Misery, Dumb and Dumber, etc) and is also a big Chelsea FC fan, like yours truly!!

A funny story about Martin - the killer in the Halloween films is actually named after his father "Michael Myers"! It was uncanny as I had just been watching my "Halloween Special Edition DVD" the night before to help me get a good feel for producing a quality "Making Of" Featurette.

Today I travelled down to London to shoot the first part of our interviews section for the "Making Of" DVd Featurette. I interviewed Imogen Church and Sophia Ellis. We then drove back up to Letchworth where we recorded a commentary for the "Survivors" section of the film. Later that day Jonnie Hurn arrived and recorded the commentary for "The Scavengers" section. Kevin and I will do our directors commentary in the next few weeks.

Today I dropped by the Revolver Entertainment offices to meet the team and discuss the deliverables that Kevin and I need to hand-over. Mike Hewitt, the Design Manager, introduced me to everyone and we discussed various ideas for publicity. Kev and I have now agreed upon the following:

• 1.85:1 Version of the film
• "Making Of" Featurette
• Trailer
• Deleted Scenes
• Directors Commentary
• Cast Commentary

I have also been going through the deliverables list with our Sales Agent (Imagination Worldwide). My contact there, Romana Samaritani, has been very helpful. There is so much documentation that needs to be submitted it is quite intimidating!

Before I went to Cannes, I spoke to a number of different people about the experience who had already been. Some of them said it was useful, that they met some good contacts; others were less impressed and came home empty handed. My mission when I went to Cannes was to talk to as many distributors as possible. The idea was to try and sell my film to as many territories as I could. I imagined that in the Film Market there would be stalls where you could meet all the "German Distributors" or all the "Japanese Distributors". This was a massive misconception!!! And this brings me to the most important things you should know about Cannes!!

1) Having an end product is really the least you should be going with. There are a few amazing stories about people in Cannes selling films based on scripts, but you ideally an to be there with a finished product or at least a trailer - especially if this is your first movie!! (And don't take a laptop use an IPod or something for the trailer)

2) Cannes is primarily for Sales Agents to show off the films they represent to Distributors. The Sales Agents have stalls in the film market with posters of all the films they are representing. The Distributors roam. They do not have a fixed location. Thus the only way to find distributors is to obtain a list of 'buyers' before you go and try to arrange appointments to see them. If you don't do this, then you'll get to Cannes and end up doing nothing.

3) It is important to make the most of the networking opportunities. I was invited to a big party when I got there and the contacts I met were invaluable. This is very important.

4) Buy a day pass for 20 euros and spend 2-3 days there. There is no reason I can think of why anyone should be spending lots of cash to spend two weeks there. Alternatively enter a short into the short film corner (All films are accepted) which nets you 2 passes for a small fee. This is what a lot of people do to gain accreditation.

5) Consider staying in a nearby town and using a Cab. The Cabs aren't as expensive as people make out. I think it was 27 euros to Mougins.

6) For heaven's sake make sure you have an IMDB credit for yourself and your movie so you can get your accreditation badges.

I went to Cannes to sign a deal with a sales agent, meet distributors and stir up interest in the film. I was completey unaware of point number (2) on my list and spoke to maybe 3 distributors in total. Luckily I met some great contacts at a party and signed my deal with a wicked Sales Agent. So for me it was good. But if you are just some blagger with a bad trailer/script and no substance then beware - people in Cannes eat blaggers for breakfast, so make sure you have something of substance with you when you set out.

With most of the work done over the previous two days, today was very chilled. We began by drawing up a list of all the various distributers and sales agents we had exposed the movie to. We then hooked up with Colin Geddes at the Canadian Pavilion and provided him with a copy of the film for consideration for the Toronto Film Festival.

We then had lunch with our sales agents, Imagination Worldwide, who informed us they had as good as already sold the German DVD rights!! An offer had been received that was so good they were considering to pull the film from the German market. These guys work fast!

James and I then went over to The Short Film Corner to watch two short films produced by Marco Pecota and directed by Rodrigo Gudiño. One of the films, "The Eyes of Edward James" was one of the best short films I have ever seen. James Fisher said he would rate it as the best he's ever seen. The director and producer (Who both work for Rue Morgue magazine) were thoroughly nice chaps and did a little Q&A with us after the showings.

At around 4:30pm, James and I decided to head back to our accomodation to chill for a bit, and then took Fred Youdale (who provided our free accomodation) out for a nice meal. After the meal we got to walk along the Croisette and watch the stars of Grindhouse as they entered the premiere. Unfortunately there was a massive fuck-up with the tickets which meant about 400 people who had bought tickets were unable to get a seat.

We ended the evening by driving up to the hills that overlook Cannes to get some great photos. I'm now back at our accomodation in Mougins and starting to wind down as we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow back to the UK. I will post my final thoughts on the festival later this week along with the photos.

Yesterday ended with a huge party in Cannes on the fifth floor of a beautiful apartment overlooking the sea. We were treated to a front-seat 13 minute firework extravaganza - truly incredible. All the top festival programmers were there, along with some producers and directors. I joined the party on invitation from Simon Rumley and brought actors Jonnie Hurn and James Fisher with me. The contacts made in this party alone were worth the trip! The night ended at 4am after a great beer session with people like Ed King (Horrorthon), Colin from the London Script Consultancy (Who did a quick Cannes Q&A for the site on Cannes - will publish it tomorrow), Tim League (Fantastic Fest) and more.

James and I didn't get into Cannes until 1pm today as we were quite tired. We had a few meetings with some people (Brian Yuzna - producer of Re-Naminator and director of The Return of the Living Dead part 3, and Pierre David of Imagination Worldwide and producer of Videodrome). Everything went very well and we now have some good offers on the table. At one point I walked into the Shoreline office and as soon as the title of my film was mentioned they immediately perked up. I got a lot of business cards thrust in my direction and they said they would be interested in World Rights. I phoned Kev with news and he was very pleased.

The evening ended with a drink with Nick Savva and the team from Revolver Entertainment, who I can now reveal have signed the rights to the UK and Eire territories.

Last night James Fisher and I arrived in Mougins, a small town near Cannes, where I will be staying for the next few days. My good friend, Fred Youdale, and his mum agreed to put James and I up, which was very kind of them. Fred used to work as an official driver for Cannes and knows the festival well. He was thus able to show us around and ensure we got our Day passes sorted out quickly. He is also goint to be chauffering us up and down to Cannes - so we are in the lap of luxury!

The majority of the day was spent in the Cannes Film Market, speaking to distributors and sales agents. I met briefly with the sales agent who I am hoping will take on the movie, and we have a longer meeting later on Tuesday to hopefully wrap things up. Jonnie Hurn also met with James and I and spent a large portion of the day showing us around.

I also met some other very interesting filmmakers, including Jules Jones, a producer I bumped into in the Shoreline Entertainment suite (who are representing her film "Bullets, Blood & A Fistful of Ca$h") and producer Philip Lloyd who had a very long a and informative chat with James Fisher and I. Phil had to rush off to meet one of the producers of Lord of The Rings, but he gave me some good advice which I really respect.

The hours spent in the Film Market were quite funny - at one point I was wondering just how many times I would have to sit through my own trailer!! There was even one guy who wanted to watch practically half the film! I stayed in my nice suit jacket in the boiling Cannes heat (photos to follow in a few days) to make a good impression - what a professional! :) Tonight I am off to a party down on the Croisette to hook up with a few people I know. Should be good.