I spent a good 4 hours today formatting my Quick-Start Guide to Filmmaking into HTML. I have got maybe 80% of it done, and will format the rest tomorrow. The feature, incidentally, clocked in at 97 pages, but it is only a first draft!

Just a quick post from the states to say that I have finally got one of my feature films into first draft. I am very happy with the idea and will register it with Raindance on return to the UK, and then send it out for review. It started out as a simple horror film idea, but now has become more of a psychological horror film.

I just heard about this amazing movie called 'PRIMER' by first-time director Shane Carruth that has won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance. The trailer can be found at the official site. This movie looks a bit like PI and seems totally different to everything currently out there. The Grand Jury at Sundance said it would be hard to summarise this film. Check out the site for a synopsis.

In keeping with the spirit of the Sundance Film Festival, I decided to rent the 2002 Grand Jury Prize winner, Personal Velocity. The film is directed by Rebecca Miller, and tells 3 short stories, each about a different female protagonist. The film, shot on two PAL PD150s, won the 'excellence in cinematography' award, and it's not hard to see why - it's amazing. The DoP on the project was Ellen Kuras, and the producer was Gary Winick, who produced TadPole, another film shot on a PAL PD150.

As for my own 'personal velocity', I am pleased to report that the quickstart guide to filmmaking is finished; all I need to do is format it into HTML and upload it. As for the features, I have not written as much as I would like, but I definitely will have one into first draft by next week, but the .NET work has pushed back the second. I did some location scouting yesterday into some seriously weird rural areas of Missouri that will be perfect for the film. I am also really looking forward to seeing a movie called The Butterfly Effect which opens here in a few days. It is a time travel film based on a twilight zone episode that was later recycled by a Simpson's episode where Homer goes back in time, changes things, and these change the course of time and, subsequently, the future.

Last night I finally managed to watch the movie, Gerry. I have updated my films page as a result. This is something you all must see; I have so much respect for filmmakers who can go out and pursue a project like this.

I've not had a chance to use the computer much in the last week because of the christmas season here in Branson, Missouri. I've taken lots of time to do things like go to the Silver Dollar City theme park, and Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. I ordered about 100 dollars worth of .NET books as everythng is so cheap here in the US. I've been reading one of them for the past 2 days, and will most likely build the website for Mnemosyne using .NET. If anyone is wondering what the hell I am talking about, .NET is a new microsoft development technology which will help me get a good job when I return to the UK, so I can fund my feature!

I spent today working on the Quick Start Guide to Filmmaking. I'm about 30% of the way through it. I should finish it soon. There's quite a lot to do, what with writing the features and learning all this teccie stuff; I might extend my stay here as it is a great working environment.

Anyway, happy new year to all of you out there, and happy filmmaking for 2004! Here's a pretty accurate reflection of 2003 in the movie-world.

Well today is the deadline for the rough edit, and it's still not finished. I am missing maybe 3 minutes of footage that need to go in. I was supposed to be meeting two actors in London tomorrow, but my illness (which I think I am now over, although it has left me exhausted) has really got in the way of things. I am not up for a trip to London tomorrow. I will try and use tomorrow to rest and maybe do some editing. I will get everything captured that is outstanding so I can give Hakan the original DV tapes for the 'making of'. I'm disappointed in myself that the great impetus I had has been stifled. Still, I won't be able to do the ADR until February, so I will have half a month to concentrate on the rough cut when I get back from America. After tomorrow, my attention turns to writing the features.

Thursday and Friday were weird as I got another throat infection (people at work reckon being constantly run down has weakened my immune system). I ended up having a miserable time of it on Saturday and Sunday, and so only just today (Monday) did I finally get back to my folks' house. I treated myself to Master And Commander at Cineworld, Stevenage on Sunday night, and am pleased to say it was a very entertaining and well shot film.

I am still ill and have had a headache all day (from the incessant coughing) so now I only have one day to get the rough cut finished before I travel up to Croydon on Wednesday to give Hakan the finished tape. Hakan is going to edit together the 'Making of Mnemosyne' featurette while I am away. Thus, all I need is to get everything captured. A rough edit would be great, but I ain't rushing anything! I am also getting ready to start working on a script with Stuart Folley on my next short film, which goes by a working title of 'Zombie Ed'. I plan to use the new Panasonic DVX-100 camera which a lot of DoPs are saying emulates the look of 16mm film. It will be nowhere as near as ambitious as Mnemosyne, and I reckon it can be shot over a weekend.

Today was a sad day - all the stuff from my flat was removed and given away to charity shops. All I have left is a bed and a TV. My folks took my PC back to their place. I won't be able to do any more editing until Saturday and Sunday when I visit them in Medway. Two more days remain at work, then I'm a free man.

This morning I picked up an answer phone message from Hakan. He said he'd shown the clip of the Dr Jennings scene to a few people and they were 'blown away' by it. He said it is much more effective with music on. I then came into work and checked my mail. There was one from my composer (Stephen Hoper) who said he had viewed the clip and thought that it was much better than your typical low-budget independant film. He particularly liked the direction and cinematography to it, which really cheered me up. That and Hak's message have made my day! On the way to work today I had a brainwave about how I can integrate the two separate strands of my film together. Hopefully this will inspire me to do some more editing tonight, as I didn't do any editing yesterday, as work has been really tiring me out of late. Stephen also said he won't be able to work on any music until after christmas, so the pressure to deliver a finished rough cut before christmas has been lessened :)

The day just gets better - I mentioned a few diary entries ago that a horror film shot in the style of David Lynch would be really cool - well now there is one. It's called Dead End. It's directed by the French duo, Jean-Baptiste Andréa and Fabrice Canépa. Read a review here, and an interview with the pair, here. Looks good, and has been described a feature length twilight episode shot like David Lynch and which pays more attention to eerie atmosphere than cheap jumps.

The final great piece of news to round off a truly awesome day is that the feature idea I had settled on (which up until now was an interesting premise and about 20 minutes worth of story) has now developed into a full 90 minute idea with an ending. I discussed the idea with the low budget filmmaker James Marshall and immediately the ideas started spreading like wildfire. James came up with an ending which is exactly along the lines I was looking for (Similar to an Outer Limits episode we both rate highly). I really hope to have a first draft by the time I return from the US (which should be mid-to-late January). James will co-write the film with me over late December and most of January.

I took Friday off so I could have a three day weekend to get some serious editing done. I finished the scene where David and Graham meet for the first time without too much grief. But then came the second half of the Dr Jennings scene. Those who have read the script will know that after they begin talking in the park, we cut to images of the deserted town while an eerie drone plays behind the rest of the conversation. I struggled for the whole of Saturday and Sunday before I was happy with it. The shots of the deserted town were also too short, so I had to loop them and fade them into each other. I tried using stills, but you can always tell a still from uneventful video, and stills look awful. I am happy with what I have now, and have sent the clip to Hakan and Stuart. Hakan didn't think the scene worked until he saw it with music - now he is slightly more convinced. People always said sound will be what makes or breaks my film. There has never been a bigger example of this than the cryptic conversation between Dr Jennings and David.

This evening I reworked and tightened up the stuff I edited yesterday when Dr Jennings talks to David in the park. Today I edited the scene that proceeds that, where David goes to the Doctor's Surgery and meets Dr Jennings for the first time. Some of the shots need to be moved slightly higher in frame, but other than that it looks good to me. Considering we shot all the Doctor's Surgery stuff in under an hour, I am pretty impressed!

"Oh, the pain of it all!" as Dr Smith from Lost In Space would say. For the last few weeks I have not been sleeping properly, probably due to the anxiety of my imminent 10 hour plane flight (I am terrified of flying). It caught up on me today, so I took a day's holiday to recover. I spent the day resting, and then began work in the evening on editing the surreal 'park' scene between Dr Jennings and David. This was by far the most stressful day of production, due to everything going wrong (Non stop parade of people and animals in the background, flies getting in the way of the lense whilst eating us alive, etc.) Editing it brought back the stress of the day. The scene was almost totally unworkable. I ended the day with something that 'might' work. I stress the 'might'. I'll burn it up for Kevin, Stuart and Hakan to look at so they can review it for me later this week. I suppose the good in all this is that I won't have a day's editing as painful as this one for a long time!

I spent the weekend in Croydon as I was visiting Hakan and my aunt (who helped with driving and arrangements for the Mental Institution shots we did in Croydon in the summer when working on Mnemosyne). Hakan took me to this short film showing (called Croydon Cuts 2003) that was on at the clocktower. If I'm gonna be honest (and I always am), it was one of the most piss-poor evenings I have ever had to attend. The four short films (two documentaries, two fictional) were all funded by some body (Croydon Council or something like that). One of the documentaries (the third film shown) was actually quite well made and shot, but the rest were very disappointing.

I read an interview in one of those art-house film magazines not so long ago with a filmmaker talking about funding. He said that in England all the wrong films seem to get funded. On the basis of what I saw in Croydon, I would have to agree with him, especialy since I read Hakan's script that he entered into this competition a year ago - it was much, much better. There was nothing 'different' or 'original' in any of these films. It was like the filmmakers were devoid of any zest for life or had no statement to make, and had just writen some dry short films for the sake of this funding competition, as opposed to making the short films they wanted to make that were burning inside them to get out. There was no "heat", as Clive Barker would say, in any of them.

The two documentaries were much better than the two fictional films, but even one of the documentaries was so badly edited (holding on each person for minutes at a time instead of cutting between the stories) that it lessened the impact and made the whole thing really tedious. The brochure for Croydon Cuts 2003 says, and I quote: "...annual screening of the best new short films from South London Filmmakers." Rubbish.

I am not pissed at the filmmakers, because everyone makes bad films when they start out (just look at my two The Big I Am and Opportunity Knocks - terrible!!). I am more pissed at the people who organised this whole thing, for wasting the time of anyone who had entered a serious 'film' idea into this competition. I don't actually enter competitions and funding events on principle now, having lost out to some major crap in the past. In future, 'Croydon Cuts' would be better off selecting the best ideas that will work within their budget, and then pay for the winners to attend some kind of practical course before they let them get stuck in. I just hope all the good filmmakers out there in South London don't lose heart from this.

Yesterday I spent most of the evening working on the second scene involving Graham and David in my film, Mnemosyne. I don't think I was able to tear myself away from the computer until about midnight, but the long slog was worth it. I now have the 'car alarms' scene pretty much finished, and should be able to get the overall segment finished by this evening. Twenty Seven has always been my lucky number, and it came through for me again, as the scene turned out much, much better than I thought it would. There were two main shots that I kept cutting between that both had a bird fly through frame, which caused me some grief, but you learn to edit round these things efficiently as you gain more experience.

I also managed to tidy up the car crash scene that has so far been critiqued by Kevin Gates and Hakan Besim. They noticed a few minor things that needed tighening up, and I am happy to say those things have been sorted. I am really enjoying editing, and my external 60 GIG hard disk has behaved itself impeccably. ;) One final note - I got an email from Lisa Enos, one of the producers of Ivan's XTC, saying that an interview on the film would be okay. I don't know if I will get to meet Bernard Rose in person, but here's hoping!

I had a great weekend of editing. Hakan came up to Letchworth and helped me with my computer, which needed a defrag and some files cleaning up. After that the editing was pretty much painless. I cut together the end sequence of the film, and then fine tuned it. Hak was pleased with the result, but more importantly, so was I. The car scenes are exactly like Donnie Darko - the reason is because I filmed them in exactly the same way Richard Kelly did. At first I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but when they were cut together it was seamless.

Originally my target for a picture lock was early December. Because of the chaos going on in my life due to my workplace situation, this has now been pushed back. I'm hoping, instead, to have a picture lock done before I fly out to Missouri. I have set myself a deadline of Thursday 18th December to deliver a miniDV tape to Hakan. He will then liase with the Sound Designer and Composer while I am away, although I will stay in touch over the phone. Gareth, my lead actor, will be in New Zealand until February, so any ADR work involving his character will have to be done when he returns unless I get all his scenes in the bag early in December. All of this points to a completion date of around mid February.

After editing, I decided to chill out and rent a video from blockbuster. I got hold of the video Ivan's XTC, a film I heard about from the British magazine, Camcorder User. After a long day's editing, coupled with my experience of low-budget films about drugs and life in the fast lane, I started to think that I either wouldn't enjoy the film, or that I would fall asleep through it. But to my surprise, it was bloody marvellous. It was sort of like a dark version of Jerry McGuire - much, much darker. It's basically about an agent who always looks after number one, and his last few days on earth after he discovers he has cancer. I found this review of it online, which sums up the film pretty well. The website has a massive production story by director, Bernard Rose, which is very insightful. The film was made for under $500,000. I recommend every low-budget filmmaker checks the film and the production story out.

Today I opened my mailbox to find a blitz of mails in response to the negative one I got the other day. It seems a lot of low-budget filmmakers are hungry for blood and have been suitably offended by the remarks made against me. It's a good job I don't have a bulletin board, otherwise chaos would be unfolding on it right now!!! Seriously, though, I extend my warmest thanks to all of my readers who have been good enough to write to me on the issue. Here are two nice quotes, one from a filmmaker in Milwaukee, and one from an actor in London:

"I saw your diary entry about the "letter" and I loved your response. Quite frankly, you quitting your job only sealed your commitment. I read somewhere, that when Mongolians went on their conquest, they took their families with them and when they arrived at their destination they would burn their ships to make any retreat unthinkable, it was a do-or-die attitude. You have just made that same statement, sir."

"I've just read your 19/11 posting and I can only stress that you have no reason to apologise! For this chap to even use the word 'arrogance' shows that (I'll keep this polite) some people are never satisifed. Rest assured that I, and I would hope most if not all others, are well aware of the effort and stress you, along with other similar filmmakers, are experiencing, and the the fact that you are also taking the time to catalogue and make public your diary for the 'optional' benefit of others, is only to your credit."

One thing worth mentioning: the apology was really aimed at anyone who had misconstrued my words about the job and America, and I felt it was warranted. Things remain pretty stressful at work - I have only three weeks of my notice left, so I am battling on. Tonight I will edit some more of Mnemosyne, and then Hakan will join me on the weekend to help me (and get a sneak-peak at what has been done so far!). Thank God it's Friday.

Today I was talking with the director, James Marshall, about Tarantino and how much of an inspiration he was; he mentioned that Quentin learned filmmaking from a filmmaking audio tape kit after dropping out of high-school. James sent me a link to the tapes, and then I realised it was DOV-S-S-Simens. Check out his 18 minute film school here.

I also heard that the 10 finalists of the Nokia Shorts competition have been announced. If my memory serves me correctly, the films had to be on the theme of 'sharing the moment' and last no longer than 15 seconds. This will give all filmmakers a good idea of what Nokia and Raindance think are good ultrashorts: Click here to see the shortlisted films.

Today I was quite surprised to get the following e-mail in my inbox from a long-time reader:

"Your site is very interesting but have you ever thought of how youd fare at making a film on your own without the help of any other directors or tv writers to crtique your work as most of us don't have access to them yet we make good shorts with only the help of a few untrained friends?

A few friends have commented that your last diary post smacks of arrogance as not everyone has the means to give up their job and goto the states. Most other filmmakers have either daytime jobs or are working every hour god sends just to get a little cash."

I feel that in light of this reader's post, I should set the record straight, as I can see how this perception of me as some rich guy who has a cavalier attitude towards work and flies out to the states on a whim has come about. I apologise to all my readers for not making the state of play a little clearer before, and am sorry if I have offended anyone:

Firstly, my fiancee lives in America. Anyone who thinks I have a great time flying back and forth should know I don't go that much, due to the price of flights. I just paid over £700 for my latest flight (Which I cannot afford, as I am in debt from my film, Mnemosyne). I am scared to death of flying and always swore I would never do it - but hey, that's true love for you!

Secondly, I am not some rich guy who gave up work because he felt like it. I have tried not to elaborate on my site why I gave up work, but basically I did it in the interests of my career. I didn't wish to leave, but felt I had no choice. I depended on my job for the income I need to see my fiance every so often, save for my marriage, and work on the occasional film. I don't have another job to go to now, so I have no income.

Finally, when I started out in filmmaking, I didn't know anyone. But hey - you can't hold it against me for starting this site up, can you? After all, there are a million other low budget filmmakers out there. Just like the rest of them, I am trying to get myself noticed - this site did just that and it is through it that Jeff Povey found me, and Kevin Gates found me. Of course I am grateful for the help they have given me. I am lucky in that I have made contacts like these, but it came from my own initiative. Now I have no job, no income and a lot of stress, so it will be interesting to see how I cope. But the next film I write will be my own work, with no script critique or favours for hire. I think my reader's point is a very valid and important one, but I am also disappointed that they didn't take the time to read my website properly, otherwise they would have noticed I made a short over a year ago called Origins, which was made without any professional help on a 1-chip camera. ;)

Good news: I have been constantly exhausted for the last few months, and have found myself using the weekends to do nothing more than regenerate from the working week. I've been working 10 hour days on work I wasn't recruited for, and I feel my skills have been suffering. Today I fixed that problem: I handed in my resignation; suddenly a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I can now can go to the states and write my feature over christmas, and pretty much stay there for as long as I want! I am totally exhilirated and hopefully that will kick-start the weekend's editing! I know I can also use my time away to get back all my skills that I have spent the last 3 years earning, so I can go get a job that will actually make use of them.

Bad News: My favourite book, the supremely beautiful and surreal Life Of Pi is apparently going to be made into a film by none other than M. "What Twist in Jacob's Ladder?" Shyamalan. After not being convinced by watching Signs (I'm taking mainly about the dialogue here, right?), I have to wonder how Life Of Pi will turn out. I can even see him casting himself again - this time as the young Indian boy! (Joke). Seriously, Shyamalan does have the ability to pull it off, so long as he directs the film like he directed Unbreakable. The pacing, the mood - everything about that film with the exception of the "we've run out of 35mm film" ending was awesome. I'm not going to expect anything major, as the pressures of working for a big studio means the film will have even greater odds of turning out awful. Life Of Pi would be at its best if it were to be directed by Darren Aronofky (Pi, Requiem For a Dream). I think he is probably the director best suited to a project like that.

Future News: I fell asleep the other day after work when watching the Simpsons. Buffy The Vampire Slayer came on in the background and I continued to sleep through that (not that I go out of my way to watch it). I could hear what was going on while I slept, and it turned out the episode (with the exception of some big rubber demon) had a plot very similar to a short film I came up with about a year ago called Living Dead. The episode was called Help and was about someone foreseeing their own death and not being able to change the future. ANYWAY - the point I wanted to make is that I spotted an actress in that episode who will be one of the major actresses in a few years. I have a strange ability for spotting successful actors when they are relatively unknown. When I saw Seth Green in an X-Files episode and a low-budget horror called Ticks I knew he would do very well. I spotted Scarlett Johansson in Ghost World and thought the same thing. It's more to do with the uniqueness of the person as opposed to acting skills, as you're only as good as the role written for you. Anyway, the actress is called Azura Skye. Azura Skye has had a few good roles, but has not yet got the lead in anything big, but it is only a matter of time. You heard it here, first!

Check out this hilarious article about a Low-to-No budget filmmaker from Italy. Elliot doesn't teach this at Raindance!

My 60GIG External Maxtor Hard Disk arrived to help with the editing of Mnemosyne, but I ended up spending the weekend salvaging my friend's website after the previous webmaster had let it go to pot. Mart-Face.Com is the product of New York based filmmaker, Leslie Chan, director of the powerful documantary, Mart Face, about her little brother who sadly died of Downs Syndrome.

All this means I am starting to skate on thin ice with the editing of Mnemosyne, which should really be at picture-lock by early December. I will need to pull my finger out over the next few days...

Today I ordered a 60GIG External Maxtor Hard Disk so I can continue to edit Mnemosyne (My 40GIG drive is struggling!). I'm taking an unusual approach, as I plan to back up all my top takes onto miniDV tape as opposed to buying a second external drive. I am aware that quality can be lost by doing this, but unfortunately being a low-budget filmmaker, I am working with some serious financial restraints, so tape backup with minimal quality loss will have to do.

This has been an amazing year. It started really dismally, when my Canon MV30/Optura Pi went back out for repair, wasting a total of three months for a simple burned out pixel. I was becoming frustrated with Canon and spent a lot of time picking up new interviews for the site and developing script ideas (None of which came to anything) while waiting for the camera. Ultimately the period from November 2002 to January 2003 was a disappointment.

The big turning point was February 2003. I met a director by the name of Kevin Gates, who was in post-production on his digital feature named 'The Unseen'. This gave me the inspiration I needed to kick-start things off again. A week or so later, and I had an idea for a film I felt could turn out really well. By March I had started working on the script, and had met another filmmaker named Hakan who has proven to be a great friend as well as a passionate fellow filmmaker. I then heard Origins made it into 'The Worlds Smallest Film Festival' in New Orleans. It didn't win anything but it was cool for my little digital film to be up there competing against all these other movies that were shot on film with pro actors.

Hakan, Kevin, Stuart Folley (Long time collaborator and workmate), Jeff Day (Writer of 'The Big I Am' and 'Opportunity Knocks') and TV Writer Jeff Povey all helped critique my script, and by April I had reached second draft of the film now known as 'Mnemosyne'. In May I was invited to do a national radio interview by the Danish Equivalent of the BBC. It went really well, and it was flattering to be named as someone at the forefront of low-budget digital filmmaking.

Final draft was hit by the end of May, with casting in June. The film was shot in July and August, with shots logged in September and editing beginning in October.

In October, The president of the New York Film Academy contacted me to tell me how delighted he was to have seen my site. He said he would make sure all his students visited it because he felt they could learn a lot from my diary.

The crowning moment of this year came right at the end of the October period, when I finally settled on a wicked idea for my feature.

Right now the impetus is strong. My goals are to finish Mnemosyne no later than February 2004. After that I plan to work on the script for my feature, as well as write and direct one or two more short films. I look forward to the next twelve months and hope that I continue to meet new and different people, make new friends, and ultimately improve my filmmaking.

At the time of writing this, I have not yet uploaded my production diary, which will be a priority for me in November 2004, along with editing Mnemosyne. I also have a massive update to my QuickStart Guide to Digital Filmmaking planned for Christmas this year.