Woke up around 9am to my phone alarm reminding me we had someone calling round to see the house today. (I'm selling the house in case you didn't know.) Tidied up a little. I hoovered the other day so it was all good. This was a rebooking from Friday so the house was in really good order anyway. They were in and gone by 11.30am and Hattie was ready for her trip to Bath. She was going there today with her friend Mary for Mary's birthday. Mary's big sister was driving them and they spent the day shopping and doing girlie things.

Mia and I left Ted playing computer games and went into town to do a little Christmas shopping. I bought a little black vinyl for re-covering the barstool in the kitchen which has a big rip in it. Although I'm no upholsterer I think I did a pretty good job. It was pretty easy actually and quite good fun really. Mia made some Christmas stockings as gifts for people out of fleece material. They were pretty cute, I have to say. Mia is, as they say pretty good with her hands.

I queued up some more divx TV episodes on bittorrent, "Lost", "Desperate Housewives", "My Name Is Earl" and "Medium". I can't wait for more "Medium", as it gets better and better.

Ted was complaining of a tummy ache this evening, and had a bit of a lie down while the rest of us chowed down on some Thai soup. On the CD player we were listening to some really pretty Moya Brennan. Made me want to record some music using some Irish instruments, sampled of course, but I guess it would sound a bit cod. I'm not Irish and I don't play any of the required instruments, so it would just seem a little fake. Know your limitations, that's what I say.

I'm probably going to call my friend Lee Sullivan tonight. Lee is a very interesting guy, sax player, comic artist and all around good egg. We always have a blast whenever we chat on the phone or get together. I especially enjoy going to see his band, Roxy Magic, a Roxy Music tribute band, when they play around these parts. They don't have any gigs in the South West till next year now, but I look forward to going again because they really "rock". (Makes rock-finger salute over the keyboard for extra emphasis.)

I think we are going to watch "Napoleon Dynamite" tonight. Looks like a really funny movie, and I hear all sorts of good things about it. Hopefully there will be some divx to rock at bedtime, but I ain't holding my breath.

Later dudes.

It snowed! All of a sudden we have a winter wonderland... okay so it's not stayed but it's added a lovely sugar frosting to everything. I really like winter. I guess I'm more of a winter person. Summer is hot and sticky and sweaty. And in winter when you're cold you can always get warm, but in summer if you're hot sometimes it's impossible to get cool.

I've started work on my book proposal, and it's coming along quite nicely. I came up with the idea of the top of my head a little bit, so now I have to deliver on my promises. It's not that I have no ideas for things to talk about, topics to go through and powerful tips to impart; it's more like I have too many and don't really know where to start. I need some inspiration. I need a hook to hang all this stuff on. I'm probably going to start with the question who is my target market? And try to make that as broad as possible to increase the sales potential. I could make it a specific geeky book intended for a few individuals who use 3D software in movies to do special effects, but that would severely limit the market. I have to broaden the appeal so as to maximise sales. Yeah, I'm just all about the money, me. And why not, I say? I've been broke in my life more times than I've been loaded, so I figure it's about time someone showed me the money. :)

The short film's still shooting. I haven't had as much time to hang out on the set as I would have hoped, and the folks on the movie are speeding towards the end of their shoot without me. That's a shame as I would have liked to have been around more to see them putting it together. But I'll perhaps be about for the edit, and that's just as much fun.

Next week I've got another bunch of teaching coming up, this time having covered still photography and gathered that there are almost no photoplegics (people with a photographic disability) in the whole first year, we stand a good chance of turning out some really good films this year. I was going to try and give them the plan for next term's video project before Christmas to give them time to develop good scripts before we start shooting. But it turns out from a meeting I had this morning with the head of the 1st year that they are all going to be in different groups next term so they can't work on anything for next term this term. Bummer. I said I'd have to give them at least a couple of weeks between commissioning the films and starting shooting just to give them time to write something coherent. Our scripts in the past, with one notable exception, have all been hasty and not really much cop. But these films are exercises, and as such needn't be the best movies ever made. But it's a huge bonus if they are good too.

The exception to this rule is one movie we made last year with one of the groups, a film noir with an Autumn theme. All the characters had tree puns in their names, and the script was wittily peppered with tree or leaf references. In a great number of shots dry leaves were scattered around, and it was generally accepted to be one of the best shorts we've made here at the school. It was all black and white, it had romance, suicide, murder, and a private eye in a trench coat, a femme fatale, all the stuff you expect from those kind of movies. But it was made by complete beginners on zero budget in 6 days end to end including editing, so it was pretty damn good considering. I'm really hoping we get stuff that good this time around. Apart from anything else, that was one of the nicest shoots I've ever run, and I liked everything about it, the people, the places, the work, the end result and although I didn't get a lot of credit for how it turned out, the praise they got for it in the end. Ah the magic of cinema.

Ok, more of this later, but I got smaller fish to fry right now.

Another day in paradise. Well okay being mildly sarcastic there. Nice easy day at work. Actually had time to wash the car last night, so it's not as amazingly filthy as it has been for the last few weeks. I was standing near it earlier on in the week, for the first time in a while during daylight hours, and a friend commented, "that is a quite spectacularly dirty car". So I took it to the jetwash last night and washed it. Well I washed it in the dark so I missed a few bits but hey it's mostly clean now.

The proposal for the book is shaping up now. I can't really talk about it too much, but it's for a major photographic publisher and it's all about 3D software. There I've already said more than I should, but I'll go into more details once we're all signed up.

Had to spend some time hoovering the carpets tonight as we are having yet another visit by a potential buyer tomorrow while we're at work, so the house has to be at least looking clean even if it really isn't. :)

I watched "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" again today while I was working with the commenary track on so I could mostly listen but watch once in a while. It's not one of the most important movies ever made but it's at least significant because it was shot entirely on HD, which is how I'm going to make my movies. I'm studying up.

I'll post more tomorrow, but for today that's all. Toodle pip.

It's so cool publishing your diary. Okay if you're Kevin Smith you can go a whole lot more intimate than I would feel comfortable with, like detailing each time you and your partner have sex etc. But I like writing something every day, keeps me limber, like exercising my writing muscle. Feels good. Plus I like the idea that all the friends I'm not able to keep in touch with because I'm SO damn busy all the time will at least know what I'm up to.

Oh and also a little while ago I pitched a book idea to a publisher in the US and they just got back to me now, a couple of months later, and said "am I still interested" and "would I like to take it to the next level". Wow it took all my restraint not to rip the guy's arm off while accepting. Now I have the prospect of a few months writing a book again, something I've not done for literally years. My last experience with writing a book was really bad.The book got cancelled along with a whole scad of others because the book imprint was one of a whole lot of imprints which were publishing books of the same sort. They decided to cancel half of the books they had coming up and mine was one of the ones that got canned. It couldn't have happened to me at a worse time, and I'd already spent all my free time trying to get this book done. Plus I was doing a really crap job because I was so tired, holding down two jobs and writing too. It was nuts.

Anyway, writing the diary is good practise and limber exercise for writing my screenplay and now my new book. I've said yes to the guy at the publishers and I'm now working on the proposal. I'll let you know, dear diary, how that goes. I'll also go back and edit this post and name names when it's all finalised.

Another day in techie world at the school. I tooled in this morning at 6.30am only to arrive at 8.25am... how come it only it only took an hour yesterday but nearly two hours this morning? It didn't seem like a longer journey, but took twice as long. Maybe I have "missing time"? Perhaps I should book myself in for a CAT scan to see if I have any foreign objects lodged in my brain.

Got to the theatre and set up the interactive video for today's sessions. Whereas there was a bunch of people around to help yesterday I was all alone today, so good job I arrived a little early. The tutor arrived and being an almost exclusively TV/Film technician, I had no idea how to turn on the lighting desk or any other theatre stuff. A few embarrassing moments were soon shortened by a call to Rob and Gary who helped set it all up yesterday, and all was well.

Spent most of the day planning my lessons for next term, catching up with all the email and equipment ordering I've missed over the past few weeks, and tidying my office space, which becomes cluttered with empty cardboard boxes, discarded leads and bits of equipment etc. if left too long. Felt way better afterwards. Also checked out the video clips online on the Clerks 2 site, which I imagine will end up on the DVD eventually. Really funny stuff, including a solution to a mystery I've been wondering about since "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back". I won't spoil the surprise, just go to The Clerks 2 Web Site and find out for yourself.

Spent a bit of time on the way home putting the kit away at the theatre, then home to a relaxing night of heaving (with Mia's help) two huge bed bases up all the way to the top of the house, then after she'd gone out screwing them together and putting my daughter's matress back on it. I seemed to spend the entire evening heaving something heavy up flights of stairs, pretty much what I do through most of my working life, so not much of a break... sigh

Mia will be back soon and I hope we'll have another episode of season 2 of "Medium" downloaded. God bless DVD/DiVX players. If you haven't seen "Medium" I HIGHLY recommend it. Patricia Arquette is sexy mom incarnate, and the DuBois family are by far my favourite TV family of the moment. So my current TV favourites are "Medium", "Lost" of course, "Desperate Housewives", "Huff", "Stargate SG-1/Atlantis" and "Threshold". I'll maybe go into my reasons for liking these shows in a while, but I'm so shagged from lifting all that crap into the roof, I'll leave that for another time.

Been thinking a lot about my film today too. I'm thinking no matter if it is a short or a feature, I'm going to shoot it Sin City style against green screens. I got some green screen paint in the paint shop at work and some old theatre flats, so making up some screens should be a snap. Plus I'm somthing of a 3D whiz being a long time user of Newtek's Lightwave 3D. Just teaching myself version 8 at the moment. Just in time for version 9 to come out. Tsk! Plus I'm just learning eyeon Fusion, which frankly is hands down top five the most fun I've ever had with my pants on. I haven't been this excited about a piece of software since I first got into Lightwave around version 1.0. More of this later.

Got up at 6am, was on the road by 6.30. Arrived at school and parked up, whipped into school and on a whim picked up my head light. This is a natty little number which has three LEDs and clamps to your head via a very soft but snappy headband. I was going down the Bristol Old Vic theatre to set up this stage management lesson with a few of the techie students and I dunno I just got an intuition it would be a handy thing to pack.

Got to the theatre at 8.30 but had to wait till about 9.00 before we could get started. On the way into the theatre I opened a door stepped into the backstage area and the door closed behind me. Pitch black, as you only get underground and backstage at these old victorian theatres. Stumbled around for a few seconds till I remembered the head torch. I must be psychic or something.

We got the projector and speakers and screen set up in record time, despite none of us having every set up one of these interactive video lessons before. It's a really cool thing actually. We film a performance, and have one channel of the show and one of the "cans" or the backstage comms system. Then we project that on a small screen in the actual theatre and let the students operate the desk for the real show while watching the video. Cool huh?

It all went smoothly and we were out of there by 9.30. I whipped back up to the school and ordered a couple of new Macs for ones which have either died or just gotten too darn old. Just had time to have a chat with my boss about how the shoot went and tell him the interactive video thing was up and running. At 10.30 I was out of there and tooling home for the appointment with the gas man for the boiler service, who in the wisdom of British Gas was set to appear any time between 12 noon and 6pm. Around 20 minutes ago I got a call from them saying that the appointment had been cancelled due to too many emergency calls and would I like to reschedule? Oh my god. I took the day off work and now I twiddled my thumbs all day for nothing. What a waste of time. Oh well at least I had time to type this entry.

Anyway happier topics. The warm glow from the shoot will take a while to subside. That should last me until I can get my own project up and running. Still wavering about whether it should be a feature or a short. Ah well, time will tell. I've been asked to stop on some of the other shooting days over the next 10 days, so I might go back and see how they're doing towards the end of the week.

Ah the magic of cinema. Brr.

The shoot tonight we very smoothly. I spent a lot of the 6 hours we were out in the cold in Bristol town centre standing with a walkie talkie, duvet jacket, hat, gloves, hi-visibility jacket, cup of soup and a cigarette directing traffic. About 15 feet away from me in the subzero temeratures were three or four actors wearing what amounted to bathing costumes by comparison, who fled off camera into warm blankets and hot water bottles held out by runners and grips. It was FREEZING. I must say respect goes out to the actors for their uncomplaining work in such conditions.



I have to also admit to a surge of pride seeing technicians I trained working on their first movie. These are people some of whom had little or no interest in filmmaking before I taught them but now look at them. They are a film crew! I would like to take some credit for that but I suspect in some dark recess of my soul that they might be quite talented anyway. It's good to dream.

I mean HEY this was for real; We had track, grips, gaffers, a real director, Alex Kirby of Hollyoaks and BBC Narnia fame, everyone doing proper jobs and doing them damn well. This was proper filmmaking writ large. I've never had as much fun freezing my balls off for 6 hours. Plus I got a little walk on part. Well, drive on part. I was the cab driver who picks up the first shooting victim up outside the club. The cab was was the gaffer's car with a borrowed cab light on top of it. The club was the entrance to an old grain store which had been dressed up with lights and smoke. All I had to do was drive up to the front of the club, pick up the girls and drive off without knocking over any lighting stands, and I did it in two takes.

While we waited between take I roared the heating in the car so the girls could warm up a bit to stop their teeth chattering. I think they appriciated my efforts on their part. :)



I got through about 11.00 and helped out with striking the kit and getting it into the lorry. We were pretty much done by quarter to twelve. I drove home in about 45 minutes, you make quite good time between Frome and Bristol at that time of night, and when I got in Mia was watching a Finnish movie in bed. We watched the rest of it together before falling asleep.