Had a re-run of the other week today. Mia had to go do the next vote for the Finnish elections, so we found ourselves driving into Bristol after we got up. Ted got car sick for the first time in ages, and poor old thing he left it till we were parking to unload. We now have travel sickness pills in the car. To his credit he did open the car door before he threw up, so it's all good.

After voting, we strolled up the hill to get Jumbucks pies again like we did last time, but swung by Broadmeads shopping centre on the way home to visit Gap, and a games shop for various things we wanted to buy. Before we did Hattie bought a cool goth bag with chains and horror bunnies on it at Travelling Man comics shop on Park Street.

We dropped the kids off at home (Hattie is 14 now so she can babysit) and whizzed off to go out for the evening. It's Carol's, a friend of mine at work, birthday and we went over to some far flung pub in the middle of nowhere the other side of Cheddar Gorge. Good food and they serve Butcombe beer, so I was happy.

When we got back the kids were still awake for a bit but we all went to sleep after rocking our computers and games consoles for a bit.

Had the first weekly meeting of term this morning at 9.30am, so I had to get up and get in earlier than I have been all week. Got there at 8.50am, but didn't leave the house till 7.30am due to oversleeping, so didn't do too badly.

I was teaching again this afternoon, so I had to cram a little bit. I had a brief meeting with Ruth Sidery, our head of TV production out front, followed by fixing up the Principal's new colour laser printer. Then had a meeting with the principal himself about my movie. Thought it was high time I legitimised the project by bringing it to senior management attention. Now I don't have to draw my cast and crew aside to talk to them about it, because the senior staff are all onside. Had a meeting with my leading man, and he totally got the story right off the bat. He's really pleased to be on board.

I also had a chat with the studio manager over at Christchurch to see if he would mind us setting up a green screen studio in the big studio over Easter. He said yes. So it seems like I am really making my first feature film, finally. Had a chat with various other cast members too, told them I'd spoken to all the heads of department and they are all still really jazzed about making the flick even after I showed them the synopsis, so we have as they say, a "go"project on our hands.

All we need to do is find some finance. My boss says that I can ask for money and use our name but I have to clear it with Sarah the fundraising manager first so we don't double book or at least send out confusing signals. Good job I didn't post my letter to Madonna yet. Bless my hopeless time management skills. Maybe I'll run the letter under Sarah's nose to see if I'm being patronising and/or pushy. Let's hope so. :) Just kidding.

Anyway, time for bed. It's late and I think we have some more Nip/Tuck, a few CSIs, and a Lost to watch.

Ah Madonna, my friend. Sh'yeah right.

A day without teaching, so I could catch up with my other duties. Sweet.

Got up kinda late, went in late and got started with the fixing up of various things. I'm putting together a nice little editing system with a nice old Quicksilver G4 which used to be the server into which I've installed an 80Gb and a 120Gb hard drive. Alls I need to do now is put Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on it, and then the software Final Cut Pro 4, Motion, DVD Studio Pro etc. all of which comprises Final Cut Studio 4. I think I might get us a copy of Final Cut Pro 5 too because I see that unlike 4 it supports HDV, which may come in handy in the next little while.

This editing system can flit between home and work depending on the workload at school. I can cut my own stuff on it, who knows I might even be able to finally get a showreel together.

Had a meeting with the head of acting today, and I told him which actors I'd chosen for my film. He agreed that I had basically chosen really well and gotten all the best people from the year. Double sweet.

Bought some groceries on the way home and when I got back we had warm chicken salad and cups of lovely latte via the espresso machine. Mia suggested I get some Espresso coffee from Starbucks, and I said genius idea. Maybe I could get some hazelnut syrup too? I know some people are really anti-Starbucks, but I love em. I'm not really sure what the objection is, but frankly unless I have documentary evidence they eat babies I'm going to continue to buy and drink their coffee.

Seventh day in a row teaching and frankly I need the day off I got tomorrow. I'll just be a technician tomorrow insteadof trying to do both teaching and tech at the same time, which frankly sucks monkey banana.

The video project is reaching a good state of readiness though, and all except the last group on Friday are pretty much aware of what they have to do for the project.

I have shown them the clips from the films and they seem to have mostly taken in what it is I'm trying to tell them. I forgot the whole week to bring in the "El Mariachi/Desperado" DVD which has the best 10 minute film school on it. I'll maybe take it in next week as a fallback teaching tool in our last week of prep, when we'll be looking at the camera, tapes and other stuff and trying it all out so they get a feel for what they'll be working with.

Maybe I should take a minute tomorrow and go over to Christchurch Studios and find out when the kit's going to be available. Hmm. Food for thought.

Mia was back when I got home and was asleep so I spent most of the evening reminding the kids to keep their voices down. She woke up around 9pm so we ate a little salmon terrine I bought, with a few cauliflower and broccoli florets we keep in the freezer. I had a cup of coffee from my new Espresso maker, and the coffee was New York Favourite from the San Fransisco Bay Premium Coffee Co. I added a little warmed milk which I frothed with a small milk whisk. Topped off with a little nutmeg. Yummy. Oh but the nutmeg was a bit old. Mental note, buy fresh nutmeg and cinnamon for my coffee.

A couple of new Nip/Tucks have downloaded so I guess we'll watch those before we go to bed.

Another day on video prep. This group had real problems getting their ideas organised so we spent a bit of time working up their treatment so the script can be written for next time.

Again I showed them bits from movies to start them thinking how movies are put together. The films I'm using are "Resident Evil" 1 & 2, "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" and "Sin City". Apart from the fact these are some of my favourite films, I could have used anything to point this out. It's obvious to me how films work, but I'm trying to get them to think about films in new ways, pay attention to the way they work.

Bedtime, watched a program on the concept of "Crumpet" all about 70s sexy actresses... oh man talk about hitting me where I live.

Second week of term. We start another set of sessions with the first years prepping for their video project. This bunch today were great, having done their script already. This left us lots of time for me to show them excerpts from films and analyse how the bits link together.

Mia is packing for a trip tomorrow, she's away Tuesday night and is back on Weds. She's off on a training trip to Kent somewhere, staying in a four star hotel and having a ball. They have a swimming pool apparently, so she should have a great time.

Had kind of a late night watching the first few episodes of season 3 of Nip/Tuck which we downloaded earlier in the week. Damn that's a good show.

Ted went off to James' house again after breakfast, so we had another day with just Mia and Hattie and me. We thought about walking the dog again, but we ended up doing a trip into town before Argos closed so Hattie could spend her Christmas money on an MP3 player, which she's suddenly realised she can't do without.

After that we went over to ASDA and got some food shopping.

Kind of a mirror image of yesterday. Weird.

Worked on my script again tonight and now up to about page 30. So about a third of the way through. I originally planned a 120 minute movie but I think that's a little long, so 90 minutes would be better. So equate a minute to a page (as you do) and 90 pages.

It's going really well. I've never written a full length screenplay before, and when I have it's been absolute torture. This is a personal story, I mean apart from the vampire bit, so it's easier because I relate to the way the characters interact. And it's easily the best thing I've written for a long time. I feel really good about this film generally, and it's definitely going to be part one of a trilogy.