A few times I’ve heard people say that all screenwriters should at least attempt to make a short movie. It always sounded like good advice, but until last night I never really understood the significance of why.

I was sat there trying to edit the sequence of Dr Crabtree speaking to Jess on the phone. A simple sequence, so I thought, which I wrote to hint at the backstory idea that Dr Crabtree is protecting Jess, and here he lies to save face at the embarrassment that he’s told her she’ll never find the book and suddenly it arrives on her doorstep.

Obviously this is no deus ex machina conceit I invented, but a thoroughly developed idea that is more or less completely hidden in the short (mainly because, in Dramatica terms, I’ve hidden the Impact Character storyline).

When we were shooting the sequence Ben did just three takes, two medium shots and one close up. He did more or less the same thing each time, with some minor variations. Each time it didn’t sound quite like I imagined, but trusting Judith Weston’s advice to forget my preconceived ideas and trust the actors more, I let it slide. What he was doing still felt right, just not quite what I expected.

So I’m sat there last night thinking, this guy has just found out that the thing that he is trying to protect his young protege from has just been given to her more or less on a silver plate. As I say, the backstory in my mind was that he didn’t know it had been sent to her, and knowing that Mr Widdershins is the owner of the book, it could only mean that he’d failed in his bid to protect Jess. Now Mr Widdershins has realised who she possibly is and would be angry with Dr C for hiding her away.

I tried several edits, not hard when I only had four takes and a couple of cutaways to play with, but even so, it just wasn’t making sense in my head. Midnight rolled past and I was getting more and more agitated and unhappy.

Then it struck me. The way I had Dr Crabtree in my mind was a little selfish and perhaps a little bit of a coward. The way Ben plays it he becomes much more selfless. He obviously already knows that Jess has been sent the book and perhaps already been torn off a strip by Mr Widdershins, both of which actually make more sense in the flow of the story.

Now his words and actions start to become more selfless. Despite knowing he’s in the sh*t, he still tries to protect her the best he can, making his character, in my mind anyway, richer and deeper.

A huge realisation (and I mean mind expanding, whole-world-pivoting-round-to-form-a-new-view-of-reality mental shift) started to dawn on me about just how much a story can warp and change during the production process, and how this can be quite often for the better (although I can see it for the worse as well).

After all, the actors (and director if someone else is directing) are going to come to the script with the same lack of preconception that the audience will have when they see the final film. They will often see the real truth in what you write, even if your confused and befuddled brain has twisted it into something else.

Further to that I began to understand how the warp and weft of the story as it’s created and put together and presented on film to an unsuspecting public meshes together with the words we write on the page.

The only way I can describe it is thus: When I think about the script I tend to think with my heart – I care about these characters, I care about the story, I care about the script. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. But I’d failed to see the story mentally, only understand it logically. Yeah, I’d envisioned each scene as I wrote them and storyboarded them, but I’d failed to fully understand how each scene would play against each other, how each one will have an emotional impact on the viewer, based on what they had already seen. I suppose rather than seeing each scene as it’s own little island, I began to fully appreciate the whole story.

Suddenly the world suddenly became a much bigger, better place.

We worked faster today and while we managed to get all of Ben’s shots done, we still didn’t quite finish as much as we’d hoped for.

The ritual scene took up the main bulk of the day after we’d shot the conversation between Jess and Dr Crabtree at the flat.

Chris did an amazing job lighting the ritual scene, it looks superb. I even got to use my cheapo work lights from Aldi’s! Nic got some excellent shots as a result.

Our attempts at special FX came out better than I thought thanks to the books natural propensity to shut itself. Simply reverse the footage, add a bump speed effect and hey presto, spooky self opening book (yes, I know it’s not in the script – I made it up on set).

During a break I asked Ben what he thought of our little set up, being that he’s been on a lot more film sets than I have, and he complimented us on our speed and efficiency. He even hinted that I was an OK-ish director! I was a bit sad when we’d finished his shots as he’s a great bloke to have around set.

Still, I pitched a couple of ideas for screenplays at Ben and he seemed enthusiastic about them, so hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.

I think one thing I’m going to find weird if I make it any further with filmmaking is that actors are going to be coming in and out of projects at odd times and bizarre friendships will build up. It struck me that being a jobbing actor must be a bit of a strange life experience, perhaps quite lonely with not having regular working conditions or colleagues. I suppose at least if you’re crew you get to see a project through and because of the nature of your work you might tend to form little units that work more regularly together.

The other thing that struck home was the point Chris Jones made the other week, that being a director is perhaps the best and worst job in the industry as actors, DPs, gaffers are always in demand on other peoples projects, so we directors should expect to be lasty off the blocks when it comes to establishing careers.

Now I’ve got two weeks grace before the next shoot (back at the flat) to edit together the four complete scenes we’ve got over the weekend. I think the ritual scene will take the most time as we really went to town getting some interesting footage and there is very little dialogue to get in the way.

(Oh, Daz managed to finally shift the bit of chicken lodged in his throat. I guess he’ll be liquidising his dinners for the next few days!)

It didn’t quite go as planned, but on the whole it’s been a fantastic day.

Everyone showed up on time and we managed to shoot all of the Dr Crabtree office scenes.

Ben and Vickie gave some splendid performances and Daz, Nic and Chris really started to gel as a team.

Our biggest problem was time. I’m quickly learning that in this game, if you think something is going to take 10 minutes, in reality it’ll take half an hour.

We managed to get over to the flat just before six which only gave us enough time to plan the morning’s shots before we headed back to our house for a curry.

Unfortunately, Daz managed to get his second mouthful stuck in his throat, and spent the rest of the evening in agony trying to shift it. It was still there two hours later when he and Amber left. Ouch.

After dinner Amber drew up a large copy of the Angel onto an old sheet for the ritual scene while I raided John Dee’s books for some appropriate Latin.

Gawd help us, we’re going to try some very dodgy special fx tomorrow, heaven knows how it’s going to turn out.

And so it begins, the next step up the big filmmaking ladder. I’ve spent the whole day preparing for the weekends shoot. I’m totally paranoid something is going to go horribly wrong at the last minute, but so far, it’s holding together nicely.

Amber has completed as much of the book as we need for the weekend shoot, and boy does it look good. It’s all wrapped up at the second, but once we’ve unwarpped it again I’ll post some pictures up of it, it looks amazing. I feel sorry for Amber, she’s put tonnes of work into rehearsals and making the book and dressing the set ready for the shoot, and she’s going to miss tomorrows events as she’s got to work. What a bugger.

I think we’re all prepared now, though. We have book, computers, LCD screens, nametags, scanners, more books, pictures, sheets, CDs, DVDs, crayons, glue, clocks and a hundred other items which we’ll need in the next two days. I’m amazed I’ve been so organised.

I’ve shown a few people the rough edit of last weeks shoot and generally they are very positive about it and providing me with some very useful feedback (and that’s without the soundtrack sorted).

We had a cracking thunderstorm here this evening, so I was out with the Sennheiser recording it to put into the film. I tried to shoot some of the lighting bolts, but realised too late I had the exposure all wrong. Buggrit.

*… an old mother dies… the Angel opens her eyes!

I’ve just finished a rough edit of the footage shot on Sunday. It’s shaping up rather nicely. I’m so glad I read Walter Murch’s ‘In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing‘, the core theme is crucial to natural looking cuts and is very well argued. It’s helped me immensely (and it must work it he’s got Oscars out of it!). The hard part is knowing how long to make the establishing shots, I keep veering about and can never get it quite right.

The other thing I’m worried about is the audio, I never got a really good take all the way through, so there is quite a bit of background noise pitch shifting between cuts, which is irritating. I suppose if the worst comes to the worst we can ADR it. I’m going to have to go out in the back garden and rerecord big chunks of background noise to apply to the whole track, I forgot to do that the other day, although we were quite near a main road, so it probably would have been a bit of a pointless exercise.

Vickie and I went round Ben’s at lunchtime for a readthrough of their scenes. It’s a strange and wonderful experience hearing people speak words that you’ve written, putting emotions and inflections you could never dream of and making them come alive.

I keep worrying that I’m not doing enough ‘directing’, but I’m starting to get the feeling that Dramatica is coming through with another benefit in that, by controlling the flow of the subtext and action during the writing phase, the script analysis is easy to put together and then expand. I’ve been through my notes with both Ben and Vickie and they more or less got it first attempt.

In fact there was only one line that Vickie read in a way that didn’t sit right with me, and then I realised it was my fault for putting an errant question mark in where the line was more of an accusatory statement.

We’ve been given clearance to film in the offices at work on Saturday, so I’ve really got to get my skates on and make sure everything is ready for the weekend now. It’s going to be a long one.

And lo, they went forth to a desolate place and recorded footage of such beauty and grace that the director did sayeth unto the crew, ‘Jiminy! That was easy.’

Methinks however todays spectacular success will be hard to repeat. I’m well aware of the concept of beginners luck, and I’m sure, once I start to edit the footage together, I’m going to find all sorts of problems (like aircraft noise – I didn’t realise our tranquil part of the British Isles was so noisy till I listened to it through a Sennheiser microphone).

Still, overall, I’m giving the crew and myself a big old pat on the back. Apart from the laptop batteries running out eight shots from the end, there were no huge technical problems (by that time Nic and I had got the feel for the cropping and overscan so all but one of the shots came out OK without DV Rack).

I think a lot of the success is down to Vickie and Louise who both pulled out the stops and put in some fab performances. They did eveything I wanted them to (kept eye contact, listened to each other, didn’t flap about too much in masters etc. etc.) with very little input from me, so my directorial powers, beyond shouting ‘action’ and ‘cut’, remain relatively untested. I’m sure this’ll change, but for now, I’m happy.

Daz brought round the new version of Steve’s song ‘Angels’ this evening, which I want to use for the closing credits. He’s completely rearranged it for piano and had Steve round for six hours yesterday getting the vocals perfect. It sounds amazing, and that’s without the extra string parts he’s yet to put in.

If we keep this up, we’ll do alright I think.

I just watched THX 1136, which my son got me for father’s day. What an amazing movie. I think it was Frank Darabont, I recently read, who was saying how much it had had an effect on him. It’s certainly got my mind racing for Architurus.

Tomorrow’s the Big Day. Our first proper shoot of scenes with people actually interacting in. My first proper experience of directing (I don’t think I can call the one on ones we shot the other day proper directing, can I?).

We’re going to shoot what is, in the script, the church scene, but is now going to take place outside in the graveyard. The local vicar gave us permission to film there on Friday morning, which was a bit of a close call.

No news yet on whether Ken Colley is interested in playing Mr W, hopefully Ben should contact me in the next few days with some news. I need to speak to him anyway to arrange some rehearsal time with him and Vickie. I’m a bit nervous about tomorrow as we haven’t rehearsed it, although as we have the whole afternoon to to film one scene, I’m hoping Vickie will be back from Lemington (where she’s staying overnight) in time to run through it before we head up to the church.

Although, thinking about it, I guess the nature of the scene, where Jess and Alice begin to fall out over her growing obsession with the book, might even benefit from a lack of practice as Jess is meant to be a little uncomfortble with the whole set up anyway, so perhaps it’ll play better without it. Who knows!? The whole point of this exercise is to learn.

Whatever, I definitely need Vickie and Ben to get together before next Saturday (proposed shooting day of Dr Crabtree’s scenes) as I want there to be a bit more of a rapport between them than the growing hostility between Alice and Jess.

I’ve been quiet these past few days as I’ve been deep in Dramatica-land plotting out (again) the story form and structure for the movie which this short is kind of a prequel to.

I’ve got it all nicely laid out in Story View and it seems to be coming together really well. But, as ever, there is still a lot of detail that needs to be thrashed out. I’ve outlined the whole Overall Storyline and now I’m going to concentrate on completing the rest of the throughlines act by act, based on the the OS details. Seems like a sensible way to do it.

Had a fantastic meeting with David/Ben (his stage name is Ben Shockley, so I’ll refer to him as Ben from now on). Ben is very keen to help out and is happy to do it for nothing, which is marvellous.

He seems like a genuinely nice guy, and made a first rate cup of tea, so double winner there. We went through the script and I explained more about Dr Crabtree’s back story and what was going on in each scene. He generally seemed very positive about it.

I’m hoping that we’ll be able to film his scenes next weekend (25th/26th June) as he’s free then. I’m going to try and get him and Vickie together one evening next week to rehearse their scenes.

One thing that made me very pleased was that he seemed impressed with what I’d achieved so far, commenting that "I appeared to know what I was doing".

He’s also passed on a copy of the script to Ken Colley this afternoon, with whom he’s been making a film at Ken’s house here in Hythe, so fingers crossed on that front.

Went round Daz and Amber’s this evening to find Amber had made a good start on the book, and Daz has some awesome ideas for the music. Listening to him as he played it, I could really get a clear picture of how I want the finished product to look, and ideas for shots came flooding into my head. I’ve asked him to whack a load of stuff down on CD for me so I can listen to it before we shoot.

Yesterday (Saturday) proved an excellent training day. We set up in the flat and worked through the scenes set there to try and get the lighting right. Chris did a superb job and the results were far better than I hoped for. I’m just glad we went through all the learning curve without the actors there. It should put us in a good position when we start shooting properly.

Speaking of actors, David White came back to me today to say he’d read my script and definitely wants to meet up to discuss it, so we’re meeting up tomorrow lunchtime. He also said he’d be able to pass on a copy to Ken Colley, so I really can’t ask any more if him. Amazing.

Today we recorded the radio news report in Darren’s home studio, where we’ll be mixing the sound for the film. This came out really well. Louise read it in a posh english and scottish accent. I can’t decide which one I like better.

We also checked out a local churchyard. I wasn’t happy that Alice would voluntarily go into a church, despite her backstory of being a lapsed Christian who is rekindling her faith (mainly as a reaction to the dark territory that Jess is exploring). However, walking round a graveyard and looking at statues of Angels would hopefully reflect her more religious mood.

I just need to get permission from the Vicar to film there. Hopefully it’ll be OK.

Things have quietened down a bit in the last couple of days after the blistering start to the week. Plans are sorted now for the weekend to go to the flat where we’re going to shoot a good portion of the short and I’m off to the Franciscan Study Centre in Canterbury tomorrow to finalise arrangements to film the opening sequence there. I love that place, when I was at college it used to (and hopefully still does) have a really nice vibe to it.

Probably all the monks wandering round. Very chilled.

For all you Dramatica freaks like myself out there, animator extraordinaire, Jim Hull, has started a new Dramatica Blog. Working closely with Chris Huntley, one of the creators of Dramatica, Jim is dishing out some seriously useful insights into the inner workings of what is, in my humblest of opinions, one of the best and most thoughtful pieces of software ever written. Go check it out.