UK

Girl meets boy

Location Organic farmhouse in Kent | Mood Lovestruck teenager | Date 27 April 2006
Despite numerous invigorating discussions with my 12 fellow filmmakers - half from Camden Town, half from rest of planet - and plenty of excellent solutions to Crude's various problems - I have now officially lost all interest in films, filmmaking, Crude, climate change and saving the world. And, what's worse, I've done so for the oldest reason in the book: girl meets boy. Unfortunately, the particular boy has now gone back home. Back to Tel Aviv, a 6-hour, 0.47 tonne flight away.

Filmmaking think-tank

Location Train to Kent | Mood Anti-social, unintelligent, grumpy | Date 23 April 2006
Bounced home for just 16 hours last night - washed clothes, played with cats, debriefed by Head of Security (sister) - then straight onto a four-day residential filmmaking think-tank thing in a big farmhouse in Kent. Sounded like a good idea a few weeks ago, but right now all I want to do is wake up every four hours or so to eat more vegetables.    

How to tell if the AK47 pointed in your face is loaded

Location My ever-confused house, now doubling as military training centre | Mood Nervous tension bordering on hysteria | Date 5 April 2006
  After various friends and family calmly and touchingly and repeatedly asked me not to go to Nigeria, I thought the least I could do to take their concerns seriously was a Hostile Environments training course.

Star Wars alter-egos

Location Spanner office | Mood Confident | Date 31 March 2006
Crude structure in post-it notes on office wallHave spent the last five days with David The Editor and a huge pile of multi-coloured post-it notes working out Crude's overall structure, animation sequences and narrative arc

McLibel hits the cinema nine years later

Location BBC Broadcasting House | Mood School reunion | Date 15 February 2006
Interviews all day for McLibel UK cinema release. Been signed up by very sweet distributors who are acting like it's the first ever screening. Helen, Dave and me are all jaded - has been nine yeas since our first ever screening, after all - but trying to be enthusiastic. Revelation (the distributors) seem to have got tonnes of press interest - press preview the other day was packed and none of the journos left till the end, which is apparently the best you can hope for.

Going into the sadness

Location Pub opposite De Lane Lea, Soho | Mood Strangely isolated, as though everyone is talking about someone else's film | Date 9 February 2006
Second funding evening tonight. Last time we were asking for 500 quid a punt, this time it was 5000. Which seems an enormous amount of money to me, but didn't seem to cause too many raised eyebrows. We slightly picked the number out of a hat - but then said people could also get a "half loan" – i.e. 2500. Played the trailer tonight. First time we've had Crude up on the big screen. Seemed pretty coherent to me. Everyone loved Fernand. Friendly Funder spoke again and was even better than last time.

"You'll be kissing goodbye to your cash..."

Location Chained to Avid in office making Crude trailer | Mood Spaced out | Date 2 February 2006
I've made trailers of other films and they take only a few days. But that's when you're making one from the finished film, I now realise. Whereas we've got 87 hours of footage and not much idea of what we're trying to do. Even watching all that would be more time than we have - 5 days of David The Editor.

20,000 pounds in the kitty

Location Head in toilet at home | Mood Self-pitying | Date 25 January 2006
Human pyramid with the Guy Family, Fernand & Fernand's wife (Nicole) Photograph: Charlotte Rushton

A mini celebrity in the greasy spoon

Location Greasy spoon cafe in Old St | Mood Black humour | Date 11 January 2006
Osteopath Simon - together with painkillers Nurofen - worked a small miracle on my back, to the extent that I can now do everything except play the piano. Apparently I had twisted a rib which was poking into a lung and causing me to squeal every time I breathed in. The camera equipment and French Alps have owned up.

Excruciating pain

Location Lying flat on floor of office | Mood Rising panic | Date 8 January 2006
The typical amount of gear we carry around would be enough to do anyone's back in Photograph: Charlotte Rushton