I crawl into bed at 7am having worked all night and sleep for three hours before being woken by Williams arriving. We have a quick chat and I go back to bed and sleep for another thirty minutes before being woken up again. Surly lack of sleep is starting to affect my eye sight as I am convinced I can see a slice of toast in my hand. Stéphanie looks at me and points to the toast and then to my mouth. I nod a feeble nod and fall back to sleep. I wake up twenty minutes later. Stéphanie points to mouth again I point to my alarm clock. I close my eyes. Ah bliss, the gift of sleep, the great refresher, the mender of all bodily ills, repairer of souls, precious precious sleep... Thirty seconds later the alarm goes off. I sit up and stuff toast in my mouth. It is cold.

Stéphanie and I head to Paddington. Paul texts and asks if we can meet a French actor at 10am Monday en-route to Stansted (I will have worked until 6am again). Lack of sleep makes me say yes before I realise what I've done.

We head to Wiltshire to spend the weekend with my parents and brother Russell and his family. I extol the merits of investing in the film to them all and Russ says he will happily give us £500 if he gets paid the money he is owed by the NHS. In theory a great offer, except that he has already been waiting for this money for two years.

My father, taken in by my hard sell of the film and the subtle persuasions of Stéphanie, hands over a check for £1,000.
“That's to pay your mortgage whilst you make the film,” he says.
“Thanks!” I say, eyes beaming, and promptly text Paul to say I have secured another grand for the budget.

I then spend the rest of the day persuading my father to let me borrow his car for the duration of the shoot to use as Callum's prop car (which means taking it to France). I, and the rest of my family, am somewhat amazed when he agrees. This represents something of a miracle as I previously borrowed it for an hour or so a couple of years ago and had to negotiate in detail for several days.

I love my parents.

Crew members. 0 gained. 0 lost.
Prop car. 1 gained. 0 lost.

Day 23 Monday 10th September 2007

I wake up after two hours sleep by Sarah arriving. I let her in and she gets on with the huge list of tasks we have lined up for her. I would offer to make her a cup of tea but as she is a vampire I know she won't drink it. I snatch another thirty minutes before Seanne puts in her usual Monday morning call to say that she met with the Art Director from Switzerland and he sensationally hasn't quit over the weekend. Not only that but he wants a contract. Hello Daniel welcome to the team, where have you been all this time? Oh yes, sat waiting patiently in my In box waiting to be forwarded to Seanne. I sleep another half hour and get up.

I just have time to send off a few emails before packing my suit case. I have managed to negotiate my way out of meeting the French actor at 10am, leaving that to Paul. Fifteen minutes later Stéphanie and I miss the bus which means we miss the coach which means we have to catch another one which is running late and then decides to take a different route to the airport to catch up thus landing us in heavy traffic.
“Don't worry,” I say to Stephanie. “I have never missed a flight.”
This is true my record is flawless on catching planes, a record that is to be shattered in two weeks time when I am due to fly to Bucharest for a week's holiday in Romania but which I am sacrificing for the film as it is the date we randomly chose to start filming. An hour later with the coach stuck motionless on the M25 I wonder if my perfect record isn't going to be destroyed two weeks early. Paul texts to say he is having a coffee in the departure lounge. I tell him we will be there in a few minutes fully aware that we might not make it at all. We have to get on the plane as I am the only one booked to drive the car in France.

Finally, after what seems like the slowest journey ever, we get to Stansted a full twenty minutes before check-in closes, which actually for me is quite early. I hook up with Seanne and her Italian beau, he and Stéphanie chat in Italian whilst I meet Roger for the first time. I instantly like him, it is impossible not to, always cheery, always positive and I can see why Paul insisted he come on board. I thank Roger for coming to play with us and stuff a few of his things into my suitcase. As we are on a strict budget I only booked one suitcase for the flight and so everyone stuffs various things into my case. I heave it onto the scales and smile at the young chap behind the desk.
“That's 5kg over weight, that will be £27 extra.”
I refuse. He refuses to let me refuse. I take out a couple of items which knocks off a single kilo.
“That's still £22 to pay, sir.”
“Tough,” I say. “I'm not paying it.”
The unfortunate young lad checks his watch, looks at the long queue behind me and realises I am going to eat up the bulk of the remaining fifteen minutes check-in time arguing this matter thus creating an even bigger problem when twenty or so other people can't get checked-in. I make another gesture by taking out my production folder barely scraping a few grams off the weight and dogmatically refuse to take out any more. He lets me off the charge and I thank him for not being a typical boring jobsworth that makes life so frustrating.

I am about to get on the plane and eat a baguette when my friend Mandy calls to say she has fixed me up with an interview on Wiltshire Radio tomorrow morning.

An hour later we arrive in Nantes and collect the word's smallest People Carrier car, one that claims to be for seven people but, by the look of it, was designed in the Middle ages when people were a lot smaller. We drive to Brocéliande, the forest about 60km from Rennes. It is strange to be back. Stéphanie brought me here two years ago on the trip that inspired the writing of the screenplay and I have not been back since.

En route Paul and I listen to some potential soundtrack music on CD and he then tries to tune the radio to a local station claiming he wants wall-to-wall Breton music. We settle for NRJ instead then play the four track CD over and over again.

We get to the caravan site we are staying at and are shown a caravan which is far too small for six let alone seven so we have to get a second one. We look up at the night sky, so black and the stars are so bright. The magic of the forest is back with us.

Crew members. 1 gained. 0 lost.

Day 24 Tuesday 11th September 2007

“What?” I holler wondering why Paul is banging on my door at 7am and realise it is actually 8am. Bugger. I didn’t put my clock forward one hour. Skipping breakfast we head to the village of Tréhorenteuc and check out the church and car park as well as a tiny, rather deserted café. There we meet Roger, a white-haired ex-pat Brit who lives there and has become a druid, he is riding his bicycle and has been collecting mushrooms. Stéphanie and Williams go to the Mairie to get permission from the Mayor to shoot in the car park and come back with permission to shoot the whole village for as long as we want.

We traipse up into the forest towards the lake where the climax of the film is set. The last time I did this was at midnight two years ago, this time is a little easier. We find the lake and it is as beautiful as I remember. Paul and Roger get very excited and plot where to shoot from. I stand in the lake up to my knees for nearly an hour to check the temperature. Julie and I have to jump in the lake and as it will be in October I am a little concerned about the temperature. With everyone else off wandering around I ask the forest to bless the shoot and look after us and instantly get a huge rush of energy and wind around me filling me with an elated sensation that everything will be fine, it is as if the forest has accepted us being there. Immediately my phone rings, it is Russ saying the NHS has miraculously paid up and who should he make his £500 cheque to? This truly is a magic place !

I get out of the lake and my legs are covered in mud. I try to wash them but as the lake water is the cause of the mud it only makes it worse. We head back to the village with the mud drying on my legs making me itch like a flea-invested dog. Stéphanie asks me for the French contracts so she can get them signed and I start scratching my head. I realise I have almost certainly forgotten to pack them. The very ones we spent several days translating. As this is one of the main reasons for coming here it represents a major cock-up on my part. I say that I think they are in my case and hope that they are.

In a nearby town Paul buys an English / Breton dictionary and proceeds to translate everything into Breton. He orders lunch, in Breton, but as very few people here actually speak it he ends up talking to the air whilst the rest of us order in varying degrees of French.

We travel to another part of Brocéliande and find some more locations for the forest journey. In one scene Callum has to hang upside down from a tree and fall out. We find a suitable candidate and up I climb. Being country born and bred climbing trees is like a hobby and falling out the fun part of it. But it is not something I have done for a number of years and when I do a test fall from the branch I promptly smack my shin against the root causing a huge bruise. Feeling rather nauseous I have a quite sit down whilst the others continue along the path.

Paul, who stayed with me to discuss a few matters, and I wander through the forest en route to the Fountain Barenton we meet a girl with blue eyes and two black cats in a box that seem somewhat distressed. We catch up with Seanne who says that she saw a dead black cat nailed to a tree and that she suspects the girl to be a witch.
“Welcome to Brocéliande!” I say. Seanne's phone rings, she has a voice mail message from Daniel. We fear he may have quit and gather around her phone to listen and offer support but he is merely a little concerned that he doesn't have enough to do! Seanne calls him back and fills up his day for him. We went around the world looking for an Art Director, thank god for the Swiss!

In the evening we go to a restaurant that Stéphanie and I ate in two years ago. Again Paul insists in ordering everything in Breton, the waitress looks confused so Paul rifles through the pages and asks her if she would like to follow him outside.

We get back to the caravan and I check my case but alas there are no contracts to be found.

Bollox.

Locations. 2 gained. 0 lost.