I’ve never worked on a film before. Apart from the thrills I get from seeing Danny Boyle in action, ‘discovering’ the remarkable Alwin Kuchler Effect, falling in love with Mark Tildelsey’s designs and chatting to the cast… if I’m completely honest, it can be really rather boring. There is a lot of standing around. Some days it’s taken literally hours to set up a shot… so hours and hours and hours of standing around…and waiting. Yes, the end result is amazing and beautiful and makes me go all gushy about Alwin, but, boy, it really can be boring.

I’ve just come back from the airlock set… I was waiting and waiting and waiting for a scene I’ve been waiting weeks to happen… I’ve seen the animatics for it, seen the stunt rehearsals, spoken to every single person involved in creating the shot and today is the big day when it’s finally going to be filmed.

I waited. And waited. And waited. Danny and Alwin were deep in discussion with Richard Conway, the Special Effects Supervisor. Then they had a rehearsal with the actors. More discussion. Another rehearsal. Discussion. Rehearsal. Discussion. Technical rehearsal. Discussion. More discussion. Then Troy Garity, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans and Cillian Murphy were stood down while there were more discussions.

Cliff wandered off the set. He has a way of just…. disappearing… and no one ever sees him leave.


One minute Chris was there, the next… gone.


Cillian went back to his dressing room, probably to listen to music.


Troy stayed on set and started reading a magazine. He’s not been feeling particularly well for the past few days. He’s come down with the same illness I have, so I chatted to him for a while about fresh ginger and sweat lodges then we compared symptoms- he’s only just got over the headaches, my cough is worse than his.

More discussion on set.

I decided to go out and get some fresh air and a drink. I bumped into Alex Garland, had a chat and then wandered back in.

Nothing had been filmed.

I spoke to a couple of the people on production about the script, Alwin’s shots, Cillian and Hiroyuki Sanada (specifically: the changes from early drafts; how amazing Alwin’s shots are; how being able to stare at Cillian all day, isn’t such a bad job to have; how Hiro is missed by everyone). One of the Special Effects guys came up to me to get my email address because he wanted to send me some photos to put up here.

Still nothing was filmed.

They’re now eating dinner…


They’re running behind- three days? four?- and must complete four different shots by the end of today. They’ll finish very late tonight… and I won’t be here to see it.