2.30am. The night before the first day of shooting and I’m making pizza. Ok I know Stephen Speilberg doesn’t bake pizza or make roasted vegetable salad before his film shoots, but feeding a crew is important and I don’t have extra money to spend on catering. As I cook up the tomato Sauce, my flatmate Ken, the film’s composer, who is doubling as set designer with his friend Izumi are ironing large sections of purple satin and rigging up old Christmas lights to try and make our kitchen look like part of a designer pad. As I look up at what they are doing I get worried again. This is a tiny flat…possibly too tiny even for my small crew and two cast members. 5.am we all get to sleep. We’re going to feel terrible tomorrow.

The crew arrives and I forget just how much equipment is needed to make even a tiny short like this. I should explain the genesis of the project. My flat mate Ken, a terrifically talented composer, doing a sound design course at LCP needs to collaborate on a project. He asks me to help and we agree on a five-minute project to be shot on black and white 16mm. He wants a film look. We will edit on video thanks to the generosity of Roger my DOP who works in and editing house. The actors are unpaid, as is the crew. The equipment is free thanks to Roger and Russell, my Production Manager. I have to find money for film stock and developing. So far the budget is £400. The last short I shot cost £5000. Can I possibly do something worthwhile on so tiny a budget?

I am scared. I always am before a shoot; The first scenes are of an argument and an attempted suicide on the kitchen set. We set up the lights, set up the first camera positions and go. The six man crew, including me, wait for make up to finish and then we are up and running. The story, Ken’s is of a girl, contemplating suicide, because her lover has left her. She will remember him in multiple flashbacks and he will save her from suicide. But then at the end…a twist.

I am almost glad to be doing something that is someone else’s idea, but also glad that it is such an emotional subject. All my other films have been horror movies and this is the first time I’ve really explored emotional issues. Having has a twelve-year relationship break up the year before helps. I can put myself into this. The film is silent, to be accompanied only by Ken’s emotional score and a pre-written voice over. I can give the actors instructions as the camera rolls. This is less important now that it will be in the love scene and it’s mournful aftermath, which will close the shoot tomorrow. I have figured it is the most emotional scene so we should shoot it last.

Later as we shoot in the bathroom, so small that we can only put the camera outside the door, I remember the rule that is keeping me sane. What matters is what is in front of the camera. What is framed in that tiny rectangle. Nothing outside matters. The audience doesn’t need to know this is a tiny flat. Swathes of material and a myriad of flickering candles are my only production value. But they look great. My lead actor has hot wax down the back of his neck and is asking that the bath water be cold, because of the heat. I didn’t realise candles could generate so much. But like a trouper he carries on with a good performance. They both do. This is my own project, I don’t have a financier breathing down my neck. We have to get it shot in two days and it has to be good, but otherwise I feel no pressure, I begin to relax and enjoy the process.

My DOP has brought along an eyepiece and I use this to frame the shots. Before we roll, I always say to myself, "make every shot look interesting…frame for wide screen…there’s no rush." I worry about the position of the actors in frame, the candles, the light, but still we manage around 30 set ups a day. My DOP is getting it right every time.

The afternoon of the second day and we are on schedule, enjoying a break and some of Izumi’s excellent Japanese food. This is going to be an interesting cultural experience for all of us. There have been problems but nothing too serious. We had the wrong film stock for the exterior daylight shoot we did this morning. The crumbling wooden jetty on which the actors stood, backed by water looked great, but my DOP says that the instructions on the stock say that it shouldn’t be overexposed and by his reckoning he’s four stops over. I try to image what I’m going to get…a silhouette? A little burn out from the sun could look good, but would a silhouette look ridiculous. We decide to carry on but to shoot a back up take using a less contrasty background. My DOP also tells me that some of the stock we are using is ten years old and has been in his fridge since we shot my first short 9 years previously! I worry again.

In the evening we set up the love scene, piling boxes ever higher so the DOP can have a camera position high above the bed. In the end he is squeezed up against the ceiling. The beautiful piano theme Ken wrote the previous evening is playing in a rough version on the set, helping the actors get into character. I remember that Sergio Leone did this on all his films, then I snap out of my pretensions. We do the first shot and the camera breaks down. Luckily we have a Bolex as back up. Two hours later, after much tinkling with the (rather ancient and usually reliable) Arri we resume the shoot.

And we are onto the last shot. Alister, the lead actor is mourning over Tina’s lifeless body. I shout commands. You’re scared. You’re worried, you want to get away but you also want to hold her one last time. I feel foolish. I remember Johnny Depp in "Ed Wood." You feel upset…. No not that upset!!

I am in the editing suite with Roger the DOP for the on line edit. The offline has been on "Premiere" and apart from some computer crashes has been smooth. I am amazed and over the moon. All the shots have come out beautifully. The nine year old stock was fine and the over exposed shot has come out perfectly…you can even see the details on the trees on the far side of the lake. Thank you Kodak!. My thirty three minutes of raw stock has become an eight minute film, and I have used something from nearly ever set up.

The film cuts together fine and the score is as haunting as complex as it should be…seeing as Ken has stayed up till three in the morning all the previous week in order to finish it. I am reminded how rewarding filmmaking can be. I am bitten by the bug again. I look forward to my first feature ‘Dark Phantom’ another romance, which I plan to shoot later this year. My philosophy, that you can make a descent short with a minimal crew and don't need 300 people and a convoy of location trucks has proved to be true. It's what's in front of the camera that counts. My short has been finished for around £500 so anything is possible. Alleluia!