Saturday morning, the day after the pickup shoot, and I am looking out of my window in amazement at the weather. According to the BBC it should be bright sun, and it’s grey and miserable. Yesterday on the other hand, the day we shot, WAS AMAZING SUNSHINE! We could not have been luckier with the weather.
So the shoot went very well. We had a very small crew, running without sound, and now ticking over like a well oiled machine. We cranked through loads of simple cutaway shots, like the one here of the gnarled shark hook the killer pike chews up in the story.
By lunch time we had about ten shots in the can, all with amazing backlit sunshine. What was great is I 
could feel the edit of the film coming together, as I knew just how these new shots would slot in perfectly and plug little problems.
After lunch came the moment of truth with our large, rubber ‘Bruce’ like pike, built by Jenny Cochrane. It was operated by a couple of very nice divers, Steve Reid and Dave O’Dell, who came along for the fun of it. I don’t quite know what they made of Goliath when they finally saw him, but they were game, so they got into the water and we all attempted to make movie magic! Sadly, for most of the time, Goliath performed just like a big rubber pike would. BUT… after lots of takes, we could all see that we 
got short glimpses of real genius, where Goliath looked terrifying and enormous and completely real. I can’t wait to see the footage. So 100% success!
We also did a few shots of photos that we had to drop during the main shoot as the actual props were not ready (as we had only just filmed the cast in costume – this is always a scheduling nightmare as actors need to be in costume etc., and it’s rarely 
done before the main shoot). We did these shots in the main building at Bury Hill Fisheries, overlooking the lake, which is a bizarre place to do such shots.
We should get a tape of the rushes from the labs on Tuesday and have it all cut in by Tuesday night. I hope to have a locked picture by Thursday and a final test screening on Friday, making tweaks over the weekend if needed. Then it’s all about the final picture conform at 2k res, getting the digital effects right, and a track lay and Dolby Digital Mix. The very talented guys at Videosonics have already offered their help so I know the movie will sound a million dollars!
FANTASTIC!
Onward and upward!
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com
Gone Fishing looks absolutely amazing. In large part this is down to Vernon’s photography and his insistence that we wait on the sun. We were very lucky in the main shoot and managed to shot mostly in bright sunshine, which Vernon then filled the harsh shadows with a whopping great 15k light and bounce boards. 
Today I collected our three and a half foot animatronic – well actually, hand puppet – monster pike. It was made by effects guru Jenny Cochrane and it weighs A TON! This fish is never going to be seen out of water, only in the murky shallows as it battles with Young Bill. We will need two submerged operators, one for the head, one for the tail. Being operated by humans, this will also give it the movement of something alive, and not the movement of a mechanism. The head is effectively a glove puppet, giving the operator full control over head thrashing and jaws snapping. Having worked in effects before, I know how well this will work, and I am delighted I resisted using a real pike. 
During the main shoot, stunt co-ordinator 
Still working on music for Gone Fishing. We have entered that dreaded stage where we have fallen in love with the temporary music we used, and anything else, just does not do the same job. This is a typical problem and I am trying hard to stay focussed on a solution and not on what I feel I am losing. In fact I am not losing anything as there is no way I could ever use the John Williams tracks we laid into the edit as temp music. 
Last night I worked with Eddie Hamilton and we did the second cut of the film. This was to generally tidy, trim and make neat and perfect all the cuts in the movie. Also to add storyboarded shots that we will be filming next week in a pickup shoot day, and finally to tackle the story problems we isolated in the fist test screening last week.
