Two things:

1. We have been told that the parts available for young attractive women has gone from four to ten. We are being asked to believe that this change is not related to the large number of young, pretty girls who turned up to the first day of casting and with whom Jim was seen to have conversations outside the audition room.

2. This is now an Untitled Zombies vs. Vampires movie.

It's been a few months. I think it's safe to go back home. The whole "Treehouse of Horror" thing has been dealt with and their case has been shredded before ever reaching court. Technically, I don't have to pay for anything right now, but I feel bad for their little girl, having totally retarded parents like that. So I'll buy her a new little house.

It's just as well, because if I thought my life was crazy, my brother's life is totally wacko. His girlfriend's mother called over today when I was alone (again). We talked about nothing for a while, and I made a passing reference to sapphic encounters, and a look of horror came over her face. Then this happened:

"Do you know what they do?"

"Er... I have an idea."

"No, really. Do you know what they... do?"

Oh no, I thought, I'm going to have to get into this whole thing about fisting and dildos with a nice old lady. This is not how I wanted to spend my Thursday morning.

"It's not something I really..."

"Tongues!"

Thank you Jesus!

"Ah, that. Yes. Terrible, isn't it?"

"That's not what tongues are for, you know. You're not supposed to stick them up there."

"So I hear."

"I would hate that."

"Yes, you probably would."

I'm staying at my brother's place while this whole "Treehouse" shit blows over. Those people are crazy. That little girl is the sanest one there.

Today, I noticed that there is no sound coming from the left speaker of my brother's stereo, so I tried to fix it by taking it apart. I left it switched on so I could hear if there was any sound coming out. I thought it would be safe enough, but I think I electrocuted his cat. She was prowling around the back and playing with wires and so on, and I heard a fizzle, and she just dropped.

I rang his girlfriend and explained the whole thing, and asked her what I should do.

She said "Buy a new stereo".

OK this has nothing to do with the movie, which has been put on hiatus until next Spring. Hopefully between now and then it will get canceled. Until I have more news of movie fail, I'm keeping this thing alive by writing things that happen to me. So if you're checking this for movie stuff only, skip anything with "Hiatus" in the headline.

I'm terrified of spiders. If anyone has any suggestions why, don't hold back.

They're getting bigger, too. There was one in the garage this morning ... he looked like he was working out: eight pronounced muscles on eight hairy legs. He was looking up at me, daring me to do something about his presence, daring me to challenge his hegemony in MY GARAGE!

Normally, this would be vacuum time, but he was stuck in an awkward corner around the edge of the roller shutter. This one was smart - he had outflanking maneuvers practiced and emergency boltholes prepared - this could be a drawn out operation. Eventually I decided to squirt some lighter fuel and torch the bastard.

The garage door took a bit of a hit. And the bushes outside. And the neighbor's bushes. And the little house thing they built for their daughter. Now there's a whole thing.

There was no need to involve the police; they have better things to do with their time. Go catch some criminals, you fools! But no. They have a conversation with me. I mention that I'm working on a movie and they laugh. Apparently they get that when they don't get "actor".

"So in other words you're unemployed?"

Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll pay for the kid's house. I'm not a mean person. But this went way too far.

The writer, B_____, is getting more impatient with Jim's complete lack of movement on every detail. I've seen directors and writers get stroppy over studio interference, or being forced to redo certain sections that just don't work when you see them onscreen, but usually it's a matter of sitting down with someone to talk it out, or the money people swoop in and dictate what happens. What I've never seen is someone get so completely blinkered about things that are completely irrelevant.

This is how it goes: B_____ tries to explain something to Jim; Jim doesn't get it; suggests alternative; B_____ correctly demonstrates why said suggestion is retarded; Jim takes this as a personal insult and is now committed to fighting for something he just cooked up off the top of his head five seconds before as though it were a firmly-held conviction; B_____ gets exasperated and asks other people at meeting for help, failing to realise that we're all in the same boat - Jim's in charge. The end is always the same - some stupid idea he cooked up off the top of his head for the sake of arguing with the writer makes its way into the script and we suddenly have to take account of a whole new stupid thing.

Another casting meeting. I wasn't actually in the room, but I was right outside. Jim was talking to a certain up-and-coming actress whose current movie is in the top fifteen of this week's Box Office ticket sales. I don't know what Jim said to her, but she charged out furiously, followed by her agent, about a half hour ago. Jim told me that her agent has blacklisted him for his entire client list. Thankfully, because of Jim's unique recruitment methods, this will not require much damage control on my part.

He claims he is "relieved" because he is now free of the heavy weight of responsibility he felt was on his shoulders to "make her look good". He is also now claiming that he feels she "brought too much" to the role, as audiences would identify with her previous character more than her role in Jim's movie.

He really is full of shit.

Another production meeting. Of course, nothing was decided and no action was taken. The most interesting thing was an attempt at a complaint from the casting director that the audition list seems to be burgeoning at an alarming rate, sometimes the only reference is a first name and an occupation. The example he used was "Miles, Dentist". He asked the (more reasonable than you might think) question of whether this referred to a man called Miles who was a dentist, or a man called Miles who was to audition for the part of a dentist, of which the casting director was not made aware.

The first casting call. The casting director, a very nice guy, and a member of the CSA, has been putting up with Jim's crap for two days now. Jim has been pretty much pulling strings left, right and center with the promise of "a part in the movie". This means that the first day the call comprised 20% actual talent and 80% waiters, taxi drivers, gardeners, assorted service personnel and pretty young girls. God knows how the casting director managed it, but the only thing to go right so far is that everyone - even Jim's best friend, a real piece of work who has been convicted of sexual assault - has to go through an audition. The casting director deserves a lot of credit for making it look like it was Jim's idea all along. It's the only way to get anything done.

The guy who wrote this movie, B_____, is like a pop culture machine. He looks like a cross between a lumberjack and a hippy, but he knows EVERYTHING. He's seen all the zombie movies, read all the comics, and he knows the most trivial details about how they were made. I don't know where he finds the time to be so well-informed about these things. His script is pretty sharp, funny without being stupid and zips along without much dead time. As you can tell, I like the guy. He doesn't like me at all, though, because part of my job is transmitting information to him from Jim, information that I have to pretend makes sense, or seems like a good idea. If I explained to B_____ how I really feel, it might get back to the Politburo and I'd be fired. I need this job. It's a real shame because I honestly think I would like this guy if we weren't stuck on this stupid project with a moron for a director.

I wasn't in the room for the first script meeting, but I arrived just in time to hear Jim shouting. It was like that scene from Der Untergang that everyone keeps putting funny subtitles on - a small group of worried people waiting for the news from the fascist dictator. When they came out, B_____ threw me a look which made me realize that we could never be friends.

What You Need to Know

We're looking at an indoor hospital-type thing for a sequence in the middle of the movie. He thinks he can use his office block. He wants to buy out the temp. offices on the floor above him so he can just bounce between floors between his real job and this movie. He started off amicable enough, but now he's getting irritated by little things. His temper gets shorter as everything takes longer than expected. He shouted at some guy at the coffee machine today who's not even a part of the movie. This is another shot I took on my mobile phone:




The director of photography (an old Polish guy who REALLY knows what he's talking about) doesn't like these offices. He reckons the light is all wrong, there's not enough room to mount the equipment he wants, and the ceilings are too low. According to J____, it will look like it was filmed in a small dark box, which is the opposite of the cold, clinical openness Jim says he's looking for. It doesn't look that bad to me - I think when the set designers are through with it, it should be fine, but I'd take J____'s word over Jim's in his particular area of expertise.