The following are excerpts from the diary kept by director Craig Griffith during the initial shoot of THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. Further sections will be made available very soon. DAY 1: The crew has settled in and we are all staying in the same room on camp beds with sleeping bags. It's more like boy scouts than a film shoot. There is a good atmosphere and everyone is excited about the shoot. It's a small crew consisting of myself (the director), Chris Britton (the DoP), Nick Rosier (art direction/sound) and Dom Edwards and Emmanuel Nana (our runners, grips, cooks and any other jobs that need doing). In addition our lead actor Paul McCarthy has also arrived and is also bedding down with us in what we are now calling the LIVING room. This is next to the equipment room, a large dinning hall with a windowed ceiling and a large table in the centre. This has quickly been dubbed The Shining room, as it resembles the hotel out of Kubrick's film. Its not that hard to imagine Jack stalking through the room with his bloodied axe grinning maniacally followed by a man with a steadi-cam. Our first scenes of THE ARTIST finding the mirror outside his door have been shot easily enough and we are about to move up to the old attics for the night where we shall shoot the scenes introducing THE ARTIST. This is going to be great fun. DAY 2: The filming up in the attic went well last night although it was very cold. However this is good as it gives our actor a breath when he speaks. During the scene the soundman Nick kept complaining that he could hear a banging down stairs through the headphones but no one else could in the room. I listened back and I could hear a slight thud but its nothing to worry about as its only slight and I can cover it up in postproduction. It was quite a windy night and one of the doors down stairs must have been slamming in the draft. I sent Dom down to check it out but he couldn't find anything. Spirits are still high which isn't bad for the second day (we seem to be averaging about 18 hours a day so far with about 4 hours sleep) and we are all looking forward to tonight's shoot. It's starting to get a bit stormy again outside. DAY 3: 6.15pm: Back in the attic again. We are starting a very big scene tonight. It's the scene where THE FRIEND (Jonathan) first enters the studio. Its something like fifty set ups so I doubt it'll be an early night for anyone tonight. Its beginning to feel like my home with all the time I'm spending in here, albeit a cold one. It's not just cold up here but really freezing, which is a little odd as the rest of the house isn't so bad. In fact even the corridor outside is reasonably warm in comparison. I think that there must be a strong draft in here as every once in a while one of us gets the shivers. Still tomorrow we'll all wrap up a bit warmer I think. The last thing I want is anyone going down with a cold. 3.10am: Still having problems with the sound. Nick says that he can hear someone talking down stairs or in the next room. As the night gets later this is starting to annoy me so we've got everyone upstairs now into our little attic room so that we could keep an eye on them. However Nick reckons that he can still hear someone talking. I've had a listen but I could not hear anything. A bit weird. I think Nick's on the wind up as we've all been telling each other ghost stories for the past three days. DAY 4: DAY 5: 3.30am: It's been another tired day. The loose window up stairs didn't stop all night. Even Dom couldn't sleep through it last night, which is pretty amazing considering that Dom could probably sleep through a nuclear war. Dom and Manny went upstairs at one point to find out which window it was but they couldn't find it. Between the banging window and Dom's snoring I'm surprised we're getting any sleep at all. Dom's snoring has got so bad that we have taken to lifting up the sofa that he is sleeping on and resting it on a chair at one end so that he is sleeping at an angle. Over the past few nights we have tried different things such as wheeling the sofa out into the corridor and covering him with pillows but the chair under one end is definitely the best result so far. DAY 6: For example, either someone on the crew is messing about or things are moving by themselves. I keep misplacing things such as pens, notes and my storyboard book. In fact even props seem to be moving by themselves. Someone will put something down and then they can't find it. Eventually the object turns up in another room or back down stairs. Whoever it is I wish that they'd stop doing it because it's a real nightmare trying to keep track of things when all my notes keep disappearing halfway through a scene. Still I suppose that's the problem with having a crew full of practical jokers. But what can you do? You can't have a go at people when they're working the long hours that we're working especially when they're working on a deferred payment. Besides a happy crew work harder than a pissed-off one. It's not that I mind everyone having a laugh, making films should be fun, it's just that it means that everything's taking longer than it should. Still if no one minds working longer hours then it's not a problem really as long as we get everything done. 7.00pm: Things have definitely been getting a little stranger as the day has worn on. Earlier Chris had to go up to the attic on his own to get a piece of equipment. When he entered the room all the candles were alight. This may not seem that strange but as no one has been in the attic since last night there is no way that they would still be burning. In fact they were quite low when we left them and they would have definitely burnt down to the quick by now if they had been burning all night long. Again I think one of the crew is on the wind up but poor Chris was a bit freaked. 5.05am: Once again I can't sleep thanks to the banging from the window upstairs. It seems to be getting louder but I guess that's because we're more aware of it now that we're exhausted. I don't understand it at all now that the storms have passed; it's a calm night outside. I suppose there must be a draft from somewhere but I wish it would stop. It's been a long day and I could really do with some sleep. DAY 7: To be honest I am beginning to feel like there is something here in the house. Maybe not ghosts or spirits or whatever you want to call them. But there's something not right here and I can't put my finger on it. Oh God listen to me I'm beginning to sound like a dodgy Stephen King novel or something. What ever it is this house is definitely getting to all of us. I should be writing about the experience of making my first feature film and instead I'm writing about spooks and things that go bump in the night. But when you're here in this house it's hard not to. The bathroom is a bit strange. It constantly feels like someone is stood behind you. Its always very cold in there and I've found myself talking out loud to who ever it is to make myself feel better. It's as if the crew is going through some very traumatic personal issues. Every one is on edge and is spooked one way or another. As Sherlock Holmes would say strange things are afoot. When I first came to this house I was very sceptical about ghosts and spirits but now I'm not so sure. I'm a bit confused about how I feel. One minute I'm absolutely sure that there is nothing here and then the next something weird happens. I can't explain it. It feels like they don't want us here. We've taken to calling the ghosts, or what ever it is, 'They'. Funny how the human mind tries to personalise something that it doesn't understand or is afraid of, as if calling ghosts 'They' will make them any less frightening should we actually see one. Another thing that I have noticed is in the corridor that leads from The Shining room to the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the attic. There are many rooms along this corridor and I have made a point of closing all of these doors and turning off all the lights to save the electric bill. (When you've got a budget the size of a pea you become very aware of the little things). However I have noticed that every time we come down from the attic all the doors are open and all the lights are on. I didn't think much of it at first but then Mike told me that he noticed it as well. DAY 8: 6.30pm: We had a power cut last night while we were filming in the attic…or at least we thought it was. Paul, Chris and myself were in the attic alone at about 3am, setting up the last shot of the night. Just as we were about to turn over the camera all the lights went out. Although it was almost a full moon outside it was so dark in the room that we could not even see each other. At first we thought it was the boys down stairs playing about with the switches but as the lights were on two separate power supplies they would have had to co-ordinated the black out pretty well without us knowing. This would take quite a bit of organising as one switch was down stairs and the other upstairs. We shouted down the hall at them to put the lights back on but nothing happened. It was then that we began to think that it must be a power cut. Chris looked out the window but the lights in Mike's cottage across from the house were still on. Suddenly the lights flicked back on and we thought it must definitely be the boys messing about. But then the lights flickered and went straight back out again. We were all a little spooked but we remained calm. The lights in Mike's cottage were still on so it definitely wasn't a power cut; it must be Dom and Manny on the wind up. We sat there for about ten minutes in the pitch black waiting for the boys to get bored and turn the lights back on. They didn't. I started to get very cold and I felt as if a cold hand had been placed on the back of my head and was twisting around. I shivered and we all decided that it would be a good idea to find out what was going on. We managed to make our way along the dark corridor to the stairs that lead down to the main house. We made our way down to the Shining room and as we stepped into it all of the lights came back on. This really freaked me out. It was the last thing any of us were expecting. We went into the Living room to find both Dom and Manny asleep snoring away. I decided to call it a night and we turned off the upstairs lights and locked up the house as usual. As sceptical as I am I couldn't help but feel that whatever is in the attic wanted us out. This is by far the strangest and weirdest thing to happen to me on the shoot but it seems as if something strange has happened to each of us at one point or another. I'm now beginning to think that this isn't the perfect location for the film after all. DAY 9: 4.30pm: A new runner also called Manny has arrived. How weird is that, two runners with the same nickname on the same shoot arriving on the same day that the other one leaves? Amongst everything else weird going on at the moment it seems perfectly normal. Just one of life's little coincidences. It's interesting to watch his reaction to the house. For the first hour or so he seemed unaffected by it. But by nightfall he was just as spooked as the rest of us. Now this could be one of two things. Either we have spooked him with our ravings of ghosts and weird happenings or…the oppressive atmosphere in the house has increased. At the moment I can't see how we can carry on the shoot the way everyone feels. There are only four of us left now and everyone is spooked. 4.45am: The final straw has happened. We have been filming the sequence of The Artist exploring the spooky old attic in search of strange noises that he has been hearing. The filming was going well enough but it was extremely cold. A lot colder than normal. In fact there was a thin layer of ice on the corridor windows. It was spooky enough in the corridor but to make it worst we were only filming by candle light which was being held by our actor Paul as he made his way along the dark corridor. Everything seemed okay but then we started to hear strange banging noises. At first we thought it must've been the loose window so we ignored it but as the filming progressed the banging got louder and seemed to come from different rooms. To say that we were all a little freaked is an understatement. I joked that if it was ghosts then they were going to do more than just bang about in rooms. Funnily enough this didn't ease anyone's mood. In fact everyone became even more tense. However still not completely convinced we carried on unperturbed by the occasional bang. However this was about to change, as we were about to shoot our last shot of the night (weird that it's the last shot again). Paul was stood alone next to the stairway down and we were along the opposite end of the corridor. Suddenly Paul shouted out that he had just seen someone coming up the stairs, past him and down the corridor towards us. As it was pitch black we couldn't see a thing. I thought he was winding us up and shouted at him to stop wasting time. As I did so there suddenly came a loud thumping on the roof above us. It sounded as if someone was outside on the roof banging as hard as they could on the tiles. The sound then seemed to move down into the corridor as if who ever it was had moved down into the room next to us and was now banging on the wall right by us. Suddenly the lights started to flash on and off which considering that they weren't plugged in was a bit too much for my frightened little mind. It was at this point that we all panicked and ran for the stairs. As soon as we reached the bottom of the stairs the banging stopped. We stood there for several moments in silence not sure what to do, absolutely terrified. All I could think off was how much I wanted to be in my own bed back home next to my girlfriend Claire. Tucked up nice and safe. It's at times like these that you wonder if it wouldn't be better to have a normal job with normal hours. To be honest I didn't know what was happening. I still don't and I can't begin to imagine what it's all about. All I know is that its time to go. I can't see how any of us are going to get any sleep tonight. All I can think of is leaving this house. DAY 10: |