Above is the clapperboard at the end of day 1. Somehow it's reassuring that, even when all the other camera stuff is high end digital, we still need one of these totally traditional objects. Last night the digital rushes were more
So... here we go. 05.05: leaving the house to catch the first tube heading north on the Northern Line. At least it's not raining. 07:35: First AD Kristian Dench gathers everyone for some brief house-keeping notes, including the fire alarm procedures - more
Marc Karlin was a major filmmaker and a good man. He was a colleague and we worked together on two of his films for television. I appreciated his imaginative and rigorously intellectual yet poetic approach to working with images and more
The last weekend. On Monday - Shakespeare's birthday, in case you hadn't noticed - we turn over on our BBC film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Julius Caesar. Director Greg Doran finished the fourth week of rehearsals on Friday with more
Tuesday sees the release (in the States only) of a DVD and Blu-ray for which, it is only slightly hyperbolic to say, I have been waiting for all my life. The great and good Criterion Collection have collated more
If it's Monday, it must mean there's a week to go. Seven days from now we start shooting Julius Caesar. At lunchtime, with our First AD Kristian Dench, I head up the Northern Line to the location. As I have indicated more
Yes, I know there are only 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare (not counting those in the plays). But for our new project we have also filmed a reading by a very distinguished actor of the Dedication that was included in more
The New York Times online is developing a smart interactive format for the discussion of big cultural events. You can get a good sense of their approach from Circling the 'Ring'. Earlier this month The Metropolitan Opera started more
In case you hadn't noticed, the Shakespeare spring kicks off tonight. First up is a cluster of programmes on Sky Arts - a goodly number of them, including Being Shakespeare, produced by Illuminations. Then there is the big more
There's something slightly unreal about these final couple of days before we start work at the location for Julius Caesar. If all goes well, cleaning and prepping the site starts tomorrow, and then the art department will get going on more