Gareth Harrison

After six months of us moving into our office, we’ve finally (almost) finished sorting it! I say ‘almost’ because we’ve still got a few little jobs to sort with the edit suite like some internal skirting boards, and some shelves that need putting up, but now we’ve got some pictures up on the wall, it feels like a really nice place to work in.

Also, we’ve just launched the proper version of our website – www.doodledomotion.co.uk. There’d just been a single page there before now, but I think the new one looks great. Our biggest challenge with it is to make sure we find the time to update the blog, and keep our portfolio up-to-date! Also, due to some music and copyright restrictions, we can’t put examples of everything we do up there, but hopefully we’ll be able to get a good range of the kind of stuff we do.

Work’s been a little bit less hectic over the last few weeks, though there’s enough to keep us occupied. Drama Trails really took its toll – I ended up doing 63 days in a row which wasn’t ideal! Not had a chance yet to have a proper break, but it’s been nice to get my weekends back!

A couple of Sundays ago I went down to Reading to catch up with some old uni mates – Ali, George, Hazel, and Helen & her new blokey! It was really nice day (although the train journey down was a bit of a rubbish one – an hour late to start with, then decided to terminate at Birmingham rather than Reading!)

We went for a pub lunch, then for a nice walk alongside the canal, and it was a really sunny day which definitely helped! Then in the evening I went to Bristol to kip over at Ali’s house, then back up to Stockport on a very overcrowded train on the Monday. You can check out the photos from the day here.

Well my excuse for not having updated this blog since February is that I’ve just been too busy with work! And it’s pretty true to be honest! I’ve not had a day off for over six weeks now and I’m feeling pretty knackered! I’m currently in the middle of doing a load of 3D graphics for a series that starts on ITV3 this Wednesday night at 9pm called Drama Trails. I’m actually really pleased with how our stuff’s all looking in it, but it’s a 10 part series and I’ve still got 5 more episodes worth of graphics to do, so it’ll probably be a few more weeks until I get a day off!

The show’s being made by Tiger Aspect, and we’ve also just completed graphics for another of their programmes – a Blackadder special which is going out on UK Gold in September, so I’ll probably blog about that a bit closer to the transmission date!

I mentioned a while ago that we were going to be moving into an office – well that happened at the end of February, and it’s great have a proper space to work in. It’s not 100% finished yet… we’ve still got to put the finishing touches to the edit suite, but I think me and James have done a pretty good job with it!

The picture here shows mine and James’ desks, which is currently where we spend most of our time. To the right of the bookcase, we’ve got a little seating area, and to the left of the shot is an edit suite that we built ourselves using lots of wood and plasterboard! Check out my photos to see how we did it all!

In my last blog, I announced the birth of my little nephew and niece – Brandon and Chloe. Well they’ve certainly grown a bit since that week! This first picture of me holding both of them was taken as they were about to leave hospital, and they were just 4 days old. You can see how tiny they were by the fact I could hold both of them at once!

They’re now 19 weeks old, and I last saw them a couple of weeks ago when I made a fleeting visit to Tamworth for my mum’s birthday, and they’ve really grown into little people, and are definitely developing their own characters. I don’t know how my sis copes with looking after 2 babies, but she seems to be doing a pretty good job!

(Brandon & Chloe – top: 6 weeks old, bottom left: 11 weeks old, bottom right: 17 weeks old)

Staying on the whole baby thing, James is now a daddy!

Helen gave birth to Jessica Grace on the 4th June, nearly 2 weeks overdue, but if I’m really honest, I was so glad that the baby held on those 10 days, because work was crazy, and we’d have struggled to get it done otherwise!! (sorry Hel!!)

Anyway, James brought Jessica to the office for a visit when she was just a week old, and she’s so cute – though as is the norm with babies, she didn’t do much more than sleep and cry!

I haven’t discussed it with James yet, but as soon as she’s old enough – 18 months should be fine – we’ll be training her up on After Effects to take the workload off us a bit…

It’s been a couple of months since my last post, so I thought I should bring my blog up-to-date with stuff that’s been going on.

The big project we worked on at the end of last year was ‘The Vicar Of Dibley’s Greatest & Top 40 Moments’, made by Tiger Aspect for UK Gold.

We did the titles, interview background graphics and studio backdrops, plus the animated stings to appear before each clip as they counted down – basically anything graphical in the two 90-minute shows! Our work got a really good reaction, and UKTV said the show was one of their highest rating original programmes which was good to hear. And the show was repeated loads over Christmas, so it’s sure to have been seen by a lot of people! And we should have another show from Tiger Aspect to work on from March – this time a series for ITV, so a busy time ahead!

Also before Christmas, I spent a lot of time working with Rob editing the Cannonball 8000 programme. It was a pretty big job because we had to deliver an hour long episode for ITV1 and ITV4, as well as re-cutting it all into 4 half hour episodes to go out on the Extreme channel later this year. There were a lot of late nights, and I was even editing on Christmas Day and Boxing Day!

Then, at the beginning of this month, we had to produce 2 commercials for Channel M which are running on Granada this week. It was a crazy turnaround time, with us doing the recee in between Christmas and New Year, and then we shot one of the commercials in James’ house, and the other one we made using clips from the news programme, with specially recorded pieces-to-cameras from the reporters.

Both the commercials we produced came out really well I think, and Tim did one for music which also looked great – especially in the time we all had! I think they should also be running again in a few months time, so watch out for them if you miss them this week!

The final bit of work news is that we’ve found ourselves an office! It’s in an old converted mill in Stockport, and we’re going to be renting one of the units on the top floor. The plan is to move in sometime next month, and we want to try and build an enclosed edit suite in the space, so we need to try and find time to do that before we move all our kit there!

Other news – I forgot to mention on here before that my sister Vikky (and her husband Damien of course!) are expecting twins! She’s due in March, and when I was down in Tamworth just after New Year, her bump looked pretty big! I think it was a bit of a shock when everyone first found out they were having two babies – it’s going to be a busy time for them when they’re born! Also, James and Helen are expecting a baby this year – in May – so we need to try and make sure we don’t have any major jobs happening when theirs comes along! I’ve offered my services for babysitting, but I’m not sure I’ll have the time with all the work we have! I think we need to make sure James trains the baby up in Avid and After Effects as soon as they’re born!

Wow – I can’t believe so much time has passed since I last blogged on here!

It’s been quite a busy summer – I’ve just got back home after being away working for a couple of weeks down at Soul Survivor. I spent 10 days in the Underground venue doing visuals for the venue, so spent most of the time either down the side of the stage or in our make-shift edit suite! This year I had Tom Steward helping me – it was pretty last minute because both Andy and Kate weren’t able to come this year – but I was really impressed at how quickly he picked it all up, and the stuff he was shooting on stage every night was brilliant.

Some of the video features we did can now be viewed on Youtube so check them out!

So we finished there on Thursday morning, and then I headed up to Bristol to meet up with Ali, and on Friday went with her and some of her friends to Greenbelt.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been to the festival, though obviously I’ve heard lots about it over the years! It’s very different to Soul Survivor – much more of an arts festival – and in some ways I found a lot of stuff really watered down, although there was a lot of passion for environmental issues and the like, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s quite a political event really, and the bands that appear are from a really wide spectrum – from Delirious and Matt Redman to Chas & Dave!! Not sure whether I’d go again, but I’m glad I checked it out.

Work news – me and James are now officially joint directors of doodledo MOTION Ltd which is pretty exciting! We got all the stuff finished for the BBC2 series ‘British Film Forever‘ though it went on a bit longer than we expected – we thought the edit would be finished at the end of July, but James was still having to render graphics whilst I was at Soul Survivor! It was a good job for us to do because it was quite high profile – they even advertised the programme on a big board with some of our graphics on the front of the BBC building on Oxford Road! I think all the stuff we did looked really good when seen in the context of the whole show, and it’s a good job to stick in our portfolio!

We’re now working on some titles and programme graphics for a ‘Vicar of Dibley’ special going out in October on UKTV Gold. It’s basically a showcase of the 40 funniest clips from the series with interviews from the cast and celebrity fans.

We went down to Tiger Aspect in London back in July to meet with the production team, and the meeting went really well, and hopefully we should be able to deliver some really good work. The plan is that we’re going to do background images for each of the interviews, plus animated stings to introduce each of the clips. There’s been talk of us doing some titles as well, but I’m not sure what’s happening with that yet… we’ll probably find out last minute!!

We’ve got some other work lined up as well, so hopefully we can make a real success of the new business. It’s going to be hard work, but I think me and James work really well together, and it’ll be good to focus our efforts in building the brand and expanding what we do. Watch this space!

Oh, and after a lot of phone calls and form filling, I managed to get my money back after the betting incidents… going to be checking my bank statements a lot more regularly from now on!

As per the title really! Although I can’t deny that I really had a great time! It’s just that after getting back at 3am, then grabbing a few hours sleep on the floor, I feel like I should really have gone through all this 10 years ago – though I’m not saying I wouldn’t be up for it again! It came about from going with James to the end-of-year art show at Manchester Met, which had its private viewing on Friday night. I’ve been a couple of times before, and it’s a really good place to get some inspiration, and also to see potential artists who we could maybe get to do some work for us in the future.

So we spent a couple of hours at the show with James’ mum, as well as his aunt and uncle, and then I kind of gatecrashed a family meal at Felicinis on Oxford Road – a really nice Italian restaurant that had just enough English food to ensure I got a good meal!

So after that, we headed over to Greenroom to meet up with some of the other guys who work on the course that James teaches on, then when we got chucked out of there made our way over to Sub Space which was absolutely packed and really hot and sweaty! But the music in there was really funky, and it was just a very good atmosphere, and whereas normally I’d feel a bit out of place being somewhere like that, I totally enjoyed it. I’ve never really got into going out clubbing and stuff – even at uni – but I’m kind of realising that if I’m in the right mind for it, I can actually have a good time.

Also, this weekend saw a programme I’ve recently been working on go out on The History Channel – I’d edited a documentary on the Vulcan bomber which was being featured because of it being the 25th anniversary of the Falklands war. It was quite weird watching it because I edited it to a guide voiceover, and this was a first time I’d seen it in this version, so it did seem like I was watching a different programme! I thought the show turned out well though, and I’m sure it will get repeated many times over the coming months!

Other stuff… I caught up with Jamie a couple of weeks ago when I went for a barbeque at his with Dean and Sean. It was quite an impromptu thing… I’d been round at James’ doing some work when he gave me a call to see if I was doing anything, so I went straight to his from there, because unsurprisingly I didn’t have any other plans! The food was slightly charred, but it was okay and filled me up! I hadn’t seen Jamie for quite a while – he’s got back into his climbing again which means he’s away from Manchester a lot more. It’s great for him ‘cos he’s really into it, but for me it’s a bit of a shame because I’d enjoyed the couple of times we’d been out riding together and was hoping to be able to do a lot more of it, but I know it’s going to be really difficult to find any time that we can. My bike’s been sitting idle since February, and there’s no-one else I can really go with, and I’m not overly keen on just going out riding on my own.

Finally, I mentioned in a earlier blog about some potentially exciting developments work-wise. Well, there’s still a lot to be finalised, but it looks like things are moving forward. I’ll post more information about it when things are more definite. But in the meantime, we’re currently busy working on titles and stings for a 7-part BBC2 documentary which is going out on Saturday nights from July. It’s probably the biggest job we’ve worked on to be honest, but hopefully it’s a good sign of things to come!

We’re into the final stages of our manic Preview-filming-fortnight! Did three shoots for the next DVD last week (with two in London), yesterday we shot an interview here in Manchester, and then me and James set off for Liverpool this morning at 7am to film some stuff for Liverpool Council’s Sportslinx. It was an incredibly packed schedule with 11 interviews plus shooting various activities!! We didn’t get a chance to break for lunch until about 5 o’clock(!) and we got back home tonight at about eight!

So I’ve just watched this week’s Apprentice (there really are some horrible people in that!!), and now I’m packing some clothes because we’re off to London tonight to do some more Preview filming tomorrow and Friday. We were going to originally leave really early tomorrow morning, but James suggested we drive down halfway tonight, so we’re staying in a Travel Inn at Watford Gap, so we’ll only have about 80 miles to drive in the morning, and hopefully it means we’ll be a bit more awake and less arsey by the end of the day!!

Have chatted more with James about future ideas with regard to the work we both do together, and it looks like there might be some good developments ahead. Not going to go into much detail yet, but I’m quite excited about and I’m really hoping it all works out.

Other news – I found out this evening that I’ve got a pair of tickets to Radio 1′s Big Weekend next Saturday! I applied online and didn’t really expect to get any, but out of the 500,000 who applied, I was one of the 8,875 who got tickets for the Saturday!! The bands there that day include Razorlight, Kasabian, Scissor Sisters, The Fratellis, The Fray, Natasha Bedingfield and Groove Armada! I definitely want to go, but I just need to find someone to come with me because I don’t fancy going on my own really.

Been pretty busy the last few weeks – last week I had a meeting with some guys from Liverpool council about some work that me and James should hopefully be doing for them soon, and also had a lot to do on trying to get the latest Preview DVD finished (am pretty close now, and managed to get the bits they needed for New York in time!)

Also, on Saturday I was asked to film thebandwithnoname’s launch for their new album and it was a really good gig. I listened properly to their new stuff on my iPod during the Reach weekend, and it really is an excellent album. Anyway, for the gig I was down at the front of the stage, and we also had a fixed camera at the back of the venue so hopefully I should be able to produce a decent edit of it… I just need to try and find some time to do it now!

Obviously one of the reasons that it’s been a bit busier these last two weeks is that James & Helen are on holiday in Australia at the moment so it’s been a bit more intense… and I’m not at all jealous that they’re on such an amazing holiday at the moment! Though I heard from James by email yesterday and they had their campervan broken into this week, and had a few bits and pieces stolen, including his iPod and his phone, so that’s not great. Hopefully the rest of their time out there will be amazing and will wipe out the crap stuff!

Quite a bit’s happened in the last few weeks, so I thought I’d better do a quick catch up and write about some of them… I’m manically busy with Preview stuff at the moment – got to try and get it all done for Monday because they need it for a presentation in New York, so that should be fun!

In my last post I mentioned that I had a ‘possibly interesting weekend ahead’… well I ended up in Wales at Cefn Lea for the Reach weekend away, which I suppose was interesting in a way! The last time I went on it was back in 2004, and there were quite a few people there who I hadn’t seen for ages, which was quite strange, but I guess in a way, I am glad I went on it, though it was pretty tough at times. I’m not sure what I was really expecting from it all, but maybe that’s something I need to reflect on over the coming weeks.

One cool thing about the weekend was that I managed to catch up with Russ (from uni and who I used to share a house with in Birmingham) on the Saturday night – he lives a few miles from Cefn Lea so popped over to say ‘hello’. We had a really good chat, and I can’t believe it’s about 3 years since we last met!

I may write some more about the Reach stuff in the future because I know I’ve been a bit vague – (or I may not!) – but I think I’ll leave it there or the moment, except to say that I’ve put the photos that I took here.

Then last Friday, I met up with Jamie who just wanted to get out of the city for the evening so we planned to go for a walk in the evening up by Kinder reservoir in Hayfield. But we got stuck in traffic going into Glossop and by the time we parked up the car to walk up to the reservoir it was already pitch black! We’d taken torches because we’d expected it to get dark whilst we were walking, but I wasn’t expecting there to be no light from the start! We did an hour walk, up to Kinder reservoir, where we could see a big house lit up on Kinder Scout (Jamie reckoned they were just showing off ‘cos they’d really gone over the top with the floodlights!), then we headed off west over some moorland to get ourselves heading back towards the village. It was great actually – being out in the middle of no-where (without even a phone signal!) and seeing the countryside only lit by the moon and stars was cool.

We made our way back down towards the village, and the original plan was to get a meal in the pub there, but they’d just stopped serving food which was a bit annoying! So we grabbed a pint and crisps before heading back here for takeaway (which was a bit grim – Jamie’s kebab was particularly rough!) Had a great night though – I’d love to do more stuff like that… it can get so boring just working all the time – although I usually end up feeling knackered after going anywhere with Jamie!! He’s much more active than me!

And finally, last weekend was both James’ and Helen’s birthdays, and I went along to a pub meal they arranged on Sunday afternoon in Didsbury. The plan changed twice because it’s quite difficult to find somewhere to eat for so many on a Sunday lunchtime! But we ended up at the Old Cock Inn and it was actually a pretty nice pub – I always had the impression that it was a bit of a smoky old-man’s pub, but I think they must have done it up recently, because I’d definitely go there again.

There were about 15 of us there altogether, and again it was nice spending time with some of the guys I don’t see all that often really. I took some photos on my phone and they’re now here.

Thought I’d better do an update for February considering it’s the last day of the month!

Anyway, I’ve been really busy with work, and a lot of my time has been taken up with working on ‘The Soul Shutter‘ (notice there’s a ‘The‘ there now… I only discovered that after doing the opening titles!) I think I’ve now finished with all the CG work – there’s a meeting that Hamish and Rob are going to on Thursday to get feedback, but to be honest, I don’t really have any more time to work on it, and I’ve already put hours more work into it than I originally thought I’d have to. It’s fine because it does look really good, but they’re getting a really good deal!

Went for another bike ride with Jamie on Sunday afternoon which was good. We rode along the Longdendale Trail which is a route that goes runs alongside 5 reservoirs and follows the old Manchester to Sheffield railway line, and in all we did 14 miles there and back! I really enjoy going out on the bike, though I need to get some proper cycling shorts to wear under my trackie bottoms because I got quite sore from the saddle! It’s cool spending time with Jamie as well ‘cos we don’t get to catch up that often.

At the beginning of February, me and James went down to London for a couple of days to attend this year’s Video Forum event which was really good. Got to go to a few good production seminars, and saw loads of kit I’d like to buy! Did actually spend a bit of cash buying a better head for my tripod and a remote zoom unit for my camera which should be useful.

We stayed in a Travelodge in the city centre, and the room wasn’t the greatest! It had a double and single bed with probably the worst mattresses in the world (I went for the single because it seemed slightly better!), only 3 of the 5 lightbulbs worked, and the walls and ceiling were covered in Artex which game the room a distinctly 70s feel! In the evening we went out for a meal at a restaurant in Kings Cross, and I had my first lager (a couple of bottles of Peroni on James’ recommendation), and it was very good! It’s kind of weird because obviously I’ve never really drank alcohol, but this year I’ve decided to start to do so (responsibly of course!)… my reasons for not drinking before have always been about not wanting to lose control, but I came to the conclusion that at end of the day, whether I get myself into that situation is of my own making, and by having a drink every so often doesn’t mean that I have to give up any control of myself! Though the next night we met up for a meal with Cathy and Frank and I had a pint and a coffee with a double Baileys in it(!) so it may look as though I’ve become a hardened drinker all of the sudden, but I was able to still walk in a straight line afterwards!!

I’ve been really busy so far this year! This last ten days has seen me working in the capital for four of them, and then the rest of the time I’ve been working on stuff here in Manchester. Last Thurdsay I went down with James to London to do shoot some interviews for Preview, and we drove back on Friday night after negotiating the mad traffic!

Then after my bike ride with Jamie on the Saturday, I spent the rest of the weekend working on with various other jobs that have deadlines looming, before getting up at 4.30am on Monday morning to drive back down to London for more Preview filming. James came down later in the afternoon (he had to go to a meeting in the morning, so got the train down) and we spent an ‘exciting’ evening in the Travelodge (which has to be said aren’t the most luxurious of hotels!) The Holiday Inn that we stayed in on the Thursday was really nice, but this one was a little bit shabby, and the two single beds were so close together, it was pretty much like a double bed but with 2 matresses! It’s a good job we know each other pretty well!

Tuesday morning we drove over to Reading to film an interview with the world’s first cyborg! He was a really interesting guy actually – he’s a professor who’s experimented with having a microchip inserted into his arm and connected to his brain so that he could control stuff remotely, and also communicate ‘telepathically’! Weird stuff, but he’s convinced it’s all going to happen in the not-too-distant future!

Another day’s filming in Wednesday – this time in Manchester – but since we didn’t get back until 11.30pm the night before, I found it a pretty tiring day. Then the rest of this week, I’ve been editing stuff for the new DVD from thebandwithnoname. It comes out next month, and the master is being driven down to Milton Keynes tomorrow afternoon, and I’ve still got quite a lot of stuff to do for it!! I’m just rendering some stuff at the moment, which is why I’m writing my blog now, but I have a feeling there might not be too much sleep happening tonight! I still haven’t actually taken any proper time off since I went freelance (apart from a few days at Christmas) and I’m feeling like I could really do with a break! Can’t see that happening in the near future to be honest, and the thought of me going off somewhere on my own really doesn’t appeal to me.

Just got back from a nice meal at Jamie’s and I have to say that tonight I’ve seen probably the worst film ever! Well, 51 minutes of it because that’s all we could take!! It was Miami Vice, with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, and it was dire! Bad script, bad dialogue, no character development… basically just shots of fast cars and speedboats!! Total rubbish – that’s time I’m never going to get back!! Apart from that though, it was really nice spending the evening with Jamie and Dean, and we ended up watching a DVD of Victoria Wood instead!!

Anyway, all this weekend I’ve been over at some mills in Compstall on the set of a short film called ‘Soul Shutter’, starring Georgia Taylor (who used to be in Coronation Street and has done some other big dramas since). It’s being produced by Hamish and Rob, and they’ve managed to rope in a load of people to give their skills for free to get it made. Somehow, I’ve been persuaded to do all the computer graphics stuff for it, and having been there all weekend directing the CG sequences, I’ve realised that it’s going to be a lot more work than I’d originally been led to believe!!

There’s a lot of action that takes place within photographs, so a lot of it was shot on a totally white set, and I’m going to have to key in loads of effects, as well as also doing moving images in photos on a wall, a bit like you see in the Harry Potter films… only with the budget being a few million quid lower!! Was a really good experience though, and I hope I can make it look expensive! I’ve got a load of photos from my phone of the shoot here.

On Friday evening I got a call from Jamie seeing if I was up to anything because there was a group heading off to do some bridgeswinging! I went with them a few years ago so I knew that there was no way I’d do it, but I said I could bring my Z1 and film them throwing themselves off the side of the incredibly high bridge! It was really cool and I got some nice shots of people leaping, though obviously because it was dark and my light can only really illuminate short distances you don’ really get a feel of the whole action. I’ll probably try and cut something together and maybe stick it up on Youtube or something.

I kind of wish I could summon up the courage to do it, but the thought of jumping into darkness really doesn’t appeal to me! Not convinced either that it would make the slightest bit of difference if I was able to see where I was jumping but maybe I should add it to my list of things to do before I die… just as long as I don’t die doing it!

Today’s blog entry is being brought to you from Bristol! I’m down at Ali’s for the weekend because she had a party last night which I came to… it was kind of to celebrate Christmas, to welcome her two new housemates Kate and Julie, and to be a get-together before she heads off to do some volunteer work in a Christian school in Lebanon in the new year (obviously the situation isn’t the greatest out in the Middle East at the moment, but apparently where she’s supposed to be going is quite a way from Beirut, off in the mountains!)

I got here about 5.30, and because I was a couple of hours early, I had the pleasure of helping to set everything up! We put up 2 gazebos in the garden, and decorated them with fairy lights and genuine Egyptian lanterns! I made a slight effort to look Christmassy… I had planned to wear a santa hat, but I couldn’t find the one I used to have, so just attached some tinsel to my jeans and shoes!

The only other person I knew here was Helen who was at uni a the same time as me and Ali, and she was here with her boyfriend Pete (boyfriend/girlfriend seem such odd words to use when you’re our age!) and he was a really nice guy. Spent a lot of the night chatting to both of them which was cool, and then they popped in this morning before heading off to Cornwall for a week’s holiday. I’m not jealous that they’ve got a relaxing week ahead of them!!

I’ve been out pretty much every night this week! After the Cannonball night on Tuesday, Wednesday night saw me head up just north of Bolton to watch a DVD with John Cieszynski, and it was a nice chilled out night. We grabbed some chips and just vegged out in front of Mission Impossible III, which I’d seen at the cinema but had kind of forgotten exactly what happened in it!

A film though that I have seen twice in the last couple of weeks (so therefore could remember most of the plot!) is Casino Royale. I went to see it the other week with Jamie, Sean and Selina, but Sarah hadn’t been to see it, and since everyone else already had, I said I’d go with her and watch it again!

We went to the Odeon in town, and I’d suggested we try out the posh seats in ‘The Gallery’ – which I’d never tried before but was keen to give it a go… and it was really cool!! You get up there and you’re welcomed into a bar where you can have free popcorn, nachos, chocolates and soft drinks (though technically you’ve paid for it with your more expensive tickets! ) There was even a little grand piano in there(!), and you can also buy drinks at the bar and take them in with you when you watch the film – which I didn’t do because I was driving, but it meant Sa could get herself a nice glass of red wine!

And then into the cinema itself… basically it’s like a balcony over the main cinema, with just four rows of seats – but these aren’t your normal cinema-style seats. They’re kind of blocked off into pairs, with a little arm-rest table either side, and they’re much bigger and more comfortable than regular ones, so we could just kick off our shoes and slouch in the seats with our feet up on the ones in front (which we probably weren’t supposed to do, but hey! ) And I didn’t mind watching the film again because it is really good, and it was nice to spend the evening with such good company!

So, it was a really good experience and one I’d definitely like to do again – just need to find another good film!

Well almost… I’ve got a job in the morning but I’ll forget about that for now!

I’ve just got back from the Sports Bar in Manchester where there was a big gathering to watch the Cannonball documentary go out on ITV1 tonight. The sound in there was really crap so it was hard to hear a lot of the speech in it (although I now know it all word-for-word!), but everyone really seemed to enjoy it. For some bizarre reason I got a bit nervous as we were waiting for the news to finish, and when it finally started I was quite relieved that we’d finally got it to air! I know I’m always over-critical of my work, and there were things that I could see that I probably would have liked to change a bit, but maybe I need to chill out a bit more and accept compliments from people… something I really struggle with to be honest.

James arrived for the last 20 minutes of the show which was cool (I didn’t think he’d be able to make it because he’d had a few late nights and didn’t want to disturb Helen when he got home, but he came straight from a Sheffield Wednesday match so would have got in late anyway!!) He did the title sequence for the programme, and I think he’s done an amazing job on them. I was originally supposed to be doing it, and had laid out the shots to the music, but realised I wouldn’t have time to do a decent job on them, so I basically sub-contracted them to James! And what he did with them was loads better than I would have done – he’s really hot with Flash animation and had used that to create some retro animated backgrounds. I’m so glad that I’m doing more and more work with James because he’s incredibly talented, and I think we make a good team because we seem to compliment each other with our skills, and I reckon we could do some really great stuff together. Anyway, that’s enough of the back-slapping – obviously a bit tired and emotional! It was a good evening, and Rob was really pleased with the final programme… I’m looking forward to hopefully working on more of his shows in the future.

One other event from today… me and James had kind of arranged to go swimming this morning, but I was working pretty late last night, so when James texted me at nine this morning to see if I still wanted to go, it was the message tone that actually woke me up! Anyway, I decided that I should still go because I really want to kick-start my fitness stuff again, and met James there just after half-past.

The swim was pretty tough-going… it’s been quite a few weeks since I’ve been and I found it really tiring on my arms this morning. We did some time in the pool, and then spent about 10 minutes in a hotter than usual jacuzzi before heading off to the showers. We’d been in there a couple of minutes just talking about work stuff when suddenly I interrupted James to announce that I felt like I was going to be sick! I’d suddenly become really light-headed and I knew that I could chuck up at any time! James didn’t really know what to say… he told me this evening that I’d come out with it so matter-of-factly that it caught him a bit unawares!

Anyway, I then had to quickly struggle to untangle my swimming shorts to get them back on again (they were screwed-up because I’d been washing out the chlorine, and I really didn’t want to be standing over a toilet being sick whilst totally naked! That wouldn’t have been be a pretty sight!!) but I wasn’t sick much in the end, though I did heave quite a bit – the smell of the toilet didn’t really help! Feeling totally okay now – I think it was probably down to not having had anything to eat or drink before going, and also only being awake for half an hour beforehand! Next time I go swimming in the morning, I’m going to make sure I have a slice of toast and juice before I set out!

I’ve been out to buy a copy of this week’s Radio Times, and that’s something I normally only do at Christmas…

…but the reason for purchasing one this particular week is because if you turn to page 94 and look at the ITV1 schedule for Tuesday 28th November, there’s a listing for the Cannonball show – woo!

They’ve actually done a pretty decent write-up in there as well. Rob originally wrote some copy to send out to the listings magazines, but often stuff like that is edited right down to the bare minimum, but I think the show looks quite prominent here. Hopefully it will get lots of viewers because there’s not that much up against it really. We’re going to be watching it at the Sports Bar in town with the rest of the crew, and some of the guys who appear in it. It’ll be quite weird because it feels like I know a lot of them having watched them solidly on it for the last few weeks!

Well I’m in bed typing this post on my new MacBook Pro. I finally succumbed to the world of Apple and ordered the newly released Mac laptop and it finally arrived this morning! I’m trying to get used to using the keyboard and trackpad… it’s quite different to my desktop and I keep hitting extra keys and it makes me look like I can’t spell anything!

Anyway, my other computer is currently rendering the grading for the Cannonball documentary and when all that’s done I can re-import it and then put it onto tape to send off to ITV. It’s really cool working on something that’s going out to such a wide audience. It’s on ITV1 next Tuesday at 11pm, and then will be repeated endlessly on Men & Motors – though to be honest I’m more excited about the national ITV showing!

Other stuff – went to see ‘Casino Royale’ on Saturday night with Jamie, Sean and Selina, and it was really good. It’s only the second Bond film I’ve seen, the other being ‘Die Another Day’, and this was a really good action film, but I think I preferred some of the tongue-in-cheekness of Brosnan’s Bond. Beforehand we went round the Christmas markets in Albert Square, and had a hot pork roll from a stall with a whole cooked pig on the counter! Was a really fun night, and I know I need to do more stuff like this, otherwise I’m going to end up turning into a total recluse who just works all the time!