Tuesday 15 June
It's the last week of pre-production and Monday was a public holiday, so a lot of ends to tie up before we leave for Newcastle on Friday. 60 in the crew - it's exciting to see them all coming together.

Wednesday 16 June
Art Department meeting to discuss among many other more weighty subjects, how to strengthen the toilet seats so the Drew Kaluski (Colin) can tap dance on them without breakage!

Thursday 17 June
We held our breath today when Sam Worthington who plays Mitch, was clocked on the nose during rehearsal by the actor playing Huey. Although somewhat stunned, after getting Xrays, he returned to rehearsal. We learned on Friday that he'd broken his nose but constant applications of ice did the trick and the slight swelling went down.

Friday 18 June
Arrived in Newcastle on Friday night. Everybody tired, but excited. Concierge at the hotel most interested that we are making a film and volunteered his services as an extra. Everybody in Newcastle is very friendly and excited about the film.

Saturday 19 June - Shoot Day 1
Dein's Dad, Des Perry made a great Newcastle supporter at the footy game scene - while complaining about water instead of beer in his can! Chris Horsey, who plays Angus, also came along to watch the scene, even though he was not called. Still more cast connections, Taylor Anthony, who is playing the little girl, turned out to be Chris Horsey's niece! Excitement on set on the first day of shoot when Tony Butterfield, captain of the Newcastle Knights, arrived as supporter for rugby league game. Butterfield has agreed to play a cameo role in the picture. See if you can spot him! It was our DOP (Director of Photography), Steve Mason's birthday today, so we had drinks and a birthday cake for him and to celebrate the successful conclusion of the first day's shoot.

Monday 21 June
We needed a beautiful sunny day for Sean (Adam Garcia) and Linda's(Sophie Lee) "getting to know " scene and we got it - the perfect, cloudless sunny day. On location at the sand dunes and on the beach at Stockton, about 30kms from Newcastle. Our location was only accessible by 4 wheel drive, so great care had to taken not to make footprints or wheel marks in the sand so that our beach would appear totally deserted. Our film is being shot in the winter so the poor cast got very cold frolicking in the icy water for hours on end. The Wardrobe Department had numerous changes of jeans and hot bowls of water were available to warm Sophie's feet. This was the shortest day of the year, so the crew had to work very fast to finish the shoot before we lost light.

Tuesday 22 June
The start of four days on lacation at BHP, who have assisted us greatly with our shoot. First shooting day for William Zappa, who is playing Walter the tap teacher and tool shop manager. Tricky scheduling as Bill is also playing the lead in David William's play Corporate Vibes in Newcastle at night. We had BHP workers as extras in some sequences particularly the scenes that called for specialist skills working certain pieces of heavy machinery. Bad weather stopped our exterior filming. A delay which meant we went to new indoor location

Wednesday 23 June
The day started with showers but soon driving rain sheeted down - throwing our schedule into chaos. Instead of the exterior scenes planned, we had to move inside. Two funny stories from the set - Bruce Venables, who plays Williams, the steel works manager, shot the scene in which he has to tell the steel workers of the impending closure of the steel works. So convincing was he, that extras from BHP momentarily believed that he was an "actual". Meanwhile, life mirrored art when another of our steel worker extras, who had performed in our Swan Lake sequence, was seen on a television news story by his mates and soundly ribbed - almost an exact replica of the action in the film.

Thursday 24 June
Today brought its dramas and a renewed understanding of the stringent safety code enforced at the steel works. Emissions from one of the blast furnaces caused severe nausea in one member of the crew who had to go home sick. However he swiftly recovered and was back with us next day.

Friday 25 June
BHP is providing an excellent location for our fictional steel works, which has been named NCS (Newcastle Steel). Dein had always wanted to use BHP as one of his locations because of the fantastic visual potential and because our two leads are steel workers and the story takes place largely in a steel works.

An Extra's perspective
Read what Danny an extra at BHP thought.