This was the start of our days in two connecting gardens in Northumberland Road in Barnet. We had to break down the fence between two neighbours and create the sequence with the trampoline and the swingball attack. I think the neighbours became much closer after our crew had trampled all over their grass. Hope they think fondly of it now.

I don’t know why I am so obsessed with back garden chases. I think maybe most of my cut throughs walking to school were through long alleys of fences separating people’s gardens. A lot of those actual cut throughs and alleys were actually in ‘Hot Fuzz’.

I do like a great garden adventure in a movie too; be it ‘Point Break’, ‘Raising Arizona’, ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ or the much underrated ‘The Swimmer’. But weirdly I don’t think I have ever jumped a fence myself. Simon did half of this stunt in the movie where he trampolines over the fence. The first part of the jump was a stuntman, the second part was Simon. It was pretty ballsy. I know our lovely line producer Ronaldo did not want him to do it for fear of a broken Pegg.

Now that’s a photo: Dylan Moran with Reece Shearsmith, Matt Lucas with Nick Frost, Tamsin Greig with Lucy Davis, Martin Freeman with Simon Pegg, Julia Deakin with Penelope Wilton, Jessica Hynes with Kate Ashfield. Also featuring the rain!

Here’s a partly eaten ‘Snakehips’ who is seen through the fence being eaten by lady zombies, paying off the set up line that he’s ‘always surrounded by women’.

This is the great Jane Walker getting her hands dirty. She has done make up on my films since ‘Spaced’.

Here’s me with the lady zombies, demonstrating how to munch on guts.

Here’s the gang and the dopplegang in the garden. Please note that Nick’s double Matt Lucas is wearing a ‘I Heart Pussy’ t-shirt.

There’s so much talent in this one frame. Worth noting that after one line in ‘Shaun’ and two scenes in ‘Fuzz’, we desperately wanted Martin Freeman to be in the whole film in the third and final part, ‘The World’s End’.

I am not sure what I did on my day off ten years ago. Perhaps I saw ‘Matrix Reloaded’?

It’s worth pointing out that ‘Shaun feigning interest in Driver’s waffle’ is a great scene description.

It was another sunny day on the Hillcrest Estate in Highgate with Nick Frost, Bill Nighy and Imon Pegg (whose chair is pictured above). On this day we shot a bunch of the montage moments in the plan sequence as well as Shaun trying to speak to Liz after screwing up their dinner date.

This is me with my longtime producer Nira Park at the end of the day. I remember this was on a Friday before our day off and I had a cheeky beer on wrap. Since this shoot I have never drunk at all on any of my film and go through a self imposed no alcohol ban for the entire length of the shoot. I now substitute this with espresso however, not the healthiest of swaps. I think this is the last recorded picture of me drinking Stella Artois too.

You can see Simon carrying the lovely Kate Ashfield for one of the montage moments.

Below is another one of the few deleted scenes from the movie. Again, it’s part of travel montage with the great Paul Putner talking about weirdness occurring in London town that day. As you can see Shaun really is feigning interest in his waffle. It was some great waffle.

The Hillcrest Estate was a great location just off North Hill in Highgate. Today’s shoot revolved around a couple of quick tricky Steadicam shots operated by Paul Edwards.

One takes Shaun from inside the Jag up to Liz’s door whacking zombies as he goes. The other takes Shaun and the gang back from the flats to the Jag whilst swarmed by zombies.

The latter shot was especially tricky trying to get the cricket bat hits working with a constantly moving camera. It was definitely worth nailing them as single shots so that the action feels more vivid.

I had a blast making this little compilation for the Empire gang. I hope you dig it too.

As a special, for-your-ears-only musical sign off to Empire’s epic celebration of movie music, one of our favourite
directors and ace pop-picker Edgar Wright has joined the party. We asked him to put together a playlist of his favourite tracks from the movies. He went away, rifled through his record and film collections, pondered, mused, and, we’d like to think, stroked his chin to a fine point, before returning with this, his ultimate movie playlist. He hopes you enjoy it. We hope so too.

Listen to the seventeen tunes and cues of the World’s End director’s life!

Click here to visit Empire Online and listen to the playlist!

Back to Fairfield Road as we had not completed the garden scene in the first week of the shoot. I cannot remember if it was rain or being overly ambitious that had stopped us from finishing up the previous time. I think a little bit of both. But as you can see the mood is not as buoyant. We are on a tight schedule and we really need to kill those zombies.

3/8ths of a page might not seem a lot for a shooting day. But that does involve running zombies down from inside a car, stunts and reckless driving shots. And to top it all of the gimble, which is the 360 spinning turntable that gives you the impression of a perfect doughnut.

A full day’s work of craziness.

Another day in New Barnet filming the Jag scene. There are not a lot of photos for a good reason. Nearly all of our day was shot on the low loader, the trailer on which you shoot moving car shots.

We had two cameras shooting the many angles of the scene in the Jaguar with six people. It was tough and cramped. A whole day of watching a tiny monitor on the back of the towing vehicle will make you car sick beyond your wildest dreams.

I remember not being able to walk straight after an entire day on the back of that low loader. But I am happy with the final scene.

This was a sunny Sunday in Barnet where we shot the scene of the gang abandoning Philip’s Jag. This neighbourhood in London was chosen for its unusually wide roads. It’s usually where director Mike Leigh films, which is nicely ironic as we first pitched the movie as ‘Life Is Sweet’ with zombies.

Still in East Finchley, but with only 7/8’s of a page to shoot. This would seem like a luxury on a low budget film, but we specifically spread our budget really thin so that we could shoot for 8 weeks instead of the typical 5 or 6 for this kind of film.

Look at the man on the bike. Does he look like a future Oscar winner to you? Well he is one Simon ‘Purple’ Hayes, our sound recordist on this and Academy Award winner for the same job on ‘Les Miserables’ this year. We love you Purple.

Above a little look at Barbara and Philip’s house. On the TV is Martin Lovering, the now late father in law of producer Nira Park who was a real life vicar and appeared in the film as one especially for us.

My hair has never looked this good again.

Above is the lovely Karen Beever who I have worked with since way back before Spaced. She’s our Aussie rock. (Not Ayres Rock).

This is actually one of the few deleted scenes in the movie, where Shaun cannot get onto the tube because of ‘bodies on the line’. And a cameo that sadly also got cut was young Peter Baynham who can be seen here. Sorry about that Pete. I hope your Oscar nomination for ‘Borat’ and continued huge success in screenwriting has finally helped you overcome the disappointment of the cutting room floor on this.

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome…

Here is the full trailer to ‘The World’s End’. Featuring music by The Soup Dragons, Lil Jon and Nero. Yes!

The World’s End Release Dates | At time of press

NB. Release dates may change. Don’t panic.

New Zealand: 18-Jul-13
Slovenia: 18-Jul-13
United Kingdom: 19-Jul-13
Australia: 1-Aug-13
Russia: 1-Aug-13
United States/Canada: 23-Aug-13
France: 28-Aug-13
Philippines: 4-Sep-13
Czech Republic: 5-Sep-13
Ukraine: 5-Sep-13
Iceland: 6-Sep-13
Germany: 12-Sep-13
Malaysia: 12-Sep-13
Singapore: 12-Sep-13
Switz. (G): 12-Sep-13
Austria: 13-Sep-13
Norway: 13-Sep-13
Lebanon: 19-Sep-13
Netherlands: 19-Sep-13
United Arab Emirates: 19-Sep-13
Egypt: 25-Sep-13
Italy: 26-Sep-13
Cyprus: 27-Sep-13
Estonia: 27-Sep-13
Sweden: 27-Sep-13
Finland: 4-Oct-13
Denmark: 10-Oct-13
Latvia: 11-Oct-13
Lithuania: 11-Oct-13
Belgium: 16-Oct-13
Switz. (F): 16-Oct-13
Korea: 31-Oct-13
Bulgaria: 8-Nov-13
Turkey: 8-Nov-13
South Africa: 15-Nov-13
Spain: 15-Nov-13

Lots of memories on this day. The lovely Penelope Wilton calling Shaun ‘pickle’, my Mum’s nickname for me. Doing a small, but complex steadicam shot through the hall into the living room to ‘kill Philip’.

I also remember that we were up against time on the kitchen scene and I decided to ditch the close ups and play most of the scene in a 2 shot. I call this the Woody Allen shot (Some may say Bergman).

I also distinctly remember telling Bill Nighy to deliver Philip’s drugged up line ‘There comes a time when you’ve just got to be man’ like Clint Eastwood on Benylin.

It’s also worth stating that Bill Nighy is the coolest fucker alive. But you knew that already.

Here’s a morsel of a deleted scene. I had seen an ice cream van with the amazing slogan ‘Often Licked, Never Beaten’ and had the idea to see zombie kids snacking on an ice cream man. We shot it from inside the Jag as a travelling POV shot.

But it didn’t quite work.

So it was cut from the movie. Luckily we still have those B&W pictures as proof of the abandoned idea. I feel no guilt about getting young kids to finger the inside of a bloody ribcage. I am sure they are all well adjusted adults now.

I’ll be at the Main MCM Theatre at 1.15 and then signing from 2pm where there will be an exclusive The Worlds End Poster.

Wristbands for this signing will be distributed at the Universal Stand at MCM from 11.30.

Such is the way with many of these conventions these details are subject to change for reasons out of my control.

Read their update here (http://www.mcmcomiccon.com/london/2013/05/17/top-director-edgar-wright-to-star-at-mcm-london-comic-con/).

Drink up. Barmageddon approaches…

International Poster

US Poster

The World’s End Release Dates | At time of press

New Zealand: 18-Jul-13
Slovenia: 18-Jul-13
United Kingdom: 19-Jul-13
Australia: 1-Aug-13
Russia: 1-Aug-13
United States / Canada: 23-Aug-13
France: 28-Aug-13
Philippines: 4-Sep-13
Czech Republic: 5-Sep-13
Ukraine: 5-Sep-13
Iceland: 6-Sep-13
Germany: 12-Sep-13
Malaysia: 12-Sep-13
Singapore: 12-Sep-13
Switz. (G): 12-Sep-13
Austria: 13-Sep-13
Norway: 13-Sep-13
Lebanon: 19-Sep-13
Netherlands: 19-Sep-13
United Arab Emirates: 19-Sep-13
Egypt: 25-Sep-13
Italy: 26-Sep-13
Cyprus: 27-Sep-13
Estonia: 27-Sep-13
Sweden: 27-Sep-13
Finland: 4-Oct-13
Denmark: 10-Oct-13
Latvia: 11-Oct-13
Lithuania: 11-Oct-13
Belgium: 16-Oct-13
Switz. (F): 16-Oct-13
Korea: 31-Oct-13
Bulgaria: 8-Nov-13
Turkey: 8-Nov-13
South Africa: 15-Nov-13
Spain: 15-Nov-13

So ten years ago today we were in Abbots Gardens in East Finchley shooting the scenes outside Barbara and Philip’s house. And with the lovely Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton. Both amazing.

Seeing Simon jump over the bonnet (that’s hood to some folk) reminds me of one thing in the script I would have changed. It hit me in the edit that instead of Shaun saying ‘I left half a Mars Bar in the glove box and he chased me around the garden with a bit of wood’, he should have said ‘I did a Starsky And Hutch roll over the bonnet and he chased me around the garden with a bit of wood’.

Ah, it’s done now.

Here’s a little look at the ‘clubber zombies’ too. We’re into our 100th slate too. Weather does not look too hot. It is England…