In lieu of Friday's royal gala, Prince Charles and Camilla managed to find time to visit the BFI Southbank to take a look at archive footage. Whilst there they met Colin Firth, who seems to find his way to every single event taking place in London.

Monday was a bumper day for short films, including collections under Global Journeys for the 21st Century and London Calling, the former taking in films from France, Germany and Romania and the latter focusing on new directors from the UK's capital. The art of scouting for talent is precisely what festivals are about, and fresh talent was in abundance here.

The evening also saw Asif Kapadia (of Far North), Andrew Eaton (producer of A Mighty Heart) and Nick Broomfield (of Battle for Haditha) interestingly discussing how to film a foreign culture, under the title of A Film-maker in a Foreign Land.

In the run-up to Halloween I decided to take time out from the festival to watch anti-intellectual pap Saw IV and Resident Evil 3, and really I should have known better. The Saw sequels abundantly deserve the title torture porn, and IV is no different. However, from an industry perspective the Saw series is a phenomenon, turning investment to gross profits comparable with the Blair Witch Project, which is why episodes V and VI are already in the can.

With micro blockbusters like this, studios have no reason to invest in indies. While the Resident Evil series has always been light on the logic and character, Extinction actually feels as if it has been filmed on a studio back-lot. Once I had my hands on my Halloween pound of flesh, I realised that I really didn't want it so much any more, and went back to looking for some quality filmmaking.