Many of us have often thought about faking our own death and starting over - many people still believe that Elvis Presley did it and if it's good enough for him, it's probably good enough for you too. I've often wondered how difficult it would be since I suspect if it were as simple as leaving some clothes on a beach, printing a new birth certificate on the computer and coming up with a new signature, everyone would be doing it.

I've personally wanted to do this for quite a while; not because I have any crippling debts or mafia hit men after me, but because I thought it would be an interesting project for my latest documentary. I've made several comedy documentaries over the last few years and it's always something that I find entertaining. They don't usually make me a lot of money or garner much interest, but I enjoy doing them and it helps keep my interest in my day job as a commercial video editor alive.

When I started researching this latest project, the idea of a will hadn't entered my mind. I haven't ever considered writing a will before and I didn't think it would become as integral a part of my latest documentary as it did.

Writing a will is an excellent way to add credibility to your faked death, especially if you plan on getting your belongings back at some point. My research told me that without having a will, the government can claim your entire estate - if the government owned all my belongings, I'd have nothing to edit my newly filmed masterpiece on when shooting finished. I'm rather attached to my editing suite and cameras, not to mention some of my other possessions, so I decided to put some of the other plans for the faking of my death portion of my documentary on hold while I looked into having a will drawn up.

Will writing is harder than it sounds - you don't just take a page out from your notepad and quickly write who you want to leave your possessions to on it; there's a lot to take care of to ensure that you don't get caught out by any legal pitfalls which lead to your belongings being claimed by the government or ending up with the wrong person. Fortunately, I found a company on the internet that offers will writing services for a price that was well within the budget. I sent my details to them, stating that I wanted my flatmate to have all my belongings so she could return them to me when I re-emerged. The process was a lot easier than trying to do it myself and it gave me the peace of mind that the government wasn't going to take my possessions while I was in the process of faking my own death.

The company delivered my newly written will quickly, which left me free to move on to other aspects of the documentary. As fun as this project is, it's been a long process - every single aspect of it has thrown up more questions and more research. Still, I suppose if faking your own death really was easy, everyone would be doing it.