Monthly Distribution Blog

Friday September 30th 2011

On the 2nd we finished shooting on “The Power” apart from the “3 months later sequence” and “six years before scene”. Afterwards it took a good three days to recover my sleep loss. I know it took a similar amount of time for other cast and crew members. After that I went up to Cumbria to do a pass on a script that someone has been asking me to do for ages. It was a further time of recovery and recharging.

In the meantime I put myself back firmly at the helm of DEP. Still outstanding is the DCP of the trailer, the recovery of the original DCP and the sync problem on the HDcam. I have been hounding Neil Harris about all three all in the last couple of weeks. On Tuesday I met with Jonnie and Steve to do some admin and distribute some more funds received from the DCMS. We decided to arrange for the next day a meeting with Neil.

At the meeting with Neil we reiterated the situation. We now are free, willing and able to start work on the UK release but we need the outstanding problems solved. We came up with a few plans of action. Steve is now poised ready to fly into action if plan A doesn’t work. It is firmly in my mind that we must push on with DEP now. We will see what can be achieved.

I have also chased up Jonnie on the French subtitles for the DVD as the mastering is nearly complete now. Jonnie and I did a Raindance interview with Drew Cullingham about the world premier of “Monk3ys” which happens next Tuesday. Two days before is the world premier of “Mesocafe”, the other film I recently Exec produced. They are in competition against each other.

A strange thing happened to me last week. Two years ago, when my father died, I tried desperately to find his brother. The two had not talked for over forty years. I couldn’t find him, not through old addresses and telephone numbers, not through electoral registers, not through facebook. Last week his daughter found me. He’s still alive. I will now see him on the 8th. I will have to tell him of his brother’s death.

 
Saturday October 29th 2011

This month I finally shot the “3 months later sequence” and “six years before scene” of “The Power”. The trip to Spain, from which I have just returned, was idyllic and a welcome contrast to the many days we spent filming in the tight confines of the underground cell. I was even able to play some poker during the trip.

I have spent much of this month trying to deal with the outstanding issues on DEP; the DCP of the trailer, the recovery of the original DCP and the sync problem on the HDcam. Steve DiMarco and I have been hounding Neil Harris but this has all been to no success whatsoever. We have not moved forward one iota. It is sad to have the distribution of the film delayed by this.

I have also chased up Jonnie on the French subtitles for the DVD which again has not been finished. I have in the works now also a set of German subtitles which with the French and Spanish should make the UK DVD version of the film an international version. Next month our film will be at the American Filmbuyers market in Los Angeles. Hopefully we will make our first sale there.

At the Raindance Film Festival “Monk3ys” and “Mesocafe” were in competition against each other. “Monk3ys” won best Micro-budget film. Although I felt pleased for Drew, I was disappointed for Ja’far.

The meeting with my long lost uncle was postponed by my cousin.

Saturday November 26th 2011

There has been absolutely no movement yet again with the outstanding issues on DEP; the DCP of the trailer, the recovery of the original DCP, the sync problem on the HDcam, and the French subtitles. Nothing has happened on any of those issues. Neil Harris’ contacts that were helping have had problems. He now says he may well be able to do everything in house next month. We will see. Jonnie has not finished the subtitles. I now truly doubt if anything will be done before Xmas. This puts the whole issue of a theatrical release at stake. At worse case, the film will have to be released straight to DVD but for me that would be a personal failure, one that I am as yet reluctant to accept. No-one else seems to care though.

Jonnie has contacted two more new distributors about the film. Will the seventh cavalry arrive at the last minute?
 
I have not heard a report as yet from Kevin regarding the American Filmbuyers Market in Los Angeles. That lack of a report makes me think that we have not made a sale. As there is still money outstanding, we seem to have a problem that just won’t go away. At present I do not know what will be the final outcome.

The meeting with my long lost uncle is still postponed.

Saturday December 31st 2011

Another year is about to draw to a close.

The only news I have is that before Xmas I was able to check the sync on the HDcam but not the HDcam S/R. As one is derivative of the other I expected the result to confirm that there is a sync problem around reels 2 and 3. Quite the opposite was the case. The HDcam was absolutely perfect and looked and sounded wonderful. It was strange to see some of the film again. As I’ve spent most of the last 6 months working on another film, my head has been somewhere completely different. It looked great.

I have now arranged to complete the DCP of the trailer on Monday 23rd of January. Neil Harris now seems to have most of the kit that we need. Of course this date may change, but we will see. I hope not anyway.

I heard a report from Kevin regarding the American Filmbuyers Market in Los Angeles in November. It was not great. Overall, that makes me despondent.

2012

Monthly blog – Friday 27th January 2012

The completion of the DCP of the trailer, scheduled to happen on Monday 23rd , still did not happen. It has now been postponed to next week. How long will these postponements keep going on? Soon it will be a full year.

Anyway, the momentum seems to be back.

Next month I go to the EFM in Berlin so should get a report from Kevin. I hope he has had some success.

Saturday February 25th 2012

I am still waiting for 179 Films to complete the DCP of the trailer. It was meant to be done the end of last month but it still hasn’t been done. Neil Harris is still impossible to pin down. He keeps setting deadlines but they keep passing. I asked Jonnie and Steve to help chase things but both have other things on their plates.

It is now a full year since I delivered an EDL to him. Neil keeps e-mailing Caroline questions but as she is working full time on a documentary (not to mention The Power) she can only reply at weekends. It is endless.

The EFM in Berlin was good if not cold. Kevin Williams reported to me there. It was not good news. He has many irons still in the fire but there is no deal forthcoming yet.

Friday March 30th 2012

There has been some progress this month. The film was scanned in last week (originally at wrong frame rate but now redone) and the conforming of the trailer has started. Neil is still e-mailing Caroline questions but due to her workload she only replies the next week. It is endless. I wish people would just pick up the phone.

I have given up expecting that Jonnie and Steve can somehow help with the process and have dived back in again. I now have a route for getting the film and trailer converted into a DCP. I hope next month will be an end to it. Already it has taken about 12 months longer than it should have.

Another piece of progress is that we have an offer from UK distribution on the table. I heard of a new distributor who sounded right and Jonnie sent a wonderful all singing all dancing package to them. At present the deal they are offering is not great but we will see.

Some more Tax money came back this month which allowed us to chip away at our debts some more. How long can we keep this going before the film actually comes out?

Friday April 27th 2012

Finally we got some progress with the cinema trailer, after repeatedly going into 179 Films I got Neil to put Ed (technical assistant) on the case. Ed was still sending e-mails to Caroline and she was still sending e-mails back to Ed and Neil about what they needed. I forced them to actually talk to each other and hey presto, the next day, Thursday 5th, we were able to conform the trailer. Jonnie delivered hi-res versions of the laurels, I checked and positioned everything and by the end of the day we had an HDcam version of the trailer.

That just meant that we had to do a 5.1 mix of the sound. I immediately sprang into action on that and arranged to mix it at the end of this month. After two weeks of fooling around with the dialogue pre-mixes, original sound, atmospheres etc, that happened yesterday thanks to Jamie at 179.

On the 5th, Jonnie promised to put £200 into the company to help fund the distribution expenses (it got transferred mid-month). I agreed to match it if Steve Di Marco did the same. At present he is protesting but I hope he and the Executive Producers of the film will do the same.

Mid-month Jonnie posted on facebook that the film will soon be distributed. As a result many people texted me their congratulations. In reality we are doing it ourselves and thus there is a huge, huge mountain of things to do before that happens (certainly no need for congratulations yet!). Luckily Jonnie and Steve have both said they will work hard to help achieve this.

Could the film now be close to finally seeing the light of day?

To read July 2010 - August 2011 click here...