Director's Weekly Post Production Blog WEEK 32 Friday June 13th...

Madrid was pleasant. I was able to see ten films in two and a half days. Normally at festivals and their like I have no opportunities to see films because I have to do meetings. What a pain for a cinephile like me! In Madrid it was different. In fact I asked why there were no night screenings. I would have gladly seen 7 a day like I used to do when I was a teenager, commuting to London at 8am to spend a whole day in various cinemas. They replied “This is Spain. We like to party at night!”

I didn’t do much partying, confining myself to midnight forays for pacharan, angulas, morcilla, pulpo and orejas. It gave me time to get back into the reading routine. Rousseau’s confessions is a revelation. His honesty and truthfulness is astounding and captivating. It made me think of Cristina’s comments on the blog. She asked me to think about it. Now reading Rousseau I feel confirmed in my belief that being truthful is the only way to be.

Getting back from Madrid, a letter from the UK Film Council was waiting for me - a rejection. That makes a hundred percent record of rejection from UK film bodies. The entity responsible has changed over the years. The BFI film production fund passed on “The Frontline”. British Screen passed on “Boston Kickout”. The Film Council passed on “The Poet”. All those films were funded from sources outside the UK. The majority of the finance in DEP isn’t British either. The only thing of mine that has ever got money from The UK Film Council has been the short film f2point8. They gave me £5,000 finishing money for that. Incredible!

After reading Jonnie the contents of the letter “…We do not know why Malika finds Callum attractive. There is no chemistry between them.” He texted me to say “That’s the same body that funded Sex Lives of the Potato men!”

The funny thing is that many times after the event people responsible for passes on my projects have said “You must send me your next thing. I really want to work with you!” I do and they pass again! In Madrid I met a Spanish film-maker who I’d not seen for 8 years. She said “I can’t believe how hard it is making films in the UK” I could only agree. They make twice as many films as we do per year in Spain but with about half the population. So all in all that makes it four times easier making films in Spain than in the UK!

On Wednesday I went to see Axle in Hatfield, the third time I’ve visited. Quite a contrast to going down to Elephant and Castle. The new housing estate where she lives used to be the old BAe site. At the age of 19, I worked there in a draughtsman’s drawings library for a year as a clerk! The other employee’s were all retiring women. It was a wonderful time. I fondly remember Muriel, Brenda and the others who worked there. The surprise birthday party they held for me was the most touching in all my life! I made short films or pop promo’s at the weekend until too many storyboards kept flooding the library’s fax machine and I had to quit.

Axle had done great work on the dialogues and atmospheres and is just about to get into the FX. I arranged yesterday to record the foleys next Wednesday and Thursday and thus think we are making some progress at least on sound.

Today, though, I am quite low in spirits. Earlier I discovered more delays with the scanning that Neil promised would start on Tuesday. It didn’t. I hope it starts today. Daniel has already done a great job on all the visual FX. He needs the 2k scans to apply them but they are now two weeks overdue.

The most woeful part of the project, though, is the music. Samantha is still away. I don’t have the information from her that I needed before Cannes. Thus my only solution has been to bring in Steve Lindsey, who did the job for me on Boston Kickout. He starts today. As I haven’t been able to speak to Samantha, I have not been able to tell her. I hope now to divide the job between her dealing with emerging artists and Steve dealing with established artists. In any event, I need to have a crunch meeting with her as soon as possible.

I will now go into the cutting room tomorrow to try out Marcel’s score ideas and some new music tracks, the Ellie Lawson problem being one of the most distressing on this film so far.

Now I’m on a train heading for some recces.

Last Saturday I was in the cutting room trying to sort out the music. Caroline, in addition to being a great picture editor is also a great music editor and in that role we work very well together. I applied the ideas that Marcel had come up with and they seemed to work well. As we ran out of time I had to return to the cutting room on Monday. Then we also looked at substitutes for the Ellie Lawson songs that will be so hard to clear. I replaced one with some score and the other with a different song by her. Also I had a new song by Slashed Seat Affair to find a place for. The only solution was to jettison a song by someone else.

By Tuesday I started to feel less demoralised about the music, thinking at last, that we will find some solutions. I had a good conversation on the telephone with Marcel and with Ellie’s management then wrote an e-mail to Samantha. I have not had a reply from the latter yet!

On Tuesday night at 10.15pm Williams came to see me again. This time he is unhappy with me about a letter Jonnie wrote him. He wanted to “look me in the eyes.” I had no problem with that as I have been fair with him despite the difficult situation that I have been in since the shoot.

The bone of contention now is the new contract I gave him when he wanted to leave the production. I gave him improved terms. The problem is he has not really fulfilled the job description. In any event, he knows where I stand and the ball is in his court now. I told him “A young a foolish man wants to die for a principal, an old and wise one wants to live quietly for a principal”.
He replied “But that’s me foolish and crazy!!”

On Wednesday I went out to Amersham to start the foleys. It was strange going past rolling countryside and cute little villages but still being on the London Underground. Amersham is one of those tube stations I had never visited before.

Axle was late arriving on the first day but made up for it on the second by pushing things through like a lion! The problem is that really we didn’t have enough time. In the old days, people used to spend 3 weeks doing the foleys on a film making sure every fit was perfect and not spending much time fitting them after. Now that is impossible and a week is more normal for recording with the fitting taking place thereafter. I have done films in 3 days but because of cost we tried to do DEP in 2 days. Inevitably we overran but thanks to Paul Hanks the foley artist, who was absolutely brilliant, not by too much!

Tuesday marked the beginning of JD Evans, our Foley Editor’s tenure on the film. From the start I could see he was on the ball and he shared with me the love of sweetners and foley FX, like swallow sounds, breaths and other subtle stuff that I feel is the most creative use of foleys. I can’t wait to get into the mix!
So this week the sound has been progressing while the picture has again stalled. I was under the impression that the scanning would be completed this week but in all honesty I am not sure it has. I have not been able to get hold of Neil Harris and nor has Roger, who is desperate to start grading before he goes on holiday. Now the sound has caught up with the picture completely. Both now are 6 weeks away from being finished – provided that there are no further delays! Meanwhile all the festival deadlines are approaching at quite a pace! Things now are getting critical timings-wise!

This week was the screenings for the Venice and Toronto film festivals. We screened an ungraded fine cut of the film with temp music. Grace has already given a copy of the film to Locarno and the London and San Sebastian film festivals will follow.