Director's Weekly Post Production Blog WEEK 42 Friday August 22nd...

On a train out of London. Instead of the usual work, this trip is for a bit of R&R. The week past was short and as per form nothing substantial happened. Not that I am downbeat - I still firmly believe that things are now on their way up.

I thought that on Thursday we would resume pre-mixing but on Wednesday it was delayed again till next week. Presently it is likely we will re-start on Tuesday. I will find out for sure on Monday. I somehow believe that this will happen soon!

The week, thus, has mainly been spent chasing up music contracts and having meetings about other projects. There are now five songs that need to be tied up – unless something changes again! One is the Wolfmen one and as soon as their lead singer gets his finger out, the contracts should be in the post. Another is the Ellie Lawson song which I have been negotiating this week. Unfortunately, Ellie engaged a lawyer which means some small comments to justify the lawyer’s fees. This should be solved now, though. The last three are being negotiated by Steve Lindsey and should be completed very soon also. I hope so as I need all the music tied up before the final mix of the film.

Yesterday I dropped in all the paperwork to Richard, our accountant, for the VAT reclaim which we have been waiting to do for the last 12 months. The date of September 1st is looming at last. When this money arrives it should ease the burden.

On another financial note, a small investment came in today. It’s the money promised by a winner in my traditional football book. It’s taken me eight weeks of chasing to get it though! It’s amazing how long it can take to collect these amounts. Some people love to keep you hanging round, while others pay up the next day!

Also today I found out that there is still no news from Midnight transfer. They are still in the middle of other work and we agreed to speak in a week’s time.

A joy this week was reading a great script written by the actress Cassandra French. From the moment she told me the idea last year I was entranced and now I am bowled over.

Anyway, we are now probably still 14 weeks away from finishing and I am about to settle into Rousseau’s “Reveries of a solitary walker”…
 

Although there was no big progress this week, there were a number of small good things that happened and next week looks even better. Also my father finally got a date for the start of his radio therapy – September 11th.

On Monday I called Ian from Synxspeed to confirm the continuation of the pre-mixing on Tuesday. It was put back till Wednesday but was now confirmed. Only a day back was good news!

The next day Ian phoned to say that they now couldn’t do Wednesday, that it was un-confirmed and that it would now have to be shifted until Monday next week. I was to call back for confirmation. The meeting with Grace that day was cancelled as she was in Southampton. It was rescheduled to Friday.

On Wednesday I spent most of the day in the office doing admin, sorting out files and clearing some space so that Elephants can have its own drawer in a filling cabinet. It’s ridiculous how long you must keep files, accounts, contracts and stuff – forever actually – for re-licensing and financial disbursements on a film. By necessity I have the contracts and files of all the things I have produced or directed since 1989. “Boston Kickout” has 3 drawers, “The Poet” two, while others that haven’t been made yet - like “Raving Beauties” - still have a whole drawer.

It became clear on Thursday that we still have some time to wait on either grading or re-scanning of shots as the grading suite is still busy and the scanner hasn’t yet been re-installed, let alone its backlog processed.

On that day also, I decided to take a job later this month. It will be doing production on a documentary. It will be the first non-poker income I’ve had in the last 18 months! I just hope that I don’t have to be shooting etc when there’s time free to do something on the film. In any event Axle can cover pre-mixing time and Roger can cover grading. It’s just the final mixing and the signing off of the grade that I can’t be covered for.

On Friday, during the meeting with Grace, the pre-mixing on Monday was confirmed with Mark. I hope that by the end of next week we will have finished the pre-mixing and then we will just need time for the final mix. After her trip to LA, Grace was fired up with the American get up and go spirit. I had to tell her how that didn’t quite work in the UK film industry. Not deliberately, I actually also brought her to tears recalling the 1997, 1999 and 2003 near misses and debacles in trying to make “Raving Beauties”.

In the meeting with Grace, she asked what she could do to help. She asked if it would help replacing me in the mix or grade or could she be trained to do the de-spotting. Unfortunately none of these are really possible – and are not likely to speed things up. I told her the most important thing at the moment, apart from festivals, is raising some more money!

This week we finally were able to file our long outstanding VAT claim. Richard Juneman, our accountant did it. This money, along with the other money promised, will allow us to halve the outstanding bills. It will be great when we can do that but it won’t be the end of the story. I hope the reclaim is paid promptly. It’s our first so it’s not for certain.

We are still fourteen weeks away from finishing.