Director's Weekly Post Production Blog WEEK 75 Friday April 10th...

Come Monday I was still waiting for a reply from Andrew Dearnley.

That day we finished the additional shooting for “7 days with Foster”. It was nice to work with Steve Marles again as we hadn’t worked together for 5 years. At dinner one night, Smiles and I told some of the stories from shooting “The Frontline” to Coco and Aggro. The Canal shoot story had them in hysterics.

That last day’s shooting was hard as I had to watch the entire Qualifying and Race on Sunday evening when I arrived back from Manchester. Five hours coverage and an interminable halt for 45 minutes before they decided to not continue the race due to lack of light. I crawled into bed almost at 2am. As a result I was still quite tired during the day’s filming.

On Tuesday I finished the music cue sheet for DEP which is a deliverable, having finally received a full account of the timings of each cue. Jonnie liked the names I had attributed to different parts of Marcel’s score like “I’m loosing my phone with you!”

Later that day Julie Dray called saying she was in London. Unfortunately by the time I had finished my meetings it was too late to meet and she was on her way back to Paris.

The next day I visited my Father who is now home with a nurse visiting him once a day and home help coming twice a day. Funnily enough, my father is the same age as Lord Foster who we shot with at the weekend. Foster still runs marathons while my father now hobbles with a walking stick. We went out in the sunshine to a pub nearby for lunch to properly celebrate his 74th birthday which had occurred while he was semi-conscious in hospital. For much of the past months I wasn’t sure he would survive to get to 74!
 
Yesterday I got a reply from Andrew Dearnley. It seems he has been investigating the problem. The DI spotting team cried innocence but the evidence is overwhelming that the work hadn’t been done correctly. Andrew has put Katy in charge of sorting out the problem and she is now overseeing the work. Andrew expects to be able to give me time next week to do another review, hopefully confirming this time that is completed.

Also yesterday I signed the Elephant Features accounts for the DCMS. The day before, I received the interim certificate confirming the British nationality of the film. This is real progress towards receiving the DCMS money. In fact the last hurdle before they can pay us something. When they will actually pay, I don’t know but hopefully very soon.

In the mean time I received a cheque from my wonderful English teacher Margaret. Some more investment. This weekend I intend to catch up on my sleep, see some films and get further on with “Julie”.

It is hard to say what has happened this week. I know it’s been a short week but for DEP the simple answer would be “nothing”. In the mean time I have had to turn my attention to other projects.

I waited all week for Andrew to tell me that Katy has finished going through the reels with a fine tooth comb and we were ready to attempt another review. As of today she is only on reel 3. That means she still needs to do reel 4 which was one of the ones we found hadn’t been properly done. Then there will be reels 5 and 6 that I haven’t seen yet so I don’t even know if they have actually been done or not. Anyhow, I hope she will have finished by next week.

The really sad thing is that Cannes is approaching again now. It was just before Cannes last year that we locked the picture and finished the edit. All the time since then has been on the sound and picture. And against my most wildly pessimistic predications, we look like we will fail to complete them both a full year on. The sound is all done but the picture has been going inordinately slow again.

You would normally expect to spend 9 weeks on sound track laying and ADR, 3 weeks on grading, 4 weeks on the music all told, 3 weeks sound mixing and 3 weeks on de-spotting. That is of course if none of these actually overlap or take place at the same time. Anyway that list adds up to 22 weeks. That means 30 weeks have been wasted on waiting for things to happen – so far!

Out of that time probably the most (20 weeks) was lost at Midnight Transfer, something we may never recover from. Holiday periods probably account for 4 weeks all told. Now I would say we have had about 6 weeks of delay at Molinare.

Why has this occurred?

Basically it boils down to lack of money. Making a low budget film always has the possibility of these delays. For us, though, they have been acute.

Of course there is another explanation; a mystical one or - if you prefer - a superstitious one. All through the shoot and edit I wore around my neck an amulet bought from a mystic in Morocco. I told him exactly what I needed it for, to protect the film etc and he made it to order no cost spared. Last summer while away in France I lost the amulet. How or why I do not know. It has always been at the back of my mind since then that it might have an effect. Funnily enough, a couple of months ago I confessed this to Jonnie.

He confided a similar story. When Jonnie was first in Blackpool he went to see a fortune teller as there is a scene in our new project that involves a Blackpool fortune teller. He took her photo and she made him promise to send her a copy of the picture. Then he lost her address. It resurfaced some months later and he sent the picture. At the back of his mind, like mine, there was that nagging feeling.

When we were up in Blackpool we went to see the fortune teller. She confirmed that she had received the photo and we both breathed a sigh or relief. As we walked away I joked that we were funny, always worrying about the esoteric. He replied “It defines us. It’s the difference between this and other collaborations.”

I wish there was some way I could atone for the lost amulet but thus far I haven’t found a solution. Anyway, still 99% of de-spotting done and still 4 weeks away from completion.

Last week “nothing” happened. This week I’d have to say has been “next to nothing!”

At the beginning of the week I had another e-mail exchange with Andrew Dearnley. He confirmed that Katy is still working on the de-spotting and that he hopes she will be finished on the 1st May – the end of next week. That leaves about a week and a half before I go to Cannes. Will that be enough time to do another review, do the titles and master the film before I leave? If that happened then it would be perfect with the film out occurring while I am away.

The problem is that the way things have been going I can barely believe it. In any event, I formatted the end roller this week the way that Molinare wants it so I am ready for the eventuality!

On Thursday I learnt that Jonnie is back in the UK on the 4th. We will do some admin that day. I also called Pete Stevenson to see if he could screen for us the rough cut of the “making of” documentary. Contractually Pete should have delivered to us the finished film two months after the final sound mix. That date was about a month ago. I called him on it although we talked about my father more than anything. As DEP is not finished and Pete wanted to shoot some more footage I agreed to an extended timescale.

Anyway, Pete was not ready to show us the rough cut yet. It occurred to me that just like me being in post for 77 weeks so also has Pete been in post for 77 weeks - but so far he hasn’t got to the rough cut stage! I am sure he is as frustrated as I am. How this has happened I don’t know but Pete did tell me he has just had a baby so maybe that explains it.

I hope that he will have a rough cut for us to watch after Cannes.

On Friday I met Williams Rodriguez. He had called the day before and asked for a meeting. I presumed he wanted to talk about outstanding expenses. To my surprise instead he wanted to meet to “find out how I am” I asked if he was still reading the blog. He said “No. I wanted to hear it from you.” I told him the situation and then he said “You have not treated me very well.”

I was livid.

I reminded him that I’d defended him for ages to anyone who said a bad word. I also told him I had put him up for a project a friend was making despite what had happened on our film. He was humbled a bit when he learnt that but I couldn’t stomach talking to him any more and left.

Apart from working on other projects I have also been trying to raise some more money for the film – with limited success.

We are still the same illusive 4 weeks away from completion that we have been for seemingly ages.