Ulcer Recipe
1. Get up at 7am to get into London for 9am. Forget dinner money. Get delayed on nonexistent trains which turn up at crowded platform (and I mean credit card space between people on platform) every ten minutes because of some technical problem.
2. Squeeze on to one of these trains which are already packed like sardine cans because there is no alternative.
3. After arriving late, eventually get EDL from editor. Breathe sigh of relief mistakenly believing that’s it.
4. Take one EDL to the neg cutters. Make the EDL only two minutes long, instead of the full 15 minute duration of the film. Therefore the film can’t be cut.
5. Have neg cutters tell you they need the EDL to be 25 frames per second, not the 24fps your editor has provided. This means the film can’t be cut.
6. Phone up editor to tell their answerphone the above because their phone battery no longer charges. Wait for call to be returned at some random point in next day or so.
7. Have bright idea about sound. Again breathe mistaken sigh of relief at own brilliance. Phone up sound person to be told “They’ve gone to the country.” This means your sound can’t be turned into Dolby SR surround, as you had cunningly planned.
8. Travel on London Underground with trains cancelled because of power lines down, gas leaks, overcrowding (yes, really) and bake head until ready while getting a splitting headache. Wish you hadn’t left money at home earlier in mad rush to get out while stomach digests nothing.
9. Repeat every day for two and a half years while people around you complete films, hold screenings, enter festivals, get agents and go off to further careers.