Last Train has been accepted for its first festival, the second York Independent Film Festival.

Screening date will be on Saturday 23rd of February at 16:10 (ten past four) in C block of the University Exhibition Centre.

Watch out you might get what you’re after
This is where you have a finished script and find people are not only willing to support it–with their time, equipment and even a little grant money–but they’re enthusiastic too.

Cool babies…
Casting. Definitely casting. A parade of hopefuls troupes past your (borrowed) camcorder flaunting their peculiar quirks.

…strange but not a stranger
You look for the ones who have talent and resemble your inner thoughts about the character, emotionally and physically. And more, you look for Presence.

I’m an ordinary guy…
That’s the illusion I’ve created for the outside world.

…Burning down the house
And that’s what happens when you overload someone’s mains with your lights.

Hold tight wait till the party’s over
Hold tight We’re in for nasty weather
You tell an enormous pack of lies ranging from “We’re students” to “It won’t take us long” and “It won’t disrupt your life” to get access to locations. Or you don’t tell anyone anything and just turn up. You risk being forcibly moved on by the police. Filming is hell. You hold tight and do it.

There has got to be a way
There’s always a way. The producer’s job is to find it.

Burning down the house
Re-write the house scene.

Here’s your ticket pack your bag: time for jumpin’ overboard
The transportation is here
Most of the crew don’t have cars. They screw you for expenses. You manage to borrow two vans, a limosine and a new Toyota…

Close enough but not too far, Maybe you know where you are
…then your first AD reverses one of the vans into the Toyota. Yes, you’re in insurance hell.

Fightin’ fire with fire
The manager of the local Toyota dealership is less than happy. He doesn’t want you taking the car out again. You still need those shots of it on the open road. You sic your big loud DoP on to him. After an hour of verbal battering, the car salesman relents.

All wet hey you might need a raincoat
Wardrobe! Never mind, we’ll do the interiors first.

Shakedown…
You drive away in the Toyota promising to bring it back in 30 minutes. It’s a promise you have no intention of keeping. You trade lies with the Toyota man for a string of invective over the mobile phone you’ve borrowed while his potential customers head elsewhere without test driving anything. Toyota’s reps throw your crew off their premises…

…dreams walking in broad daylight
…Nevertheless, you get your shots!

Three hun-dred six-ty five de-grees
Damn! That’s a sexy lens. Too bad they didn’t include one in the kit we blagged. You optimistically try to create the illusion of a telephoto lens by telling everyone to bunch up closer together.

Burning down the house
We don’t need no steenkin’ house!

It was once upon a place sometimes I listen to myself
You seriously wonder if the sound editor knows what they’re doing. You want a Dolby surround mix and the person you’re working with tells you you don’t need one or they can’t do one. You hear yourself say that there are too many opening titles. So you cut them out. Now it just says ‘Once upon a time…’

Gonna come in first place
Well, it has to be perfect or you won’t get awards which means no more funding and no career development.

People on their way to work baby what did you except
You can’t get access to a studio to mix your sound. You can’t get the negative cut because you took out all those titles and they need some kind of computer print out. Your editor is on a six month assignment in LA while you’re stuck in London.

Gonna burst into flame
Memo to self: don’t feed the crew with home-made chilli.

My house S’out of the ordinary
Time for a remortgage to cover the non-stop costs.

That’s right Don’t want to hurt nobody
Proof read the credits and phone everyone to double check you’ve spelled their names correctly.

Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
You take your sound to another rerecording mixer to get it Dolby encoded. He suggests the sound tracks could be layed down in a more useful way and improved with better effects. He says the pictures warrant a little more care. You want to hug him.

Burning down the house
Or opt for the less incendiary option of pulling apart the old sound mix and re-doing it to get quality surround sound. Which is what you wanted in the first place.

No visible means of support…
Your edit decision list still doesn’t quite match the video but you convince the neg cutter to start cutting because it must get to the labs for next week.

… and you have not seen nuthin’ yet
You bump into one of the actors at someone else’s screening. He’s given up wondering where your print is after more than two years.

Everything’s stuck together
Everything is in place to get a partially graded answer print next week. You can telecine that to make a video copy which you can give to the sound mixer so nothing will be out of sync despite all your hare-brained re-cutting and re-jigging.

I don’t know what you expect staring to the TV set
It’s a 35mm motion picture for theatrical release!

Fighting fire with fire
It’s time to recruit some interesting characters to your screening and turn it into a lively enjoyable and productive event. You talk to other directors and producers. Everyone is in the same boat. You spark inspiration off each other and you massage your next script into shape ready for another installment of…

Burning down the house
Where you reduce your thoughts about people, situations and events into the ashes of a story and you keep sifting through it all until something wonderful can rise up pheonix-like on celluloid. Which is, of course, what David Byrne was writing about. Wasn’t he?

…

(with apologies to the Byrne man)

Yes, I know the film updates are turning into a catalog of events punctuated by my head bangings. I don’t think I’m writing them particularly well, probably because it gets so mundane in my own mind. I don’t know if the ongoing saga of trying to finish Fate & Fortune is either resonant or inspiring for anyone else any more. I’m learning a lot about the process of film making, and in particular surround sound. However, does anyone care?

****

Lionel and Simon, the writers of Last Train, sent me a new script the other week. ‘Oh, goody,’ I thought. ‘This is nice and succinct.’ It was a neat one-gag outing, like their previous short and we could probably have filmed it in two days. Flash bang wallop.

I asked them to cut out some scenes to save time and money, make the graphics part of the story to save more money and change some dialogue into visuals because that’s the essence of moving pictures. Plus less dialogue, more action means more chance of people in other countries following it all.

I also wanted to make the lead character a person of colour (is that the right phrase?) because it felt right and I also wanted to use an incidental character to create a subplot to tie the whole thing together.

Yesterday afternoon I read the second draft and fell about laughing.

The Car, as it’s called, is now 17 minutes long, has no less than five new characters, four new action vehicle sequences set on the open road, a scene paying homage to The Straight Story and more opening titles than you shake a big stick at. It’s not shorter or more succinct and is impossible to film in two days. But it’s full of funny material and pregnant with possibility.

So I’m faced with two choices: ask them to cut all the new stuff out and get it down to five minutes, or suggest they play with some of these new characters and come up with directions to take them in with the idea of creating a much longer film. Seventeen minutes could be roughly a quarter of a full-length feature. They went for option B, expanding the characters.

Guys, if you’re reading this, stop! There’s writing to be done!

****

Last night I went to another film maker’s screening of their first short. It was in a flat in Gospel Oak, a few doors away from Michael Palin’s house. Apparently. Anyway, great short story but the actors had all the presence of a used Kleenex. Interesting to see what other people are doing. Encouraging in a way. It’s funny that the first thing you notice are the technical details but then you ignore them and get caught up in the plot.

Next week I’m going to another one. The Tail is a new short co-produced by my buddies at Whatever Pictures. A chance to network, to compare notes and also to see how other people set up a screening before I do mine.

****

Last week, I did the second draft of my own short based on the short story, Strawberries, which I posted on the net last year. The second draft was less satisfying than the first in that it felt less whole, less rounded out. I found myself changing things mainly to add movement in this draft.

The process of converting thoughts in people’s heads into action meant some of the plotting changed. Film as a translation of literature means some shifts in emphasis and story. Draft three is falling into place in my head based on that. It feels good. Right. I particularly like that it’s a very personal project.

****

Fate & Fortune to do list:
– check and sign off graphics proof (about six names still to check)
– call neg cutters to confirm they’re happy (tomorrow)
– get LCR Tascam from re-recording mixer (calling them today)
– get LCR Dolby SR encoded (hire studio in London)
– have optical soundtrack made from Tascam
– deliver graphics to neg cutters
– deliver cut neg to lab
– check answer print at lab with Director of Photography
– collect print
– distribute and exhibit
– fame, fortune, awards and next film

****

Feel free to ignore all this. I’m really just organising things in my own head in these update posts and putting down markers to show myself that I’m making some kind of progress, no matter how slow or slight. It’s that feeling of moving forwards that’s important to me. Change and growth.

Frick. Frick frick fricking frick frick.

Freaking hell.

Yeah, those weren’t exactly words I used just now in the privacy of my own living room. Here’s today’s nonsense:

I finally got hold of the sound mixer from Last Train to ask him about getting the sound mix from Fate & Fortune Dolby encoded. I told him I had a DAT of the final sound mix. “Oh,” he said, “not a TASCAM?” (using best Australian Quizzical Intonation). “No,” I said, “is that important?” He wasn’t entirely sure, but thought it might be so he gave the name of someone who actually makes the optical film soundtracks once he’s done his mix and suggested I talk to them.

I phone directory enquiries for the number–“Warwick Sound… in London.” “Warwick? W-A-R-W-I-C-K?” “Yes.” (pause) “We don’t have any listing under that name.” I go to the web and find it in zero seconds flat so I call back directory enquiries and ask them to refund the charges they add to my bill whenever I phone them. A-holes.

Then I call Ernie at Warwick Sound. Question: Does the soundtrack need to be Dolby encoded? Answer: yes. They won’t make an optical soundtrack without it. I tell him I have a stereo mix on DAT. He explains why that is useless–a stereo mix won’t reproduce properly in theaters because they all use Dolby SR (or DTS) equipment.

So I need an LCRS (left centre right surround) or LCR mix on TASCAM (which is eight channels instead of DAT’s two). Then I need to get that Dolby encoded for the optical tracks.

So, once again, that’s: “Does the soundtrack need to be Dolby encoded?” Answer: yes. And you need a TASCAM. With the surround mix on it. Not stereo. Surround. Even if there’s no surround channel. Because the lack of a centre channel will screw up the playback in theatres if it’s only in stereo.

Sonofafreakingbichcantmonkeyfarmer! And words to that effect.

So I phone up the rerecording mixer for Fate & Fortune and–Holy Mary mother of Jesus, I get through first time. I explain what I need and what I have. What I need, of course, being what I asked her to provide but she was so adamant I didn’t need. Cheeses. The freaking people who all know better than you but don’t and waste your time, even though you don’t pay them but who the freak cares about that right now when theymakepromisestheycan’tkeep?

Anyway, she thinks a TASCAM might be in the bag of tapes she gave me when we finished mixing. I look. It isn’t. So then she says we might be able to sort it out this weekend.

Don’t hold your fricking breath.

I go and bang my head against the wall now.

This is where you take the negative for your precious film and leave it in the neg cutters’ vault for the best part of a year. You then try to find an editor who will work for nothing to sort out the problems you created by not using Avid Film Composer (ie. proprietory technology) to recut a few bits. Finally you find such an editor.

Your editor berates you soundly for mixing images recorded at 25 frames per second with images recorded at 24 fps. You learn the perils of sync and bang your head against the wall until an egg appears–your Knowledge Bump. You watch your offline video and figure you can get away with it anyway.

Next you take the Edit Decision List (or EDL) generated by this (free) editor on their (rare) Avid to the neg cutters who tell you (a) it is way too short being only two minutes instead of the required sixteen, and (b) it runs at the wrong speed. You then phone your friendly free editor and ask him please please can he sort this out. While he has access to the rare Avid. He agrees.

You then phone the neg cutters the next day who tell you the editor has indeed delivered a new EDL to them but they haven’t had time to check it yet. They promise to call you back later. You wait two days and call them again. Not checked yet. Tomorrow. A week of this goes by and on Friday they tell you they have been extremely busy. In January. The quietest month in the film production calender. No one is working. You bite your tongue.

To give yourself some sleepless nights you recall what happened last time the neg cutters said they had ‘a problem with the EDL’. They lost it. Yes. Then they said (chirpily), ‘Oh, please get us another one.’ Which you did. It took three months. Because you don’t actually have Avid Film Composer. Or access to same. Remember the key words here–‘free’ and ‘rare’.

So, on the last call before heading out to spend the weekend partying and drinking to excess, you remind the neg cutters of your lack of professional gear. You envisage them nodding sympathetically on the phone (rattling noises) while they tell you ‘We’ve been having a bit of a crisis this week.’ Uh oh.

Which brings us to today. Still no phone call.

But the first draft of my new script is done.

…

Today, at last, I finally speak to neg cutter and she has checked through EDL and, yes, it seems to work. In the meantime, I also have a proof of the artwork for credits. So, at risk sounding like it might almost be done… I think it might, possibly, be at the stage where it’s cut.

Shove shove… boulder… up… hill…

…

Oh, plus I spoke to the director of photography from Fate & Fortune to see when he’ll be around for grading. I also told him I had another script which I’d like to film later this year. His comment: “You’ve forgotten how painful it is, haven’t you?” My comment: “Yes. So let’s do it anyway.”

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.

I thought I’d take a look at the list of things I posted on my ‘to do’ list back at the end of March and see how far each of them has got.

Hahahaha!

Ahem. Okay. What has happened lately? Well, as I said, Last Train is winging its way to festivals around the world. Fate & Fortune–well, back in March I wrote:

Get new EDL for Fate & Fortune to include shorter title sequence, phone editor to arrange

And five months later in July, I wrote:

– this remains. And now Simon’s gone to LA for five months. Agggghh. Yes, I really do scream. The only contact details I have for him are an email address. He knows that I need the EDL, however.

And now it’s January, nearly a year later.

Yesterday I had a brainwave. I phoned up Avid’s headquarters in the UK. Avid, as you may or may not recall for my previous ramblings, are the manufacturers of the edit system Fate & Fortune was edited on. The same edit system very few people seem to possess. I got through to their service department and they provided me with a couple of numbers they thought might be able to help once I explained my predicament.

Phone call number one took me, predictably, to a “Can I ask what it’s regarding?” fielder of calls like mine who deftly nipped it in the bud before I had a chance to speak to the person I wanted. Call number two was rather more helpful and… well, whaddaya know! The guy I eventually spoke to said, yes, he could help me. Yes, he could help in the next week!

I danced the happy dance like a piggy coming home again home again. Jiggidy jig.

So I rang Answerphone Editor to get the materials to send them down to Hampshire for this. Of course, I got the answerphone. Of course, there was no call back. This didn’t stop me dancing the happy dance, however, because she does always call back sooner or later.

Today I got hold of her. Guess what? No, really. You’ll never guess. She actually went into an edit suite equipped with Avid Film Composer last night and another editor and they set out to amend the EDL (edit decision list, if you recall). They set out to do the thing that needs doing. Yes. Yes. Yes! Only… Only… Only they couldn’t. Quite. Make. It. Work.

Pause.

Why? Because I’d taken some of the original telecined rushes on videotape (25 frames per second) and cut them into the tape dubbed from Avid previously (25 frames per second, but corrected from 24 fps). So they could match the duration. But not the frame rate of the shots.

Does your head hurt now? Mine did.

In short, this means that for one particular shot which is twenty seconds long, the sound will drift out of sync by 20 frames, which is nearly a second. So I have to check it. There’s no dialogue on it and it’s nearly all ambience and foley (sound effects) so it *might* be alright. But it might not. It might. It might not. And if not…

First I need to sit on the floor and weep for the sheer outrageous goddamn frustration of the intractable pointlessness of it for ten minutes because the ‘if not’ would mean that the soundtrack might have to be remixed. Okay, I don’t really have time for the weeping stuff so I do it inwardly, kick myself up the bum and get back to producing–ie. problem solving. I’ll know tomorrow when I can view the tape at work.

Meanwhile the writers of Last Train emailed me a new short film script this morning and I spent yesterday sorting out some previous ideas with a view to forging ahead with another project to be shot this year. There’s some nice ideas there. I particularly like one about a travelling severed head who falls in love with a princess and marries her.

I dance the dance of lunacy. The lunacy that is film making.

…

January 10th

In short, this means that for one particular shot which is twenty seconds long, the sound will drift out of sync by 20 frames, which is nearly a second. So I have to check it. There’s no dialogue on it and it’s nearly all ambience and foley (sound effects) so it *might* be alright. But it might not. It might. It might not. And if not…

I bet hardly anyone even read that far, did you? It doesn’t matter. It made my brain hurt too. The point was the sound and pictures for Fate & Fortune might not all be in sync. But the EDL is done. Yes. Done. Let me say that one more time. The EDL for Fate & Fortune is done.

Only a few small easy to take steps to fame and glory. Or is that another film? No matter. No worries.

Today I looked at the pictures and took a wild stab in the dark that we can live with the shot where the sound is going to drift out of sync by a second because it’s nearly all non-sync material anyway.

So I arranged to meet Answerphone Editor to pick up the EDL. It didn’t happen. Bang head on desk. Tomorrow. Tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow. I called the nice rerecording mixer from Last Train to discuss the possibility of getting a Dolby surround mix made from what I already have and also perhaps sorting out this minor invisible-to-everyone-but-me sound sync thing. No dice, he’s off sick.

Tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow.

I read the new script from the Last Train writers and immediately wanted to make it as a silent movie set in a foreign country. They must rewrite if they want me to do this evil sanity sucking deed that is shooting another low-budget short. Am I limiting their vision? Or creating my own? Haha. Hahaha!

Last Train is now entered in two dozen international film festivals and I have a large batch of applications still to get through. Fate & Fortune remains in limbo.

I’d rant but I can’t be bothered. Oh, alright–just a quickie. Actually, this isn’t a rant.

I was wondering why the Universal Currency Converter only shows the midprice when my high street bank buys dollars for USD1.67 = GBP1 and sells them for USD1.17 = GBP1, thereby scuffing up my festival entry calculations. So I wrote to them and suggested they show the bid/ask in a future upgrade. And they responded (really quickly!) and said they’ll pass it on to their techstaff.

Cool. Especially for a free internet service.

I know you’re just dying to know if the EDL got finished last week. I know I am. I phoned Answerphone Editor just now and she told me that Alistair–the editor with access to the all-important Avid Film Composer–has disappeared. Much like my Gieves & Hawkes collection of formal wear, Kirstie Alley’s svelte figure or the Taliban’s luck. There is no sign of any of them. Apparently several messages have been left with Alistair but he has not responded so is presumably out of the country with the Major Motion Picture that currently pays his wages plus my EDL (which does not).

There is much rolling of eyes and shaking of fists in the Ascalon household although I don’t quite feel like wearing the hair shirt just yet. Nevertheless, split infinitives aside, until this little project is finished, I remain stuck in the proverbial rut. All those dreams of getting a top-notch super-dooper dope-fly agent have to stay on the shelf where they gather dust and a team of industrious spiders liberally applies cobwebs. Still, there’s no flies on me. Ho ho ho.

To add to my Yuletide joy, I went to the dentist yesterday morning. This is my new dentist who I’ve only seen once before. The previous one–the nice woman dentist with the cornflower blue eyes peering into my yawn over her surgical mask–moved on earlier this year. I liked her and not least because she never gave me a filling in seven years but simply polished my teeth a little whiter each time. Bleem bleem!

Anyway, I have a deep mistrust of dentists and the reason isn’t to do with pain or fear or things like that. It’s to do with the fact that they get paid for the actual work they carry out. I always suspect that fillings are a way of earning a little extra cash to pay for a holiday in the sun or installments on a new sports car or Christmas. Blue-eyed Diana never succumbed to these temptations.

Imagine my delight then when Mr New Dentist–who peers into my yawn through something resembling a compact telescope–tells me it is time for new X-rays and these should be taken every two or three years. I actually find that hard to swallow (pun intended) as X-rays cause cancer, or so I’ve always been led to believe. Anyway, he’s the qualified one with all the letters after his name so I chew on some film for a few seconds–the closest I’ve got to having celluloid images in my hand this month–and he takes his snaps.

Then he discovers a chipped filling and a tiny amount of decay. “Nothing to worry about. We’ve caught it early,” he quips with the same casual tones as a man who’s just netted the crocodile that ate his mother-in-law. Nothing to worry about for him, he means. He doesn’t have to endure some wild-eyed technician sticking a small vacuum cleaner in his numbed mouth while he drools unattractively for twenty minutes. He’s just paid for his kids to get that all-important PlayStation2 system (or maybe he wants it for himself). And I don’t have insurance.

Oh, happy happy joy joy.

Yes, ’tis Christmas, folks, and still no sign of Fate & Fortune. My teeth are gleaming and perfect, however–which despite my complaints I’m actually extremely grateful for–and my larder is stocked to bursting point with goodies, nibbles and seasonal beverages. The shopping is done, the cards are sent, the decorations are out of the attic (where do all those old cardboard boxes come from?) and I’ve only to get the tree.

I feel ready.

Bleem bleem!

…

December 21st

Still no EDL. Still no returned phone calls from vanishing editors. Still no second film. Still no earth shattering move forward in my career, merely the same kind of delays you’d expect if it was run by a French trade union. I practice my meditation. Apart from that, this…

…I always suspect that fillings are a way of earning a little extra cash to pay for a holiday in the sun or installments on a new sports car or Christmas…

I turned up early at the surgery today and listened in to various conversations between other patients and the receptionist. These were along the lines of, “Why has my monthly insurance gone from �21 to �55? When I haven’t had any treatment done?” and the receptionist saying, “Well, I just work here but lots of people have been complaining.”

Mr New Dentist, the faux-jolly receptionist elf confided, has actually been doing a LOT of work on nearly every patient. Then satan’s little helper smiled sickly sweet as she charged someone �7.50 for painkillers and put the boot in by saying the previous dentists used to give them for free. Luckily the reading materials on offer were still free and I buried myself in something suitably deep and intellectual. Deep in the pages of a story about the effects of food colouring on eating habits, I continued my covert listening activities.

Further eavesdropping revealed that the previous two dentists had been seeing many many patients for the past five years and longer and doing very few fillings. Just check ups and teeth polishing. (Bleem bleem). Mr ND has been catching up with what he thinks is a backlog. Now how come two dentists give a clean bill of health and another one tuts and doubles his income overnight? Very very suspicious, if you ask me.

My filling is done. My mouth aches from being injected, drilled and filled and my bank manager winces from this month’s cash hemorrhage. I sign myself up for various overtime stints over the Christmas period (in accordance with the latest Motley Fool directive for staying sane and solvent).

Meanwhile, having had the nice dentist for seven years, I am wondering if Mr Entrepreneurial Dentist is actually a real dentist with real qualifications and stuff. I once had a dentist told me that stealing dental equipment was actually surprisingly common because it’s worth so much money. Erk. My suspicious mind has conjured up this scenario where a dental school dropout sets up a bogus practice with stolen kit. Surely only a deviant would have ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ in their waiting room?

Bleem bleem anyway. Now I must dash to find somewhere to trash this stash of chocolate wrappers from the cache of Christmas goodies I’ve just raided. Back in a flash.

No, one hasn’t finished one’s second film yet. Please keep asking, though. One needs all the motivation one can get.

Today I phoned The British Council, a useful organisation that can pay for shipping costs when sending one’s films out to international festivals. They can also contribute to printing costs and the person I spoke to also mentioned something about helping with travel expenses if the producer or director gets invited to the festival. That’s if a film is accepted by them and acceptance takes six to nine weeks.

That means the deadline to get Fate & Fortune finished in time for Cannes grows shorter by about two months. Cannes is like a key to the year because they won’t accept films that have been shown elsewhere before them.

Incidentally, Fate & Fortune is too long for the short film category at Cannes as it has a running time of 16 minutes. Their max duration is 15 mins including credits. Bastards. However, I notice on the Cannes website something about special waivers and invitations so I ask The British Council folks if that’s the sort of thing they’d be able to arrange. I drop into the conversation that Fate & Fortune is excellent (and other superlatives). They’ll call me back.

Then I play the ‘phone up the editor’ game. I am tired of this game. Even after ten hours of soul-enriching sleep I am tired of it. I punch the numbers and today’s result is ‘Answerphone.’ I leave no message. Instead I ring another neg cutters, Sylvia Wheeler, and tell them of my plight. Would they be able to cut the film based on the videotape I have rather than using an EDL? They ask for the details to be emailed to them which I’ve just done.

After that, I call the original neg cutters, True Cut, who have all the cans of negative and they are happy and friendly to the point of me feeling a touch of guilt about taking the neg elsewhere, yet I know they will only work with an EDL. I tell them I’m worried about the cans sitting there–they’ve been there for nearly a year now!–and maybe it would be better if I pick them up. They go off to check where they are and they’re calling me back in ten minutes.

In the hope that one will soon be collecting heavy film cans, one braces oneself for driving into central London, which is loosely based on Dante’s final circle of Hell but with more traffic nightmares, and one waits for the phone calls to come back.

…

True Cut call me back and let me know my eight cans of negative are sitting in their vault. I think to myself, ‘Hmm, do I really want to store them on the staircase in my centrally heated flat (apartment)? Or would it be better to leave them where they are?’ I opt for leaving them where they are and wait for the call from Sylvia Wheeler’s.

…

So I call my cousin’s husband to see if there’s any chance of getting into an edit suite where he works but it’s Christmas and it is the maddest time of the year. So, no. However, he suggests that I can call up the EDL on any machine and simply edit the numbers rather than loading up the whole project. This sounds promising.

I call the other editor. Answerphone again. I leave a message suggesting this idea of just altering the list. Can we do that on any Avid or does it have to be a computer specially set up to deal with film? I wait for the call back.

I call Andy, the composer from Last Train because, well hey, he’s an editor! We chat, we laugh. I suggest something about skating pigs as an idea for a video for his CD. He chuckles indulgently. I tell him of this EDL idea and he says he will ask, although he doesn’t use Avid personally. Also, again, it is the run up to Christmas and the busiest time of the year.

Interesting sidenote: Andy has a week off and is spending it down in Devon, in the countryside. Why Devon? Because he gets away from the city and feels inspired to be creative. He’s currently surrounded by music, rhyming dictionaries, recording equipment and who knows what else and writing lyrics for two songs that already have the music finished.

This getting away from the regular environment to be creative strikes me as an extremely good idea. I’ve been thinking over the weekend about the importance of having a creative environment and people around you to bounce ideas off and all of that. I’m one of those people who needs a bit of competition to propel me forwards.

Along those lines I was also thinking that I seem to be a member of various professional bodies and never attend any meetings or social gatherings. I should do that as a New Year’s resolution. I bet, for example, that someone in the Director’s Guild knows an editor with Film Composer.

Anyway, for today I think I can do no more. Then a friend I work with calls to ask if I can cover for them so they can go out partying. I remember that they know a few editors. I’ve even met one of them. I mention the EDL thing and they say they will ask around.

Now I really have covered all the bases for today so I go out and buy cake.

…

Answerphone editor calls me back. Uploading the EDL into another Avid isn’t as straightforward as that, which is what I thought. There are two types of Avid–Avid Media Composer, which is used by loads of people and is for television, and Avid Film Composer, which is used for film (surprise!). Of course, we edited on the latter and hardly anyone has it. However…

I am told they are going to sort out my EDL on Wednesday night.

Oh, please please please please please let it be so.

Of course, once this is finished I will immediately go out and shoot something else and start the whole nightmare again. But still.

PLEeeeeeeaaSE!

I finish all the cake in the house now and pass out.

…

Oh, yes, other high points of the day have included buying a new suit, paying my phone bill and convincing the bank to refund some bank charges they were going to slap on me. Just in case you thought it was all cake and Cannes here.

…

December 12th

I am told they are going to sort out my EDL on Wednesday night.

Of course, they phoned me. Today is apparently the day for moving the server so there is no edit facility available and it won’t be today after all. This week is also what’s known as the ‘final lock’ on the feature film the editor is working on so time is even tighter. They’re going to try for Thursday. Or Friday. Honest.