Last Train
Neg cut is now complete and negative is ready to go on to the labs for printing early next week. I’m not thinking about organising exhibition venues just yet, however, considering the number of problems already encountered and the thought that there are still a whole load of things that could go wrong. Still, this is good. This is very very good.

Fate & Fortune
Sent off the revised edits to the editor but still no call yet. Dug out my three page list of audio dubbing requirements and phoned the sound mixer but got the answerphone. No, the sound wasn’t done last weekend (qu’elle surprise) but the rerecording mixer sounded as though she does want to get it done as soon as possible. I blame Columbia Tri-Star for all of this. Why can’t they use someone else’s facilities?

As for music, I daren’t phone the composer to sort out re-doing the trumpet parts that I thought were a bit weak just in case the sound studio does actually become available and we can suddenly go in and complete the thing. If that happened, it would mean I’d have to use audio effects over the music track in those places, which would be fine, I think, for the sake of getting it done.

Funding
Loan company has approved my mortgage request and final papers for remortgage came through for me to sign and these were posted back this morning.

This week has been slow slow progress on the film finishing front and yet significant progress has been made. This morning I got a call from the neg cutters, to whit: “Hello. We have a slight problem in that you’ve used the same shot twice and we wondered if we could juggle it a little to make it work?” This is really no problem, as long as it doesn’t affect the duration of sequences and puts the soundtrack all out of sync, so I say, “Sure, go ahead (punk)–make my day.” Later I call them back to see how it’s going and they tell me they should have it done by early next week.

Pause. Let’s just look at that again and what it means. Last Train will be at the labs next week for printing. Cool!

Meanwhile I envisage a thousand and one horrors that could still happen at the lab. The sound might be all out of sync because I made a decision to shoot at 25 frames/second for cinema rather than 24fps for TV. The video tape that we transfered into the edit suite computer (Avid) runs at 24fps so one setting wrong on Avid and it’s all bleugh. The shots juggled by the neg cutters to make things work might put the whole sound track out too. The neg cut might have been done to the wrong EDL and the sound won’t match for that reason. I come up with these jolly thoughts and then immediately put them out of my mind.

Rather than dwell on these insurmountable problems, or the fact the Director of Photography wants a ‘pristine print’ which just isn’t going to happen because I want a ‘dark gritty look’, I focus on the day to day. One thing at a time. First things first. Which is another way of saying I find new ways to procrastinate. Nevertheless, I filled out the mortgage forms and sent them promptly back to the building society which means a large wedge of moolah is on its way to pay for my filmic exploits (as well as my loan and credit card).

Fingers crossed that gets finalised soon despite the building society nonsense I had on the phone yesterday. “Oh, you can’t pay by standing order straightaway because of the way we do the payments. It has to be by direct debit.” Blah blah. Life is too short to deal with people unable to think outside their company rule books, so I smile politely and say okay, that’s fine.

The important thing is to stay focused on that one beautiful piece of information. Shall we look at it again? I think we should. Last Train will be at the labs next week for printing.

…

But what of my other film, Fate & Fortune–my real favourite with its weird incomprehensible story and high production values? I sigh. Okay, it goes like this. Following my phone call to Simon the editor a few weeks back, I know I have to sit down with a tape to write out all the timecodes for the shots I’ve changed where I edited out lots of title cards.

Problem: I had no tape to do this because it’s with the sound people. Solution: when I was tidying up the flat two weeks ago to get it re-valued for the remortgaging plan, I came across a stack of VHS tapes I’d done before giving those sound people a tape. I pat myself on the back at my own cleverness. So I can do the shot list for Simon.

This means sitting down with the video recorder for about an hour and writing down the timecode (a digital reference point) for the start and end of each shot. Naturally I put this off for as long as possible and find excuses like, “Oh, woe is me, if only the sound people would pull their fingers out, it would all be done” and “Why can I not pay my mortgage by standing order?” Amazingly though, I actually did it on Monday and typed it up yesterday.

Then I phoned Simon to check he’s at the same address before I send it off. Yes, it’s really been that long. “Good job you caught me,” he says, “I’m off in a couple of weeks to work in LA for five months.” So now there is a deadline and it’s a biggie and I post the tape and printout and hope he gets a new EDL (one which works) to me before he leaves. Otherwise… well, we don’t think about otherwise.

Lastly, I go through the ritual of phoning the Rerecording Mixer. This rite has become almost like a Catholic Mass in its adherence to the laid down form. We go through the usual motions of “We should be able to do it Saturday” and “Yes it will be a 5.1 mix although it won’t be Dolby but we can get it Dolby encoded down the road” and “I’ll call you later in the week.” Hallelulah. Amen. Then later in the week I call her and get the, “The suites are both booked for Saturday now and we can’t get in. We’re up against Columbia Tri-Star and Sky and they pay top dollar, no discount, d’you know what I mean?” Sadly, yes. All too well.

Maybe we’ll get it done Sunday. Maybe I will discover I have telepathic powers and can predict the result of this weeks lottery. Maybe I’ll even do that and buy a ticket. Maybe I will find something aesthetically pleasing about the stupid tinny sound polluting irritants that are the ring tones of mobile phones too. I’ll get back to you…

…

Guess what? I phoned the sound person and we had one of those, “Sorry, mate, the studios are all booked…” conversations.

Bwahahahahaha!

Hot news from Ascalon Films…

(1) I called the sound re-recording mixer yesterday and she said the studio is back to back with bookings at the moment, which means they even use it overnight.

(2) the re-recording mixer called me up today and said, “Oh, sorry, I was just checking to see who had called my mobile and calling them back.”

(3) One of the lead actors from Fate & Fortune called and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not calling to hassle you about the film. I just wondered if you had a contact number for the manor house location we used. Oh, and by the way, how is it going?” We laughed, we joked, I hung my head in shame and admitted it still wasn’t finished.

(4) Erm, that’s about it. Well, Paul, my old school friend called round and he’s working on a movie called Deep which is a ghost story set on a submarine and it’s directed by the guy who did Pitch Black. So I was interested in that and will try to go and have a poke around the set in the next couple of weeks.

Yes, the famous quote from Stevie Wonder doing a Rubik’s Cube. I know, that’s not the best possible taste in humor, but it kind of feels like how these films are going. I phone up the various people and ask if each bit’s done and I get the usual answers, although sometimes I get a new answer and another block in the puzzle has slotted into place.

This week I’ve achieved getting my property revalued in preparation for getting a new mortgage to pay for all the production and post-production expenses so far incurred and committed. I now know there is more than enough equity and although it would have been nicer to pay for these things with profit from sharedealing, I can still allow myself the joy of dancing one of those Snoopy dances with a grin that goes well beyond the borders of Smugland. In fact, I am deep into the territory of the Smugwumps.

Today I phoned Martin at the graphics company. “Are the graphics shot yet?” I ask. “Yes, we finished them yesterday,” he replies. “We’ll deliver them to Tru-Cut this afternoon.” I call Tru-Cut to let them know. “Can you send us some kind of order, by the way, so we can generate an invoice?” they ask. “Yes, I’ll do it later,” I reply. Yesterday I did something similar for the labs.

So those things are in hand and Last Train chug-chugs forward a few more yards towards its cinematic conclusion although I fully expect some ridiculous unforeseen crisis to crop up at any minute. You know, like, “Oh, so-and-so’s daughter has had a baby and it’s got ginger hair! We can’t possibly do your film now!” Or, “Oh, we sold our business to the old man outside and he burned your negative to keep warm while sleeping on the streets!” Or, “Oh, sorry, my head just exploded.”

Nevertheless, I’m feeling lucky and, indeed, Simon the editor has sent me two spare EDL’s. So I phone the Michelle, the re-recording mixer on Fate & Fortune. “Hi, there. How are you?” I venture as my opening gambit. “Hi, there. Listen, it’s a really bad time right now. Can I call you back?” comes the reply, a classic Kasparov response studied from numerous books, no doubt. “No, worries,” I counter, “I’ll call you tomorrow.” Which is met with, “Okay, bye!” and my king-sized project is in check once again.

Still, what the hell. Tomorrow is another day, right? Right. I keep pushing my pawns towards the back row.

The other day I wrote: “…get the flat (apartment) revalued and find out it’s worth shedloads more than I paid for it (at least �20k more in the past five years, I’m hoping. Maybe even thirty)…” Well, today the estate agent phoned me up. And I’m sitting on �70k in equity. Could I keep the glee out of my voice? Could I? Ha! Hello end of movie, bongiorno better agency work and bye bye credit card.

Esto es la casa.

Graphics
Went to see Martin at Cine Image this lunchtime and he showed me print test with closing credits for Last Train set in the font I’ve decided on–Blur, really cool and absolutely perfect. It is spot on target (to recycle an old phrase) so gave the okay to shoot it and then it goes off to neg cutters and then we have a film at the lab and can grade it and get a print. And that will require some more money and the overdraft facility has erupted like a volcano this month with work on the car and household bills and a little camping trip and so on and so forth. So…

Funding
Next I went into town and got some leaflets about the current mortgage rates because the Bank of England (treasury) base rate is currently only five percent and my mortgage is seven, so I figure there’s a better deal to be had. In fact, I’ve already had a friend tell me I can fix my rate at about five and a half percent for two years with one building society but that depends on lots of factors like property value and amount of equity and stuff.

Anyway, what I’m thinking is, get the flat (apartment) revalued and find out it’s worth shedloads more than I paid for it (at least �20k more in the past five years, I’m hoping. Maybe even thirty). Then put all debts including existing indebtedness from films into new mortgage and get enough money to pay for prints and still wind up with less outgoings every month because the interest on my loan currently is a monster while the credit card debt has had offspring.

So next step is an estate agent is calling around on Saturday afternoon to give me a valuation on the property and that means panic panic tidy up like mad and make it look as spacious as possible and get those piles of books and videotapes off the staircase and where can I put all these cassettes? Cassettes everywhere! Hundreds of them. Where did they all come from?

Needless to say I’ve spent most of the afternoon now playing old tapes that I’d forgotten about. I didn’t realise Sheryl Crow had got so stretched and, oh look, the Pulp Fiction soundtrack (“Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”) and Blondie ‘Plastic Letters’ and the Thompson Twins, which I always play when I’m decorating because of that song, ‘Bouncing like a ball’–“You’re the kind of person I could look across to say I love you…”–and Grace Jones and The Stranglers and is that Billy Bragg? And Future Sound of London ‘Lifeforms’–“Everything/Everything/Everything/Everything…”? What a lot of David Bowie…

Yes, more procrastination and drip drip drip progress and soon soon… soon…

Film update: I actually paid for the graphics for Last Train on Thursday. We’re now using a different typeface, something called Blur, which is absolutely perfect. They’re going to do a test to see if it works on the credits as well as the titles. Then it’s all systems go. The titles and credits go to the neg cutters. Then the neg goes to the lab where it’s graded (ie. made to look exceptionally pretty) and then I get a print. Job done. Almost there…

Cost of graphics, btw, was �950 including VAT. Ugh. That’s the biggest chunk of money I’ve had to part with in one go in the whole post production process. Hello large overdraft!

Teeth update: After going on earlier this year about how my wonderful cornflower blue-eyed lady dentist had moved, I finally made an appointment for a check-up with the new guy. The letter from the surgery said he was German which I thought didn’t bode well, but having heard some horror stories recently about not going for years, it was that or nothing.

So I went. And guess what? He was okay. Yes, he’s a really nice guy (or a thoroughly decent chap as some might say), friendly and chatty and had the radio playing in the surgery (which I think is always a good sign even though I know it’s a psychological thing they do). And he said my teeth are fine, in perfect condition. He scaled and polished and then I went off on my way grinning–nay, beaming!–from ear to ear. What a relief!

I was so pleased that I stopped at Waitrose, the most expensive supermarket in St Albans, on the way home and bought a month’s worth of really delicious food. The sun is out and shining brightly, so lots of salad things went into the trolley. Plus a couple of bottles of wine. Life is good!

Today. I phone the editor. EDL copy made. On his desk. Please send. Okay. On the way. I phone graphics people. Can’t use TrueType fonts. Okay. How about ‘Amnesia’? Nice typeface for this. Do you have anything like it? We’ll look. Maybe you could send link? I’ll look. Phone sound re-recording mixer. Much longer conversation…

I love what you’ve done so far. We need to pull everything up to the standard of the best bits. Oh, and I really do need this Dolby 5.1 mix. Problem: we’ll need to re-lay all the tracks for 5.1. Problem: the music is in a narrow stereo mix. I bang head on wall. Well, that’s what’s needed. Okay. She’ll look at it. Problem: it could take three days just to re-do the track laying. Ugh. More banging head.

We chat for a bit about a few scenes and after all these months I realise how much easier it is to communicate directly with the person doing the work than via someone else. I think of shinynewgirl pushing monsters out the door. My monster seems to keep growing any time it gets near the lobby. It never gets anywhere near the door, although to people standing outside the growing monster looks as if it’s getting closer. I think of my mortgage and can I afford all this film monster malarky. It hurts my head.

I phone home and check messages. Ted at the lab has called and they have the DAT for Last Train audio (Dolby 5.1–how come it was so easy with that? Simpler film? Non-automated sound desk? More dedicated composer? Simpler music score? Questions without answers). Ted wonders where the negative is. I’ll call tomorrow when hopefully I have the EDL from Simon to give to Peter at the neg cutters so he can check what they’ve done. Then I’ll have to get the graphics from Martin so they can cut them in. Then I can get the neg to Ted.

Around and around and around the same voices on the phone and the same scenarios I go, week after week, month after month. I speak to these people more often than I talk to my mother. I keep remembering the assistant cameraman on the shoot saying, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” I remember smiling wanly at him while trying to stay focused back then. Can it really be a year and a half ago? I smile wanly at the memory.

…

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

That was hysterical laughter. I just needed to get it out of my system.

So, finally, finally, I get in the studio with the re-recording mixer. It’s about twenty after four on a Saturday afternoon and Sophie Cornet, the composer, is there too to make sure the cue points are hit exactly. When I arrive they are looking at a scene near the end of the film just after a van has crashed into some boxes at the side of the road. A wild animal is supposed to escape from a crate in the van at this point and the idea has always been to tell this part of the story with sound effects while concentrating on the actors. Instead of a lion’s roar and breaking, crunching timber, however, I hear ducks quacking and a sheep bleating. We are in for a loooooooooooooooooong evening.

Alex Joseph, the sound editor, isn’t there so I can’t ask where the hell the sound effects are. I point out to the re-recording mixer Michelle what’s needed and why and she obligingly digs out various growling noises from the effects library. I mention to Michelle that there are a few effects I would like to pull back to the rear speakers while keeping the music at the front in stereo. Without missing a beat she tells me that this is going to be a stereo mix only, there is no surround sound and they don’t have a licence for Dolby. Even if they did, the tracks haven’t been layed for a surround mix, she says. This sounds like what we in the trade call bullshit.

I realise that no matter what happens these people have just wasted a year of my life. I am ready to start screaming at this point, but somehow I remain calm and relaxed. Okay, inwardly I am screaming and my body language is getting a little tense but I haven’t started crossing my arms and legs. Not yet. Michelle adds a little pressure to help cook me by telling me there is a time limit and she needs to leave by eight o’clock. From the wisdom of experience I can already tell that there is no effing way on this God’s Earth that we are going to be out of that studio with a decent mix by eight o’clock. Dream on.

…

We look through the film. Let me tell you a bit about audio post-production. This will be educational.

Firstly, the sound editor (Alex in our example) is given a list of required sound effects to provide along with suitable background noise for each scene (atmosphere or atmos) and footsteps for people walking (foley). These are layed down on separate sound tracks (imagine three tapes or more running together in sync) so that in the mix, the audio levels can be raised or lowered, and panned left, right, front or back.

Other tracks are layed down too. These are the one or two dialogue tracks, an ADR track (audio dub recording) where an actor has come back to re-voice their lines, and the music tracks. The music should be in stereo provided by the composer.

Now, on the plus side, Alex has fixed all the holes in the sound so there is atmos running all the way through – traffic noise, birdsong, air conditioning, etc. It’s all there. Okay, almost. For some reason there is a heartbeat effect where I was expecting train interior, but I said to ‘be creative’ so he obviously has. There is also a fantastic evil whispering effect he’s created for the car showroom scene and all of this is excellent.

The foley work has also been done too (which means you can hear people walking, although it’s not something you’d be conscious of unless you were listening for it). There are some great thuds as people fall too and some other superb effects. These effects set the standard for the rest – but the rest doesn’t quite measure up.

The downside begins with there being at least five major sound effects missing, all of which are ‘plot points’ – items which drive the film forward and without which the story makes less sense. These include a lion growling on three separate occasions, children’s laughter, a lone child saying “Mamma?”, a wolf whistle, oh, and a loud train siren. Without that last there is no reason for one character to become startled enough to knock his hearing aid off and without that incident, half the action wouldn’t happen.

Michelle now has to find these things in the library and lay them down before we can get on with the mix. This wastes about an hour and a half. Leaving at eight? I think not. The eight o’clock deadline shifts gradually to eight thirty.

Then we come to the ADR. Conrad, one of my actors, came back last year to re-record his scenes so that we could get a stronger performance. Michelle was sceptical of this at the time, because it’s incredibly hard for an actor to match up their own lip-sync perfectly, let alone change the emphasis on words, and many can’t. Conrad, however, was brilliant and we got it down.

The other thing we did at that time was process the ADR with echo and reverb to match the room acoustic. When you listen to someone normally you not only hear their voice directly but you also hear the echoes of their voice reverberating from any reflective surfaces – walls and ceiling being the main ones. Without those indirect echoes, the speach sounds like it’s been dubbed on (which it has). We did all this during the ADR session. However, last night we find (I find) that Alex didn’t lay that processed sound down. Oh no. He layed down the straight ADR with no acoustic effects. We now have to recreate the effect of Conrad talking in a tiled kitchen.

This is the point where I really want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to rip the screen down and shove it down Michelle’s throat and say, “What in frick’s name do you think you are fricking doing? This is a feature film facility house. Put the fricking sound through the fricking effects processor and dial up ’tiled bathroom’ or ‘small kitchen’ on the reverb unit!”

The first thirty minutes of the scenario actually seem to involve Michelle EQ’ing (equalizing – ie. adjusting the treble, bass and midtones) of Conrad’s voice. “No,” I say, “you need to add more reverb.” There has been no reverb at all as far as I can tell. Eventually a small amount reaches my ears. “More,” I say. But no more is forthcoming. I cross my arms very tightly and wince as I listen to Conrad over and over again, his face very obviously in the kitchen, his voice very obviously not.

After more blood curdling tolerant waiting, Michelle eventually dials in the effects processor. Hoo-fricking-ray! No. It’s not. The only effect she can create is of Conrad talking in what appears to be the Taj Mahal on a particularly quiet day for visitors. Conrad’s voice is everywhere. Michelle admits defeat. “It’s this effects processor,” she says. Like fricking hell is it. As I say, we are in a dubbing theatre used for 35mm features and commercials, so it’s not likely that something this basic isn’t installed. It is, however, likely that she doesn’t know where it is or how to use it.

An hour and thirty minutes after starting this exercise, we have got no further and I have had to go from extreme irritation to the director’s role of encouraging Michelle to get the best possible results. Sophie points out at this point that Conrad’s lips do not appear to be in sync with his dialogue for the opening shot of the scene. Oh dear. She is right. I am the model of calm as I suggest we drop the ADR and go back to the sync sound. Oh deary deary me. It appears Alex has not laid down the sync dialogue as an option.

The deadline for leaving for the evening appears to have slipped to 9pm and Michelle has phoned her friends to say she’ll be late meeting them. I am keeping the requirement for a second mortgage at the forefront of my mind, so despite the fact I’m not paying for this, I know it’s going to take me years to pay off the cost of a print. That means it has to be perfect. That means I have no sympathy for Michelle’s night out. And I am mad as hell at Alex.

…

Eventually, at about 9pm, the ADR section is ‘acceptable’ – though not perfect, especially in comparison to the quality work all around it. Michelle has added all the effects I’ve asked for and lost the farm animal sounds (under a bit of protest). Some of the effects (which really should have been there, fume fume) work so well it’s hard to believe they could have been missed. One in particular is a lion growl as the silhouetted head of an actress moves across a shadowy background. After this piece of misdirection, a light comes on her face to reveal that it isn’t the missing wild animal. I’m extremely pleased with this. I want the whole film to be that standard. And it mostly is.

We start mixing in the music track. Michelle has come out with some technical BS to explain why music will always “tend to be mono” (huh?) because “the instruments are mono to begin with”. I bite my tongue. The music is excellent. Well, with one exception. We hired a professional trumpet player and some of his performance is ‘weak’ in my opinion. To me, he sounds off-key in places and hesitant in others. I want to drown this out with loud atmos and effects. I actually want to find out where he lives and do evil things to the source of his livelihood. Then I want to re-record his performance with someone who knows what they’re doing. Other than that, it all works and works beautifully. I weep with frustrated delight.

It is now 9.30pm, however and we are rushing the mix. Some things need to be louder in some places than others. There is excessive traffic noise in parts and I want to get rid of it. We start again. I haven’t mentioned, by the way, how many times the computerised mixing desk has crashed during the evening, losing tracks for no apparent reason and failing to fade things up at other times. I have to keep reminding Michelle that she really IS doing a great job because that kind of thing can break your spirit.

After about ten minutes of the stereo mix, Michelle says, “Can I do you a favour?” I say, “Yes, sure. You are doing an excellent job, please go ahead.” And she is doing an excellent job, it’s true and I’m grateful. She’s sorted out the missing effects and Conrad’s scene is full of music anyway so you can’t spot the ADR. Well, not in a stereo mix. In 5.1 surround it will stand out like a sore thumb. Nevertheless, I am feeling positive about it all again.

So, Michelle’s favour is to suggest she lays down all the tracks properly and we do the mix on another day. I readily agree. I can see where it’s going otherwise and I don’t want to spend all that money on a print for something rushed in the last five minutes. We all breathe a sigh of relief and I know it also means I’ll get a Dolby Surround mix because the studio will be licenced apparently by the time we come back. The only thing is, from what Michelle says, it will be four to six weeks before we can get in the studio again.

So I am relieved and tense at the same time. I am creatively fulfilled by some things which are working so well and adding comedy and depth which were previously missing. I am creatively unfulfilled by the fact we still haven’t finished due to all the technical and artistic problems we have had to overcome just in this one evening.

Michelle can now go out and meet her friends – it’s her birthday and she has diplomatically not mentioned it until just as we leave. I resolve to take a bottle of champagne or something in for her on Tuesday morning when she’s next in. It’s the least I can do and I need to keep her goodwill because I want her to continue doing her best work. Sophie and I head off, smiling foolishly in frustration and some satisfaction at seeing that it could actually work. We comment on the lameness of Alex for not getting the effects recorded and tracks layed properly. We say, “See you soon,” with no idea of what ‘soon’ means and we vanish into the night. Eventually I get home and pass out.

And this, my friends, is low budget film making.

I call. They stall. I call. They stall. I call. They stall. It can’t really go on like this but it does. The irresistable force. The immovable object. Maybe this week I’ll break through. Drip drip drip drip. I’m wearing a hole in it, I’m sure.

Yesterday I went down to the graphics people again. They’ve put lovely evil quirky hands on the ampersand (&) of Fate & Fortune and it looks wicked. I’m heartened again by that. I tell them of a website I’ve found with famous movie fonts and suggest we try the typeface from the modern Romeo and Juliet using lowercase vowels and uppercase for consonants. I email the font to them and the website address. Later I notice that the Romeo font is no longer available on that site, so I hope the email works.

Neg cutters: Andy is back for two weeks to help them. I speak to him. He says he’ll see if he can find what’s happened to the EDL I gave him for Last Train. He’ll call me back…

Sound Fate & Fortune: I speak to Michelle directly on the phone. The mixdown will be this coming Saturday. I’ll go in at 4.30pm and we’ll continue from there until it’s done. Foolishly I leave a contact number for where I’ll be on Saturday morning “in case anything comes up”. Doh. No oh no. Now there’s a way for her to get out of doing it. Again.

Sound Last Train: I speak to the other re-recording mixer, Peter Hodges. He’s made a DAT. He’s delivering it to Ted at the lab.

So, I need one audio mix, two sets of graphics, one EDL for checking against a cut negative and one EDL for cutting the negative but I can’t get that together until I get my tape back off Michelle on Saturday. Festival deadlines come and go but there really is nothing more I can do. I still feel the need for some new way to stir things up and keep myself going. I phone the Directors Guild and ask them to send me a membership pack.

For this week, that’s it.