Seedling

Film making

Couple of weeks back I added Fate & Fortune and Last Train to the Internet Movie DataBase. Apparently it takes seven days to three weeks to build the entry when you add a new film. They need links to external sites like festivals for verification and that takes time. Also mine had lots of new people who weren’t on the imdb already so I’m guessing that slows it all down a lot.

It’s interesting clicking the link every few days and seeing what new bits have been added. It’s kind of like seeing a small seed sprout a shoot then put out leaves as they build information incrementally. It started with just the film name. Then the people already on imdb were added, like Simon Cozens and Simon Ricketts.

Lately the synopsis for F&F (I didn’t do one for LT) has appeared and somewhere along the line, links to the official site were added. Latest update is some more tech specs. I guess another reason for it being such a ponderous process is because imdb is one huge set of interlinking pages and someone has to manually check each one as they go up.

As I say, it’s like seeing a plant grow. Fascinating. Eventually it will flower. You know: fame, fortune, bright lights, the ever-elusive barrel of monkeys and tons of addictive substances to control the voices. In the meantime, I’ve got your opening grosses–right here in my pants.

Troupes Long Past Revue

Making the News

The Lights Are Warm And Coloured. The story of a serial killer. A suspenseful dark comedy for theatre. Promises promises. If you’ve ever sat in an airing cupboard over winter watching a hyacinth grow from bulb to flower, you’ll be familiar with the pace of this play. Lizzie Borden took two acts, and gave the audience forty winks. When they all left by the door, she gave reviewers forty more.

Grelle was less than amused.

Mike, my friend of many years, had come with me to see a Centralian Players production in the village of Abbots Langley. As I was reviewing it for the local paper, I had free tickets, so I’d told Mike we’d get dinner afterwards. My treat. On expenses. Partly. I only got a measly £2.50 maximum meal allowance but still, dinner was to be commensurate with the quality of the performance. If it was really good, we were destined for the finest curry house in town.

It wasn’t good. It wasn’t even mediocre. We ended up sat in a car park in Garston eating junk food. “I can’t believe you,” said Mike, around a mouthful of Big Mac. “We should have left in the interval. Like everyone else.” I nodded, digging into another handful of fries. I’d never left anything in the interval. On the other hand, I’d never been to anything as dire as this. The rain spattered relentlessly on the windshield as we recalled how appalling this amateur effort had been.

The audience had been outnumbered by the cast to start with. The tea break made it worse. As the curtain rose on the second act, apart from ourselves, there was just one other person left in the large village hall. I felt duty-bound to provide an honest review as the actors spoke shyly to the scenery lest they catch our eyes while fluffing their lines. The most intelligible dialogue came from the prompt whose voice boomed out clearly across the empty theatre.

With the exception of the lead player’s bright suit?a suit which would have delighted George Melly or Rupert the Bear? The Lights Are Warm And Coloured barely achieved tepid and monochromatic. It plodded. It ambled. It shuffled. It shrugged and died, right there before us. It was uncomfortable to watch but for the fact I knew how much fun it would be pulling it apart. Oh, this was going to be grand. High on grease and carbohydrates, Mike and I laughed like drains as we gave it the last rites.

Next day, I wrote up the sorry saga starting with the hyacinth analogy and finishing with a comment on costume departments stuffed with comedy trousers. Poison flowed tappity tap from my keyboard to the screen and I buried the hapless Centralians under six foot of scorn. I salted the earth, or rather the boards, trodden by these purveyors of pap in an effort to ensure they never inflicted such misery on anyone again. It was incredibly funny stuff, every line a gem, every paragraph a self-indulgent joy to behold. As was often the way, I was full of myself.

I transferred it to Grelle White, the arts editor, for publication in the Go section, our arts and entertainment pages, then I started working on something else. I watched furtively to see when she read it. I knew when the moment came. Her eyes bugged. She stopped reading and looked up. She waved me over, imperatively.

“Keith, what is this?” Grelle asked, incredulous.

“It’s fair comment,” I replied. “They were dreadful.”

“But were they really this bad?”

“Yes!”

Wearing a satisfied grin is not a good way to look innocent and I certainly wasn’t looking innocent then. The Grin of Badness was upon me. I had amused myself and was feeling greatly pleased. Grelle’s a good person; she doesn’t understand unkindness. She didn’t see why I should be so pleased. And she certainly didn’t get my sense of humour.

“Well, I think you’re being too unfair. Good grief, if those poor people read this, they’d never act again,” Grelle said.

“Which would be a good thing!” I said.

“In your opinion. They’re just amateurs.”

“They charged for tickets. The few people who had paid left in the interval. They were just wasting people’s time.”

“Well, they weren’t wasting their time. You know, there’s other reasons to belong to a local drama group than appearing in front of an audience.”

This stopped me in my tracks. What? Was this some kind of parallel universe logic? Maybe some strange notion Grelle had brought over from Denmark where the high latitude and strange weather played tricks on the mind?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“People join a local theatre company as a social activity. There’s pleasure in it for them to be part of this group, organising, rehearsing and putting on a play.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Well, there was no pleasure in it for me. Or for the rest of the audience.” I countered. “They could go and join something else, something less public. Pottery classes, perhaps.”

But Grelle wasn’t having any of it. “Keith, this is just too harsh. You’ve crossed the line into cruelty. Go and take out everything you think is funny. It’s not going in like this.” And so I emasculated it of ridicule and the Centralians review was published. It was still scathing, but now my copy was as lukewarm as the play. They’d be less likely to read it and more likely to use it for wrapping up fries at the McDonald’s drive-thru.

As it turned out, someone must have read it because a few days after publication, a letter turned up from one Gerald Holm. “A few lines in the Go columns of your paper alerted me to an amateur production of a play about Lizzie Borden?? [surely you jest, I thought] “The Centralian Players turned out to be a highly accomplished body of actors? I could not have seen it done better at Hampstead Theatre or at the Palace Theatre, Watford?”

That didn’t say much for Hampstead or Watford, did it? Hello? Hello? Earth to Gerald, come in please! Hmm. Gerald Holm, that name looked familiar. Not with the space program, no. I wondered which local theatre company I’d seen his name associated with. Nevertheless, our esteemed editor published the whole steaming crock in the letters page.

The trouble was, I’d been spoiled. The week before, I’d taken Mike to see something else: Terra Nova at the Abbey Theatre Studio, performed by The Company of Ten. The Company of Ten were also amateurs but this had been breathtaking. This production of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s desperate journey to the Antartic and the doomed expedition to the South Pole remains to this day one of the finest pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen. We sat on hard plastic chairs two feet from actors who performed before a backdrop made up of silk parachutes.

The acting was superb. We were held spellbound throughout the entire thing, the rigid seating forgotten along with the rest of the world as we were magically transported to the frozen wastes. This was how theatre should be. I remember Les Peacock as Captain Oates shedding a tear as the bitter cold froze off another body part. Aurora Borealis projected in soft colours on the icebergs behind and we were there, with him, feeling his pain.

It was absolutely fantastic. If I was going to the theatre, I wanted more of the Company of Ten and less of the Centralians. Grelle’s agenda, however, was to please everyone. She figured the Centralians would be around forever, longer than I’d be there at least. She also had four pages to fill every week and one good play a year wasn’t going to do it. My quest for artistic integrity, for dramatic purity was thwarted. Almost.

The thing was, Grelle did have those four pages to fill, come rain or shine. And there were a few rounds of golf to squeeze in too. Time and space were on my side. I knew that one thing Grelle wasn’t interested in reviewing but which remained popular was a horror movie. In fact, no one was interesting in reviewing them. Opportunity knocked. I happened to mention one day that I’d gladly take on writing up this drek and Grelle cheerfully agreed. That’s how I ended up sitting in the front row at Mr Young’s preview theatre in Soho, a beer in one hand and a bacon sandwich in the other, watching Phantasm II, a woeful tale of zombies running amok.

It was staggeringly poor. The Centralians no doubt watched this kind of thing in their master classes, taking most of their cues from the living dead. Even the free T-shirt I’d been given as a competition prize quivered in its bag under the seat, shocked that it could have been chosen to market something so feeble. I nevertheless wore that T-shirt with perverse pride for years to come.

On the way back I found myself concocting ever more amusing ways of sticking it to this tripe. Standing on Farringdon station, I read through the programme notes for inspiration and found the same director had also made Phantasm ten years earlier when he was a mere 25. Somehow he’d been let out of wherever he’d been locked up in the meantime, I reasoned. Lost in this reverie, trains thundering past on the tracks opposite, I didn’t notice a shadowy figure coming swirling up the dingy platform, trademark trenchcoat billowing behind him. It was Jon Challis.

Now, Jon Challis was deputy to the head of St Albans Leisure, a private company which had taken on the role of managing the districts sports and leisure facilities. Mid-thirties, smartly dressed, a go-getter, hungry for success. That was Mr Challlis. On a journalist’s expenses form, he was good for 14 miles, round trip. A not altogether unvalued contact, in fact. Tim had a saying for him, as he probably had a saying for everyone. “How do you know Jon Challis is lying? His lips are moving.” Nevertheless, even Tim had to admit, the management of St Albans Leisure made things happen and got things done.

“Keith! How are you doing?” Jon said, squeezing my hand and pumping my arm like a publican serving free beer to a winning rugby team. “I’m good, John. Very good. I’ve just been to see a film.” “Sounds good. Was it?” “I’m afraid not…” And that’s how we fell into conversation for the journey home. As it turned out, John was actually an interesting traveling companion, at least for that thirty minute train ride from Farringdon to St Albans. We spoke of films and the entertainment industry. Somewhere along the way, John asked me, “How’s work?” “Dull,” I admitted. “But… I do have a few ideas…”

Following Tim’s admonition about Mr C’s lips, I was a bit reticent. But I was also wildly enthusiastic so it wasn’t hard for him to draw it out of me. “Well,” I said, “what I’d like to do is get into TV and film making myself.” “Any luck so far?” “As it happens, I’ve been taking a few courses.” We talked on about films and film making, and also about the possibilities for local television. Our train pulled into St Albans Station and we parted cheerily.

Some time later I bumped into Jon again–although he appeared on several expense claims in the meantime. I happened to mention that I’d been talking to the local cable company who weren’t really doing anything much. “Oh,” John said, “well, you should come over to the local council offices some time and see the new information system we’ve set up for them in the foyer.” “Okay,” I promised, but that was later. Right then, I was ready to hammer Phantasm II with a barrage of keystrokes that would have made Freddy Krueger wince.

“I love film. I love all kinds of films. Except this one.”

Several weeks later, at a training session for junior journalists, I showed the editor of another local paper the two theatre reviews and the Phantasm II piece (which Grelle had left untouched) as they had appeared in the Watford Observer. “Nice,” he said. “These could count towards your training log if you like.” “Well,” I admitted, “that isn’t how the Centralians one originally looked.” I pulled out a print out I’d kept with the introduction about growing hyacinths and passed it to him.

It’s rare to see someone laughing out loud at your copy, especially when you’ve been led to believe it’s so self-indulgent. I savoured the moment. “This is great stuff,” he said. “Why didn’t they use it?” “You would have?” I asked. “Of course!” Oh. I explained Grelle?s reasoning to him. “Okay, I can see her point,” said my tutor, digesting this. “Maybe it is a bit cruel. But it’s still good. I would have used it.” I was clearly on the wrong newspaper. At least for theatre.

Yet, as far as film and television went, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And Jon Challis was to play a key role as the drama unfolded.

The World’s Baggage

Fire and Light

The most important issues facing the world today:
– water
– globalism and international trade laws
– localism: social and cultural identity

These things are the biggest issues in western society:
– infrastructure: transportation and electricity

This is a major issue, but not the biggest one:
– food quality (not quantity)

These things are not political issues in the UK:
– they’re political red herrings. Once the political decision to provide them and the targets of provision are identified, then they’re really management issues; the distribution of resources.

– health care: we have the most advanced health care in human history; the problem of identifying and treating rare diseases remains as important as it’s ever been. However, while there’s enough money for fertility ‘treatments’–as though having children is a right–then there’s clearly overspending.

– education: people are smarter than they’ve ever been and have greater access to information than at any time in history

– social welfare: a massive drug culture and the record-breaking sales of DVD players reflect a society where there is a huge surplus of wealth generally

Quote: “The importance of poverty as a cause of drug abuse has been ignored by the government, an influential report claims.”
Comment: so-called poor people in Britain can afford expensive drugs.

This is the biggest non-issue ever:
– hunting.

======

I started writing this as a rant (as usual) then realised that there was what looked like a major contradiction in my thinking. I was going to write that the most overhyped issues in the democratised world were terrorism and crime. For the most part, these issues are manipulated by politicians to create paranoia in an effort to reduce freedoms while increasing their own power.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

However, I then started writing something about what I think of as a hidden issue: the rise of feudalism. This was kind of a spin off from my thoughts on decreasing localisation and the general feeling of being disenfranchised many people have. Who am I? Where do I belong?

The disenfranchised want to belong to a group. Feudalism gives people that sense of belonging that nationalism and globalism take away. And so we have increasing power of unelected armed groups led by warlords and self-styled barons (in the old-fashioned sense of the word) acting outside established legal frameworks.

But there’s the contradiction. Either terrorism, a spin-off of this feudalistic war-baron-centred outlook, is important or it isn’t. Okay, it is. But the issue has been hijacked. The real issues aren’t public safety ones. They’re global ones regarding fair trade. And they’re local ones regarding individual and group identity. Individuals want to belong to a social group, to feel part of the world around them, but increasing paranoia works against this. The only safe things left to do are stay home, watch TV and take drugs for instant gratification.

Doing the paranoid things becomes part of a vicious circle. It actually increases the power of warlords, drug barons and other petty demigods, who all feed off the demand for quick fixes while thriving due to a lack of social cohesion. None of these things are healthy, either for individuals or for society. Reducing paranoia and increasing local values are the issues which need addressing. Turn off the security-obsessed floodlight and light a candle.

Approved!

It's life, Jim...

Hey, the US of A has approved our fiance visa petition! Which is effectively the same as saying that the world’s most powerful country has blessed our marriage. How cool is that? I get to be with my love! That’s the coolest.

Today I am mostly exhibiting the jaw-aching perma-grin.

Digital Beer Mats

Film making

One reason celluloid has survived so long is that it’s a universal standard. You can show a 35mm print running at 24 frames per second in any country around the world. It’s simple and straightforward. Essentially you just hold it up to a light source. Put the same movie on a disc and you end up with a coaster. The same can be said of any other file too. Digits are a means to an analog end.

Yesterday should have been the sound mix for The Car. I got to Mosaic about ten minutes late but Peter was working on something else anyway so I had to wait. No worries. I opened up the PowerBook and played around with the credits. It had only occured to me the day before that I’d have to give Dolby a credit, a condition for doing a Dolby encoded surround mix.

So, new credit added, although it looks like a digital freak in amongst the other credits which were cunningly crafted by printing them on sheets of paper and sticking them in front of a clockwork camera. Hey, I bet you didn’t know a clockwork camera only runs for 19 seconds, by the way. No, neither did I. I do now. The other thing I didn’t know was the benefit of putting through 100 feet of film as a test roll at the lab. Test rolls are free. I paid the minimum charge of £100. Drat.

I tool around and eventually Peter’s other project reaches its conclusion. The happy-go-movie fee-paying types leave the studio and we get everything copied over to a Jaz drive. Then we go round the corner to another company, Lipsync, where we’re doing the Dolby mix. They’re busy, we wait. Peter mentions something about a 48 hour film making project which happened last weekend. I make a mental note when he says both he and his son own DV cameras–you never know when you’ll need a camera–and meanwhile I rubberneck the premises.

Lipsync is a truly tasty facility house. They have pictures up on the wall showing some of the fantastic graphics sequences they’ve created. They have glass windows looking into some booths boasting a cornucopia of gadgets. And they keep their reception area stocked with glossy film mags and professional jailbait. No less than three Emma Bunton lookalikes giggle past before a runner appears with tea. In china mugs. Soho swirls soundlessly outside. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. The runner returns shortly after to take us to Theatre One where we meet up with Mike the mixer.

Now here’s a thing–a strange thing. I’ve noticed that the more high spec, high tech a facility house gets, the more carpet they seem to have. Peter’s new studio at Mosaic has floor covering which goes half way up the walls, so we know it must be good. But it’s not enough. Lipsync’s carpet goes right to the ceiling. There’s no pulling the rug out from under these guys. It’s all leather sofas, halogen spots and tasteful wood niches which serve to both baffle sound and store manuals. One wall alone stands bare. Actually, it’s not bare at all. It’s completely covered by a projector screen. Directly opposite, across a floor space as big as my lounge, is a huge sound desk and, behind, a raised dias for producers to sit in swivel chairs while fretting over their budgets.

Mike is affable, paunchy and radiates the confidence of a man who knows exactly what he’s about. He has more jailbait on hand to help him. Carol loads Peter’s Jaz disk up on the Mac. She pulls the file across into ProTools. And it doesn’t load. Peter uses a different software and ProTools 6 doesn’t like it. They try another file. They try AudioFile, the software which is in the sound desk. Yes, the desk is another computer. Another assistant appears, this one apparently even younger than Carol, to try converting the file. Heads are scratched. Mike remarks that he’s been working since 7.30. It’s now 5pm. Rebooting the Mac into OS9 doesn’t help. Peter goes off to make more files.

When Peter returns, Carol and Mike manage to get all the audio files loaded into the desk. But not the timeline. This means the computer has a lot of sound clips but it doesn’t know what order to put them in. I dangle. Different people come in to help. I sit quietly in one of the leather chairs, silently fretting and idly wondering why the arms on the chairs don’t have frustrated gouge marks in from clenched nails. After forty minutes of this fun and games, we call it a day.

I should have guessed it would be a nightmare when I saw the sound desk. It looks exactly like the freakish automated monster Michelle used on Fate & Fortune. The nightmare one with all the programmable faders and gizmos. The one which looks impressive when it worked but crashed all the time. I put that jolly thought out of my mind. This isn’t the same studio, the same mixer or the same desk and Mike reschedules time for us on Friday afternoon. We’ll get the mix done, regardless of incompatible, incomprehensible computer files. Yes, as I said at the beginning, that’s why film exhibition keeps on rocking and a’rollin’. Analog rules. Well, for some things at least.

During a lull in file swopping, Mike says, “I miss sprocket holes. There was none of this incompatibility, no way you couldn’t play something back because it happened to be the wrong format.” “Yes,” remarks Peter, “someone came in last week with a project which had a lot of material with an old original soundtrack. You could hear every pop, crackle and drop-out.” Mike winces. “Ah, don’t. I was almost nostalgic for a moment.”

On the way out, we pass the obligatory trophy cabinet. It’s full of certificates and several small golden statuettes of faceless figures. You know the ones. Yes, those ones. The guy doing the mix has his name up there. Which is nice. “We love short film makers,” he says, “They come back later with great professional projects.” We love this attitude. Mike rocks. I don’t think he’ll be too worried that I can’t add any more credits to The Car. Well, we already have an award-winning writer on board. Heh.

Mixing The Car

Film making

Sound mix is on Wednesday at a place called Lipsync. They’d like a credit. That could be a leetle treekie since I’ve already shot the credits and don’t have any money left for more. Not impossible, mind, but treekie.

After that, the film needs grading and conforming–ie. someone with a high-end edit system needs to make all the film footage match up with the cuts, disolves and other stuff on my Mac.

Then I can have a screening.

Airline Poker

It's life, Jim...

Transatlantic travel–it’s a gamble. Like how many babies will be on the red-eye? Will I sit next to a passenger whose concept of self extends beyond their seat and into mine? Can I get an exit row seat? Can I? Can I? Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be. Will it be chicken? Cooked to death veg? We’ll have to wait and see.

Getting an exit row seat means enough room to fit in my legs. To stretch out even. Getting an exit row seat is all-important if you’re over six foot (and I am) so I’m at the airport at least three hours before departure, if not sooner. There are three people in the line before me and two check-in clerks. Naturally, being a British airline, it takes them no less than twenty minutes to process them all. It feels like twenty minutes. Eventually I shuffle forwards with my suitcase and guitar in hand (don’t!).

“And is there any chance of an exit row seat?” I inquire. “Let me just check.” Check-in–more than just a clever name after all. She checks. She prints out another boarding pass. She hands it to me. “You’ve been upgraded to business class.” Outside I am a model citizen, a picture of calm. Inside: Snoopy dance. I grin. “Awesome! Thanks! Can I use the lounge?” We love the lounge. The lounge has free beers and peanuts. She shakes her head. It was pushing it. I wander off through Heathrow, smiling graciously at my subjects. Today I am a Patrician, business class in my jeans and tatty old travelling shirt.

Scheduled flying is a lot like getting a hand in poker. If you’re ticketed for baggage class, then sitting in the exit row beats getting wedged into a standard seat. It’s like having three of a kind playing against a pair. However, if you manage to get a row of empty seats all to yourself, then that’s better than either. A full house. You can push all the armrests up–not possible in the exit row–and sleep.

No babies crying is better than babies, naturally, so that’s a pair, although you can sleep through that. It’s possible and sometimes inevitable. One extra seat to dump crap and stack food trays is a pair of kings. Getting an exit row seat at the front of the cabin on a Virgin Atlantic 747 when they’re transporting members of the armed forces beats a straight exit row because you get spin-offs like endless free beers–“Shhh! On the house!”–and huge quantities of pistachios moved down from the cabin above. That’s a royal flush.

Nothing beats getting the whole row full-house, however. Except an upgrade. An upgrade is four of a kind, every time. First class is the ultimate goal, but business still beats economy. Thanks to British Airways striking staff, they’re having to shift more passengers than they have economy seats, so although many hundreds were losers earlier in the month, a good number of us are winners this week. Especially me. And I paid for half my flight with air miles.

Don’t you just hate a smug bastard? Well, BA has parked the plane at the far end of the terminal, a good ten minute walk down interminable corridors to a metal bunker without air conditioning. They keep us waiting for half an hour in the best traditions of UK service industries. No explanation. No announcement. No apology. Given a choice, I’d fly an American airline every time. British companies are just plain rude. Still, we’re talking priority boarding here and I smile benevolently at my fellow travellers, the hapless line of plebs starting their holidays in sweaty discomfort.

“Bastard,” their eyes say as I skip lightly down the entryway. Like I’ll be hearing their tightly-packed groaning back there in the hold. I put my plush leatherette seat into ‘bed’ mode and stretch out… except… No! You won’t believe this but BA’s business class seats create a bed that’s less than six feet long! Good grief. It’s not like that time I used frequent flyer points to travel Business First with Continental. Whatever. I still don’t care. These seats are wide enough to curl up on. I tank up on free g&t and do a little video editing on the laptop. Then a few glasses of wine–“Chardonnay? Or chardonnay?” (it’s BA; they’ve pulled out all the stop, singular)–and I’m zonked out.

Thunder storms over Toronto, plane diverted, two hours sitting on the ground in Ottawa, eventually I arrive and call the hotel to tell my love I’m there and late. The hotel don’t tell me she’s driven out to meet me. Ho, no. Far too easy. They wait until I’m actually at the hotel, twenty dollars distance. On the phone they say things like, “Nora? Nora Fresher? How do you spill this pliz?” It’s Laura, I tell them and leave a message.

I collect my guitar, suitcase, jump in a taxi and am at the hotel in no time flat. “Oh,” says the desk clerk. “Oh, Miss Fisher has gone to the airport to meet you.” He stares at me hopefully, like I’ll have an answer to their incomprehensible behaviour. I stare back at him, an expression which says, “Now? Now you tell me? Thank you. Thank you so bloody much.” He repeats, “She has gone to the airport,” clearly unable to comprehend my presence. “Yes. Well, I can’t do much about that now can I?” He gives in and gives me the key.

Well, I can’t leave my love standing there but I can’t play tag in taxis either. We business class patrician types aren’t all made out of money. It takes four phone calls to find someone who is not just a real human being but who can actually do the paging thing for Laura at terminal three. I trust the Hilton staff all get baggage class seats at the back of the cabin from now on. Let them try making out the film soundtrack over the engine noise as I recline my seat from the front in their general direction and, through a domino effect, squash them. Flat. And I block their toilet for good measure. There. We can never go back.

At last–an endless journey later–I have my girl in my arms, for a few days. And then it is an endless now. And airline poker is reduced to its true status. A sideshow. Freakish and gaudy. Love. Love is all. And love is now.

Dear Diary

Film making

This week has seen the following progress (or lack thereof):

Firstly, and most importantly, the past few weeks have led me to the amazing discovery of Wuthering Heights. This is thanks to a serialisation of the book on Radio Four. I can’t believe I haven’t read this. It’s everything I’ve been wanting to explore and more. The heart-rending beautiful hauntedness of the Yorkshire Moors is so clear, so poignant. So now I have a mission: read this book.

Secondly, I’ve finished reading Ben Elton’s book, Dead Famous. Elton has captured the zeitgeist perfectly. This is exactly how reality television and society both function and feed from the same plate. Is it mutual parasitism or symbiosis? Everyone “deserves” their 15 minutes of Warhol. Yeah. Wicked. Biggup yourself.

Okay.

Third, I’ve taken on a new project. My friend Ronni from work has another friend Susan who is in this band called Stimulator. So Susan has a load of rushes and a very cool video and Ronni has put her in touch with me in the hopes that I can edit an electronic press kit (EPK) for this group.

So I’ve now got 60 gigabytes of video material and have spent two days converting it all to the same format (NTSC, 29.97fps, audio at 48kHz blah blah). And today I’ve been logging. They’re pretty good. Hope to have a rough cut for them by Wednesday. Visit their site here and checkout the video and say if you think it’s cool.

Fourth, The Car. What progress on your film, I hear you ask? I hear you because I’m pressed up against your wall with a beer glass. Yes. Scary huh? Okay, not really. So, what progress?

Well, the other week I borrowed a clockwork Bolex (camera) from a friend of a friend who happens to be working on Harry Potter down the road at Leavesden Studios. The studios are locked down tight so I didn’t see anything except the back of Harry’s house and the street on the back lot (an old airfield).

Shot the closing credits with the new music person’s name and other omissions included in Pete the photographer’s garden. Strange thing about a clockwork camera is that it only runs for 19 seconds and then you have to wind it up again. Which isn’t so handy for credits where you really need to keep the camera still. Anyway, got it done.

Last week I managed to get this material on to my Mac and have now edited the credits on to the end of the film. Now I need a sound mix and grading. Sound mix is being held up because I want to redo one of the music tracks but the composer has gone on holiday. Grading is being held up because I can’t figure out how to do it properly in Final Cut Pro so I was thinking I ought to really get a real pro to do it for me.

Quote for grading came in today at £200/hour. Ulp. Although doable. Just. Still no sign of the musician.

That’s it for now.