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.

In the never-ending quest for inspiration I got in touch with some old friends recently. Firstly, though, I called the editor who’s helping with the never-ending saga of Fate & Fortune. No, it’s still not done yet. No, they can’t get into an edit suite. They’re working 16 hour days on a feature and it’s a long round of interminable screenings and minor changes and so on and on (and on). I wait and wait (and wait). Try not to scream.

Andy, the guy who did music for me, came round to pick up his copy of Last Train the other day. He brought round an Indian curry, a quality one, and we sat and chatted. It was good. I’ve said before, when Andy says something I always feel I should listen because he’s so often right, particularly when it’s about film making. This time he said, “When’s the screening? You’ve got to have a screening!” He is right. I’ve been holding out for Whatever Pictures to organise it but the reality is, it’s down to me. Like everything else.

I’ve been watching quite a few other short films lately, as well as entering Last Train in festivals. From what I’ve seen, I can honestly say that what I’m making seems to be a cut above what most of the competition is doing. I don’t want to get big headed and I’m trying hard not to, because I have seen some superb work, especially from Whatever (my coproducers), but on the whole, I think I’m doing pretty well. I guess we’ll see when Last Train actually gets into a few festivals. And when Fate & Fortune is finished.

I spoke to another friend, Ronni, a director/editor who has just finished producing a short film for someone else. In the space of four months her film is finished. Mine has taken more than two years. I shake my fist at the universe. I loaned Ronni a copy of Last Train and she sent me an email saying really nice things about it. I mean really nice. I was blown away. I need to get these things done. I need to move on.

Keep… pushing… boulder… up… hill…

So between them, Andy and Ronni made me feel like, yes, it’s all possible. Drink a can of Dr Pepper and bounce around the room on the caffeine buzz. I call Jill, who helped me start up a cable TV station years ago and who went on to work in motion pictures starting as an assistant to the producer on a little feature called Trainspotting. You may have heard of it.

Having worked on the production side for quite a few years now, Jill’s been directing a couple of shorts of her own. I actually catch her on the phone which is remarkable in itself given the amount of time she’s working or out of the country. It’s easier to get an audience with the Pope. We talk about directing. Her first short is finished, she has an agent and is now directing on a TV series called HollyOaks for UK Channel4. “Hey, that’s fantastic!” I exclaim (because it is). I’m genuinely pleased for her. “How did you get an agent?” I ask (because I want to know). “I invited them to my screening.” Doh.

Doh doh doh.

Yes, Andy was right. He’s always right. I need a screening. I scratch my head and wonder where I’ll find a list of agents. Ping! A light bulb goes on over my head. I joined the Director’s Guild this year. Surely they must have a list of agents? I phone them. Yes, there’s a list in the directory of members, at the back. Thanks. Yes, the information was under my nose all the time. Frantic search ensues for said directory which eventually turns out to be in a box under my bed. Most people would keep porn under the bed. I keep film files. It’s come to this. Sad.

I watch some more short films made by other people and procrastinate some more. I phone the editor to see if by any slim chance Fate & Fortune can be finished. I find other people to blame rather than pushing really really hard for myself. I move in increments and yet, and yet… Jill’s career moves inspire me as does Andy’s passion for film making and other people’s reaction to what I’ve done so far. I work on some treatments for promos and kid’s television in the meantime. It’s getting there.

The quest continues.

…

November 26th:

I called the editor who’s helping with the never-ending saga of Fate & Fortune…

And I called them again today. Got the answerphone, left a message. I also tried my cousin’s husband who’s an engineer at a facilities company where they have all this fantastic edit equipment. It’s a tenuous link but, hey, what’s there to loose? I actually get through to his mobile and catch him at a railway station. He says he’ll ask around and get back to me in a couple of days although he doesn’t actually know any of the editors there.

Meanwhile I send out copies of Last Train to Slamdunk and Los Angeles International Film Festival. Thanks to Markux for giving me the gen about those. I also spend more time procrastinating by deciding to use better quality stills which involves finding the CD rom with the originals on and pulling them up in Photoshop. These are ridiculously big jpegs so that plus surfing and using MS Word is too much for the computer to handle. It generates an out of memory error and keels over a couple of times before I can reduce everything to manageable proportions.

Fun has been booked for later in the week.