Yay! I just completed the picture edit of Greetings. Now I have a complete Andy Coughlan version, all FCP’d up and raring for some fine cut/sound tidy up action. Thats going to be quite a major task, especially in the closing stages of the film, but it feels good to have got this far. At least now I have something I can give Daz to start working the music on.

I’ve also plotted out the first act of the new sci-fi script. It’s taken me ages to really get my head round what it was I was actually trying to write. Initial sketches were too action oriented, but if I want to make it as well (I do, and I will!) it’s got to have it’s coat cut to whatever cloth I have available, and that’s mainly blue screen cloth and not much else. Big action set pieces are just not going to happen.

I had myself stumped for a while, until I realised it had to be about the romance angle (something I’d dabbled with in the past by hadn’t quite got a handle on). So it’s a sci-fi romance/tragedy – Romeo and Juliet in space. Suddenly things are starting to click into place. Let’s see what comes out…

The latest issue of Script magazine finally plopped onto my doormat this morning, which is very exciting, as me n Dave n Unk n Craig are in it. Since Tim first mentioned the article ages ago, I thought I must have muffed up my subscription renewal, but it seems he had an early issue (or something), so all is well.

I’ve spent most of this week trying to decide which screenplay I should concentrate on. I’ve put both ‘The Jesus Box’ and ‘The Trimes’ through the Blake Snyder beat sheet (crossed referenced with some Dramatica bits and pieces) to see which held more water, and both came out really well. Both needed a lot of tweaking and developing, but ultimately I’ve plumped for the Trimes, as it’s a film that I think is more pertinent to the culture that I’m seeing around me here in the UK (as all good allegorical, H.G. Wells type sci-fi should be!) and I just feel like I’ve got to complete it somehow.

I just need to think of a better title.

Apart from that it’s all system go on the editing front. Had a meet up with Ken and Darren at the beginning of the week to discuss music and suchlike for ‘Greetings’, which went well. I’m fast approaching the hour mark on that, although this second half hour is not edited anywhere near as finely as the first 30 minutes.

‘Alligator’ went down really well at the Digifest evening last Sunday, which I’m really pleased about. I realised that the Cannes submission deadline was around now, so I mentioned it to Ken, who was up for submitting, and I’ve just managed to sneak Alligator into the competition before the deadline. Fingers crossed…

I’ve spent the last few evenings putting the finishing touches to Alligator, and I must say it’s turned out rather well. I took it round to Ken earlier, his comments were, ‘Great! It’s a everything I could have hoped for,’ which I take as a serious vote of confidence.

It’s not perfect, it’s not been graded (not that it needs a lot) and the sound mix is a touch ropey in places, but it will do to show on Sunday at the DigiFest.

I tell you one thing though, and this is purely personal opinion, but I really didn’t enjoy going back to Avid to finish off Alligator. I know I haven’t used it for a while, but I much prefer editing with Final Cut Pro. ‘Twas a good decision made there to go Mac…

On the Greetings front, I’ve also made it through the quagmire of Scene 37 now, unfortunately, I’m racing towards the climax of the film and I’ve hit Scene 41 which is a thirteen page scene… Oh well.

I’m only doing a rough visual mix, adding all the special FX in order to get a final(ish) version to Darren sooner rather than later. As such, I’m resisting updating the status bar until I’ve gone back and fixed the sound. Hopefully Darren, Ken and I will be meeting up next week for a good old chin wag about what sort of music Ken is looking for.

There’s also been some action on the ‘Tolerance’ front as well – some nice people are kindly transferring the original BetaSP tapes onto hard drive for me to I can edit it in FCP once I’m done with Greetings. With any luck the quality of these will be good enough for us not to go back to the 35mm tapes. I think Chris wants to keep it digital for now.

Without giving away too much of the plot, ‘Greetings’ is very much like ‘From Dusk til Dawn’ in it’s structure. The first half being very different to the second, and, should you not know what the film is about before going in (as, thankfully I was when I saw FDTD for the first time), the second half comes as something of a surprise.

However, because the transition between the two halves is something of a jolt, we have to play catchup to get the ball really rolling with the real grist of the story, and in the case of Greetings, it’s a rather lengthy scene where quite a lot happens very quickly involving over half of the special effects for the whole film.

I’ve spent a week on it so far and I still feel like I’ve got another weeks worth to do. Admittedly it’s a long scene (nearly ten pages of the script), but even so it’s driving me batty! Ho hum, it’ll be worth it.

But that will have to take a back seat for a few days as we’re organising another DigiFest evening next Sunday, at which we’ll be premiereing ‘Alligator’. I sat down last night and quickly worked out how much more I need to do and silently had a minor heart attack.

It shouldn’t take long, a couple of evenings I hope. It’s really the final audio mix and the credits. I haven’t heard how the music is coming along, but hopefully I’ll have that sooner rather than later. Plenty to be doing in the meantime…

So if you’re in the Folkestone area next Sunday night and fancy checking out some quality short films and animations, head on down to the Chambers in Cheriton Place and say Hi. Kick off at 8, I believe.