Huzzah! Final Cut Studio 2 has arrived – I’m just going through the lengthy installation process as I write. I’m really pleased it came early – I’d had an estimated ship date of the 31st May, so I was more than a little surprised when I got the mail yesterday saying it had shipped already (especially after I’d read rumours that it had been delayed).

I was banking on it coming for two reasons – 1) the new 3D features in Motion 3 with which I’m hoping I can create a really nifty opening sequence for Greeetings, and 2) the new Color package, as I didn’t want to have to work out how to do colour correction in FCP5, only to have to relearn again in Color.

I’ve spent a couple of evening this week working hard with Ken really getting the cut as fine as we can and some of the more important sound effects sorted out. The two main ones are sorted now, which means he can fly out to LA next week for the Star Wars 30th Birthday celebrations at Expo 4 a happy bunny.

For all you fellow Dramatica fans out there, I’ve just noticed there’s a podcast on Shooting People with an interview with Chris Huntley, one of the inventors of the software. Methinks I shall listen while I switch these DVDs…

I finally finished reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell tonight. What an amazing book, I loved it – beautifully written, well crafted characters, superb plotting. Out of interest I found out a few weeks ago that New Line had the rights to the book, but as I was reading the book the same thought kept coming into my head – ‘this is unadaptable.’ There’s so much story, and it’s all quality stuff.

I mean, the book is a thousand pages long, you don’t meet one of the main characters until around page 150, and even then he doesn’t do a huge amount until a lot more story has been set up. OK, a lot of the early stuff could be cut down, but even so…

I don’t think you could pull a Lord of the Rings and do it in three parts… You could perhaps cut out some of the Wellington stuff mid story (but then that’s quality character development territory)… My mind’s hurting just thinking about it. I bet poor old Christopher Hampton is going to have a permanent headache for the next few months. Still I’m very jealous, I’d love to have a go at adapting it.

I’m not sure whether I’m looking forward to seeing the film when it comes out or not. It’ll be intriguing to see how they deal with it. It could be amazing, but it could very easily be a complete mess.

Meanwhile, my own screenplay is plodding along. It’s such a joy having got such a complete and detailed plot to work to though. I’m really getting my head round the idea this is not an art, it’s a craft. With the plot sketched out, I can see how every word I write has a knock on effect through the rest of the screenplay – it really forces you to think hard and write lean.

I’m up to page 22 now (and I’m running about two pages over already, but hey, gotta save something for the rewrites!), which is less than I’d hoped for by this stage, but Greetings is really taking up a lot of time.

Ken came round the other day with Denis the DP. We went through the latest cut of Greetings and made a few changes. It’s kinda there now, just got to sort out the sound FX and foley. I’m heading round to Darren’s tomorrow to check up on how he’s getting on with the music…