I’m feeling reet chuffed with meself at the moment. Not only is Greetings inching closer and closer to completion (just wee wee and door cracking fx to do!), I’ve also smashed my world record by actually completing more than 70 pages of a screenplay and still feel good about getting to the finishing post.

Yes, The Trimes (I’m still trying to think of a better name) trundles ever onwards towards that elusive page 110 (or in this case it probably be nearer 130). And I’m feeling really good about it. In fact it’s shaping up even better than I’d imagined.

One definite bonus of all those weeks of plotting is being able to follow up on the advice that Deb Chesher gave me about ensuring you revise the plot as you go so you don’t end up down a dead end. With the detailed plot courtesy of Dramatica and Save the Cat, it’s easy to tweak the plot and keep focus on the dramatic needs of each scene.

Now if I can put this baby and Greetings to bed before the end of July I’ll be a happy bunny…

If anyone’s been following Phill Barron’s blog, it would seem the rest of the world is currently on the up in the iMDB stakes. I seem to be on the downward trend… Probably something to do with that snotty e-mail I sent about them not accepting Alligator

I finally got to watch Hot Fuzz the other day. Good God, that is a fine bit of filmmaking. Edgar Wright – My hat goes off to you…

Ken gave the all clear this evening to lock the picture for Greetings. I’m quite chuffed we’ve got this far. Now it’s down to Darren to work his magic on the music, which I know he’s been doing, but now he has no excuses.

I’ve been busy tinkering with sound effects. Lots of fun to be had there. I’ve also been reading the manual for Color and filling in all the bits I didn’t know about digital film (like what 4:2:2 actually means), which is cool.

Meanwhile the sci-fi screenplay lumbers slowly onwards. I’d got a bit of a mental block about the last scene of the first act and spent days putting off writing it. I just couldn’t work out why. Then I realised the scene before was completely wrong. It gave too much away and stole too much thunder from the climactic scene I was struggling to write.

Once I’d got that sussed I was away again and it’s tripping along quite nicely. My target of three pages a day seems to be holding, but I know it won’t last, too many things going on. Still, I’m gunning for the end of July for a complete first draft. That allows me a few days slippage if I need it.

What I wouldn’t do to get rid of the day job…

There’s a Robert Rankin joke about someone not being heard from for a few chapters, but I’m sure I’ve used it before, so I’ll just plough on…

I’ve just had my first holiday of the year and man did I need it. I’ve still been tinkering with some side projects which should earn me some extra dosh for a HD Camera, but on the whole I’ve avoided editing or writing or any work whatsoever. Nice. Back to the grindstone now though…

Final Cut Studio 2 is proving to be a worthwhile investment. On the surface Final Cut Pro 6 itself seems pretty much the same, but under the bonnet it’s clear that a lot has gone on, not least an more refined link between the Studio products and the introduction of Pro Res 422. The most obvious improvements are elsewhere – the new Color program, which I’ve yet to get stuck into, the cleaned up interface of SoundTrack Pro and the big kahuna – Motion 3.

I love Motion 3, it’s a lovely bit of software. The 3D stuff is just so much fun. I’ve barely scratched the surface of it really, but I’ve come up with a very pleasing opening sequence for Greetings. My only qualm with it is that on my top spec (for how much longer?) iMac – it’s a bit slow. I watched some demos Apple did at NAB, courtesy of FreshDV, and it’s clear that they are using some seriously pokey Mac Pros for that.

It looks like they’ve nabbed the bits of Shake that most people used – 3D compsiting and timeramping – and moved them over into the main production bundle. I’m actually wondering if I’ll need Shake for my planned bluescreen experiments later this year…

All in all, for the price, it’s well worth upgrading. I had no problems upgrading the FCP projects, though as with anything like this that could go pear shaped, it’s best to keep backups of the FCP5 versions, just in case!