Back on the Den

I had a call recently from Dragon’s Den again. They do so love me…

They do follow-ups on businesses to see if anything is happening, and of course for me it is. I’ve invited them to join us on a shoot during the summer which they can use in one of their follow-up programmes. People might ask, why? When the episode itself was so cringe-worthy, why get in front of their cameras again? 

Because not only does it keep my publicity going, but the follow-ups are a chance to show that I’m accomplishing things. The last one was rather good actually. I had a chance to talk about Graveyard Shift, which we were still filming at the time, and to answer a few questions without getting interrupted. Unfortunately some of my more cheeky answers didn’t make the cut, but that gives me an idea of what to expect on edit this time.

With the edit making good progress and filming on the second project well along, I’ll have plenty of interest to talk about. 

And this time, having BBC cameras under foot during a shoot will be more manageable with rather a lot of experience behind us now. They were there for the first shoot of Graveyard Shift, and we were feeling quite new and unsure of ourselves in somebody’s shop with our original Director while BBC wanted me to look like I was Directing. This time I will be. 

I am very nearly finished with the basic cut for Graveyard Shift. I finished the Capoeira scene, which was the most complicated. I just did some minor speed adjustments last week on CS3, as it’s end of term and the students are out for two weeks which gives me the opportunity to do it on my lunch break. My PA is downloading the remaining tape for that project, as well as doing another download on a tape that had some jerky shots. 

If it turns out that the tape itself is jerking, we’ll have to deal with it but it’s a fairly minor thing that doing ADR will make almost unnoticeable. As it’s the zombie film, it almost adds character really. Hopefully we won’t have similar problems when we do the download for Old Blood, as the tapes won’t have been stretched from repeated downloads. 

With a major LARP event coming in just under a week, a lot of my actors and my PA are wrapped up in preparations for that, so organising the next shoot for 15th May is enough to keep us busy for now. I’ve had confirmation from all but one of the actors, and he’s just needed for one scene so the shoot will go ahead either way. I’m slowly reducing the juggle of actors, getting some of them finished off now. We seem to have students involved in several of the shoots I’m planning so things will be a little slow until the end of June. Then hopefully we can finish off the scenes we didn’t get last year fairly quickly. 

I’ll be writing a few more new scenes, but these only involve two actors, one of them new to the project. We’re adding another element to cross over into the sequel. This will weave in neatly, it actually helps separate a few scenes further apart which will improve the flow. There was one in particular that placed an actor in one place and had to have something slipped in so they have a chance to be somewhere else, and I had been thinking of using one of my secondary characters for a gratuitous kill scene to make the jump. But he’s one of my less reliable ones, and this will add to the story better. 

Meanwhile in edit land, my Isle of Wight editor has a new laptop that should be adequate to run the CS5 programme. Quad core, 8 gig RAM, etc. Fingers crossed, he should have it up and running very soon. I’ve checked out a book from my local library that is effectively a course in using After Effects, so I’m going to take myself through the lessons, practicing on CS3 at work as time allows. The students are still out this week, so I can make a start if I get to reading it quickly. This will put me in a position to be helpful as my editor gets to know the programme as well. The library also has a rather brilliant looking manual specifically on CS5 with a section for the Rotobrush, so my next move will be to read that one and photocopy the section. The laptop will be coming to Goblin Central on some visits, and we can master this together. 

As you may guess, I have a lot of patience. The down side of it is that I lose too much time being patient with people who will never deliver. However, the benefit of it is that it gives someone with the proper dedication the chance to work out any glitches instead casting aside potentially good help when I don’t have the cash to pay for reliability. There are people who are sufficiently enthusiastic about film to make good projects happen. You just have to find them. 

I’ve done very well overall, even with the series of editor fails. It only takes one good one to win. My current lad has the motivation and the determination. And very importantly, he communicates. I’ve harped on about that before, but I’ll do it again. People must communicate to collaborate. Some people do it naturally, others find it difficult to keep up with simple messages. It takes all kinds to make a world. But in the world of film, those who communicate can retain opportunities where those who can’t manage to respond to emails are likely to lose positions because they didn’t tell any one what was going on. There are always glitches somewhere, just tell the Producer and let them help you work it out. 

Every problem has a solution. Being patient helps to work out what it is. We’ve accomplished wonderful things already. When I say “we”, I include everyone who has taken part in the production of these two films. There are core group people who have done more, but even those who help in some way with just one shoot are essential aspects of our eventual success. A one-time runner worked out the shopping cart chair that gave us a smooth dolly effect for the shot in the church where Suzi levitates. And these are the stories most fun to tell. 

Eventually, I’ll be writing a book about it all. I am still primarily a writer. And then I can include all the things that get cut from the interviews with Dragon’s Den. ;)