Final Cut

The (near?) final version of my film arrived in the post today. My wonderful producer sent it to me from Ireland and I got to watch it for the first time in its (near?) final form. My sister and my mother both also got to see it and they seemed impressed (of course, they have to be impressed, but it’s a matter of how they say it – not what they say).

It’s come a damned long way from the first draft that I saw somewhere in January. That one made me cry. This one I’m actually not ashamed to show to people. No, that’s not doing it enough justice; I’m actually proud of this one.

It’s amazing how much can be done in post. We cut it, twisted it, turned it inside out, added sound, took away scenes, warped the colours, adjusted the shots and generally turned it into a completely different animal. I think it was a street dog before and now it’s a zebra (no, don’t read deeper into that one, there’s nothing there. I just felt like somehow including a zebra).

The last time I saw it was in India somewhere at the end of January. That’s when I returned to Bangalore to edit the film again. At that time we managed to get the story to finally work, but the sound was still lacking, this time around that had been included. My producer (this is the Italian lady I spoke about often while I was in Bangalore, for those of you who’ve been reading for that long) really managed to bring out the moods in the piece.

You don’t realise how important music and sound are to make a movie work. From a shrug it turned the film into a thumbs up. You know what? I think everybody should have their own theme music for a day, just so that they can realise the importance of sound. I’d like to have my own theme music, I’d imagine it would include a lot of crazy violin playing and cellos; lot’s of string instruments.

I’m sorry, where was I? Oh yes! So when will you get to see it? Ah. That one I don’t know. Ultimately I really want to put it online, but I don’t know how that’s going to work. The problem is that the piece is very sound and visual dependent. It wouldn’t work terribly well at a low resolution and with the metallic sound of PC speakers.

On the other hand, this was ultimately always meant to be an advertisement of our talents and advertisements really work best when they are seen by lots of people. The solution is not immediately obvious to me, but as soon as it is I’ll be sure to inform all of you. First let’s try to make sure it gets into a bunch of film festivals. I certainly think it will get into a few, though I don’t know if it will win.

But then I really don’t know anything anymore, because I really can’t see it like a normal person anymore. I can’t detach and watch it like the audience would, so ultimately if I want to know how good it is I’ll have to listen to what the audience thinks.

Always a dangerous proposition, listing to the masses.