The in sound from out there

So , here we are, after a four week shoot and a six week edit, we have a cut. It has holes in it (or to be more precise it has black title cards saying what the shot will be) about eight times for the pick up shots we need, but they're all nice and easy. Seven are just objects, and the only one that involves a member of the cast is still up for debate about whether we need it or not (I think it would be nice).

The temporary soundtrack is in and working well. I'd really like to get it out to a composer just to see where they felt any extra music would go. Personally I like scenes that play without background music, but it would still be fun to get someone else's thoughts.

As for what I like, I'm glad to say that pretty much every scene I wanted to play out in a single shot, does so. Obvioulsy there are times in the edit you realise this isn't as good an idea as cutting it up, and so in those cases that's what we've done, but I'm pleased to say there are no cuts for the sake of it. I'm so bored of that TV style where people keep cutting just to keep the audience awake. We've got long shots and we like them.

Things have moved all over the place, scenes that were near the end are now in the beginning, but it all works. Watching it again yesterday my only thoughts were to put a reverse in the final hall scene so we can lose Stevie's final line (the acting in the scene is so good I want to use that take, but I never liked the last line so I want to cut it with a reverse), and I also want to try moving the final montage scene back to just before the hall, see how that plays. Well, I suspect.

But now we have to take a step back. We need to raise a bit more money to go into the final stage, but I don't think that will be a problem. The film looks great and I'm sure anyone who sees it will want to be a part of it, so now we just have to get in touch with all the potential people (film council, etc) and get the final completion money.

Tuesday and we're off to see Radiohead at Victoria park. One of the band is an investor in the film and invited us down to the gig (life could be worse, you know) so we've got to do him a copy of the cut so far, then do some copies for the other investors, then the hardest part I think is going to be keeping the momentum going. Oh, and the big argument about which festival to first target. Simon and I favour the London film festival, the sales agent wants to wait for sundance. Given that there's no guarantee of getting in either my vote goes for London (it's a london film after all), while the sales agent says that our best bet is to offer sundance a world premiere. God knows, think we'll have a long chat with them about this tomorrow.

Meanwhile, time to get the proposal done for the next film, A girl and a gun. This one is set in the south of France. Someohow we'll probably still end up filming it in Hackney though.