Final hurdle

We're putting the budget(s) together for the last part of the film. We know we have to do some pick up shots, a sound mix, some ADR work, a grade, titles and music clearance, but after that we have three choices.

Choice number one is the bargain choice, and is to go to a digibeta copy from the DVCAM masters we've been cutting off. This is very cheap. Choice two is to end up on an HD master with a full stereo 5.1 mix. This would show perfectly in any cinema that can show HD. That would cost about 50K.

Choice three is to end up on a full 35mm print. This is the choice we'd most like to make, however this will cost about another 70K on top of the HD master, so about 120K all in.

The good news is that we've had some good news which should (hopefully) make finding the extra money easier. We've applied to UKFC as well as a number of other avenues for the money and now just have to wait. Worst of all we can't say what the good news is until it's cleared at the beginning of September, but it is proper good news.

Everyone said that making the film was the easy and fun part, finishing it was the difficult bit. I laughed in their faces when they told me this, I couldn't see how anything could be much harder than making the film. But, of course, they were right and I was wrong. This is the real uphill struggle, but thankfully we're used to that by now. Sort of.

And happily John from National Park got in touch. I'd emailed him ages ago as I really wanted to use one of their excellent tracks in the film (specifically No More Rides), but never heard anything back form him. Turns out his websites spam filter was set too high and he wasn't getting any mail, but luckily looked into this and found my email, and even better he's happy to let us use the song. We're very pleased about this as once you start using a song and it really works, it's very hard to change it for something else. It never sounds as good (unless I wrote it, obviously. Actually, not even then. Actually especially not then). So hurrah, the sound track is nearly complete.