What's Taking You so Long?
Hi & I hope you're enjoying spring. It's a been a while since I updated you on the film progress and thanks to everyone who has been in touch lately on email, via Facebook and even old-fashioned talking asking us how it's all coming on. I have even had the pleasure of meeting a few of you recently in person, unexpectedly, which makes it all the better!
The short answer is - it's coming on very well and we are very near to finishing. If you have a moment, let me fill you in more though: Our awesome editor Alice Powell has been back in the hot seat on The Closer We Get having finished cutting a feature doc about veteran UK director Mike Leigh which you'll be able to catch soon. We have enjoyed discussing the fashion choice similarities of my father Ian in my film, and Mike in the other - apparently it's all about a blue sweater…. So Alice and I have been fine cutting our film for another month and have just reached what we might hesitatingly call the 'final cut'. So, applause and cakes all round. A lot of cake. Alice has been a trouper.
Lots of people wonder why finishing a film takes so long - even us film-makers, who daydream - at some low points - of a one way ticket to somewhere very remote, where films don't exist :-) When I was working with Nina Pope on our film 'Living with the Tudors' our executive producer Jess Search (of the Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation) said sagely to us 'It will never feel finished, but you do have to stop". As I have been editing for over 18 months on and off, I remind myself of Jess' words often. It's a marathon and then some, a film :-)
But to give just a teensy insight into what exactly does take so long, let's look at just a few of the many post-production jobs undertaken by our wonderful intern Maria: Amongst her weird and wonderful jobs she is tasked with finding a detailed map of Africa we can use in the film; trying to clear copyright on a Cole Porter song I sing (badly) on film and finding out if we can show a sticker of Winnie the Pooh, filmed in Ann's house, on screen. Crazy, yes ? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, if we were aiming for a small self-release on YouTube or something we needn't bother with all this legal stuff, but we are really ambitious for The Closer We Get and only by dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's can you make sure the film can get out as widely as possible on TV, DVD / Download and film festivals.
atb, Karen
Leave a comment