Saturday 4 December 2010

A Week In The Front Row

I held auditions which didn't go too well, I finished the edit of a one hour documentary, I found my "MISERY" DVD three years after it escaped, I saw "DUE DATE," I finished Season 6 of "THE WEST WING," (not for the first time) and am now starting Season 7, I watched Ricky Gervais' stand up DVD "FAME" and thought it was decent but nothing special, I got a lovely email from an actress friend in New York who said she got a role because the director loved her work in one of my films, which was nice to hear, and I also got up at 7am on either Wednesday or Thursday (can't remember which) and watched "THE ODD COUPLE" and wished Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon were still alive, I met up with my friend Jen just outside of Victoria Station and we talked about the year just gone and the year to come, and she got a little bit closer to feeling good about acting again rather than feeling the pressure of the industry and her family and all those things that make us forget how much we love doing what we do, I got to see a cut of a film that I had written, which was directed by someone else, and had mixed feelings about the whole thing but found it a welcome break from shouldering the directorial responsibility. And right now I'm sitting in front of my DVDs with the evening ahead of me and a decision to make.

How was your film-related week?

Care to share?

7 comments:

  1. I DIDN'T get to see the cast and crew screening of a film that I wrote because it was in Stoke-on-Trent and the weather prevented me from venturing very far.

    In some ways, I'd prefer to see these films in the privacy of my own home so I can absorb them and come to terms with the peculiar blend of excitement (my words are brought to life) and disappointment (but not quite how I envisaged and why did they cut that bit and what happened to THAT scene?)

    The missed screening was on December 1st - misery - but then I heard I was through to the final five of the KITFR screenplay contest - joy.

    Have just watched 'The Disappearance of Alice Creed' and enjoyed it because it was British and Eddie Marsan is one of my heroes and I learned how to conceive a low-budget feature (only three in the cast and mostly shot in one location - a basement) - and less enjoyed it because sometimes credibility was stretched and my husband does like to huff and puff and say 'Well, that's RIDICULOUS!'

    The rest of the week was spent procrastinating about the rewrite of a feature (NOT low budget!)- so what's new?

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  2. i started watching a film called homecoming that was to like misery it was annoying, when mischa barton broke the girls foot we turned it off. misery is a classic you just dont mess with. we went on to watch a film called three... it was very slow with some very bad,pouty acting but it had a good twist. the last 20mins were pretty good.

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  3. Sounds like a pretty decent week to me...

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  4. I love that you write DVDs correctly and don't put an apostrophe in it. That is all.

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  5. The week started good having finished the edit of my Doc on a Monday.On the Wednesday we screened our 10 mins doc in art festival somewhere in Brunell.Having watched the doc on the big screen everyone gave us good feedback and they loved the story.I on the other hand saw a technical problem in terms of the editing.In some of the interview scenes the background looked over burned,this was down to the color grading on that particular bit.On the Thursday I had to return the main hard drive which I have borrowed from the uni equipment shop...as the technician was going about the hard drive for a while.


    I transferred all the data and the scratch on to my new hard drive.Returned the Hard drive to Hasan our uni's technician who is charge of the filming equipment.Having corrected the color grading I was walking to our uni's dubbing theater to go over it again.As I opened the library door,I lost balance landing on my chest,the hard drive by then was flying in the Air.Stopped breathing for that fraction of a second.The last thing I heard was the noise that my hard drive made as it landed at the bottom of the stairs.I sat there, the panic on my face was clear for everyone to see, who walked passed me.None of them know why I was the way I was until they reached at the bottom of the stairs.They'll look up and continue walking.

    I have gathered myself.Having remembered that I returned the uni's hard drive.I picked up the pieces of my hard drive from the stairs and run to the Uni's filming equipment shop.When I got there the equipment shop was closed.I knocked and from the door window I saw Hasan.He singled to me to say that they closed and ware done for the day.

    I expressed my horror through the door and he opened.As I explained my situation he was understanding and let me into the shop.He looked through the booking book.The hard drive that I came for was there sitting next to the Mac all wires connected.I returned to my shock state.Hasan confirmed it for me,there was nothing on their,they wiped it clean.I was back to zero.Then he told me that the data was retrievable and that they don't do total wipe.

    Exhausted I took both hard drive's to the library and I started searching on the internet for people who do data recovery on hard drives.I found couple good ones and gave them a call.Their price was not fixed it went from £200 to £1000.Money which I don't have.At this point I gave up and thought to myself I'll start again the digitizing.To forgot and ease my pain I started Catching up on my favorite TV shows.

    Two hours in and I remembered my brother who happens to be an IT genius.He works for an It company who do IT services for other companies like Bloomberg.I gave him a call and explained to him what had happened to the drive.Calmly he said to me:"bring it over".

    I heard from him yesterday,the good news is that he has retrieved some of the data thus far.The bad news thus far is that he cannot open it...I have explained to him that he'll need a FCP to do that and plus the scratch.

    So far it's looking promising...If I loose by any chance I still have the tapes.Their has to be a positive outcome from every hardship and I will buy another two hard drives for this never to happen again.That was my week in a shell.

    Sorry if I posted again is just that the post did not show...

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  6. i finally saw the animated film "PONYO" it was adorable, i love Studio Ghibli's work, i also saw a movie called "Sunshine Cleaners" it was very cute, funny, and than out of nowhere it hits you in the face with a tragedy , loved it

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  7. I watched the final episode of season 2 of Dexter and saw The Bucket List, which was really good and not at all what I thought it would be. The sappiness was actually realistic not the kind where you have to suspend disbelief. Best of all, I found the full length version of my favorite cartoon ever.

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