Thursday, May 17, 2007

All about the unheroic slog

Aah production work. It’s not glamorous that’s for sure, and it’s always a moveable feast. But it’s all that’s been happening on There once was an Island since Briar and Zane got back, so there’s not much else to talk about right now.

You’re probably wondering what’s been happening and why it’s been so important that no one has updated the blog for the last millennium, and the simple truth is that it’s all about the bottom line. Along with Briar and Zane, I know that there are only a finite number of hours in a week, and when a good chunk of them are spent engaged in other work, work that can offer a paycheck, the time spent on the film shrinks and often comes a poor second.

Here's what's been happening - more or less: Immediately on their return from the island Briar and Zane walked into different short-contract editing jobs, which took up pretty much all of their waking hours. Fortunately I work four evenings a week at nzherald.co.nz, and so that left – gosh – a whole 7 days and three nights into which I could squeeze work on the film – who needs sleep?

We started editing a promo reel at ImagesPost about the time that Briar and Zane got back, something that was only possible because of the amazing generosity shown by Paul and Grant who run the facility. The lovely Prisca Bouchet started helping us with the monumental task of digitising and editing a very large amount of footage, and I found that my plans to get funding applications started had to be put on hold to get as much footage logged and digitised as possible.

After much titivating the promo was duly finished and dispatched with our application for post-production funding to the Screen Innovation Production Fund and we’re waiting to hear what the results of this will be. In the meantime we’ve shown the DVD to several people, got feedback on it and have added titles and subtitles. Zane is in the process of grading it properly and we hope to be sending off copies to a number of networks and distributors soon.

After work on the promo, Prisca has come on board as our editor. She's great to work with, extremely talented, passionate about editing and willing to work for free. There's nothing more we could possibly ask for!

If we get SIPF or any additional funding we’ll be able to head off to the island again, and perhaps this time take a scientist to explore what exactly is making Takuu and its neighbouring atolls sink so quickly. We’ve been offered an opportunity to tag along with some ham radio enthusiasts. Derek Cox, Hans Hjelmstrom and Stig Nyman are heading out to the atolls as part of a project to broadcast from the farthest reaches of the world and are chartering a yacht to do so. I’m for anything that could mean avoiding the scheduling challenges presented by the Sankamap so it sounds good to me!

In the meantime Briar is working about 4 jobs, I’ve got a giant pile of writing to do for the project and a mass of funding to assess and apply for, none of which seems to be happening, and when he’s not doing our promo, Zane’s off developing a number of additional projects of his own.

That about gets you all caught up. I’ll try and post something again soon. Here's pic of Rose and Briar to keep you going.

Lyn