This afternoon we started making the master HD copy at the Screen Academy. Took longer than expected, as we had to get all 443.57GB of Folie off our WD drive and onto their system. We took the opportunity to correct a slight mistake in the film: at 13.58, Lucas (Adam Napier) looks up to the cafe clock. The time shows about 1357. 10 seconds later, he looks up again, and the clock now shows 1351 (ish). We had to change these over, but the trouble was, the two shots are not of equal length. This is unusual for Folie, where we have a rule of making all cutaways the same length - 5 seconds, quite long - so that we emphasize their role in the film not as cutaways but as memento moris. So what we did in the end was Alex had to extend a shot of Chris Dunne to cover the gap. Just about works. No doubt I'll mention this in the Director's Commentary once the film is out on DVD!
It was also a great pleasure to see the film in HD again, after several years of seeing it as a lo-res Avid offline. Christ, I hate Avid. I'm not an Apple fan-boy, but by heck, FCP7 seems like the promised land compared to Avid. (And no, I'm not tempted to try FCPX - if it ain't broke, don't fix it, as the saying goes.) We have made a great film, I think. I am always moved by the actors, and I hope that being moved by my own film is not the same as laughing at one's own jokes - i.e. that it really is moving, and not just me entertaining a few wishful ideas. (In fact, the only person I've ever seen laugh at their own jokes was Spike Milligan, and I think in his exalted case, he had every right: he was possibly the greatest comic genius of all time.)
Getting all the material onto the Screen Academy's system took all afternoon, so I'm back in there tomorrow to do the play-out to HDCam, and then we make the Blu-Ray and DVD copies. First in the queue is, of course, the
Maine International Film Festival, who will be screening Folie in July. It will be the film's first public screenings. Can't wait. After all this time, our work is getting out there.
