Friday 30 September 2011

Final cut and Charlie Kaufman

Great day today. Not only because the sun was shining and London basked in almost 30 C, but also because Nic completed the final cut as I watched how the last tweaks made Fallen fall into place. Pardon the pun.
We need to redo some of the dialogues as the street scene has some horrendous night traffic noise in the background (how many rubbish trucks can get past at 1 or 2am? Obviously many!). Hopefully we will be able to do an ADR session with Gabrielle and Kieron in a couple of weeks' time. Meantime music and the rest of the sound will come together.

Hurray for the final cut!

On a totally different note, I managed to speak face to face with Charlie Kaufman today (after a masterclass organised by BAFTA in conjunction with the BFI). He's my scriptwriting hero, and I am totally a happy bunny. I saw a live interview, also at the BFI, two years ago, when he presented "Synecdoche New York." When the Q&A was opened to the audience I didn't get a chance to ask him a question about scriptwriting. Back then I thought that I was never going to get another chance to speak to him. Now 2 years later he's there on the stage again, taking questions and... I just can't raise my hand. There's a full auditorium, my writing hero is on stage and... I can't speak up. But I waited outside the green room with my friend Matteo (a Producer), in the chance he'd come out. And he did. At last... third chance... It was a short exchange, I asked him how he deals with rewrites. He said that editing a script is easy, once he's written it. Writing it is the hard part as he needs to figure out where he's going with it. I must have had an expression of awe and surprise on my face because he asked back whether that was the opposite for me... sadly, yes it is. I figure out what I'm going to write normally beforehand, sometimes whilst I am writing, but once the script is finished and needs tidying up... well... that's when the nightmare begins for me. I guess Charlie Kaufman is not only a hugely talented writer, down to earth regarding his ability and skills, but he's also a disciplined writer. Which obviously I am not. Or maybe... maybe... different writers have different approaches, different styles, different methods.

Thursday 29 September 2011

Music and sound

Another sound and music session at Rob's. Progress is being made and I was well impressed. I can't wait to see the whole film with music and edited sound. It's amazing how much the right atmosphere or music can highlight a scene. We will need to do a little ADR as the background noise in the street scene is just too much. Once the sound and music are done, the film will need a little SFX tweak. Once that is also done, it'll be time for grading, titles and ARC-ing, and then I guess I'll have to set a date for a private screening for cast and crew. I'm looking forward to that.