Technically speaking post production started at the end of our first day of shooting when the first cans of dailies were sent to the lab. Johnathan, the editor, started viewing dailies the minute they arrived in LA and has been working in a vacuum (i.e. without me) ever since. Despite pulling 12 hour days and 6 and 7 day weeks (3 days off to be with his family over the holiday) he is still assembling the last few scenes of the movie. A well known poster in post circles here in LA has a warning for all single people of a certain age. Underneath a picture of a tired editor hard at work is the salutary caption: NEVER MARRY AN EDITOR.
With the assembly complete we will sit back and look at the movie and start to make it work. Whatever we intended to acheive with the script we now have a new master to serve – the footage in the cans of film we have shot. Inside these cans is hidden the movie you will see on your screens in less than seven weeks time. We are already sending cuts out – the promo people in New York need something to vibe up the troops – but this baby is not even partially formed in the womb and I hope desperately that these people, whom I’ve never met, understand that we do know what we are doing and we know that our child is imperfectly formed and needs further gestation before we can push it into the world. Well they’ve trusted me so now I must return the favour.
Spent the afternoon transferring the dailies for the video. This process is called TELECINE and the guy who operates the equipment is called a COLORIST. Colorists drive luxury cars and live in comfortable houses but they have very pale skin and squint if they go outside. I have spent so much of my life in dark rooms with colorists that some of them are now my best friends. (My last band had not one but two colorists and a telecine engineer in it). Telecine involves threading the film through what is basically a very large and accurate projector that is tilted about 15 degrees off vertical in a climate controlled machine room. By twiddling a vast array of knobs in front of the most expensive TV monitor that money can buy the colorist can then adjust the look of the exposed film. He can make it darker, lighter, give it more contrast, change the skin tone of the actors, even adjust the colour of the sweater someone is wearing. As telecine machines have become more sophisticated so the look of the footage on MTV has become more exciting. Tomorrow Declan, who has edited loads of videos for me, will start viewing the dailies and inputtting them into the computer so he can start cutting. Dec will be working in the cutting room next to Johnathan – 2gether is gradually taking over a small building in Hollywood. The video has to be finished by next Friday. No time to lose…