I think we may be close to locking picture! Tomorrow morning we show Maggie the final cut for her approval. If she’s OK with it we “lock picture”. This means that all the images in the movie have been irrevocably chosen and the sound guys can finally go to work. They have an enormous task ahead of them – with so many cuts and so many songs in the film they will be ordering food through the middle of the night just like we have for the last two or three weeks.
Having survived on a diet of fried egg sandwiches for weeks Bill, our esteemed producer, came in last week and told us that we should turn in all receipts for meals because we’ve been working such long hours. So we’ve raised the calibre of our comestibles a notch or two and had sushi two nights running. The result has been a new slogan echoing round Shaw’s editing hut: “Dining like Kings, working like slaves!” Maggie and Bill have been very generous over the last few days having laid on a big spread the other night and today they sent over a masseuse to rub our aching backs. Very nice gesture only we all felt like crashing about half an hour after our backrubs. What we probably needed more was some of that stuff they make out in the valley that you always see cops hauling away bags of on the 11 o’clock news!
Unsung heroes of the set # 975…assistant editors. Damon Fecht is our assistant editor and Damon has been working like a dog. During production he’d stay up every night digitizing the dailies and over the last few weeks he’s taken a beating that even Mr. Hussein and his most able torturers would be hard pressed to improve upon. It’s Damon’s job to know where all the dailies are, do all the dubs, maintain the avids, take the phone calls, make Jonathan his tea, arrive before us and leave after us. And believe me that last bit takes some doing all on its own. He’s been wearing an old Yessongs T-shirt today (a bootleg valued at $15) and yesterday came to work in collapsed sandals and no socks because we’ve been working him so hard that he hasn’t had time to do any washing! And he never complains, takes a load of stick from the lads in master control and has to listen to me playing my guitar all day long to boot. I’ve been home and writing this for 30 minutes already and I bet he’s still in the edit room backing up the avids. Damon please go home and drive safe. WE NEED YOU.