How Dan Got His Groove Back
Working too hard on boring stuff recently. Filmed and now editing an instructional film about how to paint watercolours, cut a short version of a film I spent 9 months on last year and REALLY didn't want to revisit but had to, slicing up a whole batch of cassettes onto CD for someone and thankfully, after 4 months of putting it off, finding a way around having to sit next to the CD burner, listening to all the tapes and stopping it after every bloody song. And more. It's all bit a bit dull.
But someone pointed out to me that it's a million times better than doing a job you HATE (that's true, I've had one of those) and that, occasionally, along comes a fantastic bit of work that is very well paid and requires next to no effort whatsoever, and occasionally you get to do really cool stuff, though it rarely pays... That cheered me up no end as it was true but I hadn't stood back and noticed before.
So, Pauline Burr of Mendip District Council, thank you.
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I have been to Julien Temple's
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/fine_line_features/the_filth_and_the_fury/julien_temple/filth.jpg
place again recently. I've been asked to help occasionally on the next doc he's making (about The Clash and their late lead singer Joe Strummer) and they need people to be 2nd assistant editor. That basically means I turn up on the days the guy who's logging all the footage can't make it and take over for a bit, whilst some other guy gets to edit it all into the finished film. It has to be done for September. It's scary as there's so much footage and they're using the silliest editing system in the world which takes quite a while to figure out (Lightworks Alacrity). I've quickly dubbed it Light(doesn't)works Atrocity. It crashed every 20 minutes I was there without fail. As it's brand new (only 6 other people in the world have this new system) we have to email Lightworks and tell them where it's crashed. they then email back a downloadable thing to stop it happening again. It's ludicrous. If they'd been editing on Final Cut Pro or Premiere, we'd have done all the logging by now.
It's interesting seeing what Julien wants in the finished film (he's not there much). He'll leave a list of stuff to capture, either specific moments in an interview or sometimes the whole tape. Last week it was Animal Farm (the 1953 cartoon) and the BBC version of Nineteen Eighty-Four with Peter Cushing. I 'm not sure how George Orwell fits into the life of Joe Strummer, but we'll know by September. Again it's not very glamourous, literally fast forwarding tapes and typing in numbers, but it's a foot in the door.
And Julien's edit studio is so so so cool. All those old laserdiscs. Shelves of NTSC VHS tapes, AMPAS screener DVDs (he's a member of the Oscar board), and old LPs. And spiders. Thousands, millions of them. That's not so good.
There's a bed and a kitchen there and I'll be expected sometimes to do all-nighter's if we're pushed for time, so I'm really looking forward to sleeping in a creaky converted barn in the middle of the countryside, miles from any town, in a building run by a spider mafia. And then having to wake up and edit on a computer than doesn't work and yet cost £40,000.
Seriously, it's a trillion times better than working for a living. :o)
But someone pointed out to me that it's a million times better than doing a job you HATE (that's true, I've had one of those) and that, occasionally, along comes a fantastic bit of work that is very well paid and requires next to no effort whatsoever, and occasionally you get to do really cool stuff, though it rarely pays... That cheered me up no end as it was true but I hadn't stood back and noticed before.
So, Pauline Burr of Mendip District Council, thank you.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I have been to Julien Temple's
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/fine_line_features/the_filth_and_the_fury/julien_temple/filth.jpg
place again recently. I've been asked to help occasionally on the next doc he's making (about The Clash and their late lead singer Joe Strummer) and they need people to be 2nd assistant editor. That basically means I turn up on the days the guy who's logging all the footage can't make it and take over for a bit, whilst some other guy gets to edit it all into the finished film. It has to be done for September. It's scary as there's so much footage and they're using the silliest editing system in the world which takes quite a while to figure out (Lightworks Alacrity). I've quickly dubbed it Light(doesn't)works Atrocity. It crashed every 20 minutes I was there without fail. As it's brand new (only 6 other people in the world have this new system) we have to email Lightworks and tell them where it's crashed. they then email back a downloadable thing to stop it happening again. It's ludicrous. If they'd been editing on Final Cut Pro or Premiere, we'd have done all the logging by now.
It's interesting seeing what Julien wants in the finished film (he's not there much). He'll leave a list of stuff to capture, either specific moments in an interview or sometimes the whole tape. Last week it was Animal Farm (the 1953 cartoon) and the BBC version of Nineteen Eighty-Four with Peter Cushing. I 'm not sure how George Orwell fits into the life of Joe Strummer, but we'll know by September. Again it's not very glamourous, literally fast forwarding tapes and typing in numbers, but it's a foot in the door.
And Julien's edit studio is so so so cool. All those old laserdiscs. Shelves of NTSC VHS tapes, AMPAS screener DVDs (he's a member of the Oscar board), and old LPs. And spiders. Thousands, millions of them. That's not so good.
There's a bed and a kitchen there and I'll be expected sometimes to do all-nighter's if we're pushed for time, so I'm really looking forward to sleeping in a creaky converted barn in the middle of the countryside, miles from any town, in a building run by a spider mafia. And then having to wake up and edit on a computer than doesn't work and yet cost £40,000.
Seriously, it's a trillion times better than working for a living. :o)