Monday 25 February 2008

Nearly there?

From a My DDR T-Shirt point of view, yesterday (Sunday 24th February) was a really good day. Virtually the whole day was given to the project (for the first time in ages) and lots of progress was made. It is estimated that the first rough cut of My DDR T-Shirt is only a handful of evenings away.

As I have hinted previously, the rough cut is a gateway to a new round of editing, re-editing, soundtracking and voice over recording. In other words, lots to do.

However, this update is really meant to mark the progress towards that first rough cut. Remember, this project was conceived three years ago and it has been blighted by delays and set backs. The first test was whether the whole DDR T-Shirt idea had legs, the second whether a filming trip to Berlin could be funded, the third whether I could find enough interesting people, the fourth whether I could conduct and film good interviews. All these tests have been passed but one of the toughest tests has been to manage these voices and complicated issues with the limited editing skills and resources available.

The biggest project so far for Hawkinsian Productions was a documentary called Our Man in Harrogate. It had a cast of one (me) and was 13 minutes long. The jump from short films to a full length documentary has been a daunting and fascinating foray into the unknown - and an enormous challenge.

That's where we are now. At around 50 minutes, the first cut is nearly done and it's fantastic to be able to say it.

Tuesday 12 February 2008

The home straight

Things are going very well with My DDR T-Shirt. The edited timeline is now up to around 45 minutes. The narrative is loosely separated into chapters and only one chapter remains to be edited. After that, the basic structure is complete and a new round of audio tweaking and edit smoothing commences. There’ll also be some test screenings and viewings to get feedback from trusted sources.

So, we are now on the home straight, nearly three years after starting the project. If you’ve been keeping up to date with this project, thank you for your patience.

On another note, there are all kinds of issues that emerge when making a film about this subject. Thinking about these issues is what caught my imagination in the first place. One of the biggies on the list is the subject of freedom. What does it mean to be free? Who is free? What is freedom? As ever, I don’t claim to have any answers but in my usual ruminative way, I have decided that these questions and issues may form a neat cross-over between this and my other blog.

To see what I'm blathering on about take a look at The Hawkinsian Institute blog...