Monday, December 28, 2009

TUWOPS: Update!

It's been awhile since I updated about the film so I figured I'd better get on that since people have been asking. I'm going to start with the absolutely worst news and go from there. I wasn't going to write about this, but I think I might as well. As some of you know, my house was broken into on Christmas Day. Which sucked. A lot. We were out of town and our next-window-neighbors (we don't have a door in that part of the house) called us. So instantly we knew something bad had happened. They said our kitchen window was smashed in and it looked like we'd been robbed.

So we rushed home. Sure enough: robbed. And as soon as we got the call my mind thought "What's the absolute worst thing they could take of stuff we have that's worth anything?" My iMac? Well that would suck, but I'm good about backing up most stuff. The worst thing would be the hard-drive I've been editing TUWOPS on since the film is still in the offline stage. Sure enough. Stolen. I can't lie. I cried. Loud. Luckly I had an (old) back-up of the edit project file on a data-stick, and I had uploaded the film to an FTP so music can be composed - so I have an OLD version of the film to work off of and a reference for the locked cut. I'll have to re-digitize all of the footage - which sucks - but it could be worse. It could be gone completely. But because I'm booked full time on Carlawood: season 2, AND starting in January I'm going to be teaching film one morning a week at Niagara College, my free time is nill. I imagine it'll take me a month to get the cut back up to speed. Which is okay because....

We didn't get into Sundance :( We got a nice rejection letter from them, but it was rejection all the same. We continue to submit to festivals, and the earliest the film will screen in one will be late winter, so time is on our side to finish the film. I'm really looking forward to showing it to the cast and crew (but first I have to edit it all over again). Sigh.

In good news for the film, we've got some great musicians now attached to the soundtrack. We're still waiting to get confirmation on some others, but here are the ones that I can officially announce:
  • Amy Millan
  • Timber Timbre
  • The Most Serene Republic
  • Los Campesinos!
So once the rest of the soundtrack is in place I'll announce that as well.

So I'm in a good place. In fact my computer stuff wasn't the worst that was stolen. My wife, Emily, lost some family jewlery that is irreplacable. So my film, which is not gone, just set-back, seems small in comparison. And they stole some other random stuff including Ephraim's umbrella stroller (seriously, who steals a kid's stroller?!)...

So that's it for now. I'll keep you up to speed. Plan is to start re-diging the footage this week and get to work. Going to sit down with the rest of the post team in the new year and figure out a schedule to finish this bad boy and get it out into the world. I'll keep you up to date with how it all unfolds!

1 comment:

Carlos said...

Hey bud, I know we spoke on the phone already. I just had to comment that I totally missed it in the phone convo when you MUST have mentioned the Sundance rejection. That's what I get for using speaker phone. I bet I've missed proposals of marriage on it and not realized! Well, probably not.
I'm really sorry again that you've had to go through this. It's shit. But Sundance sucks so I wouldn't worry. :p I have great confidence in you as a director and writer and editor. You'll find something new in this cut and those thieving morons will find themselves in a heap of karmic shit.
If you need anything let me know!