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As usual with Bloodmyth, the last stages of preparing deliverables threw up problem after problem.

I sent out dvd screeners to selected reviewers.  After a while reviews started to come in and all of them mentioned sound problems and off-putting artifact problems on the image. Artifact is where you see edges during any movement in the picture as a series of bars. It often happens when you convert from PAL to NTSC. However, the artifact was also showing up on my PAL version of the film. I sorted out the worst of the volume variation problems on the sound and then turned to the image. 

I had plenty of time to do this as spending about £600 on editing and grading software meant that I wouldn't be able to take the projects to Stanley's for a long time, especially as approaching summer meant that teaching work would become rare and then disappear till autumn.

When I had changed computers the editing software had had to be told where to find all the files.  Some of it had been difficult to find again.  Some of the files I had assigned maybe hadn't been the right ones.  I didn't know.  I racked my brains, without any useful result. I tried various approaches.  Nothing worked.  I gave up for a while. Then one morning I woke up with the solution in my head.  When I had begun preparing the project I had assumed that I could render the project in NTSC and that would be it. I had to go back to the stage where I changed the project from PAL into NTSC settings and re-render each stage from there with PAL settings.  It seemed so obvious I felt stupid not to have thought of it before.  I did it. It worked.

I got everything that I could ready to go.  I had no money.    I had to wait until teaching work started again in September.

I came to a point where I had the money but the MOT test on my car was approaching. My credit card was near its (fairly low) limit.  If I got the DVCam tapes made and the car needed a lot of work to pass the test, I'd be stuck. I couldn't work without the car and without work I couldn't pay for the repairs.  I wished for one decent paid acting job.  Nothing came.  I took the chance and got the tapes made.

With the NTSC files that Stanley's put onto my portable hard drive for me, I had to make a new higher quality screener for reviewers.  My pc won't author dvds. I don't know why.  My friend Andy Coughlan agreed to do it for me.

Luckily the car didn't need too much work. It did need enough to ensure that I can't afford to be in the Spotlight actors directory this year.

Finally, on Wednesday last week, I posted all the deliverables.  The postal strike action began on Thursday.  Let's hope the film makes it to Arizona.

I'm still working away at those Bloodmyth deliverables. Yes, I know it's taking a long time.  I abandoned the master version for a while to get some screeners made and sent off, as the one of the requirements is that I supply quotes from reviewers (positive ones - fingers crossed) and it seemed to make sense to do that early.

Inexplicably, all dvd authoring software started refusing to work on my laptop.  Things eventually reached the point where I bought a new pc just to get some progress.  Dvd architect also refused to work on the new machine, so I ended up authoring dvds on the free dvdstyler - after several weeks of frustration and rage.

The new machine is a lot faster at rendering.  Unfortunately some of my software didn't make the transition to Vista and I'm working on 30 day trial versions until I have to buy.

I got the credit block done as a Word file on the trial version that came with the new pc.  When I re-read the contract it turned out that Maxim want it that way.

I've now found a company that can do the master tape.  They'll make a PAL tape from an avi file of the film, then make me an NTSC conversion.  It looks like it's going to cost around £350 if I include special features.  I may not, as they're already on YouTube.  Now I have to do final quality control checks, render the master, save up the £350 and take the hard drive to Stanley's to have the tapes made.

The distribution and sales contract for Bloodmyth includes a list of deliverables - everything that Maxim Media need from me for them to be able to get the dvd manufactured for US distribution and to allow them to sell the film internationally.

I'm rendering the video and audio tracks separately as they need 4 channel stereo with separate music tracks so that non-English speaking countries can dub the sound while keeping the music.   (That also required me to make an exact transcript of all the dialogue for translation).   I'm looking forward to working more with Sound Forge and improving the sound on the film.  The sound that I supplied on the screener was a little basic.  I can't afford a sound designer and studio, so I have to do the best job that I can on my own.  I played around with Sound Forge a little to clean up the sound in some scenes for the screener, so I'm not completely new to it, but it will be good to get to grips with it a bit more.  Everything that I learn now should help when I get the chance to work with specialist professionals in the future.

That applies to the other skills that I'm practising too.  I've designed a new poster for the film, working with an on set photo image in first Photoshop and then GIMP, and I've uploaded the poster to the IMDB.   I cut a new trailer, after watching a number of trailers for horror films to get a better idea of what to include and how.  I think I've made some improvements over the last one that I made.  That's now on YouTube.   I have to put together a credit block, something that I hadn't heard of until I read the list of deliverables.  I have to select the right font, get it all lined up in GIMP ( which actually allows you to open a canvas in PAL or NTSC sizes) and, most difficult of all, I have to decide what to put on the credit block - I did most of the jobs on the film, but I can't just put my own name on there over and over.

Although a lot of the work that I'm having to do has boring aspects, I'm going through the whole process with a feeling of excitement.  At the back of my mind the whole time is the knowledge that I'm doing this because someone wants to distribute my film, that if I do this well and quickly people could be buying it in a few months time.  I'm also enjoying all the small improvements I'm able to make as I go along, using some of what I've learned since I edited the screener.

I still don't know where I'm going to get the NTSC master tape done here in the UK.  I don't want to pay more than I can afford for it - which isn't very much.  But I'll worry about that when I've finished everything else that has to be done.

I've left it a very long time since my last blog entry.  There's no excuse really.

In April this year Ross Boyask, director of the film Ten Dead Men, offered me the chance to go to the Cannes Film Market on a pass provided by Ten Dead Men's sales agents IFM. I went into an intense period of working to try and raise some money to go with and preparation in case any opportunities came up while I was there.  I'd never been before, so the sheer quantity of opportunity came as an enormous surprise to me. 

On the first Friday of the festival, I left at 3.30am to drive to Stanstead airport.  By lunchtime Ross and I  were in the Marche du Film. As David Hannay, producer of two of Tarentino's favourite Australian films, whisked Ross straight off to his first meeting, Ross asked Justin Richards,who runs the Phantasmagoria film festival, to look after me. Justin took me straight to all the people most likely to distribute Bloodmyth, with the result that by Sunday I had achieved far more than I had hoped for.  That first day ended at 2.30 am after a party run by The Longtale and the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture. On Saturday, Ross and I were up at 6.30 and the whole thing started again. By Tuesday morning and the last dash round to say goodbyes, I'd run out of business cards. A last crumpled one that I pulled out of a pocket went to the very nice women in the William Morris Agency office. Well, it was worth a try.

Cannes was followed by an equally intense period of following up on leads...

...followed by several months of working on a Blood for the Hunter rewrite while nothing happened at all.  For a while, I fell into the trap of losing enthusiasm and stopped writing.  I thought that there was something wrong with Bloodmyth that I just couldn't see.  I believed that there was little point carrying on trying to write and direct.  I just did weights, went running and watched dvds.  Eventually, though, I started to work on the rewrite again, making slow progress.

Then, towards the end of November,  I got an email from Maxim Media.  I'd met Darrin Ramage in Cannes and he'd asked me to send a copy of Bloodmyth.  The email was a sample contract.  I'm working on the deliverables now.  If all goes well, Bloodmyth should be out on dvd in the USA in 2009.  Suddenly, I'm thinking about getting my other projects made.

I've just added the last cast interview, from Jane Gull.  The only person on the cast that hasn't spoken yet is me.  I've been giving a lot of thought to just what would be the best way to go about talking about the film, mainly as an excuse  not to get on camera myself.  I have to admit that the idea of talking to camera as myself makes me very nervous indeed.  I'll do it soon though.

I've now put the raw footage of the Keith Eyles and Ben Shockley interviews on YouTube and MySpace.  I've posted it up on the Facebook group   So now it's over to Ben and Keith...

Ben Shockley has given me the first of the interviews he's organising with the Bloodmyth cast.  He got together with Keith Eyles, who organised a room at the Pleasance Theatre.  They interviewed each other about Bloodmyth and also chatted about their careers so far.  I uploaded the footage to my laptop yesterday.  I asked them to be completely honest about the film and the shoot, in particular for Keith to talk about the problems he felt that my approach to filming caused.  I'm very pleased with the results.   I'm not sure whether to intercut them with clips from the film or to just put them up online as they are.  I'd like to get them out for people to see soon.  I'm still rewriting Blood for the Hunter, which is taking up most of my time, and I also have to schedule some time to do some more work on the Bloodmyth edit, so I might put the interviews up as they stand now and work on more featurette style pieces later.