I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Douglas Adams
Last June our small company accepted a challenge to deliver 5 hours of television by the end of September 2011 - a 500% increase in the previous year’s output. Each film has to meet a series of deadlines along it’s production route and as the last two hours of programming enters the final stages of delivery the whooshing has now reached hurricane-like proportions, our hair is all tangled and we are clinging on to heavy objects as we hope that we get to be spat out more or less intact at the other end.
The deadline heading straight for us right now is the final cut of our Giant Squid film*, getting to this point has involved working thousand-hour weeks ever since I can remember, this bank holiday weekend the director, producer and two editors are working continuous shifts.
It hasn’t been all work though, the producer nipped off on Saturday lunchtime to be the lion in a local production of The Wizard of Oz and to reassure his family that he is still alive and the director definitely got himself a couple of hours sleep - so when people ask us if the work has taken over our lives and whether we still have any friends left I can say with confidence that we totally embrace the idea of a healthy work/life balance.
*updates about this and our other films in production can be found on the Ammonite Films facebook page
Shuntaro Tanikawa.
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Another post about an interesting translator: Michael S. Rosenwald at the
NY Times reports that “Shuntaro Tanikawa, Popular Poet and Translator of
‘Peanuts...
7 hours ago
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Ah, yes...the work/life balance. A familiar scenario Chez Dinahmow. (Well, The Man, not moi! I'm retired.)
ReplyDeleteHello Lulu:
ReplyDeleteIt all sounds to be an absolute doddle!! What, after all, is a few hours work, or even a thousand, non-stop?!!
Oh, dear Lulu, we do not envy you at all and now, approaching the end of this particular project, you appear so very philosophical and sanguine. We are sure all will be well on the night [or nights] and do hope that for all of the effort, time and work, you are being rewarded with fists full of dollars, euros or even pounds sterling.
giant squids are just about the scariest thing I can imagine
ReplyDeleteI imagine that giant squids also make loud wooshing sounds as they swim by! So you've got the SFX covered!
ReplyDeleteI feel like calamari for lunch.
ReplyDeleteI just stalked the Ammonite FB page. I wonder if I spotted you handling sea creatures?
been there, done that and i wasn't even an editor! i soooooooo feel your pain, sugar! (just typing this i remembered many a night/day falling asleep on the floor and waking up saying something about a frame/image/scene that needed another look!) xoxoxox
ReplyDeleteYou may as well learn to love the whooshing sound. Anyone who lives in the high pressure world of deadlines will miss them. If you don't love the sound of it, even laugh at it, then it will kill you.
ReplyDeletehttp://timkeen40.wordpress.com
A healthy work/life balance in the film industry?
ReplyDeleteHa!!!!!!!!
moreidlethoughts - we keep promising that there will be a holiday - one day!
ReplyDeleteJane & Lance - I was hoping to retire on the proceeds, but then we had to spend the dosh on yet more computercamerahardwarethingies
Nursey - scarier than the doctors at your place?
lx giant squids are silently deadly - but we have to put whooshes on the telly version or people aren't properly scared
Wow - funnily enough calamari is for lunch, I am often to be found handling sea creatures - I am doing research into alternative trampoline materials
savannah - funny how much a bottle of Grey Goose can help the process though isn't it? xx
Hello Tim Keen - wise words indeed!
MJ - I knew you'd get the joke
You have friends left. I am beaming you love and courage.
ReplyDeleteHere I thought it was the dregs of Hurricane Irene that we braced against but aparently it was your deadline?
ReplyDeleteHi LuLu, sorry for the hiatus. Glad to see you're still busy, as the saying goes: make hay while the sun shines.
ReplyDeleteGiant squid film?
ReplyDeleteHow did you get David Cameron to pose?
KSV - thank you my dear friend x
ReplyDeleteLouciao - our deadlines are certainly deadlier than Irene
Marky Mark - always lovely to see you darlin' x
Mme Fly - Mr Cameron is always up for opportunities