howyah

well had a nice week - spent three days relaxing in bristol with the missus.
great time - went to cafe meitreya - excellent vegan food
good gig too in the fleece - pure horsehair and laura veirs.
very cool night - also saw an amazing rembrandt - an old lady ina big white ruff.
tonight i'm off to hear steve reichs music for 18 musicians with some of the guys from work.
ahh - i'm having too good of a time!
dossy.
anyway just checkin' in. some great stuff happening - must go away more often!
remi and noras boards are lookin good and this latest from lily is pure class.
its such a buzz to see it coming together now.
still a lotta work ahead and the coupla days off really gave me a boost
i was starting to get really tired.
hokay - craic into it now...

yo!

So told a few people about this and so maybe theres someone out there!
Word to big bird - Just got a mail from Fabrice Ziolkowski - the screenwriter, and
he'll be over making a "making of" soon. Thats cool just hope its not a "lost in la mancha"!

Just posting a nice pic Lily did - Lily Bernard and Adrien Merigeau are working with Ross Stewart now doing a lot of scene illustrations - between 240-400 final Bgs that will be the blueprint for the final look of the film.

I'll post the one by Adrien (I drew the characters) this is based on a concept I did years ago and its a scene I am glad to say will be in the final film. very simple shot but i like it.
I was picking at it for ages - more than the more complex scenes. Its weird that way.
Anyway its great to cut these Bgs into the animatic - gives a quick feel for how the scene will look.
And as its a "screen shot" its agood guide for all the departments right down the line.

Been thinking of Mick Lally as the voice of Brother Aidan, it would be cool if we could get him- he'd be great.
But Michael McGrath and Nora did a great job on the scratch track too, its a really good guide.
Anyway falling quite behind in the boards so I'll knuckle down now.
Just signing in to say howya .

sunday

well, its cold and lonely up here tonight.
law of diminishing returns from this weekend work.
yeh, i get a bit caught up but i don't seem to have the intense concentration
of the first few weeks doing it.
its just a kind of malaise, letting myself wander mentally.
i get a bit caught up though but should be making bigger inroads.
I think i need to be more mentally disciplined.

anyway we have a sound and temp track animatic finally.
i've been cutting stuff since we put it together, with nora.
it was 89 minutes long and we only have 75 - actially 72 with 3 mins credits.
its really a big story to tell in 72 minutes, have to be very succinct.
i have been cutting a lot of what was added as we tryed to "lighten" stuff since last summer.
it just muddled the tone and was wasting precious screen time.
also the montages were indulengent and over-long pretty picture stuff.
looked at rocky again, and in 2 hours of screen time the montages are all less than 2 and a half minutes long. so we really have to be succinct.
What are we saying? say it - ONCE! and move on.
So much of the second act was repeating our selves or saying things that did'nt need to be said.

Was kinda depressed at first but diving in and cutting got me back to the heart of the story and
made me a little more passionate about it again.

I keep dreaming of it being finished and showing in the Bonlieu in Annecy.
Always nightmares though! no one there and so on.
heh, its really under my skin now.

Anyway I think the final "growing up" montage is quite abbreviated now, will have to look at the whole thing w few times to see if its still working.

sin é a cairde - slán anois,
t