Written on Sunday. Enjoy my pain.
The date is January 15th, 2006. The time, according to my beat-up Nokia phone, is 2:56pm. I am in Singapore, and I have not slept since 6:00am, January 14th, 2006.
Why? Because I have been editing.
What can I say right now? My head hurts, I am completely dehydrated, I think I've bruised or sprained my wrist (or damaged it in the long run) from using the mouse continously, my shoulders ache, my back hurts, my feet are killing me, the cyst on my chest is burning into my body, I smell like shit, my breath stinks, my pits reek, my eyes burn, my throat is sore, and I may have carpal tunnel syndrom.
So what else is new?
Here's what's happened (and what will happen, as I'll probably add to this) in a nutshell:
January 14th, 2006
12:30pm. Woke up in Damansara Heights. Had been editing in Taman Tun till 6 in the morning. Sleep was pleasant. I have decided that sleeping in Taman Tun is detrimental to my health. How else to explain the two days of illness I experienced on Monday?
2:00pm. Bought bus tickets to Singapore: RM$160. Why so much? I'm taking an Aeroline bus, one of those fancy double deckers. Why Aeroline? They have plugpoints on the bus. Worst case scenario, I can prepare the press pack there.
4:00pm. Naz SMS's me, telling me that he's sent the revised version of the DVD cover for Ciplak's submission to the Singapore International Film Festival. Too busy editing, so I tell him I'll check it out when I take a break.
7:00pm. Diana and Farah came over, followed by Tony, who was dropping off his two short films to send together with mine. We're sending everything under one big 'FYI Films' package. Showed Tony the cut of the first 53 minutes. He enjoyed it. So did Diana and Farah. However, since they were involved/know me, their opinion might be biased. My other worry is that later tonight I'll be showing some of the movie to my father. Grrreat...
8:00pm. Go to Starbucks for Grande Latte Enema. It's a Venti. It's fucking huge. THIS should keep me up. Then I called my father to ask him whether he can come over around eleven. He says he can, and that he's bringing my mother too. Double grrreat. Briefly blogged about this.
11:00pm. Showed some of the movie to my parents. Officially worst screening I've ever had of the rough cut. They didn't say anything bad about it... but they didn't say anything good either. Morale lowered considerably. Turned to my girlfriend for emotional support via telephone. One thing is certain. I'm sending something to the SIFF. I just don't know what.
January 15th, 2006
6:30am. Edited continously since screening it to my parents. Huge chunks of the movie are missing. And I mean huge. For some reason right nostril starts dripping water. Not snot, not blood, fucking water. Decided, considering the time, that I should bite the bullet and render the movie as a WMV file. If there are any little things to fix, I can do it on the laptop on the bus. As the files rendered and the clock ticked I packed my bag with the laptop, blank CD's and editing software.
7:15am. Roughcut rendered and burnt to disc. Rushed off to the Corus Hotel on Jalan Ampang to catch my bus at eight, stopping at my parents' house to pick up a t-shirt and the laptop plug.
7:55am. Get on bus. Not sure if the car's locked.
8:05am. Fell asleep for a minute on the bus but was thankfully awakened by the steward serving breakfast: weiners, scrambled eggs and a buttered bun. I put the weiners and eggs into the bun for my very own Aeroline Sausage McMuffin.
8:15am. Install Vegas Video 3.0 onto the laptop.
8:20am. Finally watch the roughcut. Third act is fucked. Carelessness, rushing and sleep deprivation have left a shitload of mistakes. Good thing I brought the laptop. For some reason the additional sound effects track has been nudged out of its timeline... by about five minutes earlier. So when the intense moment between my character and Peter Brown's takes place, for some reason there is the sound of a skateboard/car chase in the background. Fixable, but there's a huge hole in the plot now. Anyone watching it will notice that a good ten minutes are obviously missing from the movie.
8:50am. Start editing.
12:45pm Finish editing just as we arrive at immegration. Spend the rest of the trip through Singapore doing the end credits.
(Begun to notice that grammar structure and past/present tense is gradually getting fucked. But I shall not fix it for I am an elk.)
1:00pm. Arrive somewhere in Singapore. Have no Singaporean currency. Walk in the hot sun to some mall somewhere to look for a money changer. Try to call Goz. No answer. Try to SMS. No reply. Fuck.
1:40pm. End up at Burger King on Orchard Road. A girl named Grace sat at the other end of the long table reading a book offers her mobile phone to help me call Goz. Still no answer. Chit-chat with Grace for a bit. She just came back from England 2 months ago. Talk about the UK before she leaves to join her friends after their champagne brunch. It's rare to find people that will talk to random strangers just for some idle chit-chat in Asia. Not part of the culture. We talked about books and she recomended 'the Time Travellers Wife'. After a couple of cigarettes we parted ways.
2:10pm. Decide to wait at Coffee Bean and do my final render of the movie.
2:30pm. Goz finally calls back. He was asleep. The bastard.
3:20pm. 33% of the movie rendered so far. Still have to burn it, go to a cyber cafe to download and print the cover, print out the press pack and cover letter, then find a manila envelope big enough for it all and find the SIFF office before getting on my bus back to Kuala Lumpur at 6:00pm.
It has begun to rain. Shiite. I hope it doesn't get my laptop. And it's fucking heavy too. Isolated bursts and showers. Things look bright and dry outside of Orchard so maybe it'll go soon. Goz still isn't here and the Coffee Bean is packed. I'm not sure how much longer caffeine can keep me going.
3:36pm. Goz arrived. 42% rendered so far. When, Lord. When do I get to see the goddamn sailboat...
5.45pm.Hmmm. It's 98% rendered. I'm wondering right now if I should press 'cancel' i nthe hope that by doing so, I'll still have 98% of the movie.
...
Fuck it. Let's try it.
...
Cool. It worked. Now to burn.
6.00pm. Goddamit.
Ok. So I re-edited the roughcut I had so that the third half made more sense, right? Right. Then I spent the whole day in Singapore rendering the file, diving in the car with Goz to the bus stop as I rendered it, then we perched ourselves upon the sidewalk as I slipped in a CD-R to burn to VCD.
Except the laptop I have doesn't have Nero installed. It has Sonic Record DX.
And Sonic Record DX cannot convert files into VCD format like Nero. The files have to be converted first. Motherfucker.
Rushing like a madman, I tried burning the original WMV files that I used to edit (which were split into three chapters, the third being the one that needed the most work) to VCD, and guess what?
It can't do that either.
Motherfucker.
So, in the end, I burnt the original WMV file roughcuts I burnt from my PC at home to do the roughcut I edited on the bus as opposed to the roughcut edit I did on the bus that was, at the very least, more wholly coherent.
Which makes all the hard work I did for the last ten hours absolutely pointless. That's depressing. Incredibly depressing.
But it was an experience. I will say that.
Waste of money? Not too much. An experience? Sure. There are other festivals to aim for. And they all cost money.
It's weird. I thought I'd be crying and bawling my eyes out for not making it on time. But, for some reason, it makes me want to laugh my ass off. I'm smiling right now as I type this. Maybe it's the relief that I won't have to be all stressed over the Singapore International Film Festival anymore. Maybe it's because of the ludicrousness of this whole endeavour, all for one festival. Am I really gonna be this way over allfestivals? Doubt it. I really do think it's the vanishing of the stress of trying to make the SIFF. I really do.
Alternatively, it could be because I haven't slept in... oh, about 30 hours. Heh. Sleep's for pussies. Besides, I'm not going to sleep yet. I'm still on the bus in Singapore. If I fall asleep now I'll end up being rudely awakened at immigration. I'll sleep once I'm on Malaysian soil. Yeah... sleep the sleep of champions, then wake up fresh... for fucking work.
One day... one day I shall see the sailboat.
No comments:
Post a Comment