The movie Sleepless 'til Seattle is now officially in post production.
It has been a long time coming but various things had to be set in place before the work could begin. This included upgrading the existing edit suite to handle the large high-definition files and creating a back up system to ensure the project would never be lost. I learned that lesson the hard way!
There is roughly 140 hours of footage to watch, which may just take a while. I have to get this edited down to just 100 minutes! It's going to be fun revisiting the journey though. But this is only part of the post production stage.
There's a particular sound I want for the film in the way of music, and I have a wish list of tracks. Six weeks ago I started talking to the likes of Sony Entertainment Inc, Oh Boy records in Nashville, and so on, with a view to gaining the licences to use certain tracks in the film. At first the monies being quoted were reasonable, but the process quickly turned into a minefield. There are three licenses I need to use music in my film: a licence from the owners of the recording; a synchronisation licence to cut images to the music; and a publishers licence, the owners of the original composition. This last one can cost anything from $1 to millions. And it's not that clear cut.
Six weeks on and I've had enough. No amount of pitching the passion and importance of the film moved things on. It was becoming apparent that it was all about money. So a decision has been made: I'm going to commission music specially for the film.
It will be a fraction of the cost and I'll own all rights with no limit to it's use. I just have the small matter of raising the funds! I'll most likely create a Crowdfunding project for this, which I'll blog about later.
My next challenge is to commission animation. This will be in the form of showing the route with a fly-through over a 3-D landscape. It may be I have to use Google Earth for this but it's my hope to have something more bespoke.
Time will pass quickly, so I'll also have to fit in the research for festivals and the requirements for submitting. And there's a cost in that too!
Recently a TV company, out of Minneapolis, aired an 8 minute programme on Life To The Max. You can catch that here: Sleepless TV slot. Most of the footage used is mine, which is great in terms of ongoing publicity, another vitally important aspect.
I also have to cut a minimum 25 minute rough cut by mid January in order to submit a funding application to Sundance, and shortly after that there will be a short trailer online. To keep up to date with everything, or even register your interest in the movie, keep checking out the website at SleeplessTilSeattle.com
Oh, and there's the small matter of the day job!
Maybe I should just forget about ever going to bed for the next 9 months?!
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