SOUNDTRACK ALBUM

The sexily titled “Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” is on the way. In the meantime you can hear some of the tracks that might have made it on to the CD. Scroll down to the right, click on a sample and turn it up!

FESTIVALS

Have we submitted to any festivals yet? Yes…and they’re all big ones. We’re very optimistic and think we have a great chance of winning all of them. It’s shocking what a bit of bribery and blackmail can still do for you in this enlightened age!

If you are a festival organizer that was a bad joke – the ones in the movie are much better. We apologize.

FAQ

Just added…The FREQUENTLY ASSED QUESTIONS section of the site. Click on the icon to your right.

THE ‘MAKING OF’

When CALLBACK is finally released on DVD we are glad to announce that, yes, there will be a “Making Of Callback” extra.

Just like the film on which it is based “The Making Of Callback” is hilariously funny, has lots of Moe Jones in it and is mostly in focus.

WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?

It’s been months and months and months since the last blog. You’re right: I didn’t write, I didn’t call. Nothing.

It’s simple. Nothing was happening and I felt ridden with guilt. It took me 12 months to do this bit, 6 months to do that bit, I was in Europe for 6 weeks…and so on. It’s been like that the whole way through Post. The moral of this tale is simple. If you pay you get it done quick. If you are asking favors you have to wait…and wait…and then wait a little bit more.

But here’s the good news. CALLBACK IS DONE! We’ve had a cast & crew screening and everything. By the way if you were cast or crew and I didn’t invite you it’s because you’ve changed your e-mail and didn’t tell me.

What next?

We’re now submitting the film to festivals and we’re full of anticipation that someone will want to give the film its big World Premiere.

We’re also looking for a distributor and buyer and we’ve got a great little film to sell that’s funny and beautifully made – sorry for the arrogance but I’m proud. If you know anyone who wants to get world -wide rights to a hot little number let us know.

I would write more but I’m still working on the film, editing the “Making Of” and putting a Soundtrack Album together.

See you at a screening soon I hope.

STRING DRIVEN THING

It’s two years since we wrapped. How could it take so long to finish a movie?

If you spend six months alone in a small room with a computer cutting sound it’s easy to see how you can miscalculate this piece of string might be. On completion of my task I delivered all my audio elements to Rich, the dialogue editor, and sat down with Jez who will mix the movie only to discover I had entered the Perfect Storm of vacation bookings. I went away for 3 weeks and got back at the same time that Rich went off for a month. When he gets back Jez will leave almost immediately for 3 weeks. Et voila! Another two months are added to the schedule just like that.

I promise it will be over by Christmas…but that’s what they said about the War isn’t it?

DONALD & ME

What has sailing got to do with making a movie?

In 1969 Donald Crowhurst took part in a round-the-world yacht race sponsored by the Sunday Times. Occasional radio messages filtered back to base with the good news of his fortuitous trip around the planet in his boat as he scurried south from Europe, round into the Indian Ocean, across the Pacific and then turned North again towards England with the other competitors. He was making good time and the welcoming committee were putting the Champagne on ice when his boat was found empty and adrift in the middle of the Atlantic.

What had occurred?

It soon emerged that the poor man had perpetrated a hoax and had never ever left the Atlantic. He’d avoided the shipping lanes, had even stepped onto dry land, and then had simply floated around in circles for weeks while he was pretending to be speeding across the Southern Seas, and then waited for the other yachts to catch up with him. Realizing his ruse would be discovered his diaries revealed he’d slowly lost his mind. His body was never found and those bottles of bubbly were returned to the fridge unopened.

Sitting here in my cave cutting sound day after day, on my Jack Jones, I’ve started to wonder if people think I’m a kind of movie-making Crowhurst. Have I been Pro-tools-ing around in circles for weeks while sending out false radio-reports to keep the ajudicators foxed? There are moments where it certainly feels that way to me.

But the other day I glimpsed a view of the end of the tunnel. I didn’t see a line of well-wishers at the quay-side or bottles of celebratory booze but I did see land. Right now it’s disappeared again behind more storm-tossed waves but I’m hopeful that shortly I will stumble upon the shore. I will be dizzy as I get my land-legs back but the sound cutting solo-voyage will, at last, be done.

S.B.D.

I’ll do anything to get this flick done right, I’ll suffer any kind of humiliation.

I’m cutting sound right now and (not to give too much away) there are scenes involving someone farting and pissing. Of course we were too busy recording dialogue on those days in production so, this week, I needed to slug in the appropriate sound effects. I dropped in to Amoeba to see what Sound Effects CD’s they have and, yes, they do have one concentrating on farting and other bathroom noises handily titled RUDE SOUNDS. But why would I want to blow six bucks on a farting & pissing CD when I could record my own bodily functions AND own the rights?

Cut to yours truly drinking vast quantities of water and then squirming in pain to wait till the last available moment before off-loading so I could record a suitably long pee that would work for the scene in the movie. As I was peeing AND monitoring and recording sound all at the same time I was unable to take a pic of myself for the MAKING OF Gallery which, let’s face it, would have been the ultimate humiliation.

Can you find pix on the web of Scorsese taking a leak whilst wearing head-phones, holding a mic in one hand and something else in the other? I think not.

OK. So far, so good. Now about those other noises I needed…

The older I get one thing that it would seem I’m getting spectacularly good at is flatulence. But can I get a good fart recording? When I’m ready to release I’m not ready to record…by the time the tape’s rolling and the levels are right the urge has passed. No question about it, my cat is very confused by my sudden interest in shoving a mic up my butt.

Personally I can’t wait to get past this problem and get to the next reel when all I have to worry about is some footsteps and a few drive bys.

THANK YOU IAN

Ian Wallace, the wonderful man who played drums on 8 of the tracks you will hear in Callback, died yesterday. After an incredibly long career that included spells with everyone from King Crimson to Dylan and Eric Clapton it appears that those recordings will be among his last.

I’d been thinking about putting a small dedication to Stinker the cat at the end of the movie whose demise I wrote about earlier. It will be an honor to say thanks to Ian in the same place. I hope he’s OK about having equal billing with a mischievous tabby cat.

God bless you Ian.

MUSN’T GRUMBLE

Jury Duty is done at last and I can finally get back to the movie for a few hours…before I fly out of town to shoot a job.

Everything I have seen over the past days puts the impatience I feel at getting this movie completed in perspective. Suffice to say it was a murder trial and the pictures of the victim and the descriptions of the injuries involved will keep me in nightmares for many moons.

Back to work.
(P.S. The trailer is complete and Lennie should be posting it soon).

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