We have Picture Lock!!

Hello all,

I know we’ve been quiet for a while but I didn’t want to write until I had some news. Well I have some news! The picture lock for the documentary is now complete!! For those of you not in the film industry this is a major milestone. What it means is that the picture edit is now complete and the picture will not be changed from now on. This is a very important part of the post production because nothing (music, grading, sound mix etc) can be done until the picture is locked.

So what have we been doing the past few months? If you remember I went to Brazil to work on the edit with our editor Anna Lucchese. It was a monumental effort to take the 28 hours of footage and somehow wrestle it into a hour length documentary. There was just so much good material but if we left in too much there was a real danger of diluting the impact of the story. I left Brazil with the edit about 60 to 70% completed. Of course when I arrived back in the UK, I was immediately innundated with work and became extremely busy with my feature film. As well Anna was very busy with her own projects and by the time we were finally able to get going again it was November. Through emails and Skype we got the edit to about 90%. It was looking really strong but tt this point, I really needed just to sit down and do the last little tweaks. So I trooped off to Wales and worked through the next 5% with Ryan. Finally I handed it back to Anna for the final clean up and tweaks…and here we are with picture lock! It hasn’t been easy and I have to say a massive thanks to Anna for all her effort, persistence and her talent. I do have to say though I think we’ve told an honest and powerful story.

Now that the picture lock there is still plenty of work to do. Dan Elliot is now busy on the music, Diego is working with the grader and I’m working on the credits, transcript. I am still working on sorting out the sound mix but we do have a few leads. So still plenty to do but we can now see the finish line!

So that’s where we are. As always thanks for all your support. It won’t be long until you will be invited to a screening!

Thanks from all of us

Riyad, Diego, Christian, Anna & Dan