# Off-topic Rants

At 3:30 in the morning today, I received an e-mail from EditShare announcing that the first public beta release of Lightworks 10.0 was released into the wild. Unfortunately I’ve had quite a bit on today – however I have managed to do a couple of tests, and do a bit of mucking around. Over the next few months we will do a lot more detailed testing, and also cut together some actual projects on the system. However in the meantime, the amount of misinformation out there already is mind-blowing, so I thought I’d quickly run through some of the basic’s. Please be aware however, that I’m no expert – and this is really the first time I’ve ever had a good play with the Lightworks platform. I have known about them for years, and have read a lot about them – but never actually used one.

Have been away for a few days with my lovely lady and managed to take a load off for the first time in god knows how long. The great thing about this trip being that I got the opportunity to read the Wah Wah diaries by Richard E. Grant which is basically his diary from his first film as a writer/director and jesus was it an eye opener.

I had been pretty fucked off after the script read. Not because of the feedback, not because the script was not where I thought it was. Because I felt like we lost our balls. Like I lost my balls a little bit. I got so fucking caught up in the whirlwind of trying to appease everyone, as we all did, that we lost sight of what we were trying to achieve – making the film WE wanted to see, with the help of the people around us. I didn’t even take the time to consider how exactly I wanted the script to be developed, I was too busy trying to accommodate those around me, close & far. And in the midst of all this, I thought I’d take a step back from my producing responsibilities and try to focus on the writing/directing side of things. Little did I realise that my chief responsibility as a producer had been to push the project along, be the heart & soul of the thing. Even having Chris point this out to me, I still thought it to be their responsibility to keep this train arolling. NO! NO FUCKING NO!

We quite often have people who come and go in our lives, some making more of an impact than others. And occasionally those people who make the biggest impact leave your life so quickly that you never get to thank them for what it is they have done for you or what it is they have meant to you.

So after what can only be described as a bizarre few weeks since the reading – the boys and I are back in the saddle and working our little asses off as per usual, and on a saturday no less. Anyway today Chris and I met up for what can only be described as a frustrating yet kinda fun afternoon. So often when things get hard you forget why you enter into something like film making because it gets so freakin hard your head wants to explode.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, we’ve recently got ourselves a new SHOTGUN! logo – which is VERY exciting! It was designed by the extremely talented René Ellis, who also designed the current LateNite Films logo, and we must say, we cannot recommend René highly enough! She is an absolute pleasure to work with, and really spends a lot of time with us to really get the logo exactly right.

Last week I had the pleasure of being invited to Swinburne University to speak to 3rd and 4th year students studying towards their Bachelor of Film & Television in Prahran. I’ve had a couple of requests already to share some of the slides from the presentation, so I thought I might as well put together some useful resources to sum up what I discussed, and share them with world via this blog! So instead of just sitting in front of your computer or mobile device reading this – imagine that you’re a student in a university class room. The only difference is that instead of being able to just yell out questions (of which we had some really great questions when I did the talk!), you’ll have to just submit a comment at the bottom of this page and I will get back to you. Please keep in mind that this was only a short introduction to the world of post production, so I won’t be going into so much detail in regards to all the technical things – consider it a quick overview. I have however included a stack of really useful links at the end of the post, so you can continue your learning… Enjoy!

Deary me! What a week it has been! Things have been non-stop for me personally – and today is the first day for a long while where I’ve actually been able to just sit down for five minutes and ponder things. From all reports the live stream and script read in general was extremely successful, and we received a lot of really helpful feedback that will help shape SHOTGUN! into a better movie. So at the end of the day, despite all the hard work and hair pulling – it was certainly worth it in the end. But rather than tell you how perfectly everything went – which isn’t really helpful if you’re trying to do something like this yourselves – I thought I’d tell you about some of the issue we had putting together this event, and how we go around them – and also list some things for you to think about if you’re trying to do a similar event.

This is a saying that I love to use (because it makes me sound smart, is apt & is a throw away to the expected), because in life, nothing ever really ends (aside from life itself & even then, it’s a new beginning), things only ever begin. The end of a day is really the beginning of the night, the end of the week is really the beginning of the weekend/the new week, the end of a job is really the start of the next adventure & so it goes.

Well, despite all odds, we did it! From all reports, for those in the live audience, and those watching at home, the live script read was a big success! Thank you so much to everyone who attended in person, and those that made use of the live stream via the Internet! An even bigger thank you to everyone who completed feedback forms, as this information will be a huge help in shaping the film into the type of movie YOU want to see!