Sometimes, believing your dead…. Is easier than knowing your alive.
RPS Film Imaging and Simon Burley to the Rescue!
I haven’t blogged in a little while because I wanted to make sure that the Film 4 Teaser Trailer really sunk in to everyone’s mind brains. If you want to check it out again…. Please visit the Film4 website here:
Now onto what this blog is about… 65mm neg, RPS Film Imaging and the huge debt of gratitude we owe to the sensational Simon Burley.
A couple of weeks ago things looked a little bit scary. I won’t lie to you… we were a little bit worried about the state of the project because it seemed as though we didn’t have enough money or time to reach the finish line. There was no option of the project slipping away, but there was also no solution in sight. Thankfully, the money situation has just become slightly better, but we still had the horrible schedule.
That’s when, out of the magical forest that is RPS Film Imaging, Simon Burley, a hero, a saint, a man who stands head and shoulders above any other man who “thinks” he knows all there is to know about IMAX technology, jumped up to the plate. That man’s name is Simon Burley and he is a man I will love for the rest of my life. Fact.
What some of you may or may not know is that Simon is a man who has a long history in IMAX film presentation, working on countless films that have hit that massive screen – The Dark Knight being just one of them. He is also the man that the BFI IMAX chiefs themselves suggested, make that demanded, we have on the project because they knew that he was the man to help us achieve such a massive task.
Simon owns a company called RPS Film Imaging, who offer all kinds of services including traditional lab finishing, digital intermediate finishing, deliverables, compositing / vfx, titles and image enhancement/repair.
Check their website out here:
RPS Film Imaging Website
As I say, the schedule is tight, and we were beginning to worry. Basically, in the grand scheme of things… we weren’t going to hit our deadlines. Crikey! Samantha went and had a meeting with Simon to discuss the problem last week… apparently Simon opened the conversation with a line that instantly calmed Sam’s beating heart.
“I’ve worked out a solution…”
Sigh of relief.
Deep outburst of air from the mouth.
“How?” She returned.
That’s when Simon began to run through what it is he will have to undertake to hit the deadlines we have. Something which I can’t believe a man has offered to do for us… something that he is willing to do for a short film… a project that, yes has taken the hearts of many and taken up our lives for the last year and a half, but still, in the grand scheme of things: a short film. Simon has offered something remarkable.
Mr Burley will have to work for a solid 14 days straight, 24 hours a day, to have the 65mm neg created in time. This is because the rate for the scans and filming is 80 seconds per frame; meaning the film will run onto just under 5 x 1000ft reels, each reel taking 88 hours solid to create!
He will literally have to get up and go to work in the middle of the night to change the reels, so that the whole process doesn’t stop at all, as we simply can’t afford to lose one minute. On top of that – Simon doesn’t work in town, so he will have to travel into work at midnight to do this!
As soon as we have the first reels made up we’ll be shipping them straight out to CFI Technicolor in order to give them enough time to create the 70mm prints and send them back so we can test screen the first part of the film; to make sure the process is working. We can only afford to do this once and if anyone makes a mistake it will be hugely costly and may mean we miss our Premiere. Double Crikey!!!
Further to that Simon is creating this ever essential DCP for us not just for future digital screenings and dvd release, but also so that we can have it playing on the Christie projector 10 seconds behind the film at the Premiere. The lens of the Christie will be covered and we will only open it if for some reason the 70mm print fails – this is our extremely essential back-up should anything go wrong with the print, it means the Premiere will not fall apart!
As well as doing ALL OF THIS Simon is helping us out with advising on our IMAX sound mix because this is something he has dealt with before.
So, everyone, please be aware that this film probably wouldn’t be possible with many of the wonderful people who have helped us out… but the film LITERALLY wouldn’t be possible without Simon Burley. He is stepping above and beyond the call of duty to make this film be possible.
So… all together now…
THANK YOU SIMON BURLEY!!!
It brings me to tears to think that someone would do this for us.
Until next time folks, when I promise I will have an update on the Sound and Music. The hills are alive with the…
Ed.
Director.
EXCLUSIVE TRAILER FOR CHASING COTARDS ON FILM 4 WEBSITE
These are truly exciting days on Chasing Cotards.
Thanks to our wonderfully talented PR company, The Cult PR (http://www.thecultpr.co.uk/), they have managed to secure a deal with Film 4 that they have the exclusive for the Chasing Cotards trailer. You can find it here:
This is the never-before-seen teaser trailer for Chasing Cotards and it is exclusively on Film 4 thanks to the extremely wonderful Catherine Bray.
In a few days, after it has resonated on Film 4 for a little while, we will put the trailer itself on our website for all to see.
Exciting, exciting, EXCITING!
Until next time my Film 4 loving friends!
Ed
Director
