Wondering if the film will be finished by August

A recent post was about how I thought it takes 3 edits to get a film right. I must have written that as a mental message to myself, a vain hope that theory is the same thing as reality. We are starting that 3rd edit now and it becomes so clear that the film we actually end up with could be one of many. We have the material to make "the rise, fall and rebirth of Hardy's", or we could instead make it a film on the desire to fish and go fishing with beautifully made equipment and about fishing tackle which means something and makes angling richer. Then again we could make a film about why people are prepared to devote their lives to making the very best fishing tackle. And then there's the story of how fishing has changed over 100 years and not just with tackle but through increased wealth, better access, pollution and globalisation - all of which change our fishing. The list could go on. It depends on which story we think we can tell best and so will make the best film. Discovering the best of the material, interviews and locations takes a little longer than we thought. 3 edits my foot!

1st music for the film

Stephen the music composer delivered his 1st sketches today and we lined them up against some visual sequences, one of Ken Middlemist, one of the last of the Hardy fly dressers at work and another, a very poetic piece on fly fishing on the River Test. Both were fantastic, music is so odd in it's powers of elevation. Suddenly the music emphasises the story and a trout in the crystal clear waters becomes a character all of its own as it evades the hapless fly fishermen.

Ever so slowly the film does comes together!

3 edits make a film?

I hope and kind of believe that it takes about 3 cracks at editing a film to get it right. After that the law of diminishing returns tends to kick in, the film will get better but only incrementally so and often further edits just becomes different rather than an improvement. We have just about finished edit 2 and so I hope in a couple of weeks we will be there with the big number 3. Hmmm no doubt my theory is mere pants and soon I'll have to eat my words.

Edit one viewed

Hmmm, tricky thing film edits. We watched our first edit this morning. Our 1st edit has everything in our film which we think we need to tell our tale of the angler's love of beautiful fishing tackle. It explores this idea by telling the story of Hardy's, the effect of empire, war and new technology on this and the personal stories of many people who worked for Hardy's all their lives. And then we want to show modern makers of great tackle because aside from their own intrinsic interest they are the only real way to actually see craftsmen at work and they come across fantastically well.

And so that's were it gets tricky. It's just too much - we need to remember that less is more. So we plan to spend this week refining the edit, concentrating on the beauty of the film, the poetry, to still tell our full story but to realise where to concentrate the firepower. Oh it's not easy this editing lark. Hopefully the 2nd cut will be finished later this week - we've high hopes for it!

edit one

Finally, finally today we finished the 1st edit of the film. The 1st edit generally contains all the stuff you think absolutely essential for the film and is edited to what feels like the most natural structure and layout. Only problem was this 'essentials only' cut is already about 2 and a half hours long. An hour too long. Anyway it was with some excitement that we put the cut to bed ready to watch in full (for the 1st time) tomorrow morning with refreshed eyes.

The trailer (nearly)

Medlar Press kindly offered us the chance to show a promo for the film at the CLA Game Fair at Harewood this year. A great opportunity, it just meant cutting together a trailer. Believe it or not editing a film trailer's takes ages, weeks. It's not just because every frame counts and you are trying to squeeze in as much as you can, rather that you are trying to create a real sense of the flow and feel of the film and it is quite a gentle film. The other dilemma is we didn't really want to use spoken words - it was going to run on a continuous loop on a stand in The House of Fishing and so it would instead use music.

We dropped everything to concentrate on the trailer for 5 days. As the trailer slowly came to life it's quite surprising how it evolved to create it's own sense of mini-magic. The combination of some great archive footage; casting competitions and salmon fishing from the 20's, craftsmen at work today and also showing their treasured photos of time at Hardy's as well as Jim Hardy recollecting on camera and you suddenly do get this alchemy, the feel of this quite wonderful and magical lost world. The fact that their are no spoken words seems to make it even more special - representing that lost world even better. We were happy.

Then we discovered the Game Fair had been cancelled, the weather! Oh man what a shame!

We hope to put the trailer on the website soon instead. It needs a little tweaking first though. The edit was meant for a biggish screen so it looks and feels very different when watched on a tiny internet video window on a computer. The images need simplifying a little, will see what we can do though.

1st music moment

I picked up Stephen our music composer from the station yesterday. It was his 1st visit. The day the music man arrives is always magical. It means the film is moving on, taking shape and at a stage that other creatives are able to contribute their talents. Suddenly through them the film becomes so much better without me personally having to do much. That first time you hear music ideas sitting alongside scenes you have filmed and edited is pretty wonderful. I've worked with Stephen on a few films and so I know his music does the job beautifully, it adds it's own extra layers and enriches the film. Satisfying and an eye opener.

We have several landscape scenes in the film, e.g. dusk settling in on Alnmouth estuary, (home of the late J.J. Hardy) or graceful dry fly fishing on the Test in late afternoon sunshine, just add poignant well observed cello and piano and suddenly nice photography is transformed into beautiful, moving scenes. With Stephen's visit and viewing the film together the emotional potential of The Lost World of Mr Hardy leapt out. We saw for the first time our intention to make a connection with the past come true. What the film wants to do is engage and explore the craft and creativity of the craftsmen of the past - yesterday we realised it worked and it was very reassuring.