Tropfest: The Polishing

It has been planned, project managed and progressing but finally I've got word from Wendy that the Tropfest film we have made is polished off. She is back in London and the word is that she has pretty much finished the film now and will be sending it in, just after she has burnt it to DVD - no word as to whether she is freezing her bum off though.

This is good news as I was getting a bit worried as to if we were going to finish it at all and if we would make the deadline of the 20th, this Thursday. This last bit could still be a bit of an issue as she is couriering it from London to Sydney today and the deadline is this Thursday at 6pm.

The delays as to why the whole thing has taken so long is because we wanted to get some footage in a big city, that wasn't cold. So we used Sydney seeing as Wendy came down to Oz for 10 days on route back to the UK and stayed with me for a couple of those days in Sydney.

Then once she had the footage she had to then edit the whole movie. The plan was originally that she buy her own iBook, like mine, in Sydney and take it back to the UK - getting the GST back as she went - then edit it there before sending the film in. First problem was that we didn't end up buying the laptop in Sydney as she really wanted to get one with a large hard drive (editing movies really chews through the space), and they can only do that as a custom order which takes 1-2 weeks to do.

So she ended up going home and buying an iBook there, rushing through the edit, stitching up some background cello music from a friend in his studio, finalising the whole thing, and now burning it to DVD. Only the actual entering of the film into the competition is all that remains.

This isn't without a hitch either. When you enter you need to pay $20 for the privilege. When you are in London this is harder than you can imagine, especially if you don't know many Aussies and the ones you do don't have Australian cheque books on them. In the end Wendy rang the staff at Tropfest and they said you can send cash in. Looks like Wendy will be down at the Bureau de Change window to get some $.

Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing the final results. Wendy is going to send me a copy at some point. And of course Tropfest itself is on in the Domain in Sydney on the last Saturday in February. Get yourself down there if in town. Who cares if our film is not there. It should be a good show anyway.

Later in the year I will host my own Tropfest night here, with the aid of the 2005 finalists DVD, a multimedia projector and some speakers, just like I did last year. It should be another good night if lasts years is anything to go by.