The Dark Side of the Earth: October 14th, 2010

Set up the tables in the street, fly the bunting, book the band and fire off the twelve gun salute, because the pilot is finished. Hurrah! Only millions of pounds to secure and 85 minutes more to shoot and the film will be finished.
Yesterday Carl, Quay, Katie, Aidan, Aidan’s Random Friend and I went to view the 35mm combined print at Deluxe. Deluxe are out in Denham, on the western edge of London, and part of our route there along the A40 was the same as that travelled every day by Ian, Col and I for five weeks during the set building and shooting of the pilot. (A friend of mine once remarked that you know you’re getting old when you start talking about roads. How right he was.)
We were greeted at the lab by Paul Dray, who mentioned in passing that amongst their current clients is a certain S. Spielberg, presently shooting War Horse. Since Deluxe’s client screening room had “blown up” that very morning (hopefully not while Spielbeard was in it), Paul led us instead to the less glamorous Technical Screening Room. This entailed a journey through the heart of the building, past rooms piled high with film cans, fascinating glimpses of technicians doing techniciany things and an entire corridor cloaked in darkness like something out of Harry Potter’s Department of Mysteries.
The print looked and sounded as spectacular as ever. Once again, much praise was lavished on Ian Tomlinson’s artwork, which occupies the first two minutes of screen time during the “story so far” voiceover. I no longer saw the various elements that comprise the pilot, and which for so long I have scrutinised individually – the grade, the mix, the edit, the FX, and so on; instead I experienced one glorious whole. (As Lister said to Rimmer, “You ARE one glorious hole.”)
After that it was off to lunch and discussions of the latest script. In the end I reinstated the time travel, having got half way through a time-travel-less draft and decided my heart just wasn’t it. I was pleased to hear that the new draft was met with Carl and Quay’s approval, as I’ve lost all concept of whether it’s any good or not. Needless to say though, there are still changes to be made.
And finally, who’s presenting tonight’s season premiere (if you’ll excuse the Americanism) of Have I Got New For You? None other than Maximillian Clarke himself, Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch. I predict a “news detective” round, complete with cheesy magnifying glass graphics.

The Dark Side of the Earth: October 14th, 2010