“This all seems very familiar,” as my nemesis Biff Tannen once said. Whilst pre-production on this pilot brought with it the new experience of set building, and production had the novel extravangance of 35mm, post-production is very much in the DIY vein of Soul Searcher. I only hope it doesn’t last as long.
I’ve been gradually building up the soundtrack, so far using mostly recycled sound effects from Soul Searcher. A sound that was once Dante dragging a chain across a wooden floor works equally well as the rumble and clatter of the Swordsman’s wheel. Chris Mayall’s squeaky bathroom doorknob – once the hinge of Dante’s trunk – is now the Swordsman’s axle. Little things like a squeaky wheel breathe a surprising amount of life into the scene.
Scott’s first demo came through this evening for scene two, and did not disappoint. This too is like another coat of paint on the film – another step on the ladder that leads from a jumble of rushes to a finished scene.

Things are ticking along nicely. All the major components of the miniature are under construction and the roto and paint-out work has begun on the 2K on-line footage. Hopefully this weekend I’ll break the back of the sound design; to date I’ve only got as far as trimming the dialogue and track-laying some basic foley.
I’m delighted to announce the pilot will be musically ennobled by Scott Benzie, the man responsible for The-Best-Thing-About-Soul-Searcher TM (i.e. its score). I look forward to experiencing his orchestral maneuvres on the Dark Side.
On April Fools Day, lucky patrons of the Borderlines Film Festival in Hereford will get a sneak peek at part of the pilot and a brief glimpse behind-the-scenes, not to mention an edifying oration from Yours Truly. Those wishing to see it complete and in all its 35mm Dolby 5.1 glory will still have to wait for Sci-Fi London, however.

Yesterday I went up to Elstree to see Lau and Lou who are making a miniature Swordsman. The couple showed me some of their previous work, including an automaton representing the seven deadly sins which took the form of a Pan’s Labyrinth-esque journey into phantasmagorical underground caves.
Ian had kindly delivered the full size Swordsman, the top half of which now lounges scandalously on a sofa bed in Lau and Lou’s spare room. Since the miniature will be shot upside-down, we had to figure out certain issues of gravity and loose parts that would hang the wrong way and the give the game away.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with John Galloway and two students from the SAE Institute who will be handling some of the puppeteer paint-out work.

Post-production finally feels like it’s getting up to speed. Two students from the SAE – a college in Islington that I used to lecture at – have begun painting out puppeteers, just in low rez off-line shots for now, but the 2K scan should be done by next week, then they can really get cracking.
Meanwhile preparations are underway to build a miniature Swordsman and ceiling mechanism for shooting in late March along with the rest of the pick-ups.