“Pretty mediocre photographic fake. They cut off your brother’s head.”
The first draft of the screenplay for The Dark Side of the Earth contained eleven Back to the Future references. I’m not sure how many are still in there, maybe half a dozen, but the spirit of Marty McFly and friend are still guiding the development of the story.
A new draft has begun. Battling with the complexities of Dark Side’s plot is one of my least favourite pastimes, but this time I have the invaluable help of a script editor, Quay Chu. Last week we had a long conversation about what needs addressing in this draft and what some of the ways to achieve those things might be. Such as how to make the plot clearer by having a character draw a diagram of the timelines, like a certain Doctor Emmett L. Brown I could mention in Back to the Future Part II, or by using a handy prop like the fading family photo from Part I.
Yesterday Carl and I met Quay face to face, albeit briefly, and continued to wrangle with parallel universes. Earlier we had met with another writer about The Black Donald, my other feature project in the early stages of development. This story has less complexity, but could still be streamlined. Here we talked in terms of Ghostbusters rather than BTTF. “According to this morning’s PKE sample, the current level in the city would be a Twinkie 35 feet long weighing approximately six hundred pounds.”
After the writing meetings, we went on to Cinesite in Soho. Since the grade two weeks ago, the images had been dust-busted, delivered to Cinesite, recorded onto 35mm internegative stock (kindly suppled by Fuji) and then printed. Now it was time to view this print and make sure the grade looked the same as it had in Pepper’s DI suite. Carl had had a bad experience in the past with this process (not with the same companies) but it was all new to me.
We were greeted by Ben and Alex from Pepper, as well as Cinesite’s Mitch Mitchell, Head of Imaging. While we waited for the projectionist, the topic of 3D arose again and Mitch told us many horror stories about all the technical problems it causes, some avoidable, some not. This only served to cement the view I had developed in Cannes that 3D filmmaking is as different to 2D filmmaking as 2D filmmaking is to still photography. I think from now on I will have to boycott 3D films as a viewer, in the hope that the lack of my bum-on-seat might at least help to slow in some tiny measure the almost-inevitable domination of 3D.
Anyway, on to the actual screening. The print started rolling and there was a big scratch on the start of it. Some directors might have been annoyed at this. Not me. First off, the sole purpose of this print was to check the grade, so it didn’t matter if it got a bit damaged. More importantly – it was a SCRATCH. An actual physical mark on the filmstrip. Not a digital filter someone had put on the image to make it appear scratched. A real, genuine scratch. I love film.
The grade looked exactly like it had at Pepper – bang on. These guys certainly know what they’re doing. The whole thing looked amazing. Now all that’s left is to shoot the soundtrack onto film and put the two elements together.
Random link of the day.

Yesterday was grading day (take two) for the pilot. Although Pogo Films did a great job for us last year, grading it for the Sci-Fi London screening, yesterday’s experience at Pepper Post was on a whole new level.
The grade took place in a very swanky state-of-the-art DI (Digital Intermediate) suite, like a mini cinema with a screen about 25x10ft, several comfy armchairs and a big control desk with lots of monitors and impressive-looking twiddly bits. The only thing that was missing was a Thunderbird 5 style reel-to-reel tape recorder whirring away in the background. When Carl and I arrived, colourist Alex had already imported the project and applied the Look-Up Table (LUT). Since we were grading in the digital domain (not to be confused with Digital Domain, Cameron fans), the LUT is a filter which allows us to preview how the images will look when printed to film. The raw scanned film frames that we have been dealing with up to now are very low contrast, retaining all the detail from the negative. Applying the LUT immediately restored the contrast and colour saturation, making the footage look a million dollars before we’d even started grading.
I was delighted to finally see the full resolution material on a big screen for the first time. Full resolution is 2048×1556 pixels (a.k.a. 2K) which, although large, didn’t feel large enough when I looked at the images on my computer. More than once I thought, “Surely I’m going to see the invidual pixels when this is projected on a big screen.” But that wasn’t the case at all. I could walk right up to it there in Pepper’s suite and it still looked great – you could just see more film grain. Mmmmmm, film grain.
It was easy to see why Carl has always been so keen for potential financiers to see it on the big screen, and not on a DVD or a web page. It’s a completely different experience and one that I think will blow people away.
After the initial admiration of the large and lovely images, it was time to get down to work and make them even more lovely. The look I wanted to achieve was markedly different from the one I chose last year. That first grade was warmed up considerably, to bring out the wood and earth tones in the set and costumes, and overall it was quite bright. I was probably too close to the project, still in love with the fantastic production design (and still all too aware of how much it had cost to put on screen) and wanted to make sure that every last detail of it could be seen. But, as Carl wisely said to me, no matter how brilliant your design is, it will look even better if it’s dark and shadowy and your imagination has to fill in the gaps. Not to mention the fact that these scenes are set on the DARK side of the earth, not the bright, overlit, prime-time ITV1 side of the earth. (Catchy sequel title, methinks.)
And I do here wish to lament the effect that eleven years of freelancing on corporate videos has had on me. When I started my career, I lit and graded even the most mundane of corporates in a moody, cinematic style. But over the years, the many complaints from clients that it’s too dark have worn me down to the point that I’m now almost as afraid of shadows as they are. So yesterday it was a pleasure, a joy and thing of beauty to bring the shadows to the Dark Side of the Earth.
Once again, muchos complimentos must go to Oliver Downey, director of photography, whose great work we have finally done justice to. But the hero of the hour was undoubtedly Alex, who worked swiftly and skillfully to bring the best out of every shot. It’s very impressive to watch how quickly he can track and isolate an element – Benedict’s face within the porthole of his helmet, for example – and grade that separately to the rest of the image.
So big thanks to Helle, Ben, Alex and everyone at Pepper who was so generous with their time and treated us so well, including the runners who occasionally slipped in to supply teas and coffees, struggling not to stumble and fall in the near-pitch darkness of the grading suite. And Alex’s work is not done yet, as he still has to paint out all the scratches and address a couple of other issues before delivering the data to Cinesite, who will soon be shooting the material out onto film.
And finally, why did Screen West Midlands reject our latest application for development money? Because the script is too good. Yes, that’s right. The script is too good, apparently. It doesn’t need any signficant development. Last time I applied it was too bad, too bad even to merit money being spent on developing it to make it better. And now it is too good.
Well, Screen West Midlands may think that, but everyone else who’s read it still thinks there’s room for improvement. And since Quay, the script editor Carl introduced me to in Cannes, has agreed to help out, I’m starting a new draft next week.

Let me speak to you of Craven Arms. Despite sounding like a pub, Craven Arms is a village in Shropshire, a village I visited this weekend for the first time in twelve years. The reason for the recent visit matters not; rather it’s the visits of 1998 on which I wish to ramble. For back then, in the mists of time, I had my first contact with the professional film industry in the form of a course called Lonesome Takeaway.
Allow me to set the scene. It’s been about six months since I finished Sixth Form. I’ve spent most of the summer sleeping and wondering what to do with my life. Finally I get a job, inputting data for Worcester Heat Systems, but it’s so brain-numbing I quit after just two weeks. I will shortly begin another, only slightly less brain-numbing job at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but for now I have two weeks of practical film-making workshops and a four-day short film shoot to look forward to.
On the first day I missed my connection at Hereford and arrived in Craven Arms an hour late, but I was soon immersed in the course, eagerly drinking in the information that the experienced workshop leaders – all working freelancers – were generously supplying. Everything from three point lighting to keeping actors comfortable between takes was covered, and when it came to dishing out roles for the shoot, I jumped at the opportunity to be in the camera department. Along with Jessica Lamerton (who I still work with regularly on corporate training videos), I spent hours learning to load 16mm Arri magazines, in preparation for two days as clapper loader, before Jess and I swapped rolls and I took over as focus puller.
I look back on it as a turning point in my life. Often have I told the story of how the director of photography, Des Seal, advised me not to go to university, but to build up a CV by working unpaid on shoots – the best advice I’ve ever been given. Months later, catching a lift to the film’s premiere with its producer, Jane Jackson, I would elicit an invitation to send her my showreel (full of the amateur films I had made with schoolfriends on my Video-8 camera, such as the original Dark Side of the Earth) which would quickly lead to paying work, allowing me to part ways with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and become a freelance filmmaker, as I’d dreamed of being since I first held a camcorder.
So thank you to those people who ran Lonesome Takeaway, who probably made little or no money from it and certainly didn’t need another credit on their CV.
That’s all for now, but tune in again soon to hear the real – and unexpected – reason why Screen West Midlands rejected Dark Side for development funding.