Carl and I met with Henning last week to go through the new layers of sound design which the latter has created. There are many great new touches which would never have crossed my mind. Henning has really blurred the line between the Swordsman and his mechanism and the ship itself, which adds a nice bit of extra magic and ambiguity to the wooden robot. Subtle vocalisations in the mix bring the puppet to life further – even animal noises, like a rattlesnake blended into the steam hiss of the mechanisms.

Film & Festivals magazine have printed an eight page article consisting of an abridged version of this journal in their August issue. You can view it online or order a print-on-demand copy. Thanks to Chris Patmore for this excellent coverage.

Aidan and Joe are still slaving away at the FX, Henning is busy with the audio track-laying, and Carl is making enquiries about a certain actor for the voice of the Swordsman. As for me, I’m working on a new Flash website (following a failed attempt at the same earlier in the year) and starting to think about writing a new draft of the script.

I locked the edit (again) today. A few more feet of film need scanning and all the sound effects need shifting about to fit the new picture arrangement. Henning will be adding a lot of new sounds to the mix over the coming months and hopefully giving it a lot more shape and definition.

Henning Knoepfel, a lecturer at SAE, has come on board to do the 5.1 surround sound mix. Meanwhile I’m fiddling with the edit to see if I can’t make the first scene just a little bit smoother.

One of the editors from the Harry Potter franchise very kindly took a look at the pilot and provided some useful feedback, all of which concerned the first of the two scenes – the one that almost didn’t get shot at all. I’ve just been trying out some of his suggestions, so far as the material we filmed will allow. Having two months away from the edit naturally gives me some fresh ideas as well.

Last week I met up with Aidan and Joe about the work still to be done on the pilot’s digital FX. Although no-one who’s seen the pilot seems to realise that the FX aren’t finished, when you start going through it in detail you realise that there’s a hell of a lot left to do. The aim is to have it all complete by the end of the summer.
Meanwhile Carl Schoenfeld, now helping the project along in an informal capacity, has been seeking out experienced industry mentors to give second opinions on such aspects as the grading and the editing. The idea is to get the pilot in A1 tip-top form before we hawk it around.