Wow, that was an anticlimax.

Neil and I completed the stereo mix at about 2pm on Friday, but we still had concerns that we weren’t going to get the sub-bass at the screening, so Neil researched the subject on the web and tried to produce a Dolby 3.1 mix while I got an hour’s kip. Sadly the Dolby mix did not work.

So the premiere happened. I was half asleep. I made a surreal little speech and it was on with the show. The picture looked pretty good on the big screen, much better than I had expected, but the volume of the sound was pathetically low, despite the projectionist insisting he couldn’t crank it up any more. Never fear, I know the sound system at the Courtyard goes VERY loud because some people walked out of my screenings of The Beacon in 2002 because of the excessive volume. So Borderlines attendees can expect to experience the full power of the mix, albeit a mix that has a few tiny mistakes in it due to us having to rush it, but most people wouldn’t even notice them. (Don’t worry, it won’t be loud enough to make people walk out, I promise.) Big thanks to Neil for going way, way, way above and beyond the call of duty to help me get the damn thing finished on time.

When I got home after the premiere I was deprived of sleep a little while longer as I ran off a tape of clips for ITV Central News, who are interviewing me and Borderlines director David Gillam on Friday, and a screener for the Cannes Film Festival.

I then had to get up early on Saturday to travel to Hereford with Leo Benedictus, who is writing an article on Soul Searcher for The Guardian. Leo had attended the premiere and was really impressed by the film. When we got to Hereford we had lunch in Doodies (it was a strange experience for Leo to see the place in real life after seeing it in the film) and Leo quizzed me about the film, my ambitions and all that jazz. He could scarcely believe it when I told him how little the film had cost.

Then a photographer arrived and snapped loads of pictures of me in Doodies, in High Town (perching precariously in a flower bed and getting strange looks from the crowds of Saturday shoppers) and on the roof of the Courtyard. Lucy Maslen, a.k.a. Clubber Girl 2, was working at the Courtyard box office. She told us that there are only eight seats left for the Friday screening and that Saturday is also selling well. Leo took the opportunity to ask Lucy a few questions, then he and I visited Campions where I regaled him with tales of frosted lighting stands and imaginary homeless people under the bridge.

The article will appear this Friday, the 18th, in the Friday Review section of the G2 supplement.

When I got home from Hereford I went to bed for fifteen hours.