Did Anyone Get The Mailing Address For Sundance?

Early last week, we finally got the approved rough cut of Dismal locked. Or, I think we got the approved cut locked – after the last set of notes I didn’t get a chance to watch again since it had to ship out. But hopefully all the changes are made. Makes me nervous, not seeing that last cut, but I trust our editor, so I know it’s okay.

Please. Tell me it’s okay.

The movie’s hovering at about 94 minutes, which I think is perfect, and now it’s off to the composer, color timing and the sound editors.

Or it was supposed to be.

Somehow, the sound guys never got the stuff they needed.

Arrrrgh!

These are some crack sound editors, so I know they’ll catch up, but it’s one of those little details that can really make a project stumble. They were supposed to have it a few days ago, and the deadline for Sundance is fast approaching.

After almost 10 years in the business, it still amazes me how complex it is, and how so much can ride on small things not being done – or being done wrong.

There was this show we did once. A crime show about a biker gang. The main enforcer of the gang was a giant martial arts master who, when he was arrested, sent a couple FBI agents to the hospital and shattered a door frame in the police station when a roundhouse kick he intended for a cop’s head missed by a hair. The guy was a monster, and I tried to relay this to casting very clearly: I need a bad ass motherfucker in the true sense of the word, someone large, with an intimidating physical presence, someone with a mean look who is very comfortable on a big Harley. A bad ass motherfucker.

What casting apparently heard was: he’s part Asian.

What they cast was a tiny little Chinese man who couldn’t have weighed more than a buck twenty, who had never been on a motorcycle, and who was frightened by the sound of grips yelling “Hot points!”

And I find this out when the crew and cast show up on location in Ohio, ready to shoot. Director calls me: "Uh. David? You know that bad ass motherfucker we talked about?"

Somehow we pulled off the show, but we obviously had to lose the idea of this character as an enforcer. Of library protocol, maybe, but certainly not of a biker gang.

Anyway, it’s the little details. You try not to obsess over them. You try not to micromanage. And you don’t want to be an ass about it, but damn if that doesn’t come back to haunt you sometimes…

Enough bitching. Gotta make sure we have that address down right.