Please, brutality...

It's been a tough couple of weeks in the edit. After canvassing feedback on the last cut and collecting more notes (primarily from Sol and Lizzie, our Execs), we're midway through a 'brutal' version of the cut which has seen us lose almost 10 minutes off the running time - bringing us closer (despite my moaning and bitching to Lisa about having to cut stuff - but then, what do I know?) to my original stated aim of 83mins. (I don't know about anyone else, but when I look for the running time on the back of a DVD box, I'm always hoping that it's somewhere in the 80s - makes you feel like the film's not going to be fucking about too much.)

We've ended up cutting out a lot of dialogue, compressing some time (while, strangely, expanding it at the same time) and, I think, making the film stronger. But now, due to other work commitments for Leo, and childcare commitments for me (Jeanie's off at Britdoc this week), we've had to take a break. This is one of the problems of the budget - if we had more money, we could just book Leo until the end of the edit, but as it is, he has to take on other work for the company. We're still trying to get on with stuff over the phone and email, but it's quite difficult at this point in the edit - it's a time when you really want to be feeling the length of cuts and the edit points, by viewing them in context of the rhythm of the whole piece.

In the meantime, we've also started to get a little more press about the film. There was a recent article in Screen International all about the Microwave scheme -Click to enlarge.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole 'Film Idol' idea - what does that make 'Mum and Dad' - Will Young? Michelle McManus?

Anyway, the same issue featured the annual Screen International 'Stars of Tomorrow' spread, which counted both Jeanie and Tina Pawlik (my producer on 'Deliver Me') as two of this years SOTs.

Also this week, BBC Film Network put up a short video of a set visit they did, including interviews with me, Lisa, Perry, Dido, Olga and Simon (FX).

It all seems like ages ago, the shoot. It's weird how, after being so long in the edit (not that we've been that long - the whole thing's been relatively quick), you forget about the whole process of filming the thing and just concentrate on the footage. Watching the BBC video back reminded me of how much fun it was to actually shoot the film (fun obviously tempered by intense continuous schedule-pressure) and how much work it had been to actually capture what we've got. Although, having said that, if I never have to visit the room that contained the set for Lena's bedroom (where I'm interviewed) I'll be happy. All I can remember is the heat, mingled with smoke machine and man-musk. Delightful.