A Proper Family Christmas

After some waiting around (for studio time and music) and some setbacks (namely the person who was going to be doing our mix going down with appendicitis the day before the mix was due to start), we're finally in the studio doing the sound mix for 'Mum & Dad'. We're doing a reel a day - even though we're not delivering on film at the moment, we still have to break things down in that way because of the potential of going there in the future - spread over three weeks - again a result of rescheduling -which is going to take us right up to Christmas. Lisa's also managed to find somewhere to do all of the picture post-production, which we're hoping to get done by the end of January. Christ it feels like it's taken a long time. I guess the thing is, the actual work - cutting, mixing, sound design - hasn't taken that long, it's just that the whole process has been spasmodic - an intense month or two here, followed by a barely-progressing batch of weeks, followed by another intense week or two. But we're nearly there now.

The funny thing is, the closer we get to the end, the more nasty the film becomes - doing the sound mix yesterday, Greg, the sound mixer, was talking about how bleak and horrible a certain bit was - which is obviously the intention, but it's only now as the film gets closer to being whole that it all comes together and starts working properly as a horror film.

As well as doing the mix, I've also been trying to sort out how the music is going to work in the end sequence. After initially claiming not to want any music at all in the film, I ended up soundtracking a Christmas sequence with five songs. Obviously, because we didn't have a composer on board - and also because I wanted the music just to be like a normal British family Christmas - we ended up using a load of Christmas hits. When the cut was okayed, we were already in the process of investigating whether it would be possible to use these tracks and for a while a couple of them seemed hopeful...But then our lack (or rather absence) of budget told and we ended up getting nothing. Which has meant we've spent the past month or so getting new tracks to fit in there. It's weird, having lived with the cut for so long with the original tracks in (which I pretty much always knew we were unlikely to get) now trying to listen to it with a whole bunch of new music, but any audience who sees it won't know what was there, so hopefully, as long as the music fits tonally, it'll be fine.

I never imagined that we'd still be working on the film at this late date (I remember saying to Lisa in about July that there was no way I could afford to still be working on 'Mum & Dad' in January...(and it's true, I can't afford it)), but I guess it's quite apt to be listening to loads of Christmas music at the moment - even if the 'Mum & Dad' version of Christmas isn't exactly the most festive scene, it still somehow gets you in the mood...