In The Land Of Disney

Work at Sparkhill joyfully continues.

At the moment I am cutting a pod about Walt Disney (the man) as told by people who worked with him including a number of the original Mouseketeers from "The Mickey Mouse Club". This will be included on the "Walt Disney Treasures Volume 6" DVD. Not sure when the actual release date is yet. I'm also working on another piece focusing on Walt's early studio where he and brother Roy produced "Snow White", "Fantasia", and "Bambi".

Next up is an hour long documentary about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. However I am still in full gear to take on the DVD for "World Trade Center" after that. Last week there seemed to be a glitch in the road.

Due to the changing schedule for the Astaire/Rogers project, it seems they've had to hand "WTC" off to another editor. The plan is to have at least two editors cutting different pods for this. We had a meeting in the conference room Friday regarding Astaire/Rogers. There's a big dry erase board on the wall that shows all the editors and their current and near future projects. I noticed right away that because I was taking on Fred and Ginger a week and a half later than originally intended, they had me booked on that for the next month or so. Yikes! I like those classic movies but names and words like "Nicholas Cage", "Oliver Stone", and "Major Theatrical Studio Film" are a callin' me pretty loud. I knew I needed to make some more noise fast. Of course I knew the change had nothing to do with me. Just the company trying to tackle everything on it's plate the most efficient way. I also knew from what I was told two weeks prior that this scheduling board changed almost daily. Five minutes later I realized that I needed to be patient and chill.

Eric, the head of Sparkhill, came into this meeting somewhat annoyed. Apparently he was not happy with Warner Bros. who, despite wanting a number of special elements included in the Astaire/Rogers project, were not returning phone calls requesting said material. Basically they were giving him and the producer a bit of a runaround. Eric felt it was not worth all this effort, calling the project your 'basic run of the mill, done before a million times retrospective'. He expressed this very firmly to the producer who was on speaker phone during our meeting. And then he said the magic words; "...You know quite frankly I'd rather have David working on 'World Trade Center' than this thing". So now I knew we were both on the same page. Plus I knew the producer I've been working with on the "24" Season 5 DVD also had requested me for "WTC". To top things off, it turns out there's another editor who was very enthusiastic about working on the Astaire/Rogers project because she's a fan. She was a little dissapointed to learn of the change. O.K....switch? I think everything will work out alright in my favor. I'll be starting on the Astaire/Rogers project this Thursday. "World Trade Center" begins two weeks later. Something's going to give by then.