Work, Work, Work,...And More Work!

A more lengthy update on what's been going on from the end of working with KO Creative.

Ultimately I ended up cutting two trailers at KO; "Venus & Vegas" and "Provoked", both for the Cannes Film Festival, as well as that piece for the anthology, "The Horror Chronicles". I was there for around 3 weeks, just enough time to really show my stuff which they and the client were very impressed with.

I just received an e-mail from Kristi, one of the two heads of KO. She wrote the following which I was very happy to read:

"I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for all your hard work during Cannes. The Venus and Vegas trailer turned out great and the client was extremely happy with the final product. We look forward to working with you again."

That just says it all right there! Now I have two trailers cut at a major trailer house on my resume. Very important steps in the continuation of my career goals.

Meanwhile I am about to start my 4th week at Sparkhill working on the DVD supplement for Season 5 of "24". Finished the first rough cut of the Sean Callery (music composer) piece as well as the featurette which will be on a DVD accompanying the forthcoming book, "24: Behind The Scenes". This past Friday I started working on the second pod for the Season 5 DVD which is about President Logan's Retreat. For future reference, here are the official names for all three of these pieces:

"24" Season 5 DVD:
"Music By Sean Callery"
"Logan's Retreat"

The "24: Behind The Scenes" Book DVD Companion:
"24: Behind The Book"

The name "Behind The Book" is actually something I came up with after the producer and I ran through a few shorter versions of what Fox had called it. Their original title was, "Family & Friends: Behind The Making Of '24: Behind The Scenes'. That was just too much of a mouth full as an on-screen title and had to go.

And yes I've worked my editing magic with several people at Sparkhill, including Eric, the head of the company, who I was informed can be very critical at times. One night after I'd gone home he stopped by to see my Sean Callery pod. I was told the next day by Jill, the producer I'm working with, that he loved it! My first cut of the "Behind The Book" featurette was also approved by Eric, as well as Fox and "24" director and co-executive producer Jon Cassar. In fact Jill came by on Friday to tell me he had personally told her to pass along his thanks to me and what a great job I did on the piece. Very nice! This along with that great nod from Kristi at KO has made this the week of kudos.

As they began to see the results of my work on several pieces I was told that they'd like me to continue working on more projects when I'm done with "24". This was the news I waited for with anticipation; they love my work and want to keep me on. So up next is a one hour supplemental featurette on Fred Astaire which will accompany a DVD boxed set of his films. They're also in the middle of nogotiating this running concurrently on Turner Classic Movies as well. I'll also be working on a piece for Disney's "Pluto" DVD, details of which I am still getting.

Then comes the DVD chest of gold.

As I was being lined up to work with Sparkhill, I checked out their web site as mentioned before. Most notably Among other things, they'd contracted to cut the supplement for Oliver Stone's forthcoming film, "World Trade Center". As I began working on the "24" DVD I saw a large dry erase board in the conference room which had upcoming projects mapped out for various editors. There it was starting near the end of June or beginning of July..."WTC". So now that my being 'in' confidence level was high, I went to Christine, the one who'd brought me on board, and said I was very interested in working on the DVD for "World Trade Center". Immediately she laughed, adding, "that's funny because we were actually just talking a short time ago about you doing just that!"

So...now I will officially be working on the supplement for Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" starring Nicholas Cage. Major Woohoo!

Now, after the drought which overtook much of the early part of this year, the phone keeps ringing. Precision Post continues it's momentum of more work. They had a trailer promoting all the "Rocky" movies in conjunction with the release of the forthcoming "Rocky 6". I couldn't work on this during the week but mentioned my availability over Memorial Day Weekend. That figured just fine for them so I put in two days cutting that project in between my work with Sparkhill. Let the paychecks start flying! I really do miss being at Precision like I was last year. Everyone's great to work with and they are probably the best, most consistent, and well organized post house I've encountered so far out here.

And if that wasn't enough, I received another call from Robert, my contact at The Cannery, who asked what my availability was starting next week. Of course I had to turn him down because of my follow up Fred Astaire project. He also said he wanted to talk to me about the possibility of coming on board there as a staff editor. Jeez! How popular can I get?!

Unfortunately I'd prefer not to take a staff position at The Cannery. This is the post house I did the "Ultimate Spider-Man" Activision project for right before and after Star Wars Celebration III. They do major studio projects, but the overall content is not exactly what I want to commit to in a staff capacity. A third of their work deals with companies outside of the entertainment industry. A recent project was with a major hotel company. Not exactly a direction I want to pursue. However I'd absolutely like to work with them again and would certainly book-in on a project if I'm not already signed with Sparkhill, Precision, or KO Creative for that matter. Yes, there's starting to be a line to wait in.

The Hollywood Bowl project is also coming up sometime in July. Right now I'm trying to figure out how that's going to mesh with my work at Sparkhill. I want to do it but also don't want to lose my space or momentum where I am at the moment.

"X-Men: The Last Stand" and "Over The Hedge" reviews coming shortly.