Hey ho, followers! It’s your favorite friendly neighborhood China-goer, and I’m back in the ground in China, jetlagged and ready to rock! I’m continuing my China diary for the duration of my current stay, which should last until mid-December, so buckle up!
Let’s go!
Ah, hold it. Before we actually “go” anywhere, maybe it’s better to reel back and quickly check what happened since the last time I was here.
Firstly, I finished off one movie, Iron Sky The Coming Race, back in Europe, just days before I left to this trip. That was a huge relief, since The Coming Race has been on the menu since 2013, and finally getting that off my hands truly felt like a huge stone off my chest.
Simultaneously, we decided to push back the release date for The Ark – the film I’m doing here in China – and instead of me being back here finishing off the film, I’m back on the drawing board with editing. Our idea was to get the film ready for Spring Festival, but the fact was that we just weren’t ready. Too much to do, and we needed to have one last look at the edit in order to get everything in shape. So we decided to find a better date later in 2019, and that works well for me, because this way we also have some time and space to release The Coming Race properly…
…Nevertheless, I’m back in China, and we are back editing with mrs. Fang. Only 10 days altogether, but there are few things we are attempting to solve with our last push, but I must be honest I’m not totally sure we can find solutions to everything. And even if we do, I’m not sure if the solutions make the film better.
Because truth be told, I already think we had a good version of the movie in the summer. A version that rocked, kicked, had heart and worked nicely. After that, we’ve adjusted few things along the way, and suddenly some issues have started to show up, and we haven’t been able to patch them up and push them back in, so my solution eventually is to go back and open up an edit which still worked, and start working from that moment onwards.
Beijing is being cold again. I’m staying in a different hotel this time, one which is more convenient (but not as comfortable as New Otani, where I’ve stayed before) because it’s located right in the same building as the offices. I’m able to go down the elevator practically straight to the edit suite and back, without having to dare outdoors at all. That’s nice.
First night, we had a discussion with mrs Fang the editor and Chris, our VFX supervisor, and went out for a table full of hot pot in the nearby hotpot place with Max. Nice evening with some beers and great hot pot – I’ve tried to ditch meat from my menu, but had to succumb to the beautiful, red flesh the table was overflowed from – and good talks. Max left to another province to leave me be and figure out the edit myself, and we agreed to screen the film some time next week as we are finished with our work and see if that’s where we are supposed to be headed for.
Anyway, that’s us having a dinner, and more updates coming during the coming 10-something days!
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