Production Update #23: Edit Suite Fireworks!

Hello cast & crew,

A number of you have sent me emails asking about possibly shooting this weekend (7/16-7/17).  Unfortunately, I've been unable to get all the puzzle pieces together (actors, crew, location, props)...

Rest assured, I have been editing my butt off -- that is, I was until July 4th weekend when the Steenbeck editing table literally "blew up"...

That's right, I had my own personal fireworks display when a 30-year old capacitor flamed out inside the Steenbeck, filling the edit suite with black smoke... It looked like a Civil War battlefield.  After frantically fanning the acrid cloud so as not to set off any sprinklers, I jumped on the internet and discovered that there are only TWO people in the entire United States who still know how to repair these old 16mm film editors -- Dwight in Boston and Bob in Los Angeles...  Boston Dwight was on vacation, but I finally reached L.A. Bob who patiently explained that they stopped manufacturing circuit boards for the ST-1600 in the mid-1980s...

"But," he says, "if you send me the burned circuit board, I'll try to rebuild it by hand."  So I packed the piece -- which looks like a torched slice of wheat toast -- into a bubble pack, and UPSed it to L.A.

Haven't heard from him yet -- keep your fingers crossed.  If he can't fix it, I'll have to transfer all of the film we've shot thus far to video, and begin the entire edit process ALL OVER AGAIN on the Mac G5 (essentially scrapping all of my work editing thus far... a totally disheartening thought....)

Hope there have been no flame-outs in your lives lately...

I'll keep you updated, and hope to put together another shoot perhaps in early August...

Take care. Keep heart. And as always, thanks for your support and patience...