it was a little later than originally planned, but it was bang on the hour of the new deadline: at twelve o'clock midnight on sunday 30th october 2011, to the day a year after we wrapped principal photography in london, fundaframe.org stopped accepting funding for frames. the hour of living is the first feature film to be funded entirely on a frame-by-frame basis. everyone who has contributed has made it possible and has written themselves into the history books in the process, and i am intensely grateful to each and everyone who has done so: without you, our film would not have been made, simple as that.

the reason framefunding ceased, of course, is that we are now getting ever closer to completing the picture. right now, colour grading and sound mix are still being worked on and we're even still tweaking one or two details in the edit, but they're tiny. and that means that the credits for the film are also now being finalised. since everyone who has funded one or several frames is entitled to a credit in the film, there has to be a cut off point, and i'm very glad to say, we've reached it: we are now polishing and tidying up, and then we're done.

it's been a tremendous experience in every way and i also want to thank everyone who has helped us in deed and in kind. every film is a collaboration, of course, but i feel genuinely blessed to have been working with such a committed, talented and spirited team. and the help and support we received from friends and strangers alike every step of the way has been overwhelming: i owe you all a great debt of gratitude.

it won't be long now before we can announce our first screenings, and as you can imagine, when we do, you'll hear it here and through our mailing list first...

we're on the home straight: with just over two weeks to go before we finish post-production, this is the last chance to fund a frame in what WILL be the first frame-funded feature film ever. so if you want to secure yourself a little place in film history - and help us with the last leg of the journey - please fund a frame now as framefunding closes very soon. (and if you have already done so: many, many thanks! you've made it all possible!) x s

we're still polishing picture and sound but today our film received its first 'official' press coverage, from the rhiiblatt, which is the local paper of the region in graubünden, switzerland, where we shot our mountain scenes. under the headline Safiental Makes Film History, the full page article explains our fundaframe scheme and points out the fact that the hour of living will be the first feature film in history to be financed purely on a frame-by-frame basis, before telling its readers how we found the safiental, one of the most remote and ruggedly beautiful valleys in switzerland, and why we chose it as our main location. it concludes with a short synopsis. 

if you understand german, you can read the whole article here.

for those of you who are keeping an eye on our beautiful and multi-talented team, i'm glad to report that pepe, who plays the singer and provides most of the soundtrack, is much, much better after his dreadful accident in april, and now there's this from jayjay, who did styling & continuity on our film. yes, you're reading this correctly: he's going to be the first male colombian winter olympian, as a speed skater: http://tgr.ph/p3JQPv

we have final cut. it was, suitably enough, 4:20 in the morning, with daybreak making itself known outside, when the last snip was done and the picture was locked. what happens now is colour grading and quite a bit more sound post production, as well as the tidying up of a couple of time-lapse sequences, and then we expect to have our film complete by the end of august. (which also means that if you haven't done so yet and would like to be part of film history, there's only little time left to fund a frame and get a credit on it! - you can do so here... - meanwhile many thanks to everybody who has already done so and in doing so has enabled us to get this far!)

in my last post i was able to relay to you some good news for pepe, our singer, as his debut album, the hermit's waltz, which features throughout our film, had been chosen as album of the week by folkradio.co.uk.  things were looking swell: the album launch, at which of course we are planning to screen some footage from our film, since the two are now so entwined with each other, was going to take place in may and in the meantime he had a tour of uk record stores lined up.

all this changed in an instant on thursday afternoon, 31st march, at 3:40pm, in the queensbridge road in east london.  pepe was hit by a police van and knocked off his bike.  he was rushed to hospital where he's been in intensive care since.
he has suffered serious injuries to his back and face but while he's been put into an induced coma, all the indications are that he'll be all right and be able to make a full recovery. while briefly gaining some consciousness 24 hours after the accident, he was able to respond to some questions from a nurse by moving his eye and hand.  he was scheduled to have his back operated on yesterday, monday 4th april, though this has been postponed 'for technical reasons' by a day.

what lies ahead after that will be a long road of recovery for pepe, but we are all hopeful that he will be back with us, the wonderful artist and friend that we know, sharing with us his music and we send him love and good vibes every inch of the way.

with spring in the air and a whole-new-look website, we're bounding into the home straight with post-production: after a good twelve weeks or so in the edit, we have what is saved on various macs as 'the hour of living DC 2.2' which is the director's cut, mark two point two.  this is not the final cut, clearly, yet, but it's taking a shape and the shape is beginning to make sense. (which in the first half of the film is decidedly crucial. the second half of the film, as far as making sense of it is concerned, is pretty much plain sailing.)

so all in all we're on target: there's a lot of work to be done, still, not just on the cut but then particularly also on picture grading and sound, but there's no obvious reason why we shouldn't be able to hit our increasingly imminent first festival submission deadline. we'll keep you posted!

meanwhile though, a bit of excellent news has come through for pepe belmonte, our singer: his debut album 'the hermit's waltz' - which features throughout the hour of living (eight of the ten tracks, plus some extra ones on top), is 'album of the week' on folk radio: as stephen hawking would say: 'check-it-out'

the shoot of THE HOUR OF LIVING, including docu camera and some time-lapse photography plus a few tests, has generated 964,689,264,640 bytes (or just under a terabite) of data which now exists on two 'original' 500GB hard drives (they're not, in fact, the 'original' at all, of course, since the actual recordings weremade onto 16GB memory cards which we kept copying onto these rugged hard drives as we went along) and three 1.5TB backup drives which in turn now live in three separate locations in two countries. not meaning to come across as paranoid or anything, i'm currently in the process of making a fourth backup, just to be on the safe side... (estimated duration: about 11 hours)

with our shoot successfully wrapped and all the footage in the can (it really is, we've checked it all now, twice), we enter the at-least-as-exciting-if-not-more-so edit phase of the project. first assembly expected by christmas.

if you'd like to get your name on the credits for this, the first frame-funded feature film in history, there's still time! you can do so in three easy steps and you can have a frame dedicated to you for less than a pint...

the icing on the cake...

with principal photography thus complete, adam our codirector heads back to hungary, but all is not quite done: camera, sound and i go with him there to join up with our small but perfectly formed 'budapest unit' for one more scene, with the delectable - and in hungary really quite famous - andrea spolarics. and it's worth it! her way of cooking food that looks decidedly, and as per script, inedible, while smoking and delivering the crucial name ("george walter. ask george walter...") just round it all off for me. today back to the location for some cutaways of her flat and once that's done, we really, really have our film in the can.