Tending to babble - 16 December 2002

Spent the weekend obsessing over whether or not I was going to fail miserably at directing Ghosts. Seriously, was absolutely sure I was gonna forget my pants or be three hours late or be utterly unable to remember my own name.

My poor mother and sister and our adopted neighbour, Chris - he has the apartment next to ours which makes for him getting to hear any family in-fighting - had to deal with all my whining. Okay, I wasn't being too bad of a whiner, I was just mortally terrified and tended to babble.

So, the day started and I knew my name and had my pants on. So far, so good. Yay. I have to preface this entry by saying that what we - the production crew, the cast and Chris and I - were trying to accomplish was very, very difficult. We were trying to record a complete radio show (one hour's worth) in two days.

I know that doesn't sound too bad, but believe me, if I wasn't surrounded by super talented people, well, there was no way I was going to make it. Luckily, everyone was in top form. We had a lot to cover and no one minded the fast pace I was trying to set.

The very first scene we recorded was the Tamara/Ludlow/William stuff. I was soooooo nervous. I mean, there was Leslie Philips just sitting there waiting for me to say "Go". It was crazy! Well, the man knows how to lighten any tense moment.

During our first pass at the scene, he said that he had "staved the raper off for another day". Not the reaper, but the raper. He instantly made me feel comfortable. He was such a cutie. After that, everyone was giggling and having a good time. And in what seemed an eye blink, we had finished Leslie's scenes and we were saying good-bye to him. He was such a trooper and such a talent.

Recording is so much fun. We have an excellent recording crew. Roger and Rebecca, Marc and Keith are fantastic. All the amazing sound effects and the fantastic recording sound is down to them. I believe that we were lucky enough to get the best team in town.

At first, I was adamant that we get everything piece-meal, but Roger knew what he was doing and totally saved my butt. He made sure to incorporate as much as he could into the mix so that we weren't slugging it out later in the edit. What's so cool about this business is that it's collaborative. Even when you think you know everything, you find out as you go that you really don't. Lucky for me, our team - that's absolutely everyone are all good at their individual jobs so I don't have to worry!