English man in Font

Woah. What a tumultuous train I’ve been on, with no stops and one destination in sight, the end. I’ve been working late into the night, and each night it would get a little later. It started to steady out to about 5am every night, but then it slipped to 6am and then realised I might as well take advantage of this and just work on through. So I’ve been working too long, sleeping too little, but the result is promising.

Between The Trees is nigh on finished. In fact, it’s rendering right now. I’ve been meaning to write something on here for ages, but my head has been firmly planted in the sand of the edit. It’s amazing how long it can take to do so little, but that’s part of tweaking and finalising something I guess. At least for me.

When I look back on the time Tyler and I spent in font I’m bombarded by good memories and dismaying feats. But that’s not the whole vision, as my critical eye is able to see much more and my forever ticking mind is always coming up with new ideas. I’ve written about my disease before, but it always rallies up when I’m looking back on something that I’ve worked on, seeing flaws, or areas which I could have improved.I was discussing it with Tyler and rambling on about some of the amazing stuff we could have done, to which he simple responded that we didn’t have the tools, the money, nor the time to do them. He’s right. I didn’t have 3 or 4 cameras and a crew of people. I had 1 camera, Tyler, and a bouldering pad. That’s it. I just struggle with aspirations of greatness…

Working on Between The Trees has been a rather lonely undertaking and I think it’s probably why I’m beginning to feel genuinely nervous about it’s release. Last year I just cobbled together a load of my own climbing footage, put some music over it, and gave it a name. I had no expectations; I just wanted to share my trip. It didn’t matter to me one bit if 1 person loved it or 5000 people hated it. Perhaps that was the difference, that was my trip, and Between the Trees is largely Tyler’s trip. Tyler went to Font and surpassed everyone’s expectations (even his own), clearly drawing a line in the sand of what constitutes a successful trip from a world class boulderer. He set the bar that others will try to surpass. I’m pretty sure he made the fastest ascents of nearly every problem in the film, and overall his trip left me and many other dismayed. I captured a lot of it on film and I wanted to be able to share that with the rest of the world, that’s the sole basis for deciding to make this film. In the last week I’ve begun to feel some sort of pressure that the film needs to live up to the bar that Tyler set through his climbing. His trip represented a world class effort, and I desperately long to try and make a world class representation of that. A bad film about a world class trip would be a huge disappointment, to me anyway. That’s why I’ve begun to get a few butterflies, because I really want this film to be good. I feel a genuine weight of responsibility and it’s quite funny in one way. I’m not simply representing myself with this film, I’m representing Tyler too, and so it’s important to me to get that right. I ask myself if it’s good when I watch it and the fact that I’m smiling and nodding my head to the beat gives me an indication that maybe it is. But that’s me. I like plenty of things that others don’t, like Japanese cinema or mathematical puzzles or number theory.

I’ve worked on this film all alone. No one has been sat next to me holding my hand or looking over my shoulder. For all the grand sounding aspirations of “Unclesomebody Productions”, it still boils down to a single man with a video camera, working away in his bedroom. This has limitations, physical ones that I can do nothing about. Everything I’ve learned has been on my own and most of it has come from failing early and failing often (although sometimes not often enough). Now that the film is pretty much finished I feel like I’m about give away a piece of me. I’d like to be able to know that every single person who watches Between the Trees will like it, but I know that such an outcome is unlikely. I even thought about a concept release with different genre’s of music, depending on what the viewer wanted, but this is firmly still in a concept stage! There will always be haters, but I’m hoping that the majority will be lovers.

I also feel like the teasers give no real indication of how good the film is, and this is solely my own fault! If a teaser/trailer should show the most inviting parts of the film then I’m basically rubbish at making them! It’s possible that this is because I’m looking at it from someone who’s eyes cast over the whole film every day, and not someone who’s only ever seen the teasers. I’m struggling to find the words to say this properly, but essentially I think it’s a pretty good film. I’m not saying that for any other reason than a desperate bid to honestly represent what I think.

I can’t offer any guarantee’s that you will love this film. I’m too mathematical to make such a grand promise without the knowledge that I am 100% correct. However, I am willing to make another guarantee. Nobody who will watch this film will have seen every single problem in it climbed before. If you have, just email me and you will get a refund. Yes, this is a money back guarantee. If you have seen every single problem climbed, either in real life or in video, then email me. I can only think of one person who might qualify for this refund, and if he contacts me it would be my privilege. The other thing I can guarantee is that this film will feature more hard problems than any other film made about Fontainebleau. I could probably guarantee that it will also contain the most amazing problems of any film ever made about fontainebleau, but since there is room for subjectivity in that statement I won’t put it out there.

From here I just need to wait for the render to complete (many many hours even on a 4.5GHz quad core machine) and then it’s off to the printer. I’ve paid for the music license, so that side of things is all legit and I hope you’ll think it’s worth it. Last year I didn’t pay any sort of license fee because I didn’t even know if anyone would watch it. This year I’m going to do it right, not just to cover my own ass, but to give something back as well. I’m also trying to produce the DVD in a way that is the least damaging to the environment. Plastic is a major nuisance to the modern world, and there is so much of it that there is even a documentary about it’s harms. I don’t claim to be able to solve these problems but I feel like I am in a position whereby I can make an informed choice. My choice won’t impact the world or change anything per se, but I feel like it’s a responsible decision that lies within my power. I haven’t quite settled on the DVD case design yet, but paying a little bit more for something that I feel is environmentally sound is worth it in my opinion. You may disagree, but the price of the film won’t change because of this. It’s my decision and so I will absorb the cost.

Anyway, I need to get back on it and lay this beast to rest. I’ll no doubt have some more rambling to do in the next 24 hours…