The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

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• less tone, more music - Lucy to tv set
  
• keyboard clacking too loud under screens music
  
• DB to J in café - DB voice too thin (equalize)
  
• Jerry and Becky lower than guys on Quad
  
• music too low over tracking shot in computer room

• J too low under nekkid photo- my question shouldn't be louder than his answer
  
• 3rd bell quieter under J packing

It's the part of the process where you hemmorage money. But even worse, with so many instant decisions and adjustments comes the threat of making a mistake that will live on forever. The stress produces waves of acid crashing through my intestines.

• timing of Jaime skateboard off- not in sync
  
• J eating breakfast slightly low

But the part that's really crazymaking is where one scene (or even a part of a scene) seems louder than another, or when the music and effects seem too loud or soft in relation to the voice track.

• cyborganic party music too loud > J's "you're a voyeur"
  
• J- "Sure generates lots of paper, this college stuff" too low (just that line)

We listen again to the entire mix, making yet more notes:

• music under J getting off bus too low (or is bus too loud?)
  
• don't let drum extend over end of montage of D-Word screens
  
• is Lucy too low at beginning?

Jane's briefly in town, so we listen to the final mix on our beta deck in the edit room, running the sound through a tv monitor. With high-quality studio speakers, you tend to crank the overall volume higher and hear the background tracks clearly. On tv speakers, with the levels turned down to the volume you'd normally listen at, it's easier to hear the balance of tracks and not get fooled.

All seems fine except for two or three spots that are easily corrected:

• connection sound and bleep at end sliiiiiightly low
  
• end music too low
  
• is Lucy still too low?

But wait. John Hoffman at HBO/Cinemax calls to tell me the HBO lawyers have perused the fine cut and have some "concerns." Among them, they have a problem that Justin's friend Denise innocuously talks about a friend by name. They want the permission of the friend, or for me to somehow get around his name (and they don't want it bleeped either-- they just don't do that at HBO/Cinemax). Denise is God knows where for the summer, and so, probably, is this guy.

I call Brooks over the weekend to see if he can somehow smudge the name. He's game, but it's actually Beo who rides to the rescue, arriving at the sound studio on Monday straight off the train from Massachusetts, where his family is living. He manages to change the name Lira to something that sounds like Nyuron. The ever-patient Mrs. D-Word, a law professor, thinks the whole issue absurd enough that she offers to sign a release form in the name of Mr. Nyuron. I tell her I don't think it'll be necessary.

We go up to FrameRunner for the layback of the final mixed soundtrack to the digital betacam master. During the layback all seems well, but their speakers are too state-of-the-art. I'm paranoid. I have them make a vhs dub to be sure.

The next day, while playing it back, certain levels seem off. Lucy definitely seems low. And a few musical transitions, too.

I think.

We still have the supers to put back on the English-language version (the foreign version, with beginning and end credits but without supers, was made first). We've already made two clones of the foreign version (one for delivery to ZDF-Arte, one for YLE, a broadcaster in Finland) and two clones of the English version in preparation for the supers. To make repairs at FrameRunner, we'll need to make an insert edit into each of the five clones.

At $250/hour (bargain basement rates, I'm reminded ad nauseum), I'm paying through the nose for my perfectionism.

We lay down the supers and listen to the five problematic areas. Don Wyllie, the superb online editor, is a former sound mixer himself. He says I shouldn't trust the levels I've been hearing on my vhs dub, that vhs tends to cut off the highs and lows of the audio range. You should have a separate mix for broadcast and release on video, he says.

Oh. Does that mean my music has been mixed too low throughout the entire piece, I ask? He shrugs. It's always hard to predict what it'll sound like on film.

I'm getting a ferocious migraine.

Against Debbie's better judgement-- she always prefers the music level to be low, or at least err on the side of low-- I ask Don to readjust the five levels. I guess I prefer the music level not to err at all.

It now seems fine. We're finished!

But not so fast. I have them make yet another vhs dub of the film. If I'm going to spend as much as a new car ($10,720, to be precise) on the film transfer, I'll wait one more day and double-check that everything's where it should be, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, over wine at dinner, Jane, who has a charming tendency to harp on the negative, gives me her vue sur les scandal. Apparently, some "extremely important" French critic on the selection committee hates Home Page (or maybe just Jane) with a vengeance and threatened to make a big stink in the papers about Jane's little, ahem, conflict of interest. Turns out the committee head unilaterally decided to select Home Page, not because he loves it so much, as Jane almost gleefully points out, but because he thinks it the best of a weak year for American submissions. This fried Frenchy doesn't care for having a film about the internet-- la ruine de la civilisation!-- being rammed down his culturally sensitive throat.

I listen to this more bemused than bummed. I'm actually thrilled that someone hates the film enough to threaten a scandal. I can't possibly imagine why someone could hate it so much, but stirring up that kind of passion seems the highest form of compliment.

Having been shuffled off to a lesser, non-competitive section, we've already decided to pull the film from the festival rather than jeapordize our chances for Amsterdam in a few months.

After my second glass of wine, I instruct Jane to inform the French press that I am outraged, OUTRAGED, at such shabby treatment, and that we will take our film, toot sweet, to other far more important festivals-- ones that recognize genius when they see it.

As we're leaving, I ask Jane how many films were submitted to Vue sur les docs. I figure maybe 150, which means even being considered for the competition is pretty good. "Oh, somewhat over 2,000," she replies matter-of-factly.

The next day I look at the vhs dub at my office and almost die on the spot. It seems like we've overcompensated. Three of the sections we've remixed now seem a tad loud, and two are extremely loud-- especially the music under the screens of Julie and Patrick's affair. The whole mood is shattered.

I listen to those spots again that night on my home vcr and it doesn't seem as bad. Am I going out of my mind?!? The next day I go to my buddies at Arc Pictures to listen to the digital beta master with fresh sets of ears and they agree the two sections are "a smidge hot" albeit not unacceptable.

But they are to me. I book another hour of time at FrameRunner for the next day and make the changes.

The movie is saved.

Afterwards, I take the foreign masters and Fed Ex them out to Germany and Finland. I also Fed Ex an English master to the film lab for the transfer to 16mm and then drop off another at a duplicating house to get 20 vhs cassettes made.

The film is finished and it seems so, well, anti-climatic. Of course, I know enough to know it's never finished, but the film making part of the process is done.

It's now a week later. I'm still in shock.

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