It’s busy here at Caravan. Our slimmed down team is working hard on the Afghan doc. Every day or at least every second day we try to cover another 30 mins chunk, weaving the story. Sometimes it’s one step forward two steps back, but it’s all for the better. We’re down to 2 hours with the rough-cuts at the moment, which is better than I had hoped for at this stage, taking into account the hundreds of hours of DV and s16mm material we have. Thank god the corrupt Afghan airport officials took some stuff off us every time we tried to leave the country, or they would have made our life/work even more difficult than they did in the end. It’s not always one appreciates situations for their true value at the time they happen, so although I can’t thank them in person, I send out a humble request for their understanding of my agitated behaviour at the time, but also my gratitude at this moment too.
Most importantly – the end is close now, so close I can smell it. And it smells good! 
My guess is that we have about two weeks editing left now, to sort out the bits of the story and get the individual sequences and parts in shape with all the new digitized “behind the scenes” material. Then we’ll have to start planning trips to Morocco and France to cover the interviews that we need with Tahir and other people that were involved in the production and had key parts at various crucial moments along the way.
Simultaneously to that we will start with the graphics – maps, and 3D illustrations etc. As a filmmaker I have to make sure that these diversions don’t mislead me and my attention. I have to keep focus on the bigger picture, the story and most of all the premise of what I’m trying to say with the film. However, the motion graphics lie very close to my heart and it’s hard not to try to use them to solve problems. We’ll see how much we have time with in the end, but there are some great ideas in the pipeline indeed.
While they say that tomorrow is a Bank holiday, we at Caravan Film solemnly agreed that we’re no bank and there fore we should maintain creativity and make sure to do some good work. I suggest everyone who feels the same (about not being a bank) do the same. You can always go out and protest.
goodnight
