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I had these Moo business cards printed up last week to bring to Vancouver. I chose three images from the film that I thought best represented the movie.

Here’s a promo picture I’m thinking of using for the film. The photo was taken by Rob Maguire, the set photographer.

I was just reading about some other films that will be screening with Birthday Girl at VIFF.

The film is being shown with six other short films, one of which is called Smile, by Canadian filmmaker Julia Kwan. Julia’s feature film debut Eve and The Fire Horse won the special Jury Prize at Sundance last year and was critically acclaimed by Roger Ebert. It’s supposed to be a wonderful film and it looks beautiful.

Looking forward to seeing it.

The other films screening with Birthday Girl look great as well…

- Latchkey’s Lament by Troy Nixey
- Kodiak by Andrew MacLeod
- Burgeon and Fade by Audrey Cummings
- Four Walls by Raha Shirazi
- No Bikini by Claudia Morgado Escanilla

Can’t wait to see them.

Now that the film is completely finished, I’ve made a more official trailer for the film.

I’ve also set up a Birthday Girl facebook group.

So if you’re on facebook, do join.

Enjoy!

Here’s a poster I made for the film.

We completed the final stage of post production last Friday evening.

Once we created the interpositive, the film was transferred to HD (High Definition tape - so that we could have an HD master). This HD master had to be colour timed as well - since all the DVD’s will be made from this master tape (or a Digibeta tape made from the HD master).

We did the timing on an incredible piece of hardware called the da Vinci. The film is 11 minutes (2 minutes of credits) and it took three and a half hours to time it. Using this machine you can drastically alter the look of your film. You can colour correct any portion of the frame, alter the size or composition of the frame as well.

Traditionally, I believe, the da Vinci machine is used when a digital intermediate has been made. This DI is colour corrected exactly as the cinematographer sees fit and then an interpositive is made from the DI. Whereas I used the machine to correct an already colour corrected print (interpositive to HD) most people use the machine to do the initial colour corrections (DI to interpositive).

Soon I’ll have a press section in the sidebar as well where you will be able to download the epk (electronic press kit), poster, one sheet etc.

I’m very pleased to announce that Birthday Girl is premiering at the Vancouver International Film Festival!

The Festival runs from the 27th of September to the 12th of October. If you happen to be in or around Vancouver, the film will be screening Monday October 8th at 9pm and Tuesday October 9th at 4pm. You can check out the program guide and other films at the festival here.

I’m really psyched about premiering the film at Vancouver. It’s a great city and an amazing festival. I’m also really looking forward to checking out some other films at the festival - including Persepolis - one of my favorite reads from last year. I will be blogging from the festival, so you’ll be hearing a lot more from me.

A recap of the last month:

• We did two more screenings to perfect the colour timing and had to redo the credits about three times (due to legibility issues).
• I approved the final print last week (sound, image and credits)
• Vision Globale is in the process of doing what’s called an interpositive.
• From there we’ll make a master HD (high definition) transfer of the film so that we can start to mass produce some DVDs.

It’s looking great and I’m really looking forward to screening it for everyone here in Montreal when I get back from Vancouver! Details to follow.