I have to confess that before I made my film, to me, the post-production process was a dark art carried out in dark rooms. As such, the whole thing filled me with dread. Having worked with Simon Reglar on the post-production for 50 Kisses, I went to ask him - once Cancer Hair had wrapped - what the devil I do next.

I’m very clear to me that my weakness as a director is my technical knowledge – ask me something about frame rates, ratio or format and I’ll turn to Isabelle my producer for a) understanding and b) reassurance that I’m choosing the right one. I know this is limiting some of my creative choices because I have to understand it first before understanding it what it means through the prism of the project.

Simon put me in touch with Dean Harding, whom he was editing Atlantis with. Dean and I met for a coffee and I am happy to say he reassured me of the process and dark art ahead. Within a week, an assembly edit had found its way into my inbox.

Assembly edits are strange beasts. They essentially take verbatim the script film and put it on screen. As a writer/director, I had to deliberately divorce the writer part of myself to keep the director part happy. Why? Honesty – heaven forefend but some of it just didn’t work.

Bottom line - You construct the final story out of the rushes you’ve got, you get the rushes by relying on the script. One thing that became very clear to us after watching that assembly edit was that the “heat” of the story was in the romance. Now the script and indeed the project had, in my writer/director mind, been geared towards female friendship and solidarity but up on the big screen it just didn’t quite work.

A deep breath taken, the cuts began

Over the process of about four weeks, we got the film from close to 11 minutes to just over 9 – which was roughly what I thought it was going to be.

This was after “locking” the film – then sending it to Chris Jones for his opinion and reopening the damn thing after a his fresh eyes found other ways to make it tighter. Arse ache though that was, the film is ultimately better for it.

Chris is great at giving straight between the eyes advice and although I didn’t take it all, the words left ringing in my ears were “Fix it now while it’s a small problem to unlock the film, rather that fixing it 6 months down the line when it’s not getting into festivals”. Ouch!

Where are we now? Well we’ve completed. We’ve locked. We have delivered. The film is now being submitted to film festivals and I am gingerly showing a few relatives and friends why I have been absent for the last year. It seems to be going down well – but the true test comes in getting entry to the festival we are applying to.

What I found in Dean during the editing process was that he was able to reassure me on the technical aspects of things without making me feel like an idiot for not knowing it.  Also, he had a natural understanding of what worked and what didn’t, seeing things that I didn’t and correcting them. This in my book is a big plus.

I’m going to be working with Dean on the next short, and from an earlier point in the process too which again I think will help tighten up some of the technical quicksand in my mind.

And here’s a recommendation for all you filmmakers out there, if you are looking for a smart up and coming editor you could do a lot worse than hooking up with Dean Harding.

Our concept art competition has been ongoing for the past four weeks. We are now opening the voting up to the public to get their opinion on which piece of work encapsulates the spirit of the yet to be made film. It’s had over 650 votes so far, and we want to make sure you don’t miss out on getting your say.

There are two prizes – the prize for our favourite and the prize for the public favourite. These could be totally different treatments. So, we won’t tell you our number one but right at this point we want to know yours.

Go look at the designs and then vote by Facebook or Twitter for the one you think is the best.

Go to http://www.talenthouse.com/design-for-cancer-hair

If you can share our Talenthouse page with as many people as you can, we’d be most grateful.

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We are still in the very early stages of bringing Cancer Hair to the screen. One of the things of key importance to us is the ability to showcase what the film is about to potential funders. The easiest, and best, way to do this is via Concept Art.

Good concept art captures the essence of the film without giving too much away. It brings out the themes and concepts (hence the name concept art) of the piece into one image. For me, the reason it is so key is that it puts an image to the film before the image themselves have been captured via a camera lense.

We have teamed up with creative powerhub Talenthouse to find WONDERFUL concept art for Cancer Hair. Amazingly, like actually amazingly, Nokia have sponsored our creative call and so we are pleased to announce there is even some cash in it for the artist/designer or expert illustrator who manages to a) capture our attention and b) promote the heck out of their entry via their own social networks.

Let me tell you a bit about Talenthouse. You really should consider using it, if like us you are looking for great art or a way to collaborate with creatives around the world.

Basically, it is where creative people meet and collaborate with each other, with brands, with projects and get paid and recognised for their work.  

The concept is quite simple. You put out a creative call via Talenthouse – for in our case – Concept Art. Talenthouse promotes this to their community of artists around the world and if they are interested in your project,  they will submit something.

You can choose the “best” submission for you. But the best bit is that there is social element to the voting on talenthouse. This means that the artist can use his or her social capital to promote their work, or your project. That means you benefit not just from their great art but the halo effect of their friends, and followers, knowing about your project. Genius stuff.

If you are an artist, designer or illustrator I’d love for you to go our call for submissions and enter something.  Cancer Hair Concept Art Call On Talenthouse.

If you are a producer, director why not have a look at Talenthouse as something you can work with as part of your engagement going forward.