Home run

Well the filming is finished, the editing is done and I'm fighting my way through the authoring of the DVD. It's amazing how much there is to learn. We take for granted (well, I do) that a DVD works the way we expect - menus, buttons, one scene following another - but none of that happens automatically. It all has to be programmed. It's rather like writing a computer program, actually.

It's complicated by the fact that I want to have DVDROM content on the same disk as the DVD Video content, but after a couple of duff attempts, I think I've got that cracked. Some application Help manuals are rubbish, aren't they?

I've been heartened this week to receive some feedback of previews I sent to one or two people. All the criticism has been constructive and by and large the overwhelming response has been positive. The criticism has all been perfectly justified, and in fact, generally less critical of some aspects than I have been myself, so I'm optimistic it won't get completely slated!

One guy, whom I don't know (he just turned up to assess some flood damage and we got talking...) said, and I quote, "If you can get the beeb to show this on a Saturday morning, every bloke in the country will be glued to the telly!" He had never met me before and had no reason to be unnecessarily nice to me, so that was very gratifying. I'm rather hoping I can quote him attributively in my blurb.

My website is coming on, apparently, not helped by me rather ignoring Charley's pleas for information. Apparently he has many skills but being telepathic isn't one of them. I'll try to do better, Charley.

So it's testing, testing and more testing this week. I have a Duplication date of July 17th, which will give me a few days before the Nottingham Bash and launch. I've done the artwork for the disks and the cover, I need to get them printed.

So all in all I'm optimistic of meeting my deadline. I just wish I was as certain about the success of it. I'm pretty sure it will get good reviews, but will anyone actually buy it? I just don't know. I do hope so, not just so that I can become an economically viable human being, but because I'd really quite like to do the others that I have on paper, and there is no point if people are not going to buy. But if they do, then I can continue and produce a fairly major body of work.

We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?