Filmmaking / Directing : BACKUP or DIE!! by Leon Laubscher

OK so here's the story: A couple of years ago 2 friends set out to create a web-series with a difference. We believed that it was a unique concept and was destined for greatness. We wrote the story, got Diemersfontein Wines to support it and off we went like to cowboys in the old wild west. We managed to secure volunteer actors as well as beg borrowed and stole all the costumes and props necessary to create our 1940's time piece extraordinaire!! Not having done this before it was a MAJOR learning curve for us as well as everyone we roped in to help... It was a huge adventure! We managed to get featured in the Times newspaper for our BOLD efforts.... However, as is with MOST 1st time projects, we missed one very NB part of the process. A no brainer in most people's eyes.... Because we were doing EVERYTHING from writing to producing, to directing, to rushes, to set and costume design to ... (the list goes on) we missed this one thing. I think you might have guessed it ... BACKUPS!!!!!!!! And so a project that was destined for greatness died the minute the Hard Drive crashed with the last episode on it. We're talking months and months of pre-, mid- & post-production work, colour grading, editing, sound design etc. flushed down the tubes due to this one little tiny oversight..... BACKUPS!!!!. That said... as I was browsing through my PC directories I came across an offline edit of the final chapter, the one that wraps the previous 4 up into a complete story... and so I thought, "Hell why not!! At least people who saw the 1st 4 will get to see what the end was supposed to look like... kind of ;-s You'll see that inspector Malbec's voice isn't his but changes to mine as I read to keep the timing of the edit right and there's no music in the beginning where our own composition should be, as well as the murder scene is templated as ghosts.... other than that.... hey, it was my 1st time.... the lesson? BACK-UP or DIE!!! The 1st 4 you can see under my projects page here: https://www.stage32.com/profile/5178/project/murder-manor See the offline edit of Episode 5 here: https://www.stage32.com/video/728631828746874573 And so ends a lesson well learned. :-|