Changing weather and websites
I was standing on the balcony yesterday, watching the Blue Star come in and go, closely followed by the Dodcanisos coming in and going out, and there was a definite smell of spring in the air. Usually in February we are bemoaning the cold and damp, the dark days and darker nights, but this year things feel different. Perhaps winter will return but, at the moment, people are out and about enjoying an early spring. Some businesses were already preparing for the summer when we down in Yialos on Tuesday, and we even took advantage of the sun for a quick drink on the way home at lunchtime, sitting outside the kafeneion for an hour. The first time we’ve done that this year so far.
Perhaps the climate is changing, as predicted. Something else that seems to be changing this year are financial websites. I went to my PayPal account the other day to covert some money that was in there from one currency to another and could I find the facility? Could I buffalo. (As Julie Walters once said in a Victoria Wood Sketch.) They’ve changed their site look and it’s now all clean and fancy and much more up to date. But a right old pain to use. I also had to look for an invoice that someone had sent me for some extra postage needed on my orthopaedic office chair that I ordered a few weeks ago. I went to see where this invoice was and couldn’t find that either. I wrote to PayPal about their new look and asked for assistance… And never heard back. Their help department online was not much good either, as all their instructions seemed to relate to the old look site, which I had mastered and which was much easier to use. I found what I wanted in the end by trial and error.
Then I went to check something in my Alpha Bank account online only to find that they have also changed the way they look. Not only that but the site now no longer seems to remember your access details so I have to punch them in every time. Once inside, things were in a different place and also hard to track down. What is it with sites this year? It’s very annoying not to have instructions with these new looks, though there are probably forums and other places where answers can be found, if I have time to look around.
But, as you can see, Symi Dream, is still the same as it has been for a while and I have no intentions of changing things here.
In other news, and relating to the film, The Thirteenth, The Judas Curse as was, based on The Judas Inheritance novel of mine (click link for your copy) which is based on Symi, even though Symi is not mentioned by name: The film is still in the post-production stage but now the music is nearly finalised. I have heard it and seen some of it set against the basic visuals, and it looks good and sounds great. While that is being tweaked, the guys are also working on the other sound, the ‘Foley’ and soundtrack generally, improving the voice recordings and making them suitable for all kinds of sound set-ups. And while that is going on, the colour grader is also adding the colour and cinematic overlays of grain and filters. I’ve seen a couple of images, stills, from this process and though the film looked good before it is starting to look even belter now. And the colour grading also includes making the file suitable for letterbox format and others; so a bit of work for that person to do still lies ahead.
I have suggested another Kickstarter update be released and I hope it will be, maybe even with a couple of shots so the original investors can see what’s happening. If you are a backer you will know when you have an update as it should come in in your email. (If you have changed email addresses, please let 1066 know – you can always let me know and I will pass your message on.) Along with that, other members of the post-production team are working on the end credits, another stage to complete before the film is finalised. After that comes the legal stuff and the hunt for a distributer, so there’s a long way to go still before we see Symi in film anywhere online or elsewhere. It’s a case of sticking with it.
