To put it mildly, since I started making Pause of the Clock in 1994, a lot has happened. I graduated from college, moved to London for six weeks, moved back to Chicago and then to L.A., quit filmmaking entirely, moved a few more times, began to write more seriously, and so on. It’s all that moving, and the dispersal and regathering of my possessions, that’s important right now. I just finished digitizing Roll #20 of the original location sound recordings of the movie and in the process had an extremely unpleasant realization.
One roll is missing. It’s Roll #7, which unfortunately is the sound recording of the movie’s climactic scene.
The logical conclusion is that at some point during one of my moves, this roll of 3M brand 1/4″ tape was left behind. When, where, how, who can say. This kind of thing is far from uncommon in the world of film; Lost Horizon, A Star is Born, Husbands, and many other movies have footage and/or other elements that have gone missing. (God knows I wouldn’t otherwise compare myself to Capra or Cukor or Cassavetes.)
The point is that Roll #7 is gone, for good, and forever. It blows. But them’s the facts. Luckily, all is not lost. When I was working on the rough cut of Pause of the Clock during college, I was working, of course, in 16mm. In a nutshell my workflow was basically this: strike workprints from the camera negatives, transfer the original sound rolls to mag stock, and then use a 6-plate 16mm Steenbeck to edit the film (that is, one picture track and two soundtracks running in sync). I still have all the picture and sound elements of this rough cut, including the sound originally from that missing roll. (Well, to be precise, the sound from the shots that back in 1997 I decided was worth including in the cut; the sound outtakes may or may not be retrievable from other mag stock rolls I still have.)
Now, this sound won’t be at the same high quality as the rest of the soundtrack, since it’s second generation. But it should be useable at least, and hopefully we can sweeten it later. As annoying as this is (among other things, I have to find a way to digitize 16mm mag stock now) it could be so much worse. Without exception, the rest of the original sound is in excellent shape. And I’ve confirmed that I have all the original camera negatives, all safely stored in individual cartons. So, que sera sera.
