The Last Export

Last week was really a very TOUGH week. We had to export the film to send it to DIFF and we all hate this process especially Mohamad El-Hadidi who always becomes very nervous when he hears the word "EXPORT" even if it's just for a 10 min video :) After the test screening in Bibliotheca Alexandrina, we wanted to fix some issues in color grading and sound mixing so we were camping in Rufy's for a whole week.

Since we have only one computer and we needed to finalize everything in a very short time, we had to bring in more computers. Thanks to Ahmed Nabil and Mark Lotfy who were generous enough to give us their personal computers as well as Tamer Nady who brought his monitor, we were able to finish on time :) We divided all the computers we had as well as our personal laptops into separate stations in different rooms. At some point we were working on 5 computers at the same time in parallel. We also had to rent a projector to see how things are on a big screen and even went to Bibliotheca Alexandrina for a second time to make sure everything is ok. I think pictures will speak louder than words to describe this week :)

Tamer Nady is working on the film's color

Offline Media Everywhere

After a long week, Ahmed Magdy is having a nap on the couch

"The End of The Mice Room" drawn by Nermeen Salem

After exporting the film we had the dilemma of how to send it to DIFF. We wanted to send it in DCP but it was totally out of our budget and we couldn't afford it so we asked the festival if we can send a digital file on a hard drive instead and they agreed which was GREAT :) We were a bit worried about shipping so we tried to secure the portable hard drive as much as possible. We bet DIFF has never seen a film wrapped is such creative and bizarre way like ours.

This wierd package has the work of 3 years and a half

Who else could share this moment with us other than Ed Wood ?