A couple of snippets from the 16 minute Deconstruction on The Passenger DVD.

The ridiculously long-awaited Passenger DVD - which is now reputed for being so long-awaited that people have begun to forget that they were even waiting for it - has, in an unprecedented turn of events, actually become available!

So, with all that waiting out of the way, there’s nothing left to do now other than to buy it I suppose (and if you want it for Christmas, I suggest you hurry).

Or if buying stuff isn’t your thing, you could defile your senses with the quality deprived version that I uploaded to YouTube during a moment of self sabotaging madness, before I come to my senses and decide to take it down again.

Artwork proofs are approved, masters are off to the chocolate factory for pressing… In the event that nothing goes horribly wrong it should be ready in:  a couple of weeks (give or take six years).

Classification - check.  Barcodes - check.  Distribution stuff - check.  Blog entry to give the impression that the DVD has progressed further over the past couple of months than it actually has - check.  Now all that’s left to do before final tests and manufacture is to wait for a trademark usage approval, and I’m waiting as fast as I can for that…

The bad: just lost a month dealing with a slight domestic situation (another relocation).

The good: the DVD is first priority again, and I think I’ve finalised the distribution plan (which involves some more waiting for licensing and classification procedures before I can start replicating - but that’s technically another bad…  forget I mentioned it).

And about time too, I hear you say.

The master is finished (pending some final testing), so all that remains is to sort out the fiddly legal and logistical stuff so I can get it pressed into thousands of high tech coffee coasters and Christmas tree ornaments for the masses.

I can only guess how long this will take (which I’m not going to and you can’t make me) but in the mean time here’s a quick feature list to ponder over:

• 16 minute making-of thingy (which was in itself several months in the making, and largely responsible for my… erm… delay)
• Complete animatics
• Isolated soundtracks
• Other stuff
• And as an added bonus: the film itself!

Incidentally, the pic above is a mockup - the final may or may not differ in appearance.

The Passenger still seems to have some festival life in it, so in the absence of anything non-film-festivally to post about, I’ll continue my current trend of posting only about film festivally things.

In what could quite possibly be its last theatrical outing (don’t quote me on that), it’ll be screening at The Reel Shorts Film Festival in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada on Wednesday, April 22 at 12:20pm, and then again on Saturday, April 25 at 7:00pm.

The Passenger is showing at the new Asian incarnation of Siggraph this year, thereby achieving one of its original goals (well, sort of).  It’s in Singapore on the 11th of December, and you need a conference pass to see it by the looks of it (expensive!).  Took me a while to find the details for this one, so there’s not much time left.

Just a quick update on the Australian International Animation Festival, which is moving on to Sydney.  The Passenger is included in the Australian Panorama on the 18th of October.  Details here.

The Passenger is heading over to London for the London International Animation Festival, which is in …London.  It’s scheduled for the International Competition Session 2, on Thursday 4th September at 7pm.  If anyone catches the award announcements, feel free to let me know if I won anything.