I actually have a lot of stuff on the DVD. The truth of the matter is that then you have to go in and you have to dub it. [It was] difficult because when we went to get the master tracks for Misia, they were lost. They are buried in a warehouse somewhere in London and no one knows where they are, let alone the record distributor, which is just shocking. When I recorded it, we took the recording off of the CD and we took it on tape. Well, when you play back CD and tape it’s very different. That’s why we did it on tape for DAT, so I could match the tracks. It took 14 or 15 people and an extra four weeks on the mixing stage to make this as good as it is. The biggest challenge of post-production on the movie was getting the synchronization right. Sofia did a stunning, stunning, stunning job but it was the technicalities which made it horrible because the music was already mixed. It just presented so many challenges; it was a nightmare. It was a complete nightmare.
Did you ever consider putting subtitles up during the songs?
I sure did.
Why did you decide not to?
The decision was that if I didn’t see what she was saying on her face, then I would have put subtitles on it. I saw it so clearly on her face and in her performance and I thought if I put subtitles on the film, that you’d be sitting there reading them and not looking at her face. That’s why I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to discredit fado, I didn’t want to discredit Sofia’s performance. I thought that anyone who looks at this, it’s so universal that it speaks to you in any language. I felt very strongly about it and so did my producer.
I read that originally there was a different ending.
Oh yes…
Can you tell me what happened with that or is this something you’d rather not talk about?
Believe me, I’d rather not tell you because I hated it. I hated doing it. There were a lot of things that we changed when we were doing the film. A lot of things happen with the characters and I really am one to believe that I really want the actor to contribute, and all of them were just so amazing in it. That’s not to put the script down at all, but the ending just never felt it was real. It dealt with an entirely different issue that came from left field. The two characters never ever really got to deal with their real conflict, which was each other and his dishonesty and the way he entered into her world, and her impossibility of letting anyone into her world.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to do [another ending] but when I put it together, I whined and complained all the way through - as did everyone. We did it and we shot it to the best of our ability and made it work to the best of our ability. I went, “Okay, this is going to be decided upon in a test screening.” And thank God we had the test screening. My producer had the wherewithal and the intelligence to give us all another shot at going back and re-doing the entire ending. We re-shot the entire ending. I’m so happy, God bless him.
You're lucky the actors were still available.
We got Jason right before he went to do “Peter Pan.” We were so lucky. It was another ending from another planet. I begged my producer, “Please do not put it on the DVD.” He promises me he won’t. I really don’t want to talk about it (laughing). It’s like a bad dream that never really happened.
So you’re really happy I brought the subject up?
You’re really getting an honest response from me (laughing). I just go, “Oh no, not the other ending please – not the other ending!”
