“New York, just like I pictured it – skyscrapers and everythang!” There we were, me and Mr. Buss, dressed up in our best whistles standing in the lobby of the MTV building at 1515 Broadway looking at the fans outside waiting for us to ‘arrive.’ We smiled and wondered how come the fans could bear to be standing out in the cold so long, it’s not like they were being paid or anything. And then they were ready for us.

We were bundled out into the cold and in 2 seconds were sitting in the limo that was going to drive us to the Premiere. The walkie-talkie was buzzing “Where’s Serena? Which car is she in?” I was disappointed to hear she’d left already – GREAT. QT gets to meet Britney but do I get to hang with Serena? No chance. The walkie sparked again. “OK, we’re ready for Nigel and Alan…go, go, go!” The car started and we drove to the Premiere – exactly 20 feet! The doors opened, we climbed out and the fans were going nuts…I mean MENTAL. They didn’t have a clue who we were but Buss could have been Brad Pitt and I could have been Jennifer Lopez and they couldn’t have made more noise. The cameras were all over us, and there we both were up on the big screen across the street! A second or two later we were standing back in the lobby we’d left about three minutes ago laughing hysterically.

(Outside the MTV Building on the night of the Premiere)

Illusion? Yes, but such fun and it’ll look great on Monday night. I hope I don’t look too much like a Dick. I met Dave Holmes and was interviewed by someone I didn’t recognise who rubbed her hand up and down my back as we talked for the camera – very nice technique – it keeps you smiling the whole time. The guys were jumpy and nervous sneaking out for ciggies (Mickey) or chugging loads of water (Jerry). They all gave me a custom-made 2gether coat with their names embroidered inside as a memento of our weeks in Vancouver and I got dewy-eyed. Chad got into trouble for calling ‘Miss USA’ ‘Miss America’ (or was it the other way around) and she said nice things about a movie she’s not seen yet! Finally the guys performed “Before We Say Goodbye” twice (first time good vocals, second time good moves) and Calculus twice. They stressed over their vocals but did a fine job. And suddenly it was all over…

Friday afternoon brought another TRL appearance and plug for the movie. A nasty storm had blown in from the West and Times Square was full of snow and miserable pedestrians. Just a few months ago the guys asked me with wide open eyes if they’d ever get to visit MTV. Today was their third appearance in the TRL studio and they’re blasé already chatting with Carson like they were old friends. We looked down on the kids outside and saw five t-shirts with YOU on one shirt, + on the next, then ME, = and finally US. We laughed as they screamed at us from the cold and were convinced they were plants from the record company: sharp marketing move we all thought.

I slipped out of the building on my own and heard screams and the sound of running feet. I looked up to see 2gether were being mobbed for the first time! (Apart from in the movie of course). The kids outside broke through the barriers and gathered round the guys taking pictures and asking for autographs. I watched and beamed. I wish Bob Buss had been here to watch his protégés doing the right thing by their fans. And the 5 t-shirts? They were for real – 5 fans from Connecticut had them made up and were standing outside in the cold wind and sleet for 2 hours just to see the guys! O lordy…

For reasons which are beyond explanation we started the final night of the mix on Friday night at 10.30 pm. I have just returned home with the mix (and therefore the movie) complete at 2.30 am on Sunday morning – 28 hours after we started! As I left the mixing stage in Burbank it all seemed too good to be true: I can finally take break till Monday morning when I start my next job, a commercial.

When I first started on the movie all we had was a script: an 11”x 8”x 1” package that weighed about two pounds. At its height the movie employed about 80 people, had around 300 extras on set and involved the daily movement of maybe 20 vehicles and tons of equipment. By tomorrow night, when it’s all assembled, the movie will be contained in a tape box a little narrower, deeper and longer than the original script but about the same weight. And that’s in a way what this has all been about – turning words into pictures, turning paper into video-tape. But what a wonderful experience it has been and I have completed a piece of work of which I am truthfully proud. I hope it makes you laugh…

We have three mixers on the show: Rick, Rick and (just so we don’t confuse him with the other two) Rich. Over the last two nights a dozen of us have been sitting in a large darkened room in Burbank as Rick, Rick & Rich have shuttled the tapes to and fro as they massaged the sound to aural perfection. Rick The Music mixed ‘The Wall’ tour and has worked with Alice, Bob Ezrin and other artists that also appear on my resumé. Rick The Dialogue has worked with Paula, Andrea and her late Dad. Rich (effects, backgrounds, foley) mixed Dead Connection for me and Jonathan over 7 years ago and still greets us with a happy face. As is the nature of our business we have discovered many things in common as we have toiled through till dawn making sure Buss’s charges sound at their best on their way down the Eastern Seaboard.

Our mixing stage is in the process of being re-modelled so the loos aren’t working. Every now and again one of us gets up and sidles outside to where two lonely portapotties stand in the gloom bathed in the late-night sodium. I pondered upon the ‘glamour’ of Hollywood last night as I returned to the stage and finally succumbed to the fatigue that raged like a fever through my bones. I lay down on the floor of the stage and slept like a dog for an hour while Jonathan covered for me. He is remarkably resilient and keeps his eye on every moment determined to make sure the picture is as good as it can be. I confess the process has ground me down and all I wish for is to see that master tape slipped inside its Fed-Ex envelope and shipped to New York.

Unsung heroes of the set # 976: the sound crew. Paula (sound effects), Andrea (ADR), David (dialogue) John & Sienna (music editors) have squeezed three weeks of work into the last 10 days. It’s been their job to identify every sound cue in the movie and provide me with an abundance of aural options.

Making this film has been like running the Marathon. I started out full of enthusiasm in October pacing myself, ran the race I’d planned till Christmas and then found myself in difficulties and short of breath in January. About two weeks ago I hit the wall. Today we came through the tunnel and found ourselves in the stadium at last. The roar of the crowd is going to help us over these last few hundred metres but, though the finishing line is in sight, my legs are feeling wobbly and I just want to sit down right here…

What have we unleashed on the world? I’ve now found “The First Unofficial Evan Farmer Fan Site” It features such items as: “what makes Evan so hot” …”the art corner”…”evan greeting cards.” Buss was right. “They’re going to blow up like Chernobyl!” OK so he was talking about someone else but how long will it be before Pegasus gets its own web page?

4am Monday morning (the 7th) and it’s been a weekend of dramas. 7 frames went missing from act 7 on Friday night, Jonathan and Celia (post production guru) found them on Saturday morning but there’s a question as to where they might be again tonight. In the scheme of things we’re talking 7/25 of a second in an 82 minute show which is an inaccuracy of (if my maths is correct at this time of night) 1 / 1,377th of the length of the show. It’s not much to be worried about but we fixate on such details at this stage.

A week from now…it will be a week from now and the movie will be complete, but tonight is the first time I’ve seen some of the scenes with music and sound effects – we’ve been doing the temp dub (a temporary mix of all the sounds) so we can send copies of the tape out tomorrow for the reviewers. There’s so much I’d like to re-shoot, look at again but I’m always like that at this stage – whingeing, whining and refining. The important thing is – the movie rocks. The characters are alive and people laugh when they watch it – they become involved. We’ll track down those seven missing frames and ignore the little blemishes that only a few of us will notice. By Friday night the die will be cast and the next step in the chain will be you, the most important person in the whole process, the viewer.

I remember going to see a truly bad movie when I was a kid which was a ‘Raiders Of The Lost Arc’ kind of deal. You know the kind of thing – a bunch of ‘intelligent western historians’ travel to some far off land to plunder the burial mound of some ‘uncivilized native’ race and come back home dripping with diamonds and gold. It was all about greed basically. Anyway, in the middle of the film was a sequence which was supposed to represent an endless march across some huge Sahara-like desert. The film-makers created the impression of time passing by making the film go from night to day to night to day over and over in the same shot as the leads plodded across the rolling sands. Well this is what the post-production process has come to feel like for me on this project. My desert has become an endless chain of ADR sessions, edit bays, spotting sessions and transfer rooms. I am sleeping on the floor wherever possible and playing Johnny Guitar Watson as loud as I can in the car to keep myself awake as I drive from Burbank to Santa Monica in the darkness every night. It’s all become a bit of a grind…and then…as I’m waiting for the paint to dry in another darkened room I see a ray of light. I’m surfing the web and find that there is already an unofficial 2gether web-site!

This is a truly great moment for me, like the grizzled actor in his battered kahki shorts, with his water bottle virtually empty after his long trek across the desert, I have found something that reminds me of the joy I get from doing all this work – a fan. 2gether, just a few months back a figment of Mark, Brian and Maggie’s imaginations, are inspiring people. The band appeared on TRL yesterday with Carson and already people are talking. Tonight I got home and there was a copy of the 2gether CD on my doorstep! Maybe the journey across the wastes has been worth it after all.