picture lock

great celebratory pic from editor came two nights ago. fantastic feeling but it also comes bundled w/ a whiff of melancholy for me. hard to articulate but i think something to do w/ moving from a wealth of possibilities to one final verifiable thing. years of work and research and planning and the whole bit and now it's over. a death of sorts. a million choices and considerations and decisions all made, considered, decided. ocean reduced to teacup. i'm very proud of the teacup, don't get me wrong, just lamenting this part of the process.

when these moments hit i try to keep one word on my lips: onward. first onward will be the premiere screening in less than a week. 12/21/11 Someday Lounge, Portland Oregon. By coincidence the day is the shortest, darkest, blackest day of the year. the next onward is the feature. more on that in the days ahead.

close, close

many experiences and details of post production have occurred since i last updated this blog. I'll have to bullet-point them since memory is a fuzzy beast and time is tick-tocking.
- film transferred to digital files
-hard drive sent to editor in los angeles
-rough cut of film done in final cut pro in sept 2011
-subsequent cuts and tweaks done in avid
- hunt for composer lead across the wilderness of the internet, finally ending in ithica ny by way of eastern oregon
- cut of film revealed that one rear-projection sequence not tenable. I did only one take on set (bound as i was by limited film stock and the mistaken presumption that rear projection plates were bright enough). reshoot options discussed.
- reshoot for sequence scheduled. opted to shoot on HD even though rest of film was shot on super 16mm. this for the sake of ease on the camera front, the editorial front, the fiscal front.
-actor talked into reshoot, especially since it necessitated him shaving off his well-tended and blossoming beard
- reshoot in early november. used still photos in bg plates instead of looping HD video. seemed to work
- talked w/ great band about using some songs for film
- talked w/ old pal about doing opening titles for the movie. (the above is one possible mock-up)
- searched for venue to screen movie
- found venue to screen movie
-continued final tweaks, changes, alteration
-worked on closing titles
- now begins the countdown to 12/21/11 Someday Lounge, Portland Oregon

transfer complete

Monday early AM we drove up to Seattle. blissfully light traffic so we got to Lightpress w/ 20 min to spare. went back to one of the suites, discussed some particulars then went reel by reel, or rather, roll by roll, identifying issues and concerns and ideas. was awesome to see the film, albeit on a smaller screen.

Matt Sipes and Todd Tschida in truck

took about 2 hrs to get thru 7 rolls. we then moved into a room w/ a large screen and got to see the footage up close and personal. (below are shots from DP's iphone). got out of there in early afternoon and went to union station. DP went on to Bellingham, I took Amtrak back to portland

Christine Calfas, mid-martini

film processed!

film developed and processed at alphacine and now residing at letterpress. DP and I going up on monday to supervise the transfer. stay tuned

smooth landing

film en route to processing

by sheer coincidence my editor was in town for a couple days and is driving to vancouver BC on I-5 which will take her right thru/past seattle and by alphacine and due to her good-nature (as well as her probable need to stop for a coffee re-up in seattle) she was willing to drop the film off. This is also perfect since she'll be guiding the film through post, who better to literally bring it to post.

pictures from production - My Beer With Bill

Jacob Morehead

mike tanner

jacob morehead & mike tanner

lanie hoyo & jacob morehead

above are 4 screen-grabs from the footage, shot by scott ballard

movie completion

the short has been done for a few wks now. been trying desperately to find a venue to have cast/crew screening and encountered some difficulties of all varietals: price, personnel, schedule, format, take your pick. it's frankly been frustrating and instructive at once. instructive in that i realize my frustrations stem from the mindset i carried which, to put it directly goes something like once i make the movie everything will fall into place. feel a bit child-like in voicing that expectation, like i was equating the completion of this task with the announcement to the universe that i am here, take notice (maybe 'childish' is the better term). couple possibilities are still on the line.

in related matter, was able to finally burn dvd copy of film so i can enter in local film festival. i say finally b/c there were multiple issues regarding format, FCE (which i have) vs FCP (which i do not), QT (which can read movie), IDVD (which cannot), IPHOTO (which i had to import movie into to finally get IDVD to read it) and somewhere along the way there was slight image compromise. on dvd, the brights are almost blown-out. but i'll take it for now.

progress

almost done. editing went in a fever pitch, in part due to outside circumstances (ie access to avid coming quickly to close) so i'm only able to comment in generalized ways, as opposed to breaking down each edit.
we shot a few parts in long masters (or 'one-rs" as i learned is industry-speak) so some parts of edit was merely a matter of laying shots together. that got done pretty quickly and then came the more difficult parts: the show open, the driving shots, in the exam room.

Since the first few minutes feature a couple running late for an appointment i wanted it to feel slightly chaotic, out of sorts, arhythmic. Judicious use of the jump cut came in handy.

The driving scenes provided a few challenges, primary among them a cell phone call wherein wife calls clinic to say 'we're running late'. We shot it stationary, the car parked. (this b/c I didn't want to make Lanie, playing the wife, feel uncomfortable driving and talking b/c a) she's not insured on my car b) days prior to the shoot a law took effect in oregon stipulating no driving and talking on cell phone. So when we shot it i assumed we'd just fix it in post. ha. The stagnant shot of them sitting as she talks on the phone completely killed the movement of sequence. Evonne laid the audio over some of the interior moving shots of the car and it worked perfectly, even down to performance, making it appear that Lanie is using a bluetooth and talking to receptionist as she's driving thru neighborhood.

inside the exam room had some challenges as well (despite a couple one'rs). initially i asked evonne to keep most of the start of the scene on husband/wife, implying a sort of connection between them but these only made the scene feel odd and lopsided. intellectual ideas do not always translate so well to the screen. When i watched dailies i thought i had a mess on my hands (completly a directorial problem), 3 performances that would have trouble when it came time to cut together. however, things fell into place wonderfully once we started cutting. the scene is strange and appropriately awkward. in the best possible way.

and then the end. i designed it to happen in three nice and easy shots: couple exits elevator w/ baby while other couple enters, reverse from inside elevator as couple watches baby couple, close on baby pushing in to couple in elevator as door closes. okay. fine. got the last two shots easily enough. but on set I failed to properly get shot one. the takes cut before the couple actually steps onto the elevator so when we went to the 2nd shot, the reverse, there was a huge disorienting jump that undermined the whole sequence. it was quite devastating for a few hours for me. i actually considered some manner of reshoot but there too many complications to make this more than a pipe dream. i know how it happened: on set, i was juggling two couples, a facility contact, the timing of an elevator door, and a baby. the performances and camera both looked great, but i called 'cut' about ten seconds too soon. each take. all three of them. I didn't cover it b/c i had designed it so well. ha!  we ended up solving it by letting shot 1 go as long as possible.

assemblages

finally i've seen the footage. rough assemblages starting to come together. this part can be painful. the shot that went so perfectly on set is in fact a shimmering display of directorial ineptitude; the cool, spur-of-the-moment on-set solution to a problem was in fact a lame, turgid and uneven choice that was latched onto for the sake of ease not the sake of narrative. And so forth. There's an ocean of dissonance between what you thought you shot and what you actually have and here, at the rough phase where shots and sequences are pasted in order but not finessed yet, it can be a tad dispiriting. But that's a given and you look past it. b/c there are also things that work better than you thought, there are serendipities, there are causes for joy...

here's a pic of progress from evonne

continued saga

boxed and shipped the hard drive w/ footage off to los angeles yesterday. i have yet to see the footage but i'm able to hear it. that's something i suppose. missing a codec. it's always something. absent finding the right codec i'm asking dp to export all the footage into a low-res movie file so i can at least view it. these are not ideal conditions for editing a movie but it's worth it to me b/c evonne is so good. now i just have to keep my fingers crossed that the truck carrying the drive isn't hijacked or destroyed or waylaid. more to come

footage vision quest

things taking comic turns of epic proportion of late. after weighing multiple factors, decided best course of action editing-wise was to get footage to evonne in LA rather than have her come up. this necessitated me getting an external hard drive. on 'good food' the file sizes were small enough that i sent audio/video files via yousendit over several days (not recommended unless you have a surplus of time and patience) but that won't work for these files. So, since we had amazon gift $ (and further since m allowed me to use the money exclusively) i decided to order a 500 gb refurbished hard drive. it was to arrive the following friday. it didn't come until monday. had it come friday i could have gotten the footage from dp but he left town for a wk on monday, so i had to wait for him to get back. i waited until he got back to format the external hard drive (an error on my part). when i plugged it in i learned that they sent a 330 gb hard drive not a 500 gb. my plan at this point became: take hard drive to dp, get footage, bring footage home and put on computer, strip hard drive, send hard drive back and have them exchange it for one i ordered.

i went a couple rounds w/ customer service. they claimed they sent 500gb. i disputed. they said i had to call manufacturer to verify. i said, can you please just exchange this for what i ordered. they relented. if i would mail back the hard-drive (at my cost), they would exchange it. fine. i stripped it, boxed it, mailed it back (note, actually m mailed it back on my behalf)

meantime, i tried to look at footage now on my computer. i only have FCE not FCP and apparently i can't read this file format w/ FCE, meaning i can purchase software for several hundred dollars or i can upgrade to FCP for twice that. meaning, i can't yet see footage. evonne is cutting on avid so i yousendit'ed her a couple clips to verify that she could see. she could not, so there is some error. my plan when i get the 500 gb drive is to put the footage on it and ship it to her and keep my fingers crossed. hopefully having the whole folder/s intact will alleviate the issue. this however doesn't address the necessity of the director being able to see the dailies.

then, earlier today, an email:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for placing an order with Electronica Direct. We are very sorry, but due to an inventory error, the LaCie Refurbished 500GB Triple Interface Rugged Hard Drive - 301371-R (Refurbished by Lacie with a 90Day Lacie Warranty) that you have ordered has been oversold and is currently out of stock. Your order has been cancelled and a full refund posted to your account.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you and regret that we were unable to supply you with the item of your choice. If you would like to get a different item instead, please let us know, and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

We value your business, and we hope to be of service to you in the future.

Sincerely,

Abe
Customer Relations

back to square one.