Thursday, December 18, 2008
Back from Austin
The following post was written at the airport while waiting for a flight...
Here I sit, at Metro Airport, an hour and 20 minutes before my flight is scheduled to leave, listening to the track Danny Zott wrote to supplant the Tom Waits song in “The Killers” through ipod ear buds with a missing left ear piece cover causing major distortion in that ear. But it’s better than mono. Which I guess kind of sums up things for me lately, listening to a beautiful song but in a less than satisfactory way due to conditions beyond my control (cheap ass earbuds!) while I wait.
We’ve got a sneak preview screening on the 26th at Quay St. Brewery. I feel it’s ready for a public audience, although I would like the audio to be mastered a little bit more. We’ll make comment cards and hand them out and hopefully get some positive feedback and can use it to tighten the film, if it needs tightening. I have no idea what the turn out will be, how it will be received and all that jazz. I know that a lot of people are going to be in town, so there’s potential for a huge turnout, It’s also the day after Xmas so who knows. Sooner or later you’ve got to have your first film premiere, a real premiere, so why not now, right smack-fuckin’-dab in the middle of some serious life changes. It’ll be interesting to see how those who know my work through Suck the Cool Right Out and Almost Evil respond to this piece. “The Killers” is as serious as a heart attack, but there are some funny moments. There’s some stuff in there that I found downright hilarious, hopefully audiences will too. An audience seeing my film. I think that’s the first time I’ve put it together, in written text, that ultimately this thing, whatever it turns out to be, is for more than just those of us involved. This needs to be seen by as many people as possible, and we’ve put in all this hard work, all the hours planning things out, all the brainstorming, all the late hours editing, to make sure that when it does, its hopefully well received, as ultimately the goal is to use this film to show what I can do with no budget and use it to finagle my way into getting someone to put up some money to make another one, a longer one, something on a larger scale. We’ll see what happens.
A week ago I was unsure about the music, I was pretty sure it would come together and I put my complete and total faith in Danny that he would make it happen. I guess really, I’ve had to put my faith in a lot of different peple through this project and hope that they came through. Actors who had little to no experience. The generosity of strangers to let us use their buildings to film in. A lighting director who had absolutely no experience working on a film. And I guess, ultimately, I had to put a lot of faith in myself that I could make it all happen. In hindsight, there was one major mistake I made, and that was to put my faith in someone who, lets be perfectly honest, had a lot going on in his life and probably should’ve just been focusing on getting well and I should’ve found another sound man. Live and learn.
But back to the music. I sat down the other night and went through and made some executive decisions about what music should go in the diner scene, what songs should be playing in the background, so that Danny could work on them and do what we were planning on, which was to create a hybrid sound of today and the 20s. I had already narrowed down what I was thinking about to about 60 songs. Surprisingly, weeding through those songs took a lot less time than I thought to find what I wanted, about 3 and a half hours total. It might’ve taken longer, had I not struck iron a few times and found, what I deem to be, the perfect tracks on the first try. Louis Armstrong’s “Go Down Moses” was the 3rd track I tried in the place that it ultimately is in, and like “Lazy River” I knew the insant that I watched the film with the music playing in the background that it belonged. I kind of wish I could’ve just done a complete Louis Armstrong soundtrack but I think that would’ve been a tad excessive, and I’m glad to get in some other artists from the 20s. So after I bounced the wave file of the songs playing in the diner, I sent them to Danny and within 48 hours he had some amazing work done to them. Todd, Ryan and I watched the film first with just the plain songs in the background on Tuesday. They both were pretty happy with the choices I made, and were absolutely in love with Go Down Moses. 48 hours later, I had a the scored version from Danny and we watched it and everyone agreed that the change and the improvement was significant. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. I have written about how Danny presented me with a challenge thus far: providing amazing music that I loved and wanted to use, but music that was quite different from what I had in mind from the start and it had started to change the mood of the piece, not in a bad way, just in a matter of fact way, from what I had originally envisioned. But what he did with the diner scene…goddamn that motherfucker brought it all together. What I now have in the diner scene is exactly what I had in min when we started: dirty guitar providing an unnerving-tension-building-background to what’s already a pretty tense situation. And the way in which he did it, using the same notes, chord progressions, and sounds, ties in with everything else that had already done. I cannot write enough about how pleased I am with what he’s done and am grateful that I was able to meet him through Chad and our paths were able to cross we could work together. I hesitate to say this, because this little film is nowhere on the scale of “Good Will Hunting” and won’t be seen by nearly as many people, doesn’t have an Oscar-worthy performance (sorry Cliff) or a comedy legend, but if the right people see this film, Danny could very well find himself in the position Elliott Smith was. Which would be fitting because he has a lot of Elliott Smith’s style in him, just not the whole heroin and heart break, depressing as hell, way.
I’ve made a lot of new friends through this process and I feel I’ve grown exponentially as a filmmaker and probably as a person. After the creative outburst sessions, those nights where I’d have an idea and we’d spend the next few hours figuring out how we make that idea happen, I think that the whole camaraderie and overall sense of teamwork, was my favorite part about the whole thing. It’s hard to deny that there wasn’t a real sense of excitement surrounding us these last 3 months, justified or not. We, as a team, were creating something out of nothing. An idea, a dream, a pretty straightforward adaptation of a Hemingway story and ambition, add in a lot of hard work and all the technical fun stuff, and we’ve got a 40 minute film that is being sent (and hopefully accepted) into film festivals. I lead the team, it was my vision that we started with and I was the one responsible for it in the end, it all came down to me. Because of that, right now, I’ve got a lot more confidence in my ability as a filmmaker and just in general. I put something together, a 40 minute film, and no matter how it turns out, that’s a pretty significant accomplishment in itself. Although, I don’t really feel that way. To be perfectly honest, what I did with “The Killers” and how its turning out…it just feels like that’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s what its expected and that the bare minimum I should be doing is putting together a little no-budget film that will be seen by some people and then who knows what. There’s not a lot of sense of accomplishment, not yet, and that’s not a self deprecating thing, its just that I don’t really don’t have a sense of what we’ve made yet. It’s yet to be seen by strangers or people who didn’t have some involvement in it, be it acting in it, working on it, or just being around us while we were making it. The 26th will be judgment day for this film, for what I’ve done on it, thus far.
Here I sit, at Metro Airport, an hour and 20 minutes before my flight is scheduled to leave, listening to the track Danny Zott wrote to supplant the Tom Waits song in “The Killers” through ipod ear buds with a missing left ear piece cover causing major distortion in that ear. But it’s better than mono. Which I guess kind of sums up things for me lately, listening to a beautiful song but in a less than satisfactory way due to conditions beyond my control (cheap ass earbuds!) while I wait.
We’ve got a sneak preview screening on the 26th at Quay St. Brewery. I feel it’s ready for a public audience, although I would like the audio to be mastered a little bit more. We’ll make comment cards and hand them out and hopefully get some positive feedback and can use it to tighten the film, if it needs tightening. I have no idea what the turn out will be, how it will be received and all that jazz. I know that a lot of people are going to be in town, so there’s potential for a huge turnout, It’s also the day after Xmas so who knows. Sooner or later you’ve got to have your first film premiere, a real premiere, so why not now, right smack-fuckin’-dab in the middle of some serious life changes. It’ll be interesting to see how those who know my work through Suck the Cool Right Out and Almost Evil respond to this piece. “The Killers” is as serious as a heart attack, but there are some funny moments. There’s some stuff in there that I found downright hilarious, hopefully audiences will too. An audience seeing my film. I think that’s the first time I’ve put it together, in written text, that ultimately this thing, whatever it turns out to be, is for more than just those of us involved. This needs to be seen by as many people as possible, and we’ve put in all this hard work, all the hours planning things out, all the brainstorming, all the late hours editing, to make sure that when it does, its hopefully well received, as ultimately the goal is to use this film to show what I can do with no budget and use it to finagle my way into getting someone to put up some money to make another one, a longer one, something on a larger scale. We’ll see what happens.
A week ago I was unsure about the music, I was pretty sure it would come together and I put my complete and total faith in Danny that he would make it happen. I guess really, I’ve had to put my faith in a lot of different peple through this project and hope that they came through. Actors who had little to no experience. The generosity of strangers to let us use their buildings to film in. A lighting director who had absolutely no experience working on a film. And I guess, ultimately, I had to put a lot of faith in myself that I could make it all happen. In hindsight, there was one major mistake I made, and that was to put my faith in someone who, lets be perfectly honest, had a lot going on in his life and probably should’ve just been focusing on getting well and I should’ve found another sound man. Live and learn.
But back to the music. I sat down the other night and went through and made some executive decisions about what music should go in the diner scene, what songs should be playing in the background, so that Danny could work on them and do what we were planning on, which was to create a hybrid sound of today and the 20s. I had already narrowed down what I was thinking about to about 60 songs. Surprisingly, weeding through those songs took a lot less time than I thought to find what I wanted, about 3 and a half hours total. It might’ve taken longer, had I not struck iron a few times and found, what I deem to be, the perfect tracks on the first try. Louis Armstrong’s “Go Down Moses” was the 3rd track I tried in the place that it ultimately is in, and like “Lazy River” I knew the insant that I watched the film with the music playing in the background that it belonged. I kind of wish I could’ve just done a complete Louis Armstrong soundtrack but I think that would’ve been a tad excessive, and I’m glad to get in some other artists from the 20s. So after I bounced the wave file of the songs playing in the diner, I sent them to Danny and within 48 hours he had some amazing work done to them. Todd, Ryan and I watched the film first with just the plain songs in the background on Tuesday. They both were pretty happy with the choices I made, and were absolutely in love with Go Down Moses. 48 hours later, I had a the scored version from Danny and we watched it and everyone agreed that the change and the improvement was significant. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. I have written about how Danny presented me with a challenge thus far: providing amazing music that I loved and wanted to use, but music that was quite different from what I had in mind from the start and it had started to change the mood of the piece, not in a bad way, just in a matter of fact way, from what I had originally envisioned. But what he did with the diner scene…goddamn that motherfucker brought it all together. What I now have in the diner scene is exactly what I had in min when we started: dirty guitar providing an unnerving-tension-building-background to what’s already a pretty tense situation. And the way in which he did it, using the same notes, chord progressions, and sounds, ties in with everything else that had already done. I cannot write enough about how pleased I am with what he’s done and am grateful that I was able to meet him through Chad and our paths were able to cross we could work together. I hesitate to say this, because this little film is nowhere on the scale of “Good Will Hunting” and won’t be seen by nearly as many people, doesn’t have an Oscar-worthy performance (sorry Cliff) or a comedy legend, but if the right people see this film, Danny could very well find himself in the position Elliott Smith was. Which would be fitting because he has a lot of Elliott Smith’s style in him, just not the whole heroin and heart break, depressing as hell, way.
I’ve made a lot of new friends through this process and I feel I’ve grown exponentially as a filmmaker and probably as a person. After the creative outburst sessions, those nights where I’d have an idea and we’d spend the next few hours figuring out how we make that idea happen, I think that the whole camaraderie and overall sense of teamwork, was my favorite part about the whole thing. It’s hard to deny that there wasn’t a real sense of excitement surrounding us these last 3 months, justified or not. We, as a team, were creating something out of nothing. An idea, a dream, a pretty straightforward adaptation of a Hemingway story and ambition, add in a lot of hard work and all the technical fun stuff, and we’ve got a 40 minute film that is being sent (and hopefully accepted) into film festivals. I lead the team, it was my vision that we started with and I was the one responsible for it in the end, it all came down to me. Because of that, right now, I’ve got a lot more confidence in my ability as a filmmaker and just in general. I put something together, a 40 minute film, and no matter how it turns out, that’s a pretty significant accomplishment in itself. Although, I don’t really feel that way. To be perfectly honest, what I did with “The Killers” and how its turning out…it just feels like that’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s what its expected and that the bare minimum I should be doing is putting together a little no-budget film that will be seen by some people and then who knows what. There’s not a lot of sense of accomplishment, not yet, and that’s not a self deprecating thing, its just that I don’t really don’t have a sense of what we’ve made yet. It’s yet to be seen by strangers or people who didn’t have some involvement in it, be it acting in it, working on it, or just being around us while we were making it. The 26th will be judgment day for this film, for what I’ve done on it, thus far.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Countdown to the first screening...
Well, I see it's been a long time since I've updated this.
The film is nearly done. Danny Zott is putting the finishing touches on the score. I'm satisfied with 99.9% of the cuts. There's one that I still want to tweak. Rich Cox and I will have to sit down and do a final sound mix, compress some stuff, etc. I've got to touch up the credits and pick a final font for the title. And that's it.
If all goes as planned, it will premier Dec. 19 at the SC4 Theater. Then, if Dutch from GKC comes through, we will hopefully screen it at the GKC movie theater at the Birchwood Mall. The same movie theater that I've watched so many movies at, including the rereleases of Star Wars. That'd be surreal as hell.
In the last month I've grown entirely sick of "The Killers" at one point. After spending almost every day working on it, thinking about it, for 3 straight months, I had to get away from it. Todd and I went to Chicago, which was an adventure in itself. And even then, I couldn't get away from it, as Zarlo, whom we went to visit, wanted to watch it.
Some random thoughts on various aspects of the film:
The score - This has been the most difficult part of the entire thing for me. When I wrote it, I didn't have anything in mind, I tried to keep it a blank slate. At the time of writing the screenplay I was listening to a lot of Radiohead. Actually, when I wrote it last December, I was only listening to Radiohead. As we started filming it, Radiohead was still heavily in the playlist but Tom Waits started to infiltrate. Wilco found its way in my playlist as well. During editing, those 3 were heavily influencing me as well. I watched a lot of Jim Jarmusch's films at the start of editing. In fact, at one point, when I was really unsure about how to proceed with the opening sequence and what to do (before I even came up with and wrote what is now the first scene) I sat down and watched Down by Law twice. That had such a huge influence on me. I don't know if it shows (it probably does, although I think it shows more subconsciously in the running sequence, it's almost a reverse of the opening tracking shots) but when it came time to put temporary music in, I put in "Jockey full of Bourbon" during the walking/introduction to Nick Adams sequence, knowing full well that it would be replaced. I added "Goin' Out West" from "Bone Machine" to the running sequence, and of course "Come on up to the house" to the final scene. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea. While it was the closest to what I had in my mind, it was also improbable to repeat or imitate and presented an extremely unfair challenge for anyone who would score the film. So when Danny gave me a rough cut of music it, even though I liked the music on its own, it didn't have the same feel as the Tom Waits did. Of course it wouldn't, Danny and Tom Waits are so far apart, but in a good way. It took me a while to grow accustomed to what Danny was doing for the movie, and after we talked about it, he actually tried to incorporate a little bit of Tom Waits' "dirtiness" into some it, while still keeping it distinctly a Daniel Zott piece of music. I think what he's got thus far is great, and I really think the only way I could find something that I would like more would be if Tom Waits himself would somehow take an interest in a film that was shot on a budget of about $100 and score the entire thing for me, something that's not bloody likely.
The other interesting thing in terms of the music that happened occured when I put in "temporary" music to submit the film to the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Todd and I searched for some interesting open source songs from archive.org, a place for all things public domain. We came upon a Louis Armstrong song, "Lazy River" that I just threw on top of the walking/introduction to Nick Adams scene to have music there. It was only when we watched the film afterwards, that we realized just how perfect the music fit. The way things happened on cuts, how it tied in thematically, etc. Just pure happenstance. And from reading all sorts of interviews with Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, etc. I came to realize that this sort of thing does happen and its the good filmmakers who take notice of it and accept that sometimes chance is more perfect than anything they could come up with and to run with it.
Pacing/Cuts - I ended up cutting 3 scenes from the film: Ed's scene as Cab Driver in the diner, Nick Adams leaving Ole Andersson's apartment and Nick Adams hailing and driving around in a cab after he leaves the apartment.
Cutting Ed's scene was the most difficult, as it was short and Ed was hands down the best of the walk-on roles. The reason I cut that season was 2-fold. First, pacing. The diner scene was already running a bit long. I could have cut the Angry Man scene or Rich Cox's scene. Cutting Angry Man scene would've left no comedic relief from the tension of the entire hostage situation in the diner, and as Hitchcock has taught me through his work, you have to give the audience a little breather or else you'll suffocate them and they won't be willing to go along with you for the rest of the film. Cutting Rich's scene would've been problematic in transitioning and cutting from the previous scene, so that option was out as well. The second reason I cut Ed's scene was that it allowed me to get rid of a problematic close-up shot of a clock and to cut out some extra lines between Max and George that didn't really do anything to move the plot along. If anything, they caused confusion ("you're friend Andersson's not coming" says George. "We'll give him another 10 minutes" says Max...to which they give him either 5 more minutes or 15 more minutes, depending on how I cut it). I tried to avoid any and all close-ups in the entire film. The closest thing to close-ups are some tight shots of Nick Adams during the running scene and the close-ups of objects that open the film. Other than that, there are none. There were a few reasons why I decided not to shoot in close-ups. The first, is that it exposes your actors, and with amateur actors I felt that would've been unfair to the actors and the characters they're portraying. The second is the message that a close-up sends to the viewer. It says "THIS is more important than whatever else you've seen" - and there's not one single thing that I felt should've delivered that message once we got the film rolling, except for the exhaustion on Nick Adam's face when running.
Cutting the scene with Nick Adam's leaving the apartment and the cab scene were much easier. For starters, they were rushed when we shot them. I found a way around some continuity problems, (which will make it on the eventual dvd and probably on this blog when I have a chance to encode the scene) but it just didn't do anything for the narrative. Even if we had spent an entire day shooting these 2 scenes I still think I would've cut them. The only thing the scenes did was to move Nick Adams forward in time and space, and through the miracle of montage and edit you don't have to worry about that, a fade can do the same thing in less time.
Some of the other cuts that I made were minor in nature. I cut off about 15-20 seconds of Emily (Church Mom) trying to make small talk while Jim (Max) smoked his cigarette ignoring her. Again, the diner scene needed to have the pace picked up a bit, and while she had some great nervous improv lines I had to cut them for the greater good of the film. The question then became where to cut. It came down to 2 choices. We cut back from George cutting ham in the kitchen to her telling Max "Boy...I'm really running late for Church...Do you go to church?" or straight to her asking him "Do you go to church?" At first thought, I wanted to cut straight to the "Do you go to church?" line for pure comedic value. When she enters the diner one of the first things she says is that she's running late for Church, and I thought it'd be funny to drive home the idea that she's this church mom, by her just asking this complete and total stranger if he went to church. Had the inflection in her voice been different, I might've gone with that, but as it stood, it felt odd and awkward. So I started with the previous line. As it stands, just about every one of her lines is about church, so she's still the super-crazy church lady, she's just not a total creeper about it.
The walking/introduction to Nick Adams scene has undergone a lot of minor cutting that amounts to a major facelift. As it stands now, the scene is 3:33 long, and that's how it'll be in the final film. The first cut of that scene was about 6:45 long. The scene has the same exact meaning and everything, the only thing that's different is that every shot is shorter and a few shots have been removed entirely (ones that I either didn't like, there were issues with the camera being shaken by the crazy fierce wind blowing off of the river, etc.). It's funny, cause when I first emailed the scene to Jim and Cliff they both suggested I try and get it under 5 minutes and I thought "how the fuck am I going to do that without butchering it?" but I've learned a very valuable lesson: if something needs to be cut down for time considerations, you can always find a way, if you're careful, to do so without butchering the essence of the scene.
Many more thoughts on the film, life in general, changes, etc. but for now I need sleep
The film is nearly done. Danny Zott is putting the finishing touches on the score. I'm satisfied with 99.9% of the cuts. There's one that I still want to tweak. Rich Cox and I will have to sit down and do a final sound mix, compress some stuff, etc. I've got to touch up the credits and pick a final font for the title. And that's it.
If all goes as planned, it will premier Dec. 19 at the SC4 Theater. Then, if Dutch from GKC comes through, we will hopefully screen it at the GKC movie theater at the Birchwood Mall. The same movie theater that I've watched so many movies at, including the rereleases of Star Wars. That'd be surreal as hell.
In the last month I've grown entirely sick of "The Killers" at one point. After spending almost every day working on it, thinking about it, for 3 straight months, I had to get away from it. Todd and I went to Chicago, which was an adventure in itself. And even then, I couldn't get away from it, as Zarlo, whom we went to visit, wanted to watch it.
Some random thoughts on various aspects of the film:
The score - This has been the most difficult part of the entire thing for me. When I wrote it, I didn't have anything in mind, I tried to keep it a blank slate. At the time of writing the screenplay I was listening to a lot of Radiohead. Actually, when I wrote it last December, I was only listening to Radiohead. As we started filming it, Radiohead was still heavily in the playlist but Tom Waits started to infiltrate. Wilco found its way in my playlist as well. During editing, those 3 were heavily influencing me as well. I watched a lot of Jim Jarmusch's films at the start of editing. In fact, at one point, when I was really unsure about how to proceed with the opening sequence and what to do (before I even came up with and wrote what is now the first scene) I sat down and watched Down by Law twice. That had such a huge influence on me. I don't know if it shows (it probably does, although I think it shows more subconsciously in the running sequence, it's almost a reverse of the opening tracking shots) but when it came time to put temporary music in, I put in "Jockey full of Bourbon" during the walking/introduction to Nick Adams sequence, knowing full well that it would be replaced. I added "Goin' Out West" from "Bone Machine" to the running sequence, and of course "Come on up to the house" to the final scene. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea. While it was the closest to what I had in my mind, it was also improbable to repeat or imitate and presented an extremely unfair challenge for anyone who would score the film. So when Danny gave me a rough cut of music it, even though I liked the music on its own, it didn't have the same feel as the Tom Waits did. Of course it wouldn't, Danny and Tom Waits are so far apart, but in a good way. It took me a while to grow accustomed to what Danny was doing for the movie, and after we talked about it, he actually tried to incorporate a little bit of Tom Waits' "dirtiness" into some it, while still keeping it distinctly a Daniel Zott piece of music. I think what he's got thus far is great, and I really think the only way I could find something that I would like more would be if Tom Waits himself would somehow take an interest in a film that was shot on a budget of about $100 and score the entire thing for me, something that's not bloody likely.
The other interesting thing in terms of the music that happened occured when I put in "temporary" music to submit the film to the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Todd and I searched for some interesting open source songs from archive.org, a place for all things public domain. We came upon a Louis Armstrong song, "Lazy River" that I just threw on top of the walking/introduction to Nick Adams scene to have music there. It was only when we watched the film afterwards, that we realized just how perfect the music fit. The way things happened on cuts, how it tied in thematically, etc. Just pure happenstance. And from reading all sorts of interviews with Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, etc. I came to realize that this sort of thing does happen and its the good filmmakers who take notice of it and accept that sometimes chance is more perfect than anything they could come up with and to run with it.
Pacing/Cuts - I ended up cutting 3 scenes from the film: Ed's scene as Cab Driver in the diner, Nick Adams leaving Ole Andersson's apartment and Nick Adams hailing and driving around in a cab after he leaves the apartment.
Cutting Ed's scene was the most difficult, as it was short and Ed was hands down the best of the walk-on roles. The reason I cut that season was 2-fold. First, pacing. The diner scene was already running a bit long. I could have cut the Angry Man scene or Rich Cox's scene. Cutting Angry Man scene would've left no comedic relief from the tension of the entire hostage situation in the diner, and as Hitchcock has taught me through his work, you have to give the audience a little breather or else you'll suffocate them and they won't be willing to go along with you for the rest of the film. Cutting Rich's scene would've been problematic in transitioning and cutting from the previous scene, so that option was out as well. The second reason I cut Ed's scene was that it allowed me to get rid of a problematic close-up shot of a clock and to cut out some extra lines between Max and George that didn't really do anything to move the plot along. If anything, they caused confusion ("you're friend Andersson's not coming" says George. "We'll give him another 10 minutes" says Max...to which they give him either 5 more minutes or 15 more minutes, depending on how I cut it). I tried to avoid any and all close-ups in the entire film. The closest thing to close-ups are some tight shots of Nick Adams during the running scene and the close-ups of objects that open the film. Other than that, there are none. There were a few reasons why I decided not to shoot in close-ups. The first, is that it exposes your actors, and with amateur actors I felt that would've been unfair to the actors and the characters they're portraying. The second is the message that a close-up sends to the viewer. It says "THIS is more important than whatever else you've seen" - and there's not one single thing that I felt should've delivered that message once we got the film rolling, except for the exhaustion on Nick Adam's face when running.
Cutting the scene with Nick Adam's leaving the apartment and the cab scene were much easier. For starters, they were rushed when we shot them. I found a way around some continuity problems, (which will make it on the eventual dvd and probably on this blog when I have a chance to encode the scene) but it just didn't do anything for the narrative. Even if we had spent an entire day shooting these 2 scenes I still think I would've cut them. The only thing the scenes did was to move Nick Adams forward in time and space, and through the miracle of montage and edit you don't have to worry about that, a fade can do the same thing in less time.
Some of the other cuts that I made were minor in nature. I cut off about 15-20 seconds of Emily (Church Mom) trying to make small talk while Jim (Max) smoked his cigarette ignoring her. Again, the diner scene needed to have the pace picked up a bit, and while she had some great nervous improv lines I had to cut them for the greater good of the film. The question then became where to cut. It came down to 2 choices. We cut back from George cutting ham in the kitchen to her telling Max "Boy...I'm really running late for Church...Do you go to church?" or straight to her asking him "Do you go to church?" At first thought, I wanted to cut straight to the "Do you go to church?" line for pure comedic value. When she enters the diner one of the first things she says is that she's running late for Church, and I thought it'd be funny to drive home the idea that she's this church mom, by her just asking this complete and total stranger if he went to church. Had the inflection in her voice been different, I might've gone with that, but as it stood, it felt odd and awkward. So I started with the previous line. As it stands, just about every one of her lines is about church, so she's still the super-crazy church lady, she's just not a total creeper about it.
The walking/introduction to Nick Adams scene has undergone a lot of minor cutting that amounts to a major facelift. As it stands now, the scene is 3:33 long, and that's how it'll be in the final film. The first cut of that scene was about 6:45 long. The scene has the same exact meaning and everything, the only thing that's different is that every shot is shorter and a few shots have been removed entirely (ones that I either didn't like, there were issues with the camera being shaken by the crazy fierce wind blowing off of the river, etc.). It's funny, cause when I first emailed the scene to Jim and Cliff they both suggested I try and get it under 5 minutes and I thought "how the fuck am I going to do that without butchering it?" but I've learned a very valuable lesson: if something needs to be cut down for time considerations, you can always find a way, if you're careful, to do so without butchering the essence of the scene.
Many more thoughts on the film, life in general, changes, etc. but for now I need sleep
Monday, November 17, 2008
Ugh.
So, so much has gone on, been updated and worked, changed, moved on, progress, step forward, step backward, side-step, tango, salsa, chupacabra, since I last wrote.
Too tired to get into a full update right now, but we've shot the first scene and it turned out pretty good, a lot of people like the lines, the dialogue, etc. and I wrote that from scratch, that's not Hemingway's stuff. It took us twice as many attempts as I had thought it would be, but it's done. Sort of. I might want to reshoot a single inside shot or two, but that's simplicity.
Then I spent a marathon sound editing session last week with Rich Cox, in hopes of getting it ready for submission to the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which had a deadline of Saturday to be submitted. I got it in on time, although with temporary music, because none of the composers had their score finished.
Which has been a whole different headache. Part of the problem is me, I keep changing my mind about what kind of music I want. When I started, I heard something very Tom Waits-y and as poppy as Wilco, but not further. Since then it has morphed and developed into something very strange and I don't know what I'll get. But I met with Danny Zott tonight and I think he's got a pretty good handle on it. What I heard thus far gave me a good impression, although there's one song that I'm going to have to really give a second listen too, because its such a departure from everything I've tried in the scene (the walking scene) before.
Lots of personal changes and going through various stages of becoming a reclusive werewolf in an attempt to get the film done and trying to maintain some sort of humanity that I've managed to hold on to thus far. Oh and we've got a black president. Yeah. That'll be pretty awesome. I think. We'll see. Here's hoping.
Too tired to get into a full update right now, but we've shot the first scene and it turned out pretty good, a lot of people like the lines, the dialogue, etc. and I wrote that from scratch, that's not Hemingway's stuff. It took us twice as many attempts as I had thought it would be, but it's done. Sort of. I might want to reshoot a single inside shot or two, but that's simplicity.
Then I spent a marathon sound editing session last week with Rich Cox, in hopes of getting it ready for submission to the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which had a deadline of Saturday to be submitted. I got it in on time, although with temporary music, because none of the composers had their score finished.
Which has been a whole different headache. Part of the problem is me, I keep changing my mind about what kind of music I want. When I started, I heard something very Tom Waits-y and as poppy as Wilco, but not further. Since then it has morphed and developed into something very strange and I don't know what I'll get. But I met with Danny Zott tonight and I think he's got a pretty good handle on it. What I heard thus far gave me a good impression, although there's one song that I'm going to have to really give a second listen too, because its such a departure from everything I've tried in the scene (the walking scene) before.
Lots of personal changes and going through various stages of becoming a reclusive werewolf in an attempt to get the film done and trying to maintain some sort of humanity that I've managed to hold on to thus far. Oh and we've got a black president. Yeah. That'll be pretty awesome. I think. We'll see. Here's hoping.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Mission: Get Music Rights
I have a new mission. I got too antsy waiting for my composers to give me something to cut the final scene to and I started playing around. I think I just made it impossible for anyone and everyone who attempts to score this scene to match this, in my opinion, perfect mix.
So of course, I'll have to try and get the rights to it. I don't know how much that'll cost or if I'll be able to do it. New mission though. I'll end up spending more money on the music clearence than I will on the rest of the entire production! Still, watching it the first time with the sound, gave me goosebumps.
There was another neat little coincidence that occured when I was just throwing some Tom Waits songs that I thought might provide an interesting sound, onto the timeline to see what happened. I put "Little Box of Poison" over this long static scene and it gave the entire thing new life...instead of being this threatening rattlesnake-pit feeling it became a tango between George and Max...
Interesting how music can change the mood.
I've got the entire opening sequence planned, both in what it will be and how we'll shoot it. We're going to shoot some images of things in the car and I want to try and do a montage of images to build a mood even before we see Max and Al. By the time we get to Nick Adams, hopefully the audience will be wondering "what's it all about?" We'll see.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Update
Getting close to having a solid cut. Need music score for the running sequence, the taxi cab sequence and the shaving sequence. Need to shoot the opening. Gotta email Jim and Micki and find out when they're available to do so.
Gotta start working on the audio mix this week. Lots of work to do on that I fear. Just getting levels, a consistent "white noise"/background noise level throughout and then adding the sounds of whatever else I want (such as refrigerator's kicking on, street noise, buzzers, birds, etc.)
Nov. 15th is the deadline for the Ann Arbor Film Festival, that's my target date.
December 14th is the deadline for the South by Southwest Film Festival. How awesome would it be to screen at one of the biggest baddest film festivals around in my first 3 months being in Austin?
That's right, I got accepted into UT. Now I just have to figure out how to pay for it. Yah that'll be fun.
The weather has been kicking my ass and then rubbing it in my face. Wet and cold. Fuck. Need some sleep, that won't be interrupted by spasming muscles and shooting pains. Nor weird fucking dreams, although I just finished watching the entire Disc 1 of the Complete Quay Brothers Collection, so good luck with that.
The score...oh boy the score...who the fuck knows what's going on with that. We'll see what Sadat comes up with tomorrow. Hopefully Bob and Danny send me something soon too.
I need to secure some funding now. I shot the film on a shoestring budget but each film festival is about $35-$55 to submit too. I've also got some ideas for DIY distribution and all that jazz that might try and break the mold. We'll see. In the meantime, money makes the world go around and pretty soon we're gonna spin off our axis.
Gotta start working on the audio mix this week. Lots of work to do on that I fear. Just getting levels, a consistent "white noise"/background noise level throughout and then adding the sounds of whatever else I want (such as refrigerator's kicking on, street noise, buzzers, birds, etc.)
Nov. 15th is the deadline for the Ann Arbor Film Festival, that's my target date.
December 14th is the deadline for the South by Southwest Film Festival. How awesome would it be to screen at one of the biggest baddest film festivals around in my first 3 months being in Austin?
That's right, I got accepted into UT. Now I just have to figure out how to pay for it. Yah that'll be fun.
The weather has been kicking my ass and then rubbing it in my face. Wet and cold. Fuck. Need some sleep, that won't be interrupted by spasming muscles and shooting pains. Nor weird fucking dreams, although I just finished watching the entire Disc 1 of the Complete Quay Brothers Collection, so good luck with that.
The score...oh boy the score...who the fuck knows what's going on with that. We'll see what Sadat comes up with tomorrow. Hopefully Bob and Danny send me something soon too.
I need to secure some funding now. I shot the film on a shoestring budget but each film festival is about $35-$55 to submit too. I've also got some ideas for DIY distribution and all that jazz that might try and break the mold. We'll see. In the meantime, money makes the world go around and pretty soon we're gonna spin off our axis.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
I haven't slept a wink
Couldn't sleep. Just the thought of those shots not working kept me up. I finally gave up trying to fall asleep, got up and have been tweaking for the last two hours. Got it working pretty good. I have a rough cut of Scenes 1 through 4. Scene 5 (running scene) will be nearly impossible to get anything close to what I want until I have music to go with it. I've started to think about maybe some old negro spirituals or gospels or something. I don't know. Lots of ways to go.
Scenes 1-4 (without the rest of Scene 1 which we have to shoot soon) total 24 minutes and 58 seconds. That may or may not go down depending on what kind of cuts I make to what I've got now. Most of what I'd likely want to tweak is untweakable because of the lack of coverage, which is a result of a lack of time, which is a result of a lack of money, which is the result of a lack of an executive producer, which may be a result of the poor economy. This being my first film is also a definite factor. Minor tweaking, cutting a few frames here, extending a few there, etc. will of course happen. What all this means, is when I finish with the intro, it will be about 27 minutes long from the first image until Nick Adams leaves Henry's to try and save Ole. The running scene will be anywhere from 70 seconds to 5 minutes, depending on the music, how the clips come together, etc. There are 3 more major scenes, each will be about 90 seconds long, left. There's also the cab scene, which I can make short or longer. All in all, the film will easily be pushing 35 minutes, maybe closer to 40ish. Not too shabby.
I need some fucking sleep.
Scenes 1-4 (without the rest of Scene 1 which we have to shoot soon) total 24 minutes and 58 seconds. That may or may not go down depending on what kind of cuts I make to what I've got now. Most of what I'd likely want to tweak is untweakable because of the lack of coverage, which is a result of a lack of time, which is a result of a lack of money, which is the result of a lack of an executive producer, which may be a result of the poor economy. This being my first film is also a definite factor. Minor tweaking, cutting a few frames here, extending a few there, etc. will of course happen. What all this means, is when I finish with the intro, it will be about 27 minutes long from the first image until Nick Adams leaves Henry's to try and save Ole. The running scene will be anywhere from 70 seconds to 5 minutes, depending on the music, how the clips come together, etc. There are 3 more major scenes, each will be about 90 seconds long, left. There's also the cab scene, which I can make short or longer. All in all, the film will easily be pushing 35 minutes, maybe closer to 40ish. Not too shabby.
I need some fucking sleep.
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