Weary progress

Breaking the scenes up into beats, and editing on those beats, has helped make significant progress in the last 2 days. In fact, the entire first part of the diner scene, up to when Al takes Sam and Nick to the back, I have almost done. I screened that and the intro scene (which makes up the first 15 minutes total) for Todd, Kayte, Sadat and Emily tonight and everyone really liked what I had thus far. I was so excited that I came home around 11:30 so I could continue working...which is where I ran into issues.

The scenes after Al leaves have presented a tricky problem after working on them tonight. Some of it came together pretty good, but some of it isn't coming together as easily. The problem is, that there's only 1 angle of George and 2 angles of just Max. What I've found, at least in the part that is giving me problems, is that I need to rely on a long take and at the very end of the take, there's a missed line, but I can't really throw to another angle at an earlier beat because there isn't another angle with the appropriate coverage of the essence of that beat (George's reaction). I played with it for 4 hours straight tonight, and I think I need to step away until tomorrow evening and look at it again.

One thing that looks like I'm not going to be able to use, are those cut-away shots of Al in the mirror, with the light coming down. Maybe it's just me but they seem too disjointed when I cut to them without any sort of way to make clear where it's cutting too. It's unfortunate but I'd rather not use it if it's going to cause some confusion, even if it is a cool looking shot.

I've got some ideas for the intro now that I'm pretty psyched about and think they'll work perfectly for what I want to establish. It means another day of shooting, when we can get some good weather and schedules work. I think we're going to use Todd's Volvo (Swedish car used to kill a Swede..ha) so we just have to figure out how to rig a camera up on the hood. That'll be fun.

I need some sleep...I've been so wrapped up in editing that I've neglected my online creative writing class work this week, which I hate doing, and a whole slew of other stuff, including having Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" paused in my dvd player since Sunday night (at this point, I'll just have to restart it, and I'm only 30 minutes into it anyway). Gotta get priorities in order, and while this film is #1 right now, I can't make it the only 1.

Finally, while nothing is set in stone yet...I think I'm going to aim for having a sneak preview screening the day after Thanksgiving. By then not only will the film be cut together, but that'll be plenty of time to do audio work, get the score done, match the contrast and brightness of all of the shots in succession, etc. And while it won't be the final, final cut, I think it's a pretty good idea to screen it in front of an audience to get reactions, see what works, what doesn't, all of that jazz, before I finish. Although, knowing me, from reading Kubrick, Welles, Lang and Hitchcock interviews I have a feeling I'm going to do the same thing they all did: obsesss over every little detail, tweak, or think about tweaking, little things here and there, up until the first real screening and in Welles case, in the middle of a screening.