Back from Mars

I don't know what that title's supposed to mean, but here's my first new post in about 7 weeks.

The trailer is probably the big news. It's almost ready. I wish I could give a hard date since the original "end of July" date is here. It's mostly done. I've seen several drafts. We hit some bumps in terms of Hunter's and my conflicting opinions on the overall approach and direction of the trailer, but we've settled on something worthy. I can't wait to see people's reactions.

I'm also cracking away at my second cut of the film. Which so far is already 10. I'd really like to chop off another 10 minutes to make it super digestible. It's a weird experience to really "edit" a film and not just put it together. Especially after writing it and going through some 30 or so drafts of the script. By then you feel like you have it perfect. Like all the extraneous stuff is gone. But then you shoot it and some things end up weak, and then you assemble it and some parts are slow. And then you really start to see what's important for the total experience. It's not just making the story work. It's make the whole experience work and making it flow. Making the important parts stand out. I have a lot of thick scenes of dialogue, which is largely irrelevant to the plot. That was intentional when writing, but I'm finding in the final film it really drags, and I'm trying to cut things down to get to the point and get out as smoothly as possible. I just didn't imagine ever cutting so much or looking at things the way I do now, but it really makes a difference.

It'll be cool to have real deleted scenes though. I actually have an entire scene cut out now. I remember writing the scene in because I thought it was important. Shows what I knew a year ago.

I had my first ADR session with Steven two weeks ago. So he's fully wrapped now. It turns out as I've been playing around in Soundbooth (the software), a lot of the noisier audio is actually pretty salvageable so ADR isn't going to be as extensive as I initially expected. The frustrating thing is that it just takes me so long to get anything done. I only work on weekends. I have friday afternoons off at work, but I'm not sure it's enough. We're just under two months from the Sundance submission deadline. I'm gonna have to find some more time. I still have to do all the FX shots.

I'm still working with Ben on the music too. It's coming along smashingly, but I need to get him the new cut so he can see where things go and start working on scoring it. Right now we've just been focusing on finding the right sound and coming up with themes.

Also, expect a revamp of the official site sometime this fall. I'm not sure why that needed to be said yet.

(I typed some of this on Wendesday, but right now it's 2 AM on Sunday...so excuse the date)