A Year Ago

A year ago I was making the decision of what camera I would shoot this movie on. Choosing to invest in the Canon 7D which was only weeks from being released, and was a pretty big risk being new untested hardware (both for me and the rest of the filmmaking world), a new workflow, and a new set of equipment costs and workarounds.

I can safely say now that it was the right choice.


Yes, we got mailed off to Sundance in time. It is officially "in consideration" meaning it got there and was labeled correctly and they have my $100 submission fee. Now sit around until Dec. 6th to find out more...

So is it done? Not really. Still waiting on sound. I've grown to hate sound. It's just not something I can get excited about like everything else. I don't have an ear for good sound or something. I'm just uninformed, inexperienced. I keep learning new things and then make more work for myself. But really, only a few original sound effects I did were at all fun to do. And that is satisfying...to not rely on stock recordings, but record new stuff and use pieces from things we recorded on set.

For example, for the big launch sequence I was always planning to have some heavy mechanical sounds for the spaceship turning on, "launching," etc...spaceship sounds. I kept putting it off, and then I realized after getting some additional shots with the ship of some fireworks going off in the rocket engine hole thing, that the fireworks sounds were just right. I manipulated some and used some of the one we recorded when we got our stock fireworks footage at new year's and suddenly this little choice actually has a lot of impact on the film itself narratively speaking. If the sound effects were too pro and too mechanical it might not have been believable...which maybe was okay, given the context, but now there's an implication that the ship itself is propelled by fireworks...which is something I had never considered, but makes perfect sense given the context of the movie. It's something I can't believe I had thought about. It just adds another layer of story and completeness to it.

So that was a good sound moment....and figuring out how to filter the space helmet voice...since that was determining how an entire character sounded.

I'm giving some stuff away probably, but oh well.

The rest of the sound sucks. Everything else I can handle, but sound isn't my cup of tea. I guess it's sort of the pinnacle of the technical post-production process to me...I mean color correction at least is a visual thing that requires a trained eye, but you can't look at sound and that bothers me.

Also, the music is awesome. Ben has been slaving away at what I think is a lot of his best material yet. There's some really great stuff.

I love getting that complete package of original material. Everything about this movie is unique and a specific flavor. The music is kind of the last part of that, but it's essential to the movie's overall identity. And it's really good.


But yeah, it feels like I've been working on this for way too long. I know everyone wants to see it. I want to be done with it just as much. It's kind of the price I pay for doing it all myself (except the music). But it does make great business sense. If I can do it and do it well enough, then I'm paying myself and that's as cheap as I can get. Most people making feature films under $20,000 aren't trying to do what we did. There's a lot of documentary and mockumentary stuff...real world stuff. This was a pretty minimalist production. Certainly working with what we had, but the difference is that 90% of this movie doesn't feel that way. And I think the implications of what we could do with more money are pretty promising. I mean doubling our budget is still microscopic by most standards.

It feels good though. I think I made a good movie. I'm not holding out for any kind of huge success with it. I know it's not really going to sell. But it's a strong movie. A strong idea. Solid execution. It's ballsy and passionate. I think we captured that we all really wanted to make this. We weren't just doing something to do it. There's something worth being made in this and I think somehow that comes through. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of taking the chance to make it, and forcing myself to do it right. To do it to the best of my capabilities and be able to look back and really see what those capabilities are. Now I'm confident I can make a life out of this. And that's what I set out to prove...



Also, sorry about the website being messed up. It's been like that for a month or so and will probably be so for another month. I'm not letting myself touch it until the movie is 100%, and I'll need the next few weeks to do that. Then I can switch gears to "marketing."

A lot of people I think have this impression that movies are simple to make. Once you've gotten the pieces together and shot it, then it's easy. But honestly, I think the production was the easiest part. It was the most intense, but it's easier to focus and power through it when you have a team of people around you counting on you. You think when shooting that once it's done, it'll be gloriously easy, but post-production has really been tough for me. A long spread out process for me where I'm rarely able to dedicate time to it and focus, and when I do I realize just how big of a project this is and just how much work I've signed myself up for...I had the rough cut done 4 months ago. And it took that long to get there too. I never thought it would take this long. I never thought I'd learn so much about editing either. In a lot of ways I feel like this was my first real editing job.

Preproduction was kind of grueling too. Of course, it was me working for myself again on my own time. But there's a lot of pressure the to put together something that's worth the effort of the subsequent phases. Write something worth people's time to make and watch. Oddly, I think that's something that most people don't put nearly enough stake in. And then there's finding a way to pull it off....which is stressful for obvious reasons. Production itself is actually really the highlight. It's playtime. You work to get there and work to get out of there, and yes you work a lot during it, but to me it's the fun part. It's when you're in the moment...you don't have time to think and correct and over-correct like you do in pre and post...it's instinctual. it's fast-paced. It's physical. You're there, you're making it, it's real. There's something surreal and kind of glamorous about it. It's what you see in your head when you think about making movies...but it's the most compressed part. You don't get very much of it.

But anyway, even now, I think people probably think I must be done. I sent it off to Sundance. And while yeah, you can round up and say the movie is basically done. There's really a 4th stage of production when you're doing it all yourself and that's marketing. Researching/Tracking/Submitting to festivals. Coming up with a schedule, press kit, promo materials, any kind of viral marketing materials, videos, the website, etc. Then there's the DVD stuff. I'm going to be putting together a whole big making of documentary and recording some commentaries, whatever I can get. Once the fest part is done, there's the final distribution efforts, which will more than likely be straight to DVD sales, but that's still work.

But it's all paid off. I hope it can pay off in some sort of a big way. Sundance would be cool, but I know better than to get my hopes up for that. I've got all I need in terms of personal growth from this project and I'm really ready to what I've learned and put it into a new project. I've got this burning sensation to shoot something again. And it's Fall** now, so watch out.




**for the uninitiated, Fall is filmmaking season. At least, in Shreveport where the winter's too cold and wet and the summer is hot and humid for any kind of positive shooting experiences...but fall...all like 4 weeks of it, is prime creative time...we should have some kind of annual filmmaking thing in the fall...

One Week

Sundance deadline is a week from tomorrow. I'm gonna mail it Tuesday.

So the film must be pretty close to done then?

Well...

Sort of.

In the future I won't do sound. I can pull it off, I just decided I really don't like it. Actually, there's a lot of stuff that next time I'd rather not do myself. Hopefully, I'll have the luxury of not having to.

I think my problem is lack of experience in this field. I don't have an ear for good sound. I know most of our recordings are relatively high quality. But I've become obsessive over it. Individually removing minor microphone bumps...trying to match the bass in the ambient room noise between audio clips. The kind of stuff I imagine sound people do, but I'm not sure where to draw the line. I've watched the movie several times and never noticed any glaring audio issues.

It makes it hard to finish when you have a lot of little tweaks that can probably stand to not be done. I think by Tuesday, though, all that should be left will be finalizing the music with Ben...we'll have all the tracks by then, but I reuse a lot of stuff that needs some variation.

I'll be shooting the VFX shots this weekend and getting some final ADR from Cyndee. And not sleeping much I hope. I'm not very good at staying focused. I spoil myself with distractions.

I think I've gotten to the point where the movie has become work...although almost every time I sit down to work on it, I end up making some pretty significant artistic decisions. Even with the sound. I've got some pretty cool credits done. They're simpler than I anticipated doing, but I think they're pretty cool.

It's always weird when you get to a place you've anticipated going, and then you don't really feel like you're there.

I've decided I sort of think in the future. My mind is always a few steps ahead of everything else. Always planning, imagining, etc. But it's hard for me to exist in the moment. Do what needs to be done now and not think about what it's going to be in a day or week or month or year. I'm pretty sure I could go back to blog entries from right before production and talking about how it doesn't feel like I'm about to shoot or be able to pull it off or anything.

I think it's good to always be moving forward though. It's a big part of what has made me who I am and capable of what I do. Everything I do in the present only serves some future me. I don't make a movie and that's it. I cherish it and focus only on it. In fact, a lot of my decisions about this project are about how it will affect my next one. My distribution plan only really serves to get me making another one. As I guess it should. But I know other filmmakers are sometimes relentless about milking their projects dry. Seeking every avenue in desperation. I think that's how you tell if someone is in it as a business/career choice or because they love the medium/love making things. How to make money/be famous should be secondary to how to make something else and make something better.

In two months it will have been a year since we started building the launchpad for the movie. Three months until the one year anniversary of the shoot. That's crazy. I've been working on this project so long. I'm ready to be done. I'm ready to make something new.

Change of Pace

I only work 12 hours a week at my job now. I was going to flat out quit in order to finish this movie, but they want me to help hold down the fort as much as I can while they find a worthy replacement.

I feel kinda bad about leaving. It was a pretty good job. But ultimately it's not what I want to do and isn't as important as this film. That's what it all came down to.

So now, except for 12 hours every week, I'm free (to do what I want) to work on the movie. I've been working part-time on the movie for 8 months. It's very weird to be able to work all day everyday on it. Or work through the night on it and sleep in.

I set up and awesome new office/editing station in my living room. It's interesting to me how much your workspace affects the quality of your work and your motivation to work. For the past two months or so I had been going back out to my parents' house on the weekends to edit in their home theater which has an editing booth in the back. That's a pretty great setup (obviously, right?), but the same reasons I didn't want to move back in with my parents' after college still apply to that unfortunately. I have a spare room in my house that was my home office for a while. But I worked 40 hours a week somewhere else, so it didn't make a whole lot of sense. It wasn't a great space either. I don't like being closed off in my own house. That's what you do in your parents' house.

So I bought a big L-shaped desk (basically doubling my desk space) and moved it into my living room. It sounds strange, but it works really well and we had a spot for it. I also really like to surround myself by my stuff, art/books/movies/posters/toys/etc., all of which is mostly strewn about my living room.

But it's still weird not working full time anymore. There's this guilt of not sticking with the financially stable option. And making movies stills feels like it always did for me. It's fun. It's some kind of self-indulgent hobby where I make stuff I want because I like it. I guess it's sort of incredible that my parents would back me up on this. They've tried their damnedest to train me to think the other way, but while I'm painfully aware of that I still gotta go with what feels right.

It'll be interesting to see my productivity shoot up too. I have to churn through about 6 minutes a day of final sound mix and color correction in order to have it complete for Sundance. So far I'm doing alright. Got the first 6 minutes completed. Which is crazy. To actually have it really really done. Nothing has been that way in 8 months. It's become this thing that people are interested in that I'm always working on and people are always asking about. It will be interesting when it actually exists. I can actually show people. Which is why it's made in the first place.

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I'm also glad that I seem to be increasingly ready to gear up for another project. I was wondering if I'd get too burned out from this one to jump right back in. I had convinced myself I'd wait and see what happens with GOS before deciding what to do next. But lately I just kind of feel like "fuck that, I'm ready to make another one."
I don't know where the money will come from, but I'm not that worried about it. I'm ready to write again. I'm thinking of doing a short this fall (filmmaking season) and gearing up for another feature shoot possibly in fall 2011.

It feels good to be a full-time filmmaker again.