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.

How Far We've Come

Tomorrow is the last day of the month before the movie is due to Sundance, the first of the fests I'm submitting to.

That means I have roughly three weeks to get it as good as I can.

The good news is, the current cut is pretty solid. I'll do some more fine-tuning for sure, but I've cut 20 minutes out already and I don't see myself going much further than that. I've solved just about all the problems I needed to with editing.

The big things on the to-do list:
FX Shots - Some inserts of the ship igniting, sparks, etc. Imaginary shots of the ship taking off and crash landing on the moon. These will all be done practically with models. Should be fun. Master of construction/pyrotechnics will be assisting.

Sound - This is a multi-parter. I've got to go through and finish a full run of audio clean-up, then based on what needs it, get ADR from Kemer and Cyndee. I did it already with Steven and could go ahead and do it with everyone, but I don't actually know 100% what I need and don't yet. I'm just ballparking it. I've also got to record/mix foley for the whole movie. This should take a couple days of solid work. I've got to work with Ben to lock in the music and work on a final mix of everything together.

Credits/Titles - This seems easy enough, except I really want to go all out with it. Especially the end credits. I'm also considering doing these practically. Actually drawing out all the names or something, I haven't really figured out the specifics. And honestly this isn't crucial for the screener that's due at the end of the month.But being that this is the first title/credit sequence I've really done since both schooling/working in design, I feel like it's a great opportunity to do something ambitious.

Color Correcting - This is both big and small. On one hand we shot everything really well. For the most part the image I shot is what I wanted, but there are a handful of places that need real "correction," everything else will just be matching shots for consistency sake, and making sure everything feels right. I'm of the school that digital color correction is way abused/overused these days. For something that didn't used to be such a big part of the production process, it's really become overblown, and largely results in people ruining footage and making cheap choices and marketing choices in the use of color. This is an era of everyone having the tools to change their footage and people are doing it in order to give this impression of professionalism. But real professionalism is knowing what you want in advance and shooting it on set.

This leads me onto a tangent: Imperfection. (and before I get into it, that is pretty much all that's left to do in three weeks)

Increasingly, I believe that imperfection is what makes good art good. It's largely a side effect of risk-taking which often goes hand-in-hand with innovation which is often what defines defining works of art.

When you're doing something for the first time, you're never going to get it perfect. But you're going to get something unique. I think that uniqueness stems directly from that imperfection. Because if you believe practice makes perfect, then it also stands to reason that perfection is stale. You can do something enough times that you get it perfect, but I think the first time you do something is probably a lot more human and interesting than when you do it after doing it a bunch of times. The attempt at perfection is ultimately more compelling than perfection itself. Although you could argue that perfection doesn't actually exist and everything is an attempt.

But my point is, that I think it's the artist (in this case filmmakers) that aren't afraid to make a mess of things that make the most interesting things. You can see it in concrete examples like Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, Edward Scissorhands, Reservoir Dogs, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. These are all imperfect films. But they're charmingly imperfect. It's what makes them. I would argue that most directors' early works are their most interesting. It's what defines them and inspires people to support them. Heck, the Criterion Collection has basically made a business out of rereleasing early works.

This isn't to say that director's can't continue to make good films after they've made a name for themselves. I think in some cases they lose a passion that drives their early work because there's a desperation about it. Good directors continue to innovate though. And continue to take risks. Christopher Nolan is a solid example of this. Or Danny Boyle. Each of his films is something entirely different from the last. Tim Burton would be an example of someone who has stopped innovating and just keeps repeating...now without the low-budget charm of his initial innovation.

Wes Anderson, probably my favorite director, is seen by a lot of people as someone who keeps repeating himself. Then again he just made a stop motion kids movie, so I don't think anybody really saw that coming. I may be biased because I'm a sucker for his material, but I'm also most fond of largest critical failure, The Life Aquatic. It's a movie that you can see uncertainty and imperfection in, but that's part of why I think I'm drawn to it. It's kind of a failed attempt (though I use that term lightly as it's my all-time favorite movie), but in falls in line with the themes of the movie. That's why Apocalypse Now works so well. It's as fucked up as the situations and characters within it.

All of this is just to say, I think the idea of having perfect picture or color correction or sound is an overrated side effect of the digital age. The Beatles are probably the greatest band ever, and their music was all recorded mono. Most people today would insist on a stereo mix, but is that really so crucial to quality music? I think you can't be afraid of those things. If I was I don't think I could have made this movie. I'm okay without a Skywalker Sound audio mix. I don't think it's what makes or breaks this film. In fact, I don't think most people will notice.

Now the real kicker, is I'm a huge blu-ray fanatic. I love collecting HD restorations of old films. Who knows where that comes from......well, one could argue that it's knowing you're seeing something as pristine as it'll ever be (or need to be) and it's still not perfect. The blu-ray of Wizard of Oz doesn't hold a match to Avatar, but that doesn't really change the fact that Avatar is a very bad movie.

Trailer Time

So first things first. The new trailer is live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc2b7J-zH2A

Spread the word, link it, like it, share it, tweet it. We want to get as many early views as possible to increase the snowball effect on youtube.


Also, this past weekend I finished the second cut of the film. It's down to an hour and 45 minutes without end credits.

I've got an ADR session with Kemer this weekend and will soon start heavy folley and mixing work. And shooting some practical special fx shots for the launch sequence.

Things are good right now.

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)

Finding the Time

It's been a whole month since I finished the rough cut. Today was the first time I touched it since.

I have somewhat good reasons. I got a puppy...or found a puppy sleeping on a country road in the middle of the night and decided to keep it. I've also had two of the most stressful weeks at work thus far, which caused me to get a cyst on my tailbone called "jeep seat," from military personnel who road on bumpy roads in crappy seats. I didn't have a crappy seat a work...not great, but I think it was a mix of the time spent in it and high levels of stress...anyway...talking to a surgeon tomorrow about getting the pouch it was formed in removed.

But still, a month is a long time when you consider I've been in post for 5.5 months and I only have 2.5 months left to finish it.

Sure I can classify what I have left as "fine tuning," but there's a lot of nitty gritty technical stuff that frankly takes a lot of time. I probably clocked in 6 hours of work on it today and only got through a 5 minute scene with color correcting and audio editing...also now it's a 2.5 minute scene. But I haven't put in sound effects or finished the audio mix...and that's just one scene from a feature film. I only have some many weekends left to push through this and it's starting to make me worry a little bit.

I need like a month off to just sit at my computer and grind through it.

So I guess the good news is that at least I have one scene almost 100%, but it was a relatively easy scene. No music. Only about 6 shots. No action or heavy foley.

But maybe this pressure is what I need to motivate me. I always work better under pressure...Unfortunately, I have a lot of other things pressuring me right now so editing time and recovery time end up being the same time.


Also, I've upgraded to CS5 since I finished the rough cut which means native DSLR support in premiere...Now I can finally actually edit at full resolution...That's the price of the cutting edge.