Self-imposed Slavery
Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry for no post last week. I've just been really busy the past few weeks. Last weekend, my dad was here in California for a visit, so I was busy with him and spaced the update. . . but as I hadn't really gotten anything done, it wasn't a big deal.
Then last night I didn't get this post up because I was working on a paper due today. I had to write a 20-25 page paper on a case study about Outback Steakhouse, and I didn't even start working on it until last night at 5 p.m. I worked on it til 4 or so, then got up at 9 and finished it at 2 p.m. today. It ended up being 31 pages long; 27 pages of text plus a cover sheet, table of contents, and two pages of exhibits. Yet another example of how I wait until the absolute last minute and then fake my way through things. Come to think of it though, a steak sounds pretty good right about now. . .
Anyway, this week has been a lot more productive movie-wise, and I'm happy to report some real progress. I finally forged through the pool hall scene, and it wasn't as bad as I'd feared it would be. I ended up not using any of the real artistic shots, though, which is a little disappointing. I just couldn't fit them in - the continuity wasn't there.
So, what we are left with in the meat of the conversation is this somewhat lopsided conversation:
For whatever reason, we didn't get a medium shot of Leland during this part of the scene, nor did we get a closeup of Aaron. So, we're left with this. It doesn't really look so bad in the film, I just would've preferred to have two shots like Aaron's. Ah well, that's what storyboarding is for.
It was during the cutting of this scene that I (re)discovered a serious problem: Leland skipped a line! I remember we knew about this during the shoot, after we'd already filmed Leland's closeup. The pressure was on, so we didn't go back and re-shoot it. I kinda regret that now, but as it turns out, the scene works okay if I just cut out that line and Aaron's response:
CLINT
ANDY
Last update I mentioned the little sound issue we have with the part of the scene that had to be re-filmed at a later time. Since this second time we couldn't tell everyone in the bar to shut up, there ended up being a lot of background noise. I have no idea how we can deal with this, maybe one of you audio gurus can give me some hope (please?). I thought I'd post this screen cap so you can see how different the graph looks:
On the plus side,the visual aspect of that shot matches with the rest of the scene perfectly, so it won't be any trouble at all that way. Just gonna have to figure out that damn sound. . .
The best part of this whole pool hall scene was the job interview bit. I spent an hour going through all the takes we did, and having myself a pretty damn good laugh. We were downright slap-happy by the end there, but I suppose that's okay. We were just so damn glad to be done. Here's some stills from the completed scene:
I ended up using the fifth take we did with Aaron, as well as a little bit from the fourth. So yeah, we probably didn't need to do thirty takes of that. I put Monica's bit together from parts of her tenth and eleventh take, so it's just as well we did fifteen of those.
Those of you who were there (and were paying attention) may notice that I used one of the shots of Aaron before we moved a potted plant to cover that wacky light effect on the upper right wall. I figured screw it, that was the funniest take so that's the one I used. Nobody's going to care, I don't think. I just hope it doesn't distract too much from the image. This frame is from the part of the scene where Andy is just staring blankly at the secretary after she says "your english is very good!" Aaron kept that exact pose for like five seconds. He's so still that it looks like I just replicated a single frame for several seconds, so I used a part of the shot near the end where he blinks once. I'm still laughing about it as I write, it has got to be the funniest part of the whole movie.
So, now that that scene's out of the way, I've moved on to another challenging one: the "breakup" scene. This is the only scene that was re-filmed in a different location. As some of you will no doubt remember (with a shudder), this scene was first filmed at the computer pod at around 4 in the morning after a long, long night of marathon filming. Not an auspicious start to our little venture. The fact that everyone was completely dead on their feet wasn't really the problem though. It was the boring composition. I just didn't like the flat, boring walls of the classroom:
The scene actually came out okay, if a little less energetic than I wanted. I decided to re-film this in order to get a little more motion and emotional energy in it. I also wanted to break out of the cramped indoor feel that a lot of the scenes in this movie have. I don't know how we did it, but we managed to film a movie on all kinds of amazing locations, and made it look like it was filmed in a small studio. Bleh. So I wanted to go outside with this.
I may edit the original filming of the scene together too, as like a DVD feature or something, but mainly just to see how it looks. Who knows, maybe I'll still end up using it. I doubt it, though; I like the outdoor setting a little better.
This scene doesn't have any big continuity issues or problems that I'm aware of, other than the fact that the lighting kept changing on us as clouds went by overhead. Hopefully that can be mitigated with careful editing, however. I'm hoping to get this scene done this week, if I can find enough time, and then I'll finally have reached the fun part of the movie: the date with Riley. That should go a lot easier, because for most of that shoot we had a lot of crew and sufficient time, and set up our shots well. Keep coming back here for updates!
Then last night I didn't get this post up because I was working on a paper due today. I had to write a 20-25 page paper on a case study about Outback Steakhouse, and I didn't even start working on it until last night at 5 p.m. I worked on it til 4 or so, then got up at 9 and finished it at 2 p.m. today. It ended up being 31 pages long; 27 pages of text plus a cover sheet, table of contents, and two pages of exhibits. Yet another example of how I wait until the absolute last minute and then fake my way through things. Come to think of it though, a steak sounds pretty good right about now. . .
Anyway, this week has been a lot more productive movie-wise, and I'm happy to report some real progress. I finally forged through the pool hall scene, and it wasn't as bad as I'd feared it would be. I ended up not using any of the real artistic shots, though, which is a little disappointing. I just couldn't fit them in - the continuity wasn't there.
So, what we are left with in the meat of the conversation is this somewhat lopsided conversation:
For whatever reason, we didn't get a medium shot of Leland during this part of the scene, nor did we get a closeup of Aaron. So, we're left with this. It doesn't really look so bad in the film, I just would've preferred to have two shots like Aaron's. Ah well, that's what storyboarding is for.
It was during the cutting of this scene that I (re)discovered a serious problem: Leland skipped a line! I remember we knew about this during the shoot, after we'd already filmed Leland's closeup. The pressure was on, so we didn't go back and re-shoot it. I kinda regret that now, but as it turns out, the scene works okay if I just cut out that line and Aaron's response:
ANDY
What I’m saying is that if you go off to Japan or New York or someplace you'll never be the boss. You’ll be lucky to find a job kissing someone’s ass.
If nothing I do in my entire life has any effect on the world, then what was the point? I’ll just be another random peon. I want to be someone who matters.
So you never cure cancer or become a movie star or a Wall Street player. So what? Do you have any idea how many people move to the big city every year saying stuff like that? Do you know how many wannabe actors are working at gas stations in Hollywood, hoping to be noticed? How many wannabe CEOs are working in mailrooms in New York City? Screw that action, man. That’s self-imposed slavery.
ANDY sinks the nine ball. CLINT thinks over what ANDY has said while he racks the balls.
CLINT
So, on the one hand I'm disappointed those lines won't be in the final cut. That was really supposed to be the meat of the whole conversation. On the other hand, though, the lines were a little hokey, and I think the rest of the conversation gets the message across perfectly well.So, you seem to have a lot of opinions on this. Haven’t you ever thought of leaving Albuquerque?
Last update I mentioned the little sound issue we have with the part of the scene that had to be re-filmed at a later time. Since this second time we couldn't tell everyone in the bar to shut up, there ended up being a lot of background noise. I have no idea how we can deal with this, maybe one of you audio gurus can give me some hope (please?). I thought I'd post this screen cap so you can see how different the graph looks:
On the plus side,the visual aspect of that shot matches with the rest of the scene perfectly, so it won't be any trouble at all that way. Just gonna have to figure out that damn sound. . .
The best part of this whole pool hall scene was the job interview bit. I spent an hour going through all the takes we did, and having myself a pretty damn good laugh. We were downright slap-happy by the end there, but I suppose that's okay. We were just so damn glad to be done. Here's some stills from the completed scene:
I ended up using the fifth take we did with Aaron, as well as a little bit from the fourth. So yeah, we probably didn't need to do thirty takes of that. I put Monica's bit together from parts of her tenth and eleventh take, so it's just as well we did fifteen of those.
Those of you who were there (and were paying attention) may notice that I used one of the shots of Aaron before we moved a potted plant to cover that wacky light effect on the upper right wall. I figured screw it, that was the funniest take so that's the one I used. Nobody's going to care, I don't think. I just hope it doesn't distract too much from the image. This frame is from the part of the scene where Andy is just staring blankly at the secretary after she says "your english is very good!" Aaron kept that exact pose for like five seconds. He's so still that it looks like I just replicated a single frame for several seconds, so I used a part of the shot near the end where he blinks once. I'm still laughing about it as I write, it has got to be the funniest part of the whole movie.
So, now that that scene's out of the way, I've moved on to another challenging one: the "breakup" scene. This is the only scene that was re-filmed in a different location. As some of you will no doubt remember (with a shudder), this scene was first filmed at the computer pod at around 4 in the morning after a long, long night of marathon filming. Not an auspicious start to our little venture. The fact that everyone was completely dead on their feet wasn't really the problem though. It was the boring composition. I just didn't like the flat, boring walls of the classroom:
The scene actually came out okay, if a little less energetic than I wanted. I decided to re-film this in order to get a little more motion and emotional energy in it. I also wanted to break out of the cramped indoor feel that a lot of the scenes in this movie have. I don't know how we did it, but we managed to film a movie on all kinds of amazing locations, and made it look like it was filmed in a small studio. Bleh. So I wanted to go outside with this.
I may edit the original filming of the scene together too, as like a DVD feature or something, but mainly just to see how it looks. Who knows, maybe I'll still end up using it. I doubt it, though; I like the outdoor setting a little better.
This scene doesn't have any big continuity issues or problems that I'm aware of, other than the fact that the lighting kept changing on us as clouds went by overhead. Hopefully that can be mitigated with careful editing, however. I'm hoping to get this scene done this week, if I can find enough time, and then I'll finally have reached the fun part of the movie: the date with Riley. That should go a lot easier, because for most of that shoot we had a lot of crew and sufficient time, and set up our shots well. Keep coming back here for updates!
posted by 505 Films at
1:55 AM
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