Tales from a tilted perspective

That's right, an update in the middle of the week! Who'da thunk it? This is what you get when things are actually happening at their proper speed.

So, a lot's been done since that last post. First off, the morning after scene is all done, and it came out great. Both actors delivered solid performances, the sound was good, etc. The only thing that was weak about this scene was it really displayed my utter failure as a set decorator - I really need to get someone to help me out with that on the next one:


The only part of this scene that I'm not sure we'll be able to keep is the dropping-off scene, because the audio is really bad. Between the wind and the cicadas, you can barely hear the actors. If I can talk them into dubbing their voices for this scene (and it's only one line each) then maybe it can be saved:


During this shoot we left the camera rolling between some of the takes, and got a lot of really funny outtakes that may someday be found in the special features section of the DVD (if we can find someone who can scrub the sound enough to make the voices easy to hear). One of my favorite bits was this exchange between Tony (boom mic operator), and Crystal (actress) talking about the sound of the nearby cicadas:

Tony: It sounds like the end of the world in my head!
Ameer: It does!
Crystal: Is that what the end of the world sounds like?
Tony: Yes.
Crystal: Wow. I wanna hear that. I wanna hear the end of the world.
Leland: Yeah, give her the headset!
Crystal: Please? can I hear the end of the world?
Tony: No.

Another time we spent about five minutes throwing rocks at the tree that the loudest cicada was in, trying to shut it up. No such luck, of course, and it was driving us crazy at the time, but it's funny when we look back on it now. :)

I've been dealing with another technical issue the past few days, which you may have noticed in the screenshots in the last post. Namely, in a lot of our shots the image is tilted. The exact reasons behind these errors remains under investigation. However, as I know of no method for traveling back in time to adjust the tripod, I've been looking for a post-production solution. This proved a little harder than I expected, because Avid Xpress DV doesn't actually come with a rotate filter. You have to buy Pro for that, and while it is very annoying I couldn't see spending the disgusting amount of money it costs for the upgrade. Fortunately, I managed to find a free Emboss filter by Boris that includes a rotate function, so now I'm going to be able to fix all those tilted scenes! For the record, that filter can be downloaded here.

Here's some before and after pictures of the shots that were tilted.

Original:


Rotated 3 degrees counter-clockwise:


This one was a little tough, because that wooden pillar just left of Crystal is bowed in a funny way. However, if you compare the door behind her in the before/after images, you can clearly see how tilted it was. Now, rotating the image obviously produces those empty corners, but fear not. Once the scene is cropped to 16:9 and scaled just a tad to fit, those will completely disappear:


Here's part of Scene 17:

Original:


Rotated clockwise 2 degrees:



So, lesson for next time: spend an extra few seconds making sure the camera is actually level. Thank #deity we are doing this all digitally so that it's actually possible to fix this kind of thing in post. Someday we'll be doing a project on film, and while it will still be fixable once the film is telecined into an editing machine and digitized, it will be a pain in the ass. Plus, it's just a total rookie mistake, the kind we won't be able to afford to make when 35mm film is screaming through the camera at $90 per minute.

Right now I'm working on scene 21, the scene where Clint goes back to Jessica and doesn't quite tell her the whole story about what happened the night before.


I'm considering cutting this scene out entirely, for a variety of reasons. It is kind of necessary to the plot, but it has three main problems. First, it wasn't all that well written to begin with. Second, the actors weren't able to bring life to it (probably due to time constraints, stress, and poor direction), and finally the technical aspects are in terrible shape. I think every single shot is out of focus, and the sound is awful. This is because this was one of the scenes hurriedly shot on the day when I was running both the camera and sound all by myself.

I'll still edit the scene together, even if I decide not to use it. It'll end up in the DVD special features alongside the computer pod classroom scene and some of the other stuff I've cut. Although I knew this already, I am developing a new appreciation for why scenes get cut out of movies, and why the "director's cut" isn't always better...

After Scene 21 comes the inside-the-truck scene, which I'm really looking forward to. Stay tuned for more updates!

A New Beginning

So I had a very enjoyable trip back to Albuquerque last week, and came back to California with a renewed sense of purpose. I took back a DVD of what I've gotten done so far and showed it to a number of people, and got positive feedback from them all. The fact that they were all positive about it is mildly suspicious, but since they're my friends I suppose I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So, as promised, now that it's a new school quarter for me and I've gotten some feedback on the movie, I'm forging ahead with the rough cut. I'm also sketching out the course of the post-production and recruiting the necessary crew to make it happen. Here's the plan:

First, I have to finish the rough cut. I really have no excuse for not having it done already. Nothing else can really proceed until it's done, and it's something only I can do. Thanks to the ego boost I got while in town, I'm ready to get this sucker finished. Since getting back on Monday, I've finished three major scenes. By the end of this week, I expect to hit the halfway point, and I'm hoping to have the whole movie edited together by the 14th of May.

There are still a couple of things that need to be filmed; mostly filler stuff like shots of the mountains and so forth. I'll need to come back to Abq to get that stuff done, and I'm not sure when.

Besides that, what needs to happen is sound mastering, foley work, and music. I'm working out the exact details of how each of these will be done and by whom, and I expect it to take all summer. Extra shooting and video cleanup/perfection will also be done this summer.

Ideally (meaning it won't happen) I'd like to have the movie just about done by mid-August. That way, we'd have enought time to design the first DVD and get some produced before the debut.

Speaking of which, the news you've probably all been waiting (anxiously on the edge of your seats) for: the premiere date! I want to shoot for mid-September, say Friday, September 16 or so. This will put the premiere almost exactly a year after production wrapped (September 22).

Go ahead and keep checking this blog every Monday morning; I'm going to keep updating on a weekly basis as we get things done. I apologize for the slow rate of progress thus far, and I promise things are going to speed up from here.

So, the scenes I've finished this week:

Scene 14 went together pretty well. This was the scene I decided to re-shoot, because the original set was a drab interior. We took it outside and I like it a lot better this way. This was also toward the end of production, when I realized we had way too many tripod shots with no sense of motion in them, so I insisted on filming Leland's angle as a handheld shot as well as a tripod shot. This let me switch between them during the scene. The scene starts and ends with the tripod shots; in the middle, when Clint is hit with this scene's surprise, it switches to the handheld shots, reinforcing the sense of confusion and high emotion he's feeling. It also helps that, for whatever reason, Leland really pulled out the emotion during the handheld shots, and delivers some of his best acting of the film as he's yelling at Anna.

Clint (Leland) tries to deal with what Jessica (Anna) has just told him.


"Do you have any idea how fucked up that sounds?!"


"Let me know how it goes."


Scene 15 was filmed on our absolute worst night for sound. Thank #deity that Ameer and Tony were both there to help us with the sound, or we'd be seriously doomed with this one. As a result of their expert sound management, this will probably not be the hardest scene to fix soundwise: that honor goes to scenes 2, 7, 8, and 21: the ones where I was doing all the camera and sound work. This one'll still require some work though, as the wind was really bad and the sound of our rustling lighting gels fills the scene like the sound of many tiny bones being eaten.


"Try not to sound so upset about it... a girl might get the wrong impression."

Scene 16/17: The Route 66 Diner scene! Oh how I have waited to get to this scene! How I knew it would put to shame all the scenes I'd had to edit before! This scene came out GREAT. The sound was excellent, the lighting was good, the setting looked great, the acting was spot on, everything! The only problem I had was that we didn't get perfect coverage: for some reason when we filmed Crystal's closeup, we had her start about halfway through the scene. I think it's because we were running out of time and decided to rush it, but that really limited my options for how to put together the first half of the scene. I think it worked out okay, though. And compared to the spotty coverage of some of our other scenes, I have nothing to complain about here.


"They have fantastic milkshakes here."


"Try. . . appealing to my intellect."


Riley (Crystal) listens intently.


"Say someone was writing a biography of Caligula..."

Scene 17B wasn't actually in the script, but we decided to add it after talking over the script with Leland and Crystal. I seem to remember it was Crystal's idea to add a scene between the diner and the next one, and it turned out that Leland went to swing dancing at the Heights Community Center all the time, so we decided to do that. I was happy to do it; back when I lived in Abq I used to go down there on Tuesday nights, and it was nice to reconnect with that history.


I'm actually pondering the idea of going back to the community center to film a band playing on the stage to intercut with the dancing... it would be nice, but of course not entirely necessary. Depends on who we get to do the music for this scene and whether they'd want to go to the effort of being in the movie.

Next up: The Morning After Scene!

On another note, if you're in Albuquerque and looking to work on a movie, Billy is in the middle of filming his next movie, Necroville. Check out some pics from the set here. You can keep up with the haps here and here. If you get in touch with Billy, there might still be time to play a zombie. :)