Back And To The Left . . . Back And To The Left . . . Back And To The Left
Perhaps you are beginning to tire of our endless posts about editing in Premiere Pro (CS6)? Don’t blame ya. Felt that way Day Three myself.
And yet . . . as Benny Hill would say, “Learning . . . Always Learning.” Today, I have rough-cut footage for the whole piece running at 8 minutes. Slowly, I nip and tuck at the transitions, a frame away here, a frame away there. I see friends and feel like we spent the whole night together but it was just their image scampering around the editing screen, “Back and To The Left . . . Back and To The Left!” I re-did the last 5 seconds tonight, totally changing the rhythm. Fascinating.
I find myself getting giddy when I learn a new shortcut – currently Grave Key is my favorite. What’s yours?
I start to look at the material, the look and feel of the piece differently. My god, there’s so many ways to approach the flow with these. And that’s before we smooth out the audio and make soundtrack music. Its overwhelming, in a good way.
And, may I say, God bless the Cut-Away Shot! Young film makers, you cannot have too many of them. Seriously, they are miracles of coverage and will save your butt. ‘Course, as the older, wiser Spielberg would even admit, you don’t HAVE to use them all in the final picture. But, they are golden for getting you out of situations like a nightmarish repeated jump cut dead end.
So, the battle rages on. We are winning. Matt Jackson will start writing the soundtrack around December 4th and this is all very exciting. Viva los Zombies!
Creative Overload Alert!
Lots going on here, even though technically we are STILL EDITING!!! So don’t ask me yet when you can see the movie, ’cause it’s gonna be a few more months, at the minimum.
But don’t think all we’re doing is sitting around in our undies in front of the flickering light of the computer monitor, editing like crazed monkeys. Okay, that is part of it, but there’s an awful lot of other stuff going on too.
Like…prepping the Press Kit, working on a fer reals website, researching various film festivals, revising the script for the feature and exploring some other (related) creative projects. So yes, at the mo’, this household is on creative work overload. And we wouldn’t want it any other way.
But if you come across a spare bit of brain matter floating around, know that it’s just us doing our best to keep the zombies fed!
A VAMPIRE PERSPECTIVE
Every Friday, this blog will re-post a letter to the editor of the “Crest Top Chronicle” newspaper, to provide a platform for voices from the community concerning some of the real issues raised by the short film “Dead Votes Society.” This week: vampire activist Isabella Barlow.
OK, so this is like what I don’t get. All these zombies- and all the breathers out there advocating for zombies- are moaning and groaning (literally) about how zombies don’t have the right to vote. Boo-freakin’-hoo. I mean, hello, we vampires can’t vote either, and you don’t hear us complaining about it. I myself have resided in America since the end of the Civil War, but just because I didn’t have the good fortune to have died here, I am not considered a citizen. There are literally dozens of others like me out there, our plight all but ignored while the stupid zombies get all the attention. Nobody’s asking to see their death certificates. And nobody’s spraying holy water in their faces when they gather to protest, either. But again, you don’t hear us complaining.
And it’s not like there’s any shortage of issues that are important to us. Like take just for example the blood that’s running through your veins. It’s not like you earned that. You were born with it. Vampires should be entitled to a fair redistribution of inherited sanguinary wealth. But we’re not likely to receive our fair share of this nation’s hemo-resources if we’re not allowed a voice in government.
Vampires are for a strict separation of church and state – let’s keep crucifixes out of all buildings, thank you. We’re for comprehensive food labeling laws- we have a right to know if our food was processed in a plant where it might have come into contact with garlic. We’re for marriage equality (most vampires are bisexual at the very least,) we’re for environmental concerns (global warming means a lot more sunlight) and we’re for strict dress codes at the nation’s nightclubs. And what’s stopping us from achieving these goals? That’s right. Corporate America, man. F****n’ corporate America and the brainless consumer support system they’d receive if zombies are given the vote and we’re not.
But you don’t hear us complaining about it.
ISABELLA BARLOW was born in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains sometime in the late 18th Century. She spent most of the 20th Century attending high school and has thus far devoted the 21st to protesting outside of various blood banks. The views expressed here are hers alone and do not reflect those of the administrators of this blog or in fact of anyone, anywhere, ever.
My Zombie Movie Is in Pieces!
*Production Designer Penelope Davis has guts ‘n zombie parts!
Yeah, okay. I was a little busy last week and completely spaced out on the blog post. So here’s the latest update on our progress!
Last week, we merged the video footage with the audio tracks and now the real fun – and work – is fully underway. It’s a little weird, because even though the finished movie will run somewhere around nine minutes, we have about an hour and a half of multiple takes and variations of shots to work with.
And thank god for that! A good edit means the shots flow so that most people have don’t stop to think that a different shot is being used. Mainly because the transition just makes sense. Andrew’s got a pretty nifty first pass almost done and I’ll be taking a swing at my version later today.
“Say what?” you ask. “But why do TWO different edits?” Since Andrew and I know each other – and the overall vision of the movie – so well, we decided it would be easiest to each make an edit so we could actually SEE the editing decisions, discuss them and then make the final cut. We’ve worked on a lot of projects together, and we tend to talk about everything before making big decisions.
Maybe not the norm, but then we’ve never been the ones who do things in the ‘normal’ way. We just do what works for us.
So hooray for editing and viva los zombies!
WHAT I SAID, BUT WOULD NOT YOU LISTEN PEOPLE
Every Friday, this blog will re-post a letter to the editor of the “Crest Top Chronicle” newspaper, to provide a platform for voices from the community concerning some of the real issues raised by the short film “Dead Votes Society.” This week: undead voting activist Zeke Steppinski.
NOTE: MR. STEPPINSKI, AN UNDEAD AMERICAN, COMPOSED THIS LETTER WITH THE AID OF GLOBECO’S G2T® GRUNT-TO-TEXT AUTO-TRANSLATION SOFTWARE.
When I started my campaign to regain voting rights for Americans dead at the end of 2010, I had thought that there would be enough time to <<UNKNOWN PHRASING ERROR>> Zombies, nevertheless, are the most precipitously on the increase demon graphic in the USA populace, and as such ask for to have their voices have the sense of hearing. I had no brainwave, on the other hand, the sum of forbearance <<TRANSLATE SERVER ERROR>> indomitable to repudiate my comrades their most axiomatic American right.
America has from tip to toe defecated racism, and homosexual terror is rapidly befalling a thing of the past, butdiscrimination (and even spurting in the head) against zombies is still far and wide customary. Because of these anti-dead predispositions, efforts at propagandizing zombie suffering have been buggered at every level. And now America is arousing to the aftermaths of their percipience. Every agreeable American’s worst incubus: four more years of Borat Hansen Odorama.
If zombies had been permissible to particulate in the ballot vote on a coast-to-coast parallel with the ground, every <<OBJECT NOT SET TO A REFERENCE>> we would be looking at the far more to your liking panorama of a Glove Romero dispensation. Just think, no OdorCare with its openly anti-zombie death panels. No blitzes on human handgun rights or religious lack of restrictions. The new dawn of the dead America. But no, you publics just had to persevere with the dead down in the dumps. In a way, it obliges you correctly.
Though the 2012 voting is in our rear end, the zombie people entitled to vote can still spasm the deluge in 2016. If you form a junction with us in <<FATAL SYNTAX ERROR>> for the voting rights of all Americans, be they undead or full of beans, simultaneously we can disclaim our terrain from the Socialite-Muzzle Librarian Schema. Only look-in and entreat that it won’t be tardily.
ZEKE STEPPINSKY is President of the Arizona Dead Votes Society, a grass-roots organization pushing for zombie suffrage at state and local levels. The views expressed here are his alone and do not reflect those of the administrators of this blog or in fact of anyone, anywhere, ever.
LIBERALS CAN VOTE, SO WHY NOT ZOMBIES?
Every Friday, this blog will re-post a letter to the editor of the “Crest Top Chronicle” newspaper, to provide a platform for voices from the community concerning some of the real issues raised by the short film “Dead Votes Society.” This week: conservative radio host Roger Schlaumberger.