Dec 3, 2012

Enter Soundman

deadvotessociety Blog, Uncategorized Arizona State Senate, comedy, Coyote Radio Theater, Dead Votes Society, directing, editing, entertainment, film, independent film, independent movie, movie soundtrack, post-production, sound engineering, studio, zombie

Sunday night, Angie (Madame Producer) and I (Herr Director) met with our good friend Matt Jackson (musician/composer/sound engineer) and went over the rough cut of “Dead Votes Society.”

This was the first time Angie had seen my rough cut of the short. As you may remember, she’s doing her own cut, so we can compare and come up with a version that uses the best from both of our approaches. And doesn’t lead to fist fights in the editing bay.

It was also the first time Matt had seen the rough cut. In fact, its the first time the three of us have worked together since the days of Coyote Radio Theater on KJZA. We’d had a great time doing that, we respect the man and knew he worked in a simular comedic vein to Christian, Angie and I.

Earlier in the process, Matt and I had talked about how we’d like to approach the project. We decided he would write and create the music, and oversee the post-production sound at his studio. Premiere Pro 6 and Pro Tools 9 HD would be the software of choice.

First, we watched the 10:40 rough cut just for fun and to see when the laughs were coming in at this point. Thankfully, there were some. (Hey, after all this editing, its difficult sometimes to remember where it is funny.)

Then, we watched it a second time and took notes. We agreed its easier to adjust the length of the music, so Matt is going to rough out the music cues while we still are futzing around with the editing. We came up with some musical ideas for Matt to explore.

We talked about how to solve the unwanted background sounds on the Square (more on that later).

I love working with talented people. More importantly, people who I enjoy hanging with, just as much as I respect their work. Feeling a great 2nd wind coming on!

Nov 21, 2012

Back And To The Left . . . Back And To The Left . . . Back And To The Left

deadvotessociety Blog comedy, Dead Votes Society, directing, editing, entertainment, film, horror, independent film, independent movie, post-production, Premiere Pro, short movie, video, zombies

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!

Oct 31, 2012

Hurry Up and Wait…

deadvotessociety Blog comedy, digital effects, editing, horror, independent movie, movie soundtrack, post-production, sound engineering, zombies

“So when can I see your movie?”

That has to be the question we are asked most. Even on the set of the last day of shooting folks wanted to know when the movie will be done and ready to watch. While most people are familiar with “hurry up and wait” when talking about working on set, it’s also a very accurate description of the post-production process.

Unless you’re doing a quickie, completely amateur movie for YouTube, the truth is that post-production takes a fair chunk o’ time to complete. Right now we’re in the process of cataloging the shots, audio files and scriptie notes. That has to be completed before we can even start editing the video.

Once the editing is done, the movie heads off to our AfterEffects guy. We really wanted to try out as many aspects of movie-making as we could, while keeping the process fairly simple. So yeah, we’ve got some green screen work and digital effects (no CGI, ’cause we’re not completely crazy), plus the end credits, etc. that need doin’.

Once we’ve got an edit with the AfterEffects that we feel good about, then the whole shebang goes off to the sound team of Matt Jackson and Nick Stecki. These guys will work their magic on the sound mastering, Matt will create some original music for the flick, and we’ll deal with any ADR (automated dialogue replacement, or additional dialogue recording) that needs to be done. Considering the vast number of motorcycles, dogs howling and children screaming on the last shoot, we will probably be stuck dealing with some ADR. Not my first choice, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right?

After all of that, we’ll have a finished short movie and the work of submitting to various film festivals, including Prescott’s own film festival begins. So, yeah, “Hurry up and wait.”

But fear not! We will keep y’all up to date on the process and there will be a big ol’ announcement when we have our premier here in this lil’ mountain town.

editing