WOP Screening Response

I'm not posting in the usual format cause nothing new has happened except the screening. The "work in progress" screening went really really well actually. I was very very nervous. I thought the movie was going to look awful, sound awful and a whole bunch of people were going to see it before it's done. Thankfully only 8-10 people showed, it looked pretty good, and sounded pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised. People laughed steadily and were actively engaged the whole time. The screening turned out to be a breath of fresh air for me regarding the project. I hate getting burnt out on the footage but there's not much i can do. The screening has re-motivated me. I'll try and keep it in mind while i start to get burnt out again in the next few weeks as we're finishing up the film.

Why Dan Why?

Picture:
Effects
Nothing New

Color
So apparently Dan hasn’t done a thing and asked me the other day if I want someone else to do it. I’m starting to doubt whether he’ll do it at all. I really don’t want to add another thing to my plate. Maybe I’ll just have Grady do it to give him a break from sound. I’ll have to talk to Dan about it.

Credits
Nothing New

Picture Misc
I’ve been playing around with exporting from final cut. I want to make sure that when the movie is all said and done and I do the final export, that I export at the highest possible quality, etc, etc. I played around with doing a little exporting for the old trailer for the new website. I also was trying to cut off the bottom and top black bars so that the picture is just the widescreen picture as apposed to a full screen image with black bars on it. i figured out a way to do it but it seemed to hurt the image quality. There’s a few people I need to talk to about it.

Sound
Effects
nothing new

Room Tones
nothing new

ADR
I haven’t called Kristin yet. I keep hoping to get an email from her. Maybe I’ll call her tomorrow. I’m starting to worry she’ll file a restraining order on me or something. I’ve got a contract with her signature that says she’d come in for ADR, but who knows. I just wish she’d communicate with me more.

Mixing
syncing is still taking longer than I thought. This group project in particular is taking a long time. Grady’s been taking a few days off, come to think of it, so have I. It’s hard for me to work in the lab because I get distracted by friends and people who need help. I’m anxious for the semester to get closer to ending so that the lab dies down.

Music
Nothing New

Misc Sound
For ADR syncing I started a “group” project in sound track in which I am putting together all of the off screen dialogue that’s more of a “director” thing. I’m trying to be effeciant so I can get all this syncing done and this is stuff that Grady wouldn’t know what to do with. It’s going ok so far.

Marketing
Website
Nothing New

Trailer
Nothing New

Posters
Johnny sent me the finished poster for the four guys (adam, ben, kent, and josh). It looks great. I spent about 2 hours doing detail work, just cleaning up individual pixels that didn’t get filled in with the paint bucket tool he was using. But I didn’t want to bug him with that stuff that’s not really creative work but more bitch work. I can do that. It’s good to try to do the bitch work for the people that work for you for free. It’s the least I can do. I talked to Kenny today about doing the Photoshop work with titles and credits and stuff. He’s real good at stuff like that.

Misc Marketing
Nothing New

Misc in General
screening is tomorrow. Should be interesting….

WOP Screening

So here’s an email I sent out to the cast and crew and some other people yesterday:

Hey Everyone,

I found out last night that we will be doing a MH Work in Progress Screening, hosted by the ASU SOTF this coming Sunday 4/20 at 4pm in Neeb Hall at the ASU Tempe Campus. We will be screening the version of the film that was submitted to the 2008 IFP Rough Cut Lab 3 Weeks ago. Even though the picture is locked the film is NOT finished. If you choose to come to the screening, the version you will see will have no original music (only temp copy righten material), No color correction or frame adjustments, no ADR, Foley, or Room tone work done, absolutely no mixing and No credits. The film will be completed by the end of May and there will be a cast and crew completion screening where you will receive our copy of the film.

Please email me if you have any questions.

So with that said, here’s my update for today

Picture:
Effects
I’ve been conversing with Antonio over chat and email and he’s on board. We need to get together at some point but I don’t think it’s going to be until the beginning of May

Color
Dan still has the footage and still should be working on it as we speak.

Credits
I’ve begun email people about names of people that should be in the credits, like special thanks to people who approved things that I never met. That kind of stuff.

Picture Misc
As I work meticulously on the sound syncning I’ve noticed a few shots where the actors look into the cameras. Most of them are on simple shots with no dialog so sometime in the next 2 weeks or so I need to go back and review all of the takes and see if I can find a better one. I wont change the timing of the edits at all, so the picture lock will remain the same, just going to try to swap some stuff out for other stuff.

Sound
Effects
nothing new

Room Tones
nothing new

ADR
I have the space reserved for the 26^th and as of right now Ali and Jamie are coming from California. I need to email Kristin today. I emailed her a week ago about coming in on the 26^th and I never got a response. I’ll try again today. If I don’t hear back from her by tomorrow I’ll start calling her. As I’ve been synching I’ve found a line we missed for Ben. So he’s going to come in on the 26^th as well. And we also have one last line with nate that we didn’t finish back in march.

Mixing
syncing is STILL taking FOREVER. We will finish doing the sync on the aDR by the end of the semester, in fact we should finish by the end of this weekend, but it is incredibly tedious and an awful process. Oh well, I guess it’s my burden to carry. And grady’s :P

Music
I met with Tom for a mini spotting session yesterday. It went well. He’s stressed cause he thinks the movie needs pop culture music in some places. Hopefully he’ll be able to let go of that as we don’t have any money. Haven’t heard back from Danielle in a while. I wonder what she’s up too? Also, some of the temp music I found online may actually be free to use. I need to make some phone calls to find out. I’ll let you know.

Misc Sound
For ADR syncing I started a “group” project in sound track in which I am putting together all of the off screen dialogue that’s more of a “director” thing. I’m trying to be effeciant so I can get all this syncing done and this is stuff that Grady wouldn’t know what to do with. It’s going ok so far.

Marketing
Website
So I went to start really putting all the pages of the website together, at least in terms of code, and I hit a really big snag. It’s complicated so I wont bore you with code jargon like I bore you with film jargon, but suffice it to say, I can’t do what I wanted to do. I’m going to have to work with separate pages instead of just one. Oh well. Someday when I’m a big powerful executive ;) I’ll pay someone who knows how to do this stuff to do it the way I want it.

Trailer
Drew hasn’t responded to any of my emails. I hope I don’t have to recut a new trailer myself. Schools almost done. I’ll let you know.

Posters
I had a real productive day with Johnny yesterday. We got a whole bunch done. He sent me a bunchof drafts and was popping stuff out left and right. Hopefully we’ll be done soon but I don’t want to put a timeline on it cause who knows.

Misc Marketing
Nothing from IMDB

Misc in General
We submitted to the IFP Rough Cut lab again. We should find out if we are accepted around the 15^th of May.

So nothing has been happening with this so called “screening” on the 20^th for like weeks. I have been asking Miguel and other people what room the screening will be in so I can do some tests for over a month now. Well I hadn’t heard from anyone for so long I decided about a week ago to stop panicking about having the movie in a watchable state. Well, Tuesday I had an AFA thing to do with Tapia in which Miguel attended and he ever so slightly leaned towards me and said, “the screening room for Sunday is Neeb Hall if you want to do your tests.” Well that’s just great. There’s absolutely no time for me to do any tests and the movie is certainly not in a watchable state. He noticed I wasn’t too happy about it and asked me about the movie and I told him what I just stated above. Anyway, so I was mad for a couple of days but then got over it. I’m just going to screen the copy I sent to IFP. I figure, if it’s good enough to submit to IFP it’s good enough to screen for my peers. And I truly believe that only a few cast and crew and my peers will show up to this thing. The school is doing Zero advertising for it. Plus they just sent out an email about Switzers capstone screening at the end of April and most students are confused and think that there is only one screening. Even some of the students screening keep telling me as of yesterday that the Sunday was canceled and moved to the 28^th (which is Switzers thing). I know this isn’t true cause I talked to Miguel about it yesterday as well. So like I said, I’m not panicking and I’ve just sort of given in. I’m going to finish the movie and sell it and it will be wonderful. Yay.

How i feel right now

Snycing sucks :(

Synching Sucks

So my apologies for not posting for a week. here's what's been going on.

Picture:
Effects
I never posted to Craig's list cause i got a response from the notice i sent out to the AFA. I'm probably going to be working with an old friend on the effects stuff. Antonio Chang. I'll have to email him later tonight to give him more details of what I'll need.

Color
Dan has the footage and should have be working on it as we speak.

Credits
i've started working on the credits. At least designing the lay out and stuff in photo shop. i'll have to go through all my old paperwork to lock it in when i'm done. it's good though cause it gives me something to do when i can't be in the lab or do anything else.

Picture Misc
nothing new.

Sound
Effects
nothing new

Room Tones
nothing new

ADR
Kristin couldn't come in this weekend :( . Adam came but Ben was like 3 hours late and we only had 10 minutes to get the Double Teaming is gay dialog. We got it, but it was a close one. All the stuff i wanted them to do together had to be split up. the facility let Jamie McKeel and us come in on Sunday so i shortened her time to an hour and brought Ben in for the other hour. Adam had to keep re arranging his schedule cause of Ben being late. Thanks Adam. Also, Jamie McKeel was late on sunday so i switched the hours around and called Ben to see if he could come in early. he did. thanks Ben. We almost had the cops called on us...again. we did the ADR with jamie where she had to scream like she was being kidnapped. i can't wait to be done with this. i only have 3 actors left. Jamie Isreal and Ali Steltzer, who say they're coming on April 26th. after i confirm with them i'll reserve the space. then it's just Kristin. She emailed me saying she was super busy. not sure what to do next in regards to her. we'll see.

Mixing
syncing is taking FOREVER we only have 4 actors done right now and we've been working in there, both me and Grady, for almost 35 hours this week. i have a sneaking suspicion we wont finish syncing until the end of the semester. god i hope not.

Music
Danielle emailed me back. IFP will be no help for music. Also, the distribution company said out right distribution rights are not at set rates and highly depend on the situation. so it looks like we're going to need to get to the artists to get the music we wont.

Misc Sound
Nothing New

Marketing
Website
Still no website cause still no art.

Trailer
Haven't heard anything.

Posters
i talked to johnny on Wednesday of last week. he sent me some stuff and i had more notes for him but i was exhausted so i emailed him the notes on Thursday. he said he would have a lot done for me by the end of the day and also that he could have everything done by this Tuesday. he had a double shift this weekend so i didn't bug him. i just thought i'd let him be. i feel sometimes like he thinks my notes are saying that he's not doing a good job when really my notes are to make the good job he's doing better. even if i say that to him i'm not sure if he believes it. i'm kinda at a lose about what to do. Also, i think he has a hard time grasping the idea of a work timeline. i mean that when he tells me he'll have stuff done, i don't think he's lying, i think he really thinks he'll have it done, and doesn't realize exactly how long it will take him to do stuff. he said he'll have stuff for me tonight. i know, we'll see.

Misc Marketing
I submitted to IMDb. we'll probably get rejected. but what the hell. I also forgot to submit the info with amanda melby and john schile attached. oh well, if we get on i'll add them, if we don't i'll include them in the next one.

Misc in General
the phoenix film festival was this weekend. I had to work there on friday night as one of my responsibilities as a member of the ifp advisory council. Also, i had to go to my brother in laws on saturday for his birthday party, and then sunday i decided to take the day off after ADR and go back to the festival instead of working on syncing. so that's what's going on.

Still no website :(

Picture:
Effects
I'm going of putting a post out on craigs list and also the AFA's list serv to look for an after effects Artist to do the muzzle flashes of Jason's gun when he fires it. I'll try the AFA first and then i'll try craigs list.

Color
I had thought that cause Dan hated the movie so much he wouldn't want to do the color correction. I was wrong. He was supposed to bring me his hard drive today so that i could transfer the all the footage to him. He forgot it.

Credits
Nothing New

Picture Misc
I spent an hour and a half yesterday at the lab working on my "logo" or whatever it's called. you know, the little 3 second movie before the movie that represents the production company. like the pixar lamp jumping thing, and the bruchiemer tree getting electricuted. if you still don't know what i'm talking about i'm sure you've seen the guy fishing from the moon that's the D in Dreamworks? yeah, that little video. the one i made for Captive Run is cute. i like it. it was easy to do, and fun.

Sound
Effects
Grady and I (and Molly) went to the down town dorms yesterday. it was OK. mostly the people were still rude and unhelpful.

Room Tones
We weren't able to get a room tone for the hall way. The people in the lobby were too laud and the staff wouldn't let us go where it was quiet. oh well. Screw em.

ADR
I'm burning my second to last ADR DVD right now. I'm finishing up ADR this weekend with most of my people. There have been some scheduling issues with the last 6. i'm so burnt out on the subject i don't want to talk about it. I'll let everyone know how it went early next week.

Mixing
YAY the sound track thing actually kinda got fixed and worked well. i don't know what happened but it just worked. Grady's here now and we're working on the syncing.

Music
I ran into Tom yesterday and he lost his voice screeming in vegas. we didn't talk about the movie or anything, i just thought it was kinda funny. oh those composer types. tsk tsk.

Misc Sound
Nothing New

Marketing
Website
Still no website cause still no art.

Trailer
I sent the scripts to drew. He said they'd help.

Posters
Still nothing.

Misc Marketing
Nothing New

Misc in General
Nothing new