Picture Lock and Problems.

As some of you probably know, we have locked the picture on Madison Hall, which means we now dive into sound head first. We actually locked the picture back towards the end of December but there were some problems with the editing lab. A new version of Final Cut (editing software) that came out in October was updated to our lab. The staff member that is in charge of the film studio and equipment made a fuss to the person who is in charge of the lab about the apparent problems with the new final cut. One of those problems was that the software went through a major update so projects on the new software wouldn’t work on older versions. Because of this issue and some others regarding HD compatibility, this particular staff member manged to convince the lab staff to DOWNGRADE all of the software back to the previous version of final cut. What this means is that all the work done in the lab (ALL THE WORK DONE IN THE LAB!) was inaccessible! The idea of newer files not working on the older software wasn’t a problem till they got rid of the new software and installed the old! And it wasn’t just Madison hall that was affected. ALL film students that worked in the lab from October till now were affected. So I put up a stink and set some angry and frustrated emails and the administration decided to update ONE of the 15 computers back up to the new software. So now I can get back to work but I’m going to have to fight with the rest of the film school for the one computer. So far in the last week there was only one time that I couldn’t get on because someone else was but whatever. So now we dive into sound work.

I spent about 4 hours last week doing some tutorials and getting myself familiar with this specific program we’re using (sound track pro). I’ve used other sound programs before and understand the basics but I wouldn’t to get familiar with the controls and options of this program specifically to make things run more smoothly. It also appears that the computers in the lab aren’t strong enough to handle a 90 minute movie. Every time I load the file the program crashes after doing five minutes of work. So it looks like we’re going to have to do specific chapters at a time rather than the whole thing at once. When we have everything assembled and are ready to start doing master mixes then we’ll try again as the files should be less complicated.

As for ADR, we’re going to be meeting with a staff member at the journalism school to use some of their equipment and booths. We’re meeting with him on Tuesday and I should know more after that. When we do have a firm lock on the facilities, equipment, and what we need to replace, then I’ll email the cast about setting up dates. There are a few cast members that are now out of state, but that’s ok. We’ll make it work.

In terms of music, we’re going to start looking to specific record labels for the rights and or festival rights to a few main stream songs we want to use. Also, I’m meeting with our composer sometime in the next week to schedule a spotting session.

In about a month look to the website for a major update as well as a new trailer, and a new poster. We want to do a complete marketing blitz by the end of February.

So in terms of completion we’re not looking to complete the movie till the end of march beginning of April. This is mostly due to the equipment problems we had in the lab over the last four weeks.