Well into editing
Editing is going great. I’m an hour into the film now, and really happy with how most of it is coming together.
I jammed last week, working on all night on the movie, sleeping for a while, going to work, then coming home to do it all over again. But I absolutely love it.
This is when all the hard work of shooting pays off. This is when it finally — FINALLY — starts to look like a movie. It’s flowing pretty well, and I particularly spent a lot of time editing the zombie sequences.
First it took me a awhile to pick the music I wanted, because that affects how it will cut together. And anything goes here. Slow-motion, dissolves, jump cuts, it doesn’t have to be real time, so it was a blast editing that stuff together. One sequence in particular is awesome, a long shot with Guy and Randall running through a hallway of zombies. That one shot took us about 8 hours to get, from lighting through blocking and then final takes. It lasts about 30 seconds.
The entire sequence is longer than that, of course, because it cuts nicely with other shots that worked fabulously. I can’t wait to share this with people. It’s going to be cool.
And so far, I love the tone of it all. I’ll need to look at it overall when I have everything laid down for pacing, and I know I’ll have to tighten up the beginning a little, but this is going to have a cool, hyper-realistic tone about it. Almost gothic, kind of like a comic book. I love it.
Audio will take a lot of work, and we knew it would. We tried our best, but there were just things out of our control (trains, planes, people driving by). Hopefully we can clean it up, but that’s a whole different phase (and one I’m secretly dreading, but it’ll come much later).
The performances, also, are great. It’s really weird watching myself, though. My character is such a high-strung control freak. Not saying that I’m not like that in real life, but, hey…
So I’ll tackle more editing this week, as well. On tangent stuff, we held callbacks for the radio announcer part on Saturday, and think we may have it cast after we get two more people to read, and we’ll meet with someone this week to get work started on the title sequence. And 2nd A.D. Craig is busy rounding up more CDs from local bands who want to submit. We want to use as much local talent as possible.
Today I’ve been cleaning and doing mountains of laundry, just trying to get caught up on life in general. I miss everyone. I haven’t seen much of my family lately, or anyone really. I haven’t seen my nephew TJ or my nieces since the wrap party. I miss them.
But all in due time, slowly it feels like I’m able to catch my breath. but with an impending festival deadline, it looks like I won’t really get to slow down until December. Oh my gosh — DECEMBER??!! When did this happen?
Better get back to work, then. I have to fold my socks. And by fold, I mean dump into a drawer.
Have a good week,
-r.
