Monday, March 8th, 2010
It’s a huge understatement, of course, but there’s so many steps in making a movie, and it all takes so incredible long.
Almost two years into “The Dead Can’t Dance” (which is nothing in filmmaking time), I’m beyond thrilled to be in the latter stages of post-production. But I’m still laboring over some color-correction issues. I’m using Red Giant Software to give the film a dated film look using its aptly named Looks filters software.
It is an indie digital filmmaker’s dream. You apply the software to the clip on your Final Cut Pro timeline, and a palette of different “looks” pops up. Depending on the visual feel you want for your film, you click on a “look” and it applies all the settings for you (manipulating color curves, saturation, effects, etc). Pretty amazing.
Beyond that (or in lieu of it if you don’t want to change your raw video image that much), the Looks program comes with tools for color correction, letting you alter the exposure, contrast, saturation, or add a color gradient (to make a sky bluer, for instance) or do 3-point color correction and more. It really is a phenomenal tool, and will probably only be improved in updates. I highly recommend it.
While this process is (somewhat) fun in its own right, color correction is also a laborious, time-consuming process. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I already added film “scratches” and “dust” to give the movie a pulpy, B-movie feel — enough to give it texture but not be distracting.
I’m also going for a color-reversal film-stock look for the exterior scenes. It gives the beginning of the film a very dreamy, surreal look, and when the action moves to indoors and nighttime, I let the lighting that Jerod designed set the visual mood.
But, really, it’s all going well, which is fantastic ’cause this Saturday we’ll be ONE MONTH AWAY from our screening. Awesome!
There should be posters all over town now, and we’re getting a second batch made this week so we can hang more. A lot of people are asking if they can buy tickets in advance, which is cool that they’re asking, but it’s not possible. Only at the door.
Here’s to living — or dead — color,
-r.
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Holy cow! It’s March! That means our world premiere screening is only 5 weeks away from this Saturday. Wow…
We’re busily preparing. We had a promo meeting this week and came up with some cool and unusual ideas for promotion. We’re setting those in motion now, and will involve street-theatre-type stuff, a “zombie walk,” fake news coverage, Spookt Soda (featured in the movie) campaigns and more. We’re making it a HUGE event. It’s gonna be a blast!
Post work on the actual film continues. I’m STILL messing with Looks filters, and Sergio is making headway on audio editing and mixing. He’s in Albuquerque this week, so he’ll get some ADR work with Guy done while he’s there. Perfect!
I will be featured in an article in Kansas magazine next month, and will be traveling to Lawrence for a photo shoot on March 20, so while I’m there, I’ll check in with Sergio, take a look at stuff and do some of my own ADR work. Everything is working out!
Marching on,
-r.
Posted in The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction, zombies | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Today is my birthday. And about now I usually start pondering the universe and how I fit into it. Well, I usually do that just about every day, but even more so around my birthday.
I think it’s going to be a great year. I really enjoyed my other double-digit years. I was 11 when “Star Wars” came out, and that movie changed my life. I think for the first time, I saw that the universe was massively expansive.
When I was 22, I was still in college, and my last year of it was a blast. I got my first really great acting role in Lanford Wilson’s play “Angels Fall.” I got to play a really, really confused character, and I think that role taught me a lot about acting. How to focus, how to be subtle. It was theatre in the round, so the audience was literally at arm’s length. There were “windows” hanging, and I remember I had to look look through them and “see” the desert. And I did see it. The far-reaching sands, mountains in the distance.
At 33, I started writing my first script, which became “Dancing on the Moon.” I had no idea what that would lead to and I never, ever imagined that it would actually become a movie — that I directed, no less. That first attempt at writing a script opened up an entire new world, and got me into two writing labs at Sundance, almost unheard of for a first-timer. Those experiences taught me wonderful, invaluable things about the craft of writing, analyzing movies, the film business — and myself.
Now, at 44, my latest movie is almost done. I’m anxious to show “The Dead Can’t Dance” to the world, I just hope the world wants to see it. I really hope we have a great festival run, that we get into some great places. And I still want to take it on the road on tour, possibly in the fall. I’d go door-to-door showing my movie if I could. We’ll just have to see.
It all feels promising. And looking ahead, I can safely say I have no idea what’s in store. It feels like I’m about to step off a cliff. Let’s just hope I don’t crash.
The clock is ticking,
-r.
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Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Here’s an early peek at new posters for the Orpheum premiere. They will go to the printer in the next few days, then prepare to see them EVERYWHERE. Hopefully.
Otherwise, sound designer Sergio and I have run into a few small compatibility problems in our work flows. Mainly, I can’t export the correct files from Final Cut Pro that he needs to do his audio mixing work. (If this doesn’t make your head hurt, here are the details: I can’t export an OMF file from FCP with timecode intact and unflattened audio because the file exceeds 2G, which is “unsupported.” I tried exporting the whole timeline as a Quicktime file then re-exporting that as an OMF file, which worked but the tracks came over as AIF, not WAV files, and everything was flattened instead of being separated into its own waveforms — dialogue, music, sound F/X, etc.) Geez, that made my own head hurt just saying all that.
Arrrgh. Technology bites me in the ass every time. But we’re working on it, and I think we’ll have a solution soon. It doesn’t help that he’s in Lawrence, I’m in Wichita and that he leaves for New Mexico soon, but we’ll get it, dammit!
Promotion-wise, I’m slowly revamping the Harmy site, and have uploaded a new trailer to YouTube (but I’m still not happy with the quality, gotta do more research there now, too), as well as refining the posters. Need to design some T-shirts, too, and get those ordered. There’s just not enough time in the day! A guy’s gotta see “Lost,” ya know?
Plus I was head dancer at a powwow last weekend, and I’m still sore! I was literally dancing all day, and I’m just not in shape for that. I’m not in shape to stand all day, much less dance.
Anyway, things are moving along, one way or another. So, onward!
-r.
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Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
We are confirmed to have our premiere screening of “The Dead Can’t Dance” at 7:30 p.m. here in Wichita on Saturday, April 10, at the beautiful Orpheum Theatre. It’s being presented by the Orpheum’s Film Series and the Tallgrass Film Festival.
Very exciting news, I’m stoked! And I’m very thrilled to be back at the Orpheum, we had phenomenal screenings of my first two movies there, so this should be a blast, as well. Look for heavy promotion to kick in fast. Things are gonna get movin’!
Can’t wait to share the film with everyone. It’d be great if some people came dressed as zombies! (But we don’t want to clean up any fake blood.) More info to come…
-r.
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Thursday, February 4th, 2010
OK. Edits are officially locked on “The Dead Can’t Dance.”
That doesn’t mean the film is finished, it just means that editing is complete (a HUGE feat nonetheless). Now I make a Quicktime file of the film and send that to our brilliant sound designer Sergio Snmiguel, who will edit and mix the final audio.
While he’s doing that, I will continue to do color correction and image manipulation with Red Giant’s Look filters, which are amazing. I’m giving the movie a very aged, B-movie look, with film scratches and a color reversal-film appearance. It’s going to be cool. I just can’t move anything around on the timeline in Final Cut Pro while doing this, or Sergio’s final audio file won’t sync up (hence the term “picture locked”).
I’m ecstatic to be at this point, absolutely. We’re thisclose to being done. Simply amazing.
On other fronts, I’ve started redesigning the Harmy site, and will update that frequently. And now I’ll turn more energy to the promotion phase, and finalize our screening here. Should have details on that within the next week, hopefully.
So keep an eye out. Things are going to move fast now. And I can’t wait.
-r.
Tags: The Dead Can't Dance, zombies
Posted in Inspiration, Picture editing, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction | No Comments »
