More Music!

We're not quite ready to publish the bands and musicians we've been working with lately but they are AWESOME. We have a band from Ireland that has a perfect 90's grungy sound and get this: they've offered to re-record one of their early tracks just for the film! How awesome is that?! They're on a road trip in Canada now and went by their recording studio for work on this and a new album slated for release in Nov/Dec this year. We hope to compliment each other's releases by bringing out T2S at the same time.

Also, I've been meeting with some musicians in India who have a fantastic sound. We're negotiating for a couple of songs that they have already written that would be great for one scene specifically. They are also considering writing an original track based on the line "Colorless green ideas..." from the dialog of scene 06.

Lastly I've been negotiating to see if I can obtain the rights for a Wesley Willis tune. It's a little anachronistic being from the tail end of the 90's but it's a good song.

Add to all of this the potential for using some early NOFX songs and we've pretty much got our soundtrack well under way!

T2S Editing Update

The rough edit is almost complete with scene 15 halfway done and scene 16 almost done. Total runtime is getting close to 120 minutes!

The additional shots are going to be developed next month which should bring the rough edit to a close.

We're negotiating some additional material to shoot with the DJ we're going to feature as part of the soundtrack. It might be nice to have some cutaways of him in the studio at the mic and spinning records.

Once the rough edit is done we'll start screenings in earnest and begin the revision process for a picture lock.

Once we have a picture lock we'll start the soundtrack for a sound lock.

Once the entire film is settled, we'll scan high-rez and finish with timing and titles.

I hope to have this done by early January 2015. There's a lot of work to do between now and then, but it can be done!

In PITT with Gulzar!

Shaz is hosting an event tonight in PITT presenting several works he has been involved with lately including T2S. If anyone happens to be around drop by! As we ramp up the campaign we'll be having more and more of these events around so don't be bummed if you miss it...

We're getting closer and closer to having clips ready for youtube and vimeo. Keep coming back here for the latest and greatest news!

Editing Statistics at the Halfway Point

Editing up a storm here! It's been really instructive, I've been learning a lot about production of all things: what worked on set and what didn't. Some of the stuff I was really worried about turned out to be no problem. Some stuff I thought would be no problem turned out to have some little challenges to solve. Most of it cuts together like butter, which is no doubt the result of proper preparation and pre-visualization, not to mention a great cast and crew.

I've also been tracking some interesting stats like page count vs. run-time. The rule of thumb is that 1 page of script equals about 1 minute of runtime; however, I've heard that dialog tends to run fast. It seems that 1/2 way through the edit it's pretty close to 1 page per minute despite the dialog heavy nature of the film. Take a look:

APPROXIMATE RUNTIMES BY SCENE
________
01 13:50 15.5 pages
03 06:05 06.1 pages
06 13:29 16.5 pages
07 05:57 08.1 pages
12 05:38 05.7 pages
13 03:40 03.7 pages
14 02:00 01.7 pages
17 01:57 02.3 pages
--------
TRT 52:36 59.6 pages

So we're looking at an average of .88 minutes per page (53 seconds) or an error of 1.2% per page. For 130 pages it looks like the total runtime is 114 minutes if the same pace holds for the balance of the film, right in the standard 90~120 minute feature length. Depending on how additional photography goes, we may see 120 minutes... or if we cut scenes down, we may be closer to 90 minutes. The nice thing is that we have options to play with.

Music!

Today I met with a fantastic musician and producer Roger Mera. He and his partner in groove Gabe have created a massive collection of great original tunes dating back a couple of decades.

We spent several hours at his super-secret bat-recording-studio nestled in an otherwise unassuming PV neighborhood. The painting on the wall behind his rig was done by his uncle who lives in Peru; it's a really inspiring work to look at while perusing music and exchanging creative ideas (get it? Peru... perusing...). Anyhow, it was a great meeting, and I'm really looking forward to having Roger and Gabe join our devious plot for world domina... I mean, making kickass movies.

PS:
Me and Phil also stayed up to watch the dang moon... it was a little underwhelming and tough to believe that ancient civilizations used to freak out when this kind of thing happened way back when.

Phil's snapshots of our shoot

The Latest Shoot in LA

We started the day with my arrival at Union Station downtown; how I got from the train to the curb with 2 heavy camera cases, a big duffel bag and suitcase is another story. The dog apparently ate Phil's suit so we made a quick stop at the Goodwill on Figueroa and 30th to put together an impromptu wardrobe.

Sue me? Sue EVERYBODY...

 

Flannels are so 90's; hey, Nirvana is playing at the Forum!

Once we built the camera it was off to shoot around downtown. First stop: the Courthouse! Parking was actually quite easy to find, and after schlepping the equipment a bit we squeezed off our first shot of the day.

  

Where's Waldo?

Perry Mason in the flesh.

Where the heck is my client?

NO CAMERAS IN THE COURTROOM.

After that we raced off to the South Bay area to click off a few more clips. I love film!!! So does my shoulder. OUCH. Can anyone say, "Occupational hazard," three times really fast? Anyhow, we found a quiet spot with some shade; it was about an f-22 in the clear even exposing for ASA200 (we were using up the last of some old Russian stock from the 90's we had on hand).

Don't ask, OK?

 No, really. Don't ask.

Anyhow, it all went really well and we even had a chance to shoot the sunset off Manhattan pier for an insert.

Calculating f-stop and correcting for wind, density altitude and rotational variation.