Glitches & Other Fun

I haven’t felt this busy yet idle since college. Being in post production is interesting; I’ve only been in post on short films and student films before and this whole feature film thing is a whole different creature. I think I’m keeping my stress level bottled up pretty well though.

One of the funnest things about post production is the technical glitches that always seem to happen and they have been happening to us. Nothing earth shattering has happened so far but glitches are always time consuming; things that sound so simple like backing up footage on digibeta’s and capturing footage become huge hurdles without you expecting them to. There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours capturing footage and quitting for the day to then come back the next day and discover that your hard drive has dumped everything that you worked so hard on capturing the day before. Because of a stupid technical glitch you spend hours doing the exact same thing you did the day before. This is why I do not envy Bill. Bill is my hero.

Whenever technical glitches start happening in post I just remind myself that this would be happening to any filmmaker no matter what their budget. If we shot on film we could find out that part of the negative got scratched or it was accidently pushed or pulled a stop or two while being developed or any other of a million things that could go wrong.

I’ve been very good at pointing out the obvious recently so I have this little nugget of wisdom: all phases of production are tedious and hard no matter how much you enjoy them. What I have been telling my post production crew is the production philosophy I live by. Deadlines are great; but at this phase in our careers it is more important to make sure we have a well made, great project to show than rushing through everything just to make a date. Deadlines come around again, but if we take the time to make sure End is the best possible movie we can make it, then every pain, sleepless night, fit of laughter and technical glitch was totally worth our efforts.

The Forgotten Story

End - Daniella & Dave
Originally uploaded by mrbosslady

I sat down today and realized I had never written about the day the police showed up on set. I think I should write about it before it gets glossed over in the annals of time and forgotten. This was too scary and funny to be forgotten.

The day was August 23 and we were cooking through our schedule. I mean it, time was our friend. We were shooting a scene in the foyer/front porch of the house. The scene is pretty simple, the characters pound on the door and get let inside and the only real issue is how many characters have to be inside that foyer – 8-11 principal characters remember. No matter how you slice it that is a lot of people in one space and then factor in that there is always 5-9 crew people stumbling around as well. We got to know each other real well.

Despite our space issue everything was pretty good. Our only genuine difficulty seemed to be where we placed the light outside; the cord was right by the door frame and thought it was gaffed within an inch of its life more than once actors would snag the cord or the light and it kept trying to plummet to its doom.

Like I said, a group of actors were staged outside the house and pounding on the front door yelling to be let in. We had to do this quite a bit because the scene required a lot of coverage. After one take we opened the door after I yelled cut and I heard an actor laughing and saying the police are coming. I laughed too, it was funny – police interfering with the walkers. Funny ha ha. Then another actor said it again – the police are coming.

That’s when I realized they weren’t telling a joke. The police were coming up to the house.

My brain went into panic mode. Less panic than when we broke Susan’s wall, but still panic. I bolted out of my director’s chair and made a bee-line for the door shouting for Christopher – who couldn’t hear me because he was hooked to the boom with noise canceling headphones on. I think someone kicked him so he flew down the stairs and followed me out the door where we met about four uniformed officers with hands on their guns.

This is where it gets funny.

We had thought to warn all the neighbors on David & Susan’s cul-de-sac that we were filming and would have a fake rifle on the balcony, etc. – neighbors even asked us questions and wanted to be kept up to speed on the progress of the film once it’s done – but we forgot about the neighbor’s behind the house. These neighbors never even crossed our mind.

Evidently, a retired officer lives on the block behind David & Susan and when he heard all the screaming and pounding he assumed someone was breaking into the house and called the police. So the police came and barricaded the street and made their way down to our set because they thought we were doing something illegal. I can’t even imagine what they thought when they saw a bloody crow bar, shovel, etc. being wielded by the actors.

Luckily Chris and I have experience with law enforcement to cops don’t make us nervous like they do most people. The situation was easily diffused, but it was scary for a little while there. They totally could have been morons and tried to make us shut down for the day. The good thing for us is that the cops found the situation funny.

OPD might deserve a thank you in the credits.

Post-Production

As I prepare (and look forward to) switching hats from Camera Beth to Sound Beth, lemme fill you in on the details.

Going to film school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just wanted to work in movies and I was good with electronics. My youthful adventures with the family camcorder and me constantly carrying around my tape recorder never came to my attention as fore-shadowings for potential movie-related careers.

I knew I wanted something technical, and when my first film teacher in my first film class called us all (earmuffs Lauren) "fucking idiots" for wanting to be writers and directors, I took offense because neither profession had entered my decision making process when applying for film school. (My comments and experiences as a cinema prod major is a whole different blog).

But I didn't quite know what. I just started playing with whatever was around. At first, it was taking all the camera training sessions available. Then I found myself in an unusal extraciricular: radio.

The DJ I trained with (Jake Kuebler, currently on air in San Fran), was head of on-air production for the station. He was awesome and super nice to me, so I kinda followed him into it and joined the production team.

Now, I had never heard of Pro-Tools. Never thought of sound design. This was New World 101 and it was a pain in the ass. I struggled as I tried to learn the simple little digital editing program and little board in the basic audio lab. But, after many hours and Jake's support, I started to pick it up.

Well, like an idiot, I thought I was qualified enough, so the next year I applied to take Jake's place as Production Director.

And I got it.

So I spent the next year of school slowing, but surely teaching myself advanced pro-tools and whatnot. I became a pro of patching, cutting, and had so much fun putting my own voice in EVERYTHING, but disguising it enough noone knew.

During this time, I continued my camera interest as well, but I had trouble getting on student crews, so I opted to do production sound instead. I was the master of the boom and DAT player.

By Junior year, I was the local sound editor. Everyone came to me for promos, breakers, cutters, sliders, openers, you name it. Nearly everything on the school radio was mine. And then something interesting happened: I found that my school offered a post-sound prod class. I was in right away, one of ten students, and the only girl (of course).

When I came to LA, I got onto a crew as a boom op/prod sound person, but the director never made anything (and now lives in Florida). But through her, I met a local sound designer who let me intern at his studio. That's where I worked on my first feature, "Night of the Living Dead: 3d" which came out in 2005. (Come on, you know you all saw it).

This feature got me onto IMDB and while I enjoyed the opportunity, I had to find paying work and left the studio.

While working at Paramount, I found the courage to come back to camera, the department that didn't embrace me in school, but I knew interested me most.

It's funny, people always ask why I don't pursue sound instead of camera, because sound is what I know, and honestly, it's what I'm more experience and currently, better at. Truth is, I like sound, I am good at it. I'm more confident as a sound designer, but hours spent in those sound-dampened studios, hours flying by, no concept of days or time, listening to the same scene/dialogue/line/word/syllable over and over and over again, gives me a headache. I love it, but only in small doses. A career in it isn't for me.

So yes, I'm a Sound Designer.. always will be. But now I'm a DP too and I can live with being both.

Memories Make Good Improv

So now that the actual filming process is over, everything feels more disconnected. At least it is, excuse me, it was like that, for me, up until a couple days ago. I walk in to one of my conservatory[theatre study] classes and notice that everyone is sitting in a circle, definately not our usual way of starting the class. But then again, I had been absent for 3 days, things could have changed. So I walk towards the circle and plop down next to my good friend Collin. He smiles at me mischeviously and that's when I realize, this isn't going to be a normal class day.
I then notice a corner of young adults convcersing quietly in one corner of the room. I proceed to ask Collin who they are but shut my trap when they turn to adress us. They go on and on saying how they are part of a national performing improv group and are doing a 4-class workshop with us.
Ahhhh...improv, that's why Collin smiled so devilishly. He's in on the secret you see. He knows I love to watch improv, the key word being, 'watch'. Doing it however, is a completely different subject. I sighed and got up to work on the coming assignment. One of the coachs starts eplaining the assignment, he tells us, 'you are going to think of a story, one of not much importance. And then, you are going to fabricate some details, just to add some comedy, and then at the end of the four days, you will perform'. Okay, I could deal with that.
I started thinking back to summer, since nothing from the school year had caught my attention. And I thought back to right before the filming process. When we were all ready to go, all there, and all of us had met each other, except Pearce. But I digress, he did already know some of the cast members from previous workings. However, I did not have the pleasure of his aquaintance yet. And it just so happens that Pearce had a little trouble getting to us, being in Canada after all, with all pieces in tact; luggage, etc...All I could think of was, stupid airport. And so I decided then and there, that this would be my group's improv piece. I was lucky enough to get a lot of the good improv-ers in my group +Collin[he's good too]. I told them the story and togehter we fabricated some details to Pearce's journey home to us. All from drunk men in the security line to angry british people complaining, and finally coming to the film...at exactly the wrong time[will go into detail at a later date]. I don't know how this idea popped into my head really, it was just a random story I remembered, but I must thank Pearce. As of right now the scene is going really well.
And so, after my long babble of a blog, my little thought is out. Just thought I'd share the little story. I'll be sure to give an update on how the performance goes, cross you fingers, maybe I can get it taped. Alright, well I'm off for the night, I've got a seven and a half hour rehearsal tomorrow and there isnt time for sleeping there.

And until that later date, signing off.
Lauren

Composer Search

14.27.2
Originally uploaded by L'il_Birdie26

There hasn’t been as much to write about lately as there was while we were in production; what can I say? There’s a lot to say when you’re smashing through people’s walls by accident, dealing with broken air conditioning and twelve page scenes. Everything in post is a different kind of meticulous process. It’s a very good process but one that seems so slow, but that could also be because we shot a movie in eight days...everything seems slow after that.

Christopher and I have been on a mad hunt for a composer for the film. There are a lot of them out there let me tell you that. It has been a blast listening to the different styles and voices that each composer has so far. I can’t wait until we reach a decision and I can add one more piece of the puzzle to End. I am a firm believer that the right score from the right composer will make the film even more dynamic than it could be otherwise.