I've been shooting pickups for the last week, a little here, a little there, as time and weather have permitted.
It's peaceful going out with the Bolex and shooting various things. Moving POV shots. XCU shots of stuff like the steel edged curb on the street with some yellow grass growing through the crack. A POV shot of the mighty Ballard Hardware building, and a POV shot of some railroad tracks which come out of the pavement and then, a few feet later, disappear back into it.
Also took the Aaton out to shoot out some short ends. I have a finite number of 100' Bolex loads so my plan is to use short ends for remaining ambient shots unless they HAVE to be done on the Bolex (such as moving shots, and shots in "sensitive" locations, like chez Shilshole Marina).
It's nice to do this stuff. However, during production I had a feeling of mission: we needed to get X shots done on X day, and now I have a feeling of peacefulness tempered with a slight terror of drifting off-mission. And I say "slight" only to make light of nightly nightmares I've been having in which I have forgotten a crucial scene that I don't quite remember and didn't write down but it needs to happen now or it'll be a total disaster...
Music.
Also did a bit of work on music yesterday and today. Yesterday I wrote a very bad song but that's a necessary part of the process when I'm starting up again. Today I thought of a way to approach some of the songs that I think might be useful, and now I'm thinking I need next to get a better handle on my eight track recorder. I need to be nimble enough on it that I can use it as a notebook, like I used to do with the old 4-track cassette machine back in 'the day'.
Ran into David Thomas (location sound) today and it was nice to chat with him about the shoot and some ideas for post. David's a musician and also did the mix on the Farrah and the Fairies song in the film.
Also sending out Honorariums soon. The "honorarium" is a small amount that is not in any way representative of the value of the person, but it's something. ... It's more like getting a chocolate bar from someone that you work on a project with, more than a payment by an employer.
We'll be going into the studio to overdub vocals on the Clanking Chains songs sometime soon, plus we need to record the bonfire songs from scratch. To help facilitate accuracy and understanding, I am recording new, borderline a cappella demos that are just me doing the song plus guitar playing root notes-only. The previous demos had the vox buried under 50 layers of fuzz guitar and racket, to give the feeling of the final product. These are designed for actual singers to actually know how to sing them.
I'm also contacting Greg Wharmby, my go-to guy for recording info, about how to get my 8-track set properly so it does what I want it to do rather than not doing what I want it to do.
Yes to the former, no to the latter. That's the plan.
