Final cut begins!

Old Rocky Point amusement park dining hall.
Home of the Shore Dinner (Best in the World).

This week I sent David the last few music tracks to mix, and started on the final cut of the film.

It's worth noting that the rough cut is not actually rough -- the idea is to get as close as you can to perfect.

Then, you take a break (for music, in our case) and when you come back for the Final, you can concentrate on the performances without having to worry about structural issues inherent in the process of assembling a film from a million different parts.

It's all about going from good to great. 

So it's pretty fun, and exciting to see things working out so well.

Working all the way through the bike scenes over the weekend, I have to say that I am feeling a lot of love for the actors.

I also spent a lot of time on the ever-important opening title sequence. Moved a few things around , and laid in the newly-mixed opening song, which sounds great (thanks David!!).

I also badgered my (Emmy Award-winning) friend Eric S. Anderson with questions about font choice, size, opacity, kerning, leading, etc. My own know-how in that area is limited to what occurs to me randomly, but nuance and subtlety are the order of the day.

Eric is a trained professional and a cool cat, and ... he offered to do the work on them. What? Yes! Thank you Eric!

Also over the weekend, I walked downtown and grabbed a half-dozen more ambient audio tracks, and spent some time organizing and cleaning up my files, including removing some remaining AfterEffects artifacts, and adding that AE stuff to my list of things to do with Ahren Buhmann when the cut is finalized (in addition to color correction-- thank you Ahren!)  I don't want to spend time farting around with AE and failing at it when Buhmann can figure it out in a few minutes.

In other news:

Time of the Robots, one of my previous films, got a few screenings in Chicago. There's still some life in that old, strange warhorse!

Jennifer Dice and Steven Stern have another play over at Seattle Public Theater next Saturday (May 3) at 12:00 noon. It's called "Maria Morova", and has got something to do with BabaYaga.  It's going to be great -- I'll be there.

This week's photo comes from the (now gone) awesomely hand-built Rocky Point amusement park that my family used to go to when I was a kid. Apparently there's a place now that serves the old timey Rocky Point food. I wonder if it's any good?

April 14 update - Mondo Beacho

Ahren Buhmann on set for Mondo Beacho
(photo by Mel Cafe)

I think the photo on the left was taken on set while we were actually rolling camera. It's just that the light is totally different than in the final film.

It's a great shot, though. I like the whites that Mel gets from that DSLR of his.

Anyway. April may be the cruelest month, but so far we are doing great in the music department!*

To wit-- last week, I was turned on to a new band, the mighty Wet City Rockers. Their work is absolutely perfect for a bunch of stuff we need, so I contacted them immediately. They are very cool.

And -- they are willing to contribute four songs to the film! That's a lot of songs. (Thank you Wet City Rockers!!)

I've also been composing a lot on the 8-track, and I've been listening to a whole ton of great stuff from other folks--nothing else has quite clicked yet but sometimes it takes a while.

To wit again, I completed a song last night that I'd had in mind and then dismissed for one part of the film, only to realize that it might work great in another part.

Then I woke up in the middle of the night and wondered if that song is right after all and if so, maybe it could be a lot better.

The middle of the night is not the best time for objectivity, so I'll have to look at it again and reevaluate.

On that note, if anyone knows of any traditional disco bands out there that are not shackled to Sony or Warner Bros, please let me know.


*Actually I think part of the cruelty of April is the illusion of joy early on, a set up for you to be absolutely crushed by the end of the month...

Rough cut getting close

L-R:   Riley Neldam, Kenna Kettrick,
Ahren Buhmann, Sarah Winsor, and John the extra
(photo by Jennifer Dice)

Summer in the northwest -- it's later than it looks.

We're on the beach -- Golden Gardens -- for the bonfire scene. Shooting with a permit, in front of a slightly unpermitted fire-pit constructed of an old Smokey Joe with its legs yanked off, buried in the sand.

We had a fire captain -- Jennifer Dice-- whose job was to make the fire bigger.

Foom! Up it went.

Do people sing around bonfires anymore? They do where I come from. Last time I was back east visiting my brother Bret and his family, we had a bonfire in his backyard. My niece Freya lent me her plastic cowgirl guitar, and we were able to squeeze a few tunes out of it.

Group singing is good for the brain.

The world-famous St. Olaf Choir holds hands when they sing, the whole lot of them. It helps them function as a single unit. The vibrations and empathy are transmitted directly. They don't have to worry about holding a guitar, though.

Or a beer can.

In the editing room, the bonfire scene had some unusual challenges. Honestly, I was stumped for a couple of days over the best way to cut it. But I cracked the code yesterday afternoon.

Now that I've got a grip on the whole thing, I hope to finish the rough cut this coming week, and then start on the remaining music tracks immediately after.

I'm pretty excited to get going on the music.

Mondo Beacho update Feb 17, post-valentine's day update

Not enough time to post properly this week so let's look at a few pictures!

L-R: David Thomas, Riley Neldam, Maya Briller, production morning.
(photo by Mel Cafe)

L-R: Erik Hammen, Maya Briller, Ahren Buhmann, Sarah Winsor on set.
(photo by Mel Cafe)

L-R: Ahren Buhmann, Iain Dalton on set, Georgetown Records.
(photo by Mel Cafe)

Brian Wolbert on set, Cairo.
(photo by Mel Cafe)

Mondo Beacho update Monday Jan 20

Ahren Buhmann and Sarah Winsor on set
photo by Mel Cafe

I'm working on the movie theater scene and accompanying bookends, hoping to finish them up tonight.

We originally shot a different version of the theater scene inside the mighty Grand Illusion, but unfortunately that didn't work out. We reshot one scene another day back in the theater, but ended up doing the rest outside further down the Ave.

At the time, I was wondering if we'd run into trouble with the the Rat and Raven, whose establishment abutted the creepy stairwell we were commandeering for the shoot. I'd done a drive-by of the location a day earlier and it looked like they were painting outside. We were working fairly early in the day, but the local reprobates were already queuing up outside the bar across the street. A few potential problems here, and kinda/sorta no backup plan, nor desire to figure out how to do it the official way at this point.  But,  bon chance!  It turned out the painters had been painting over the signage; the Rat n' Raven had gone belly-up. (The actual rats and ravens, however, remained on site.)

Drunk on good luck, we also tried running across the street to ask the vegan restaurant next to the bar if we maybe set up our camera on their their roof, to get a production-values-friendly aerial shot. But they were in the middle of brunch and didn't want to talk to us. We ended up parking Kat's truck in the middle of the street and shooting from the back. Worked just as well.

I also spent a lot of time last week editing the band practice scene.

That was a complicated one, because the scene needs to do several things at once: show the relationships between a bunch of new characters, be cool as a band practice, and also fit in with the look/feel of the rest of the film.

For most of the previous scenes, (including the movie theater scenes) I've just been eyeballing all the footage at once and assembling it intuitively. But the band practice scene just had too much going on for that to work.

(L-R) Kenna Kettrick, Amanda Keogh, Alyssa Kay,
Zach Sanders,and Brian Wolbert on set.
photo by Mel Cafe

I ended up going back to look at how I'd diagrammed it in the screenplay for the actual shoot (go figure), and pretty much started over, but it went well after that.

It was sorta like when you're trying to figure out a technical problem and you finally decide to look at the manual.

And continuing my practice of doing everything the hard way.

But -- with the accumulated knowledge from doing it the hard way!

"Hard: my calling card"

     -- Chuck D

Mondo Beacho update Monday, December 16



L-R: Emily, Riley, and engineer Doug
in the big room at Jack Straw Studios.
La, la, la    Photo by Kenna Kettrick

Last Tuesday we went in to Jack Straw Studios to record final vocals for all the band songs in the movie. That place is great and their rates can't be beat.

We had Ahren Buhmann and Kenna Kettrick on lead vocals, with backups by Riley Neldam and Emily Purington (pictured left with friendly and knowledgeable Jack Straw mixer Doug Haire). Everything came out sounding great, it was fun to see everyone again, and we got out of there neatly in our small-but-efficient time window.

On Thursday, I edited some more, and got all the way through Scene 1, which includes the opening credits and then resolves outside the surf shop that day. The tone and tempo changes a lot in a few minutes, but it's cutting together as expected and the performances are looking great.

On Friday, I got a nice email from Lyall Bush of NWFF okaying an extension to my NWFF grant which was about to max out (thanks Lyall!).  and then later that same evening, I finagled a way to add Wednesday nights to my editing time in addition to whatever daytime hours I can weasel in (thank you projectionist Spencer Sundell)!

But then today, Sunday, ... I have a new editing computer in my home.

So -- that changes things greatly.

And, once the godawful setup process is done, Mondo Beacho editing should begin to move along at a very snappy pace! (and, I very well might be dumping Final Cut Pro in favor of Premiere Pro. We shall see how that all goes...)

In other news
I am delighted to announce that "The Last City in the East", the short film I made with underground poet Paul Dickinson, is now available on DVD at holiday-friendly prices!! This handmade confection also includes a previously unreleased recording of Dickinson reading live at the legendary Turf Club of St. Paul.  According to the packaging: Full of grit , humor and a mystical urban romanticism, Paul D. Dickinson soars in this surprise triumph of a film. Get it at Amazon.com.
"Beautifully shot in Super 8 and Holga... ...sharp-witted, imagery-rich wording."
--Sheila Regan, CityPages

Mondo Beacho weekly update, Sunday Nov 24

1st AD Mel Café - photo by David Thomas

I'm posting the weekly update early this week, because tomorrow I'm going off the air to put in a nice long day editing at the Northwest Film Forum.

Last week, I got the roots of two instrumental tracks figured out for possible soundtrack use. I say "possible" because you never know if something's going to work until the last minute.

I also spent some time up at the NWFF, organizing scenes from the film into sound-synced Sequences. Their editing computers are great, and it's nice to be up on Capitol Hill editing among film-types, instead of sitting at home by myself.

To wit, I ran into Adam Sekular (formerly of NWFF) in the editing suites, finishing up a film festival package. I got to see a cut of a cool trailer he was working on and talk a bit of shop.
After that, I went out for lunch with Iain Dalton. I've been hearing Iain say "mark it" on the sync tracks for the last few weeks, great to see him again in person. And to continue the illusion that I actually get out and see people, right after lunch with Iain, I went downtown and met up with Ahren Buhmann for some music rehearsal.

But wait, the name drop continues! -- I also got an email from Mel Café (pictured here) the other day, whose film career is taking an exciting new direction --  we've got Riley Neldam confirmed to join us for the final recordings in December -- and I'm meeting with Kenna Kettrick to work on on the second FF song for that as well.

How about that? It's like Studio 54 around here.

Mondo Beacho weekly update: audio edition

I finished naming and logging all the location sound files from Mondo Beacho over the weekend.

This was the first time I'd listened to a lot the production audio, and I was nervous about a couple of scenes.

The ambient sound on location in Georgetown was particularly difficult. Our biggest day there was on a nice, sunny Saturday,  and the area around the shoot (on the public street) was crowded with people. And motorcycles, and trucks. And freight trains.

And a crazy political performance artist with a portable sound system, who thought it'd be nice to be on film.

Oh yeah, and the Cessna jets, coming and going every ten minutes at 100 ft. overhead, from the nearby airport .

Did I mention that cast and crew had been on set since 5 am?

Anyway, with all that going on, audio from only one shot from that day was seriously affected, and that was a long master shot, which we covered heavily with a variety of nice, close shots. 

Beyond that, we have 100% lovely, usable audio. All taken with a portable recorder and shotgun mike on a boom pole. 

Thank you David Thomas!!

 

Also last week

I got together with a bunch of the actors to record clean versions of the three songs from the bonfire scene. The session was fun and went very well.

Singers included Sarah, Ahren, Riley, Kenna, Amanda, Alyssa, and Mel.

It was really great to see everyone again; I missed them.

In other news

2nd AD Kat Brede stopped by the other day to borrow my apple box for a different shoot.

I'm glad that the old box is getting a chance to go out in the field again.

Though it does make an awesome coffee table.

Weekly Mondo Beacho update: October 14

L-R: Kat Brede, the Camera Canoe, Erik Hammen
Photo by Mel Café

That's Kat Brede (2nd AC) with me in the photo on the left. We're hauling the Camera Canoe from Surf Ballard out to its secret launch spot, which seems like it was just across the street but actually was about a block and a half away.

Not every production is lucky enough to even have a Camera Canoe. I'm pretty sure we were the only one in Seattle this year.

Thanks much to awesome AD Mel Café for the two gigantic files of production stills that he gave me over the weekend!

Also over the weekend, I completed the organization of all film footage. The digitized reels of film are now subdivided up into clips, files, and folders, all carefully named by scene, shot, take, retake, and whatever else that needed noting. Time-consuming, but necessary. And highly educational.

Next, I'll be doing the same sort of cataloging for all the audio tracks. We got tons of ambient sound during production (thanks David Thomas!) and it'll be interesting to hear what we have.

Once editing starts, I also know for sure that we'll need more. We didn't record audio on any of the Bolex days for one thing, and there's always going to be things I couldn't have anticipated that will help make the edit work.

For example, I came across a really cool "lucky accident" shot the other day and I think I know how to work it into the film, but it'll need a very specific new sound that will be a hassle to get. The footage is kind of awesome, though. And it was so incidental that I bet no one in production will remember we shot it until they see the final film.

Work also starts this week on the final music performance tracks. I meet with Ahren Buhmann on Thursday, and the whole bonfire group the week after.

In general, music creation/acquisition will be an ongoing process, probably right up until the film is finished.

In other news, my 2012 feature Time of the Robots is screening at the TriCities International Fantastic Film Festival this coming weekend. If you're in Richland, WA on Oct. 20, be sure to check it out and remember to applaud at the end.

Mondo Beacho post production update Oct 7

Ahren Buhmann and Sarah Winsor in Mondo Beacho

Screen shot

This frame grab is from a scene that we shot down at the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall, a sort of vintage flea market here in Seattle, on a busy Saturday night. 

Just after sunset, actors Sarah Winsor and Ahren Buhmann and I walked among the crowd. They looked at the booths and went in and out of the trailers in-character, while I hung around nearby, filming them in little 24-second segments with the Bolex wind-up camera.

The summer-night atmosphere comes across very naturally.

We used Kodak Vision3 500T film for low-light scenes like this. The stuff really should be rated something more like 3200T, because it pretty much captures exactly what you need to see in the dark. The romance of the moment is expressed beautifully.

I do love shooting this way with the Bolex. Setting aside the times when it didn't hold the loop, or when I couldn't see though the viewfinder and when the wind ran out at a crucial moment -- this was really my favorite way to do things.


Cataloging

Meanwhile, back in the present, I've been doing lots and lots of trimming and Saving-as.

The screenplay for Mondo Beacho called for a plenty of short takes and ambience, and the physical results are cumbersome to sort through.

But in this process of looking at every single iota of footage, I'm really starting to see how the final film is going to come together, and how all that ambient footage will enable me to control the timbre of the story.


Post audio recording

I also met up with Steven Sterne (The DJ) this weekend and we finally recorded all his lines that we hear coming from the radio.

I'd always assumed we'd have time to do this during production, but of course that was ridiculous. Anyway, it was fun work, and great to see Steven as always.

Also, it looks like we'll be recording the clean tracks for the bonfire scene sometime near the end of the month. Scheduling is in progress.

Same goes for recording final vocals for the Clanking Chains songs with Ahren.