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 Update Monday Nov 18

Mondo Beacho editing has re-commenced. I'm now working on the film over at the Northwest Film Forum's post-production suites.

I got a grant to use the suites last spring, applying for it at the same time I applied for the big equipment grant that I used to shoot the film.

At the time, I figured it might be handy to have the NWFF's newer, faster machines at my disposal in case I needed them... (but really, what could possibly go wrong with my 6-year old pre-Intel consumer-level iMac?)

The grant is for 20 hours of free time, but even after that is maxed out, the NWFF only charges five bucks an hour to use their beautiful new high-speed, state of the art computers. Three cheers for the Northwest Film Forum!

The only drawback to this whole setup is that the editing suites are just available on weekdays, and the Film Forum is a 45-minute commute from where I live.

I did manage to set up a good solution for music composition at home, though. 

I'm using a hand-me-down computer very similar to my old, now-dead machine, and so far it seems to be working fine. Over the weekend, I finished a new vocal melody line for the second Farrah and the Fairies song, and sent the demo over to Kenna Kettrick, who will be recording final vocals for it next month.

I also took the Zoom portable recorder down to the beach on Saturday, and recorded some random ambient sounds. You never can have enough of that.

I should have more to say about the Mondo Beacho edit next week.

September 30 Mondo Beacho report!

I keep coming across little rogue ends of film here and there. The photo on the left shows a little strip on my car floor, caught below a cheeseburger wrapper from Dick's. ...

So! Where's Mondo Beacho this week? Glad you asked.  It was a mixed bag this week.

Edit prep.

I spent a lot of time going through the footage, separating it out into shots.  Lots of good stuff, and I'm feeling very, very optimistic about the film in general.

Bookkeeping.

I sent the cast and crew their honorariums, glad to have those out. The honorariums were just a small token of appreciation, rather than something that inadequately represents the enormous contribution they have made to the film through their art and labor. With these done, I was also able to complete most of the final budget tally.

Beyond that, I don't talk about the budget of films anymore. It cheapens the medium as an art. No one asks painters or sculptors or theater producers how much their work costs, and when they do it underlines the crassness of the product, like in the Julie Taymor/U2 Spiderman play on Broadway.

Anyway, I'm an artist, not a banker.

Music.

Ahren and I are going to start rehearsing soon as prep for the clean recordings we'll need of the Clanking Chains songs.  I also just contacted the rest of the folks about recording clean versions of the bonfire songs, which I think we'll do "live" in one marathon session. We'll go into an actual studio later to record Ahren and Kenna's singing and Steven's voice-over (the DJ on the radio) after that.

I've also been playing around with instrumental music. It's mostly just ideas at this point, but it's good to be back in that space, as there is a lot of material still TBD for the radio. And it's nice break from editing prep.

In other news

I attended the Annual Members Meeting at the Northwest Film Forum last week and it was announced that in addition to programmer Adam Sekular leaving the organization, production guy Dave Hannigan is also leaving! He's going to Portland to do the same good work he did for us, but there.  The Portland people are great - Thomas Phillipson programmed my film Time of the Robots last year for the NW Film Festival -- but it'll be weird to have Dave gone. He was really the last of the old guard, with Jaime Hook and Michael Seiwerath, back when they were in that weird building on the edge of a cliff on the bitter end of capitol hill, when they were Wiggly World, they still ran the Grand Illusion. I think that building is now a dentist office or something.  Anyway, Dave and Adam are great guys and the NWFF won't be the same without them.

Also ran into Ahren and Kenna, in the lobby at Seattle Public Theater, going to see another play.

It was good to see them again. Ahren grew his beard back.