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 report for the first Monday in March, 2014

Emily Purington, on set of Mondo Beacho
(photo by Mel Cafe)

It's been another busy week for Mondo Beacho!

'Getting toward the home stretch now, at least for the rough cut.

This week's photo comes from the makeup test, I think, for one of the scenes I was cutting this week. Emily Purington is dressed for the Georgetown confab by Barbara Blunt, makeup by Juel Bergholm.

Beyond that Georgetown bit, I also put together the rest of the water scenes and another Shilshole Ave sequence, and ended up on the roof of Surf Ballard, a place where the cast and crew spent more time than we ever thought we would...

... Actually that's true about Shilshole Avenue as well.

... The great thing about working with talented actors, in this case Sarah Winsor and Maya Briller, is that they are able to reproduce their performances again and again, each time as if they were brand new. Despite (or "in spite of" -- is there a difference?) some unexpected technical challenges.

Hooray for acting --  wotta fine profession!

Here's something funny: I got derailed about halfway through editing the Shilshole Avenue bit when I realized that I'd forgotten we had music for that scene that was baked into the script. See, I'd already edited the whole thing to a temp track instead. Hilarious!

I think I've just had this particular tune in mind for so long that I took it for granted.

Upon recutting, it was amazing once again how powerful all that stuff is...  Music.... Editing.

Anyway, special thanks to the patient Thomas Wold for the use of his lovely, summery hippy folkadelic tune.  Recorded on machines so old they don't even exist anymore, from what I'm told....

Speaking of music, once the rough cut is done, the plan is to set the picture aside to cool off, and re-commence work on acquiring and/or composing the remaining music for the film. Because for expediency's sake, a handful of scenes are currently scored with temporary tracks, which have copyrights owned by giant, reeking corporations, the kind that charge licensing fees that exceed  the entire budget of the film x2 for each tiny, forgotten song.

(What percentage of that fee goes to the artist? My guess = 0)

After the music is finalized, I can go back to the rough cut, put in the final tracks, cut to the new music and tighten the whole thing up for public consumption. (note the metaphor follow-through here....)

In other news:

Sarah was in another play this weekend which I missed, but will also be in Macha Monkey's Lollyville, playing at Hugo House in May!

Steven Sterne seems to be working non-stop -- beyond his directing duties at SPT he's now working with the Young Playwrights on a read-through series...

Alyssa Kay is in Charlotte's Web, opening March 21 at the Second Story Rep.

Mondo Beacho update Feb 24, lots of progress to report!

Lots of progress on the Mondo Beacho edit this week!

First off, many thanks to Eric S. Anderson for nifty little editing tip that helped get me out of the record store scene where I'd been stuck for a lot longer than seemed reasonable. It was at the point where I was basically "in a quagmire"...

Also thanks to Anna Forse, for a suggestion for the title scene, which I thought I'd gotten past on this initial cut but it'll be worth checking out for sure...Yes!

L-R: Riley Neldam, William Poole, Erik Hammen,
and Sarah Winsor at Dutch Bike, Ballard
(photo by Mel Cafe)

Yes... Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah: lots of ground covered last week.

Back on the bikes, for the lovely little scene that we shot up north by a manicured strip mall in Shoreline, WA. ( ... a strip mall?  In a beach movie of the mind?  .. Yes! ... Intentional! )

That done, it was back to Georgetown again, at Lect's Soup Stop. It was roundly agreed that the soup at Lect's is awesome.

Ease-of-location? Not so much. We pulled that one out of the fire just barely at the time.

But at the end of the day (aka last week) it cut together pretty well.

After that, I worked on a nice long scene that combines the first scene we shot on the film -- down by the rocks on the beach -- with one of the very last things we shot over in Ballard proper.

Also good stuff, but I'll definitely need some more ambient sound for that one.  And it'll need to be quiet ambient sound.

Especially after those Georgetown scenes.

Quiet ambient sound!  It's harder to get than you'd think. The thing is, your brain edits out a lot of sound around you, so something that you think is pretty mellow is actually picked up by the recorder as a big screeching, rumbling hunk 'o racket.

There's also a little touch of music in one part of the Ballard scene, though, and many thanks to Greg Wharmby of the band Horns of Ormus for the music tracks he sent! One of them is looking very good for that bit.

Finally, it was out on the water for some more canoe-camera shots, which I believe will comprise the second surf yoga scene but...

But the truth is these second shots came out really, really good.  So good, that I'm doing some serious considering behind the scenes what I want to do with them for sure.  Because there are several options.

(And, by "behind the scenes", I guess I really mean I'm just going to think about it and no one will know either way. And, is it really behind the scenes if I'm blabbing about it on this blog...?  Considering my likely readership, I'd say yes. )

Last week, I also picked up some more ambient sound, and like I mentioned earlier, I have come to realize that I still need a lot more. I can't go out in the rain, it won't sound right, but my to-do list now has a stack of outdoor jaunts on it. When the weather's right, I'll start carrying the recorder everywhere. Successful ambient sound recording seems to be a combination of luck and perseverance.

This week's still photo is from the bike shop, which is where we began the shoot day that eventually took us up to Shoreline. I don't know what Riley and I are saying in this shot but you can tell it was a laugh riot. (Will seems to be tuned-out, but he's probably just in character)

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)

Monday Mondo Beacho update: Jan 13, 2014

L-R: Iain Dalton, Erik Hammen, Anna Forse.
Photo by David Thomas

I'm currently working on the Farrah and the Fairies band practice scene, cutting it using the temp music track that we recorded live on set.

David Thomas has begun mixing the new vocal tracks we recorded last month with the existing instrumental tracks, and it'll be nice to have a "real" version.  Kenna Kettrick actually sounds great in the on-set version, but the instruments are muddy.

Yesterday, I finished up the scene before that, where the boys eat and walk to that band practice. There are two eat/walk scenes, both shot in Georgetown in rackety, unstable locations and using a conceptual cutting plan rather than your standard moving/master/singles whatever. But so far, the first one came together as planned !

Um... Whew. -- but I love those eating/walking scenes! Writing, shooting, and putting them together has all been very satisfying.

This week's photo was taken during the production of the first eat/walk scene.  Iain Dalton, Anna Forse, and I are walking the same line that Ahren and Riley will walk in the movie. That's called Method Production.

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.

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.

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.

Mondo Beacho update, Sept 23



photo by David Thomas

Last week was difficult on the personal end, but nevertheless I got some good work done on Mondo Beacho.

Costume department - wrapped. Barbara came by and picked up all the costumes, most of we've donated to the mighty Seattle Public Theater. Our kids take classes there and they would move out and live there if they could. The SPT community also brought us Barbara, Steven, Ahren, Kenna, Alyssa, Amanda, Emily, Zach, our set dresser Jennifer, and a bunch of extras.

Music. I finally recorded a guide track for the vocals for our opening song. The current version is a rough track that we used to shoot, with the understanding that we'd go back and get it right later. I still need to record some more guide tracks for the bonfire scenes and get all those tracks to the actors, and schedule some recording time.  I also still need to record the DJ's radio-voice tracks with Steven.  I will try to wrap my head around this in the coming week.

I was debating for a while whether to use some of the live versions of the bonfire songs that we recorded on set, but I'm pretty sure we can't use all the songs, so the problem is that post-recorded songs would probably not mesh gracefully with live songs. I don't want it to sound like it used to on "Happy Days", when Joanie and Chachi would sing, and Erin Moran would sing the first line naturally but when Scott Baio came in for the second line, they processed his voice through about sixty pounds of anti-stink filter, and it sounded like he was being beamed down from a space ship.
That sort of thing might be fine for Chachi, but not on my watch, brother.

Pre-Editing organization continues. I'm in the early end of the long process of organizing all the footage that we shot and then scanned in telecine. This organization involves taking very large files that are several reels of film combined, and cutting those files into a zillion small files, each named for a scene/shot number to make standalone sub-clips, one for each take and/or angle of a shot. Many of these files are only 20 seconds long. Most are not more than a minute. After I've worked for a while, I back up these new files onto a second drive. Using my old computer, this is all a slow process.

A big part of it is disentangling the relationship between the shot names and numbers that we planned on in pre-production, versus what we ended up and slated during production, versus what makes sense in organizing the footage for editing in post production. Ultimately, I have to defer to the production slate for the purposes of audio sync later, but again, as scenes were added/moved/altered in production, some slates were not consistent. So I make notes on the script and try to name the final file in a way that makes sense across the board.

I am not fastidious by nature, and have had to go back and rename files a couple times even in this beginning phase -- I'm an artist, not a bookkeeper -- so I have to keep reminding myself that this kind of fastidiousness pays off later. Or rather, the lack of fastidiousness will burn me later. Slow and steady...

However! The process of slowly, slowly going through all the footage, and not even doing it in order, is good for my brain as an editor, and already I've thought of some things that wouldn't have occurred to me if the process were more linear. And that is exactly in line with my usual, comfortable process...

In other news...

It's been raining a lot this month, and every morning without fail, I look out the window and am grateful that we had such a warm and sunny summer. Often September/October are warm and summery, but not this time, and we really lucked out. It's nice to see a daily reminder of this when other things we weren't as lucky with.

Alpha Cine is processing their last batch of film this week. Strange to have our own lab going the way of telecine-only, but not surprising, with Vancouver having swept away the production boom of the 90's, then the rise of digital, and finally the fall of projected film prints. I am not looking forward to mailing out my film for processing, but on the upside, I worked with Spectra Film & Video down in Hollywood when we did The Last City in the East, and they did a great job.

Mondo Beacho Pickups

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.

Mondo Beacho is cast and crew'd

Auditions. You can't live with them, and you can't shoot 'em...  unless you're making A Chorus Line....  (Funny!) Anyway, the dust has cleared and I am so glad that we have found such a lovely, talented, and clever cast and crew. They are as follows:

Cast:
Noelle - Sarah Winsor
Arthur - Ahren Buhmann
Pete - Riley Neldam
Farrah - Kenna Kettrick
The DJ - Steven Sterne
Mike - William Poole
Jeremy - Brian Wolbert
Valerie - Maya Briller
Charles - Iain Dalton
Eva - Emily Purington
Dave - Mel Café
Sylvie  - Alyssa Kay
Gretel - Amanda Keogh
Jason - Zach Sanders

Crew:
Director/DP - Erik Hammen
Producer - Erik Hammen
Producer - Anna Forse
CoProducer - Steven Sterne
Associate Producer: Babu Rajendran
Associate Producer: Jeannette Idiart
Assistant Director - Mel Café
Assistant Camera - Iain Dalton
2nd AC - Katrina Brede
Location Sound - David Thomas
Set Dresser - Jennifer Dice
Production Assistance - Jon Idiart, Aadi Nickels
Makeup - Carmen Wilson, Juel Bergstrom, Marina Boychuck