....is finished!

2/14/07- The film is now out on DVD, with the soundtrack available on a separate CD. The final thing I'm planning is to cut a trailer for the film. 10/31/06-Submitted to two additional festivals: Cinequest FF (San Jose, CA), and the Garden State FF (New Jersey). These may be the last festivals I apply to, though. I'm now of the opinion that not only is the film not really festival fare, but that even if it was shown at a festival, it wouldn't do me much good. Online promotion may be a better way to spend that money. 10/26/06- Have made a lot of very tiny, esoteric edits to the film over the last two months. Most of them are things that most people won't notice, but they bothered me. I also trimmed another ~10 seconds out of the middle of the film. It's all about pacing! Pacing!! And there's only one valid pace. Fast!!! Anyway, I have submitted the film to a festival for the first time in several years. I have high hopes that this time around, the film is polished enough to be seriously considered. 8/27/06- The film is done. Have been spending longer and longer on smaller and smaller problems, but I think that now, not only has the cycle of diminishing returns bottomed out, there just isn't anything more that I can fix, unless I were to refilm portions of the film. Further updates will concern the DVD-producing process. Now on to Double Eagle! 8/19/06- Finished the film. Now I'm re-finishing it. Seriously- finished Kriebel fight on 8/16, then in a big 36-hour push, did the entire Bush fight/Hallway fight section, completing that stage of editing, and not a moment too soon, for I didn't even have time to watch the film through (just the transitions between scenes) before writing the DVD files for the showing that night. The 8/17 showing was somewhat sparsely attended, but fun nonetheless. I took notes, and am implementing some minor tweaks (to the audio mix, almost entirely) which should only take another day before I can move on. Double Eagle here I come! 8/15/06- Finished the Escape sequence, 123 fight parts 1&2. Now working on Kriebel fight sound mix. Closing in on the end- it'll be a push, but I'm hoping to be writing DVD files on Wednesday. (there's a showing on Thursday, see.) 8/2/06- Finally finished the Warehouse/Lab/Satellite sequence. It took a lot longer than it should, but I'm pleased with the result. Now working on Zack. 7/21/06- Went to France, then Mexico. Now I'm back on task. Updated status report soon. 5/19/06- Been working on the Tenement/Ambush. Finished the Bar sequence, parts 1 & 2. Created a new project today to assemble the finished pieces. Thought some people might be interested to see what the editing looks like, so here are some captures from my desktop of the tenement project.   click them for full-res versions. 5/7/06- Recorded some walla sound for Draxon (gasping) and the Council Room (oohs & aahs), also grenade foley with the recently-arrived grenade. 5/4/06- Worked on Corridor 1- miracle of miracles, it's now a pretty good scene. The secret? Cutting it down. Finalized Mario, the Motel, & the Dream Sequence, worked on the Council Room. Anticipating a whole lot of frame-by-frame photoshop work to get Sec & Proc's entrance into the scene to look right. Worth it? Probably not. Going to do it anyway? You betcha. 4/27/06- Past two days working on the Dream sequence, Motel, and Mario. It's going quicker than some other scenes. The Motel is, of course, straightforward, as it is a continuous take (ostensibly) and the live audio is useable throughout. Mario is also dubbed and synched already, so all I have to do is trim it for my new sense of pacing, soap the audio, and spruce up the video quality. 4/24/06- End credit illustrations are done. I have spent the last few days creating the actual frames as they will appear in the film. Also, am now planning two separate insert reshoots to fix aspects of the Assault prep and Warehouse. Am waiting for several key props to arrive in the mail. 4/18/06- Video filters added to a number of shots to improve the picture quality- mostly dark scenes. Have been working on the Warehouse- reconciled myself to having to dub Nik's lines as Bob. Looped his lines myself, but I think my voice may be too recognizable. The pace in the Warehouse is much improved so far, and the Warehouse exteriors are almost done- just need to solve the problem of music during the final sequence there. Not happy with what I've got laid down currently. 4/15/06- Warehouse Interior & Exterior- spent hours trimming seconds out of shots or otherwise adjusting subtle timing issues, using traveling garbage mattes to mask and transition between different frames in a shot. It's esoteric stuff, but it makes the scenes move faster and thus makes the jokes funnier. 3/27/06- Moist Bunny. Captured Adam Ewert's dubs while I was doing the recaps for Draxon foley, and decided to just bite the bullet on this scene. Some slight recutting around the end of the scene, balancing the audio, and replacing all the dialogue with ADR. I should have done this scene in one day, but I've managed to stretch it to four. In my defense, removing the random passerby took longer than I thought it would. Will post a before & after comparison movie in a few days. 3/23/06- Draxon. Tightened the computer sequence, adjusted sound balance here and there. I think I have it where I want it, visually, and the sound is almost there- I just need to get the klaxon working at the end, re-cap/synch the missing foley, and finish balancing the sound mix in the final third of the scene. I had a momentary desire to change the sky in the establishing shot to something less cheery, but then I realized that the elements and probably the project file were on Umbilicus when it went down, so I think that option is gone. 3/21/06- Draxon sound mix. Confronting a most peculiar problem in FCP, where some of my audio clips truncate off the last half-second or so when I play them from within the program, whether they're in a project or not. Noticed it when the President was saying "Give it up, Drax-.. We've got y-.." Also another, possibly related sound problem- a certain foley sound clip now loads up out of synch. The clip stays the same length and in the same place, but it's as if the in and out points have been changed. Frustrating and weird, but I suppose it will force me to reexamine the foley sound mix in that scene, which will probably improve it. Added a cool flameburst effect to the final shot of the scene- the reverse on the armored tricycle. Been wanting to do that for a while, and finally figured out how. Been brooding over a possibly bad thought- I don't like that cutaway to CCHQ between stages of the assault prep. Alan's not going to be pleased with what I'm thinking... 3/20/06- Didn't get around to recording the fight foley, but I did recapture and resynch the lost audio files from Draxon that disappeared in the recent hard drive crash. Began EQ work on the bush fight. 3/19/06- 'Final Fight'- foleying the Assault preparation, and doing some work on the end credit sequence. I've always had stuff going on during the credits of the films I've made, and I think these will be the best of all. I realized that the ninjas in the bush fight will be much funnier if I make them scream ridiculous chop-socky ejaculations while they fight. Recording the dubs and foley for this sequence will be my next task, hopefully tomorrow evening. 3/8/06- More work on the 'Final Fight'- this time tightening and touching up the audio on the Roof Ninjas, F-series, and Interlude. Also, on the recommendation of several former ninjas, I have put my hard drive in the freezer. We'll see what develops. 3/6/06- Worked on the Final Fight sequence- which encompasses everything from the RDG van pulling in to CCHQ through to the end of the film. Am finding, to my relief, that whereas once I didn't have any idea how or what to cut or change in order to improve the film, now the choices are clear. Actually implementing them sometimes takes some time and cleverness, but it's a much better place to be in. I chalk it up to experience. 3/3/06- Am finally done backing everything up, both to DVD-R and to the new hard drive I bought for this purpose. Have received the bulk of the illustrations for the end credits, and they are excellent. 2/26/06- I've finished Vincetti, hopefully for the last time. That was the first scene I shot. It was the first scene I tackled the editing of. And every time I revisit the editing of the film, it seems like that's where I start. Perhaps because it always seems like it has the most work that needs to be done, no matter how much I've done to it. Or maybe I just like to use it as a testbed when I'm experimenting with new editing techniques, because I'm so familiar with it. In any event, I don't see how it could possibly get any more polished. I've scenefied it and deleted the source clips. Only an act of Doug could make me reload that scene again. Unfortunately, I've also just experienced a hard drive crash. 'Umbilicus', my 60GB external firewire drive, stopped booting up yesterday morning. I have no explanation. Maybe just mechanical fatigue. The really difficult part is that I don't quite know what was on that disc, and if there's anything that can't be reloaded or reconstructed by capturing from the source materials again. I don't know what I lost. Spent many hours reloading scenes from Draxon and the end fights from CD backup. Going to tackle the Colosso Assault tomorrow. Worked on mock-ups for the end credit illustrations. Am burning DVD-R backups of the Double Eagle footage. At least that's all in one place. 2/22/06- more work on Vincetti. 2/20/06- worked on the audio mix on Vincetti. What's interesting to me is that now the editing decisions I'm making seem very obvious and straightforward. I think that is really a direct result of the fact that I've just gotten much more editing experience since the last time I was working on it. 2/18/06-Finished capturing sound effects from CD. Also finished the poster, seen on this page, featuring the illustration prototypes. I'm thinking of using this image as the DVD cover, actually, instead of the photographic version. Tell me what you think.