The Trouble With Post

That's right, post production can be troubling.  I'm finding it's much easier to get people on board with your insane demands for the short term of a 10 day shoot schedule than it is for the long term of a multi month post process.  During production, you're in the midst of it, in the heat of the battle, and pure adrenaline drives all forward in lieu of hard cash.  During post, I found it much more difficult to inspire the troops on a daily basis and keep a solid momentum for the almost 2 months of rough cutting.  The other problem with post is this - all of the problems created while shooting are there in your face and require much more work to solve.  When shooting, you're always going forward, regardless of what happened before.  During the post process, you go forward until you realize, "Oh crap.  Did we REALLY do that?"  And now you MUST go backwards!

The plan now is to take a few weeks, probably two weeks, to step back and do nothing DR.  Then we'll watch the rough cut.  After watching the rough cut, we'll make a determination of what needs to be done to make the film complete and final - and what it will cost to do so, since as I mentioned, no monies in post equals less getting done.  Part of the purpose of the rough cut was to have a showpiece for raising the TBD finishing funds needed to make DR as good as it can be, so the plan is in place and we're moving forward on the plan soon enough.  What kind of things need to be done to the film to make it right?  Possibly a day of shooting (I hope NOT!), definitely some ADR, sound design and mixing, color and picture correcting (reframing, cropping, etc.) and the creation of a DR website with all the gadgets.  This is most of what's still needed, though I'm sure there's other stuff to be done - oh yeah, like scoring, securing rights to music already contributed, and settling actor deal memo issues.  Maybe that's it?  Maybe not. :)  

The great news to come out of post is this - we have a nice film that really moves.  We made a feature for under 10K and it looks great.  Overall, we did a good job and I'm proud of the work - it's a miracle the film is what it is.  We simply need to make it as good as it can be, and that's what post is all about.  We're almost there, and we won't stop until we get there...or at least I won't.

Our first goal in post was achieved - we thankfully and successfully made our deadlines for SXSW and CINEQUEST.  I really wanted to submit to DURANGO since it's so close to ABQ, but they do NOT accept rough cuts.  Screw them!  :)))  I'll have to find another fest within traveling distance, though I'm hoping we make SXSW and cast and crew find time to make the trip.  Next deadlines are the L.A. FILM FEST and TRIBECA, both in December.  Stay tuned...

And oh yeah, if you haven't seen the trailer, check it out on YT.  Here's a link - http://tinyurl.com/drtrailer.  Enjoy!  

We Can See The Light!

An early promo shot for DR.

I know - it's been a dang month since I updated, but we've been cutting the film obsessively, every minute...okay, not every minute, but our goal is the SXSW November 5th and it took a mammoth effort by all to make it happen, and guess what?  It's happening!

Tomorrow, Thursday, we make a last pass on cutting.  Our intention (and it's a must) is to "lock picture" tomorrow, then prep the film for our sound mixer/designer, Richard Seitz, and our color correct/image correct guy, Charles.  Both of these gentlemen are pros and friends of myself or Ryan, and they're giving us their services for next to nothing.  I can't say enough how much it means to have such contributions.  I've said it in earlier posts - people have been so kind to us, and it's continued through post.  Rich and Charles will need roughly 10 days to finish their work, with no help from me, which is great news - we get a mini vacation from the picture.  :)  Maybe I'll go to a movie, or have a beer somewhere.  I miss those little things.

We've been cutting sound and picture for 6 weeks now, and we're very happy with where we're at.  The movie has a flow to it, it really moves.  It's clocking in under 85 minutes!  Our tagline will be "Come see our film and we'll have you home in time for Dexter."  

We're also submitting to Cinequest, San Fran Int'l, and Durango - we love the city of Durango and it's close to ABQ.  These fests share the same deadline as SXSW.  This is our first round of submissions.  We have a list of fests with submission deadlines over the next few months, and we'll hit them all.  After the initial round of submissions, we're scheduled to take a month off from cutting, then make another pass based on our fresh perspective, for the next round of submissions.  I expect that pass to be minor lifting at most.

Before being completely ready with this cut, we do have a few chores to complete.  There's more music to collect and lay in.  We have roughly 16 songs for our soundtrack, all contributed from artists we know.  Angie has worked hard to collect these songs, meeting with artists, going to performances, pushing them into recording studios...she's handled the music portion of post.  We also need to record a mock radio broadcast for the final sequence, which we have scheduled for Sunday.  We then lay that into the film on Sunday night.  We do NOT need to record score for this cut - we're submitting with a "temp score" and we've been in discussions with a few artists about scoring the film...including one major recording artist.  Stay tuned!

We made the SXSW deadline and now we're keeping fingers crossed because we REALLY want to make it INTO the SXSW Festival. Either way, we'll get in somewhere out there, and we will certainly spread the word when it happens. Desert Rain will be coming to a film fest near you soon enough! :)