I think I broke a speed record for myself by editing four scenes today; that’s eight minutes. I started with scene two, followed by scene one, then three (a) and (b). My eyes are sore and I need a rest. Watch a snippet!

After sitting on the tapes for a year, I finally edited the film…in three days! I was waiting to calibrate my speakers before finalizing TFII and archiving it to make space for WWK. Once I had purchased a sound level meter, I was able to listen to TFII confident that my speakers were properly set up. I will write about the calibration procedure separately.

Now I need to have the actresses do a dubbing session before I can proceed with post-production.

The most recent festival in which TFII participated has drawn to a close. Thanks to everyone who came. It made me remember just how important it is to watch films in the theatre. I know they are becoming increasingly expensive, but do treat yourself to it occasionally. Unless you have a real home theatre—a big, dark, quiet room with a projector and surround sound system—there is a notable difference. As a film-maker I like to watch the audience's reaction so I have an additional incentive to go, but it is worth it even without that.

I just received an e-mail from the organizers about the results:

Best Documentary: The Play
Best Short Film: Crash

Best Documentary Audience Award: The Restorer
Best Short Film Award: Crash

Crash is a Tarantinoesque heist film—a perennial favorite genre—with intersecting plots. Congratulations to the director, Umut Aral. No doubt he will be using his prize money to pay off his debts and fund his next film.

The festival was concluded with Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest film, İklimler ("Climates"), which won the FIPRESCI (the film critics) Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. His last film, Uzak, was a hit there too. I think his sensibilities are aligned with those of the French. I doubt any of his films would fare well in the States. The moral for film-makers is simple: know thy audience/critic.

A superb series of panoramic photographs, titled Turkey Cinemascope, taken during the scouting of the film, was present at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Having seen them, I conclude he is better at photography. He has a truly gifted eye, but visuals alone do not make a good film. Can anyone honestly say they enjoyed the acting in Uzak (Distant)? 

Long time no post! OTWOTW (as I affectionlessly like to call it) is coming along nicely. In fact, it is almost finished; just a day or two of shooting
left. I was busy this month with shooting so I could not post any updates. Take a look at the recent schedule.

Of course, you do not know what scene is what, but you can guess when the movie comes out. There are fourteen scenes altogether. I do not remember how many there were in TFII, but I think OTWOTW is going to be about the same length. This time I have done a lot more planning, and I think it is going to show (especially in the editing).

After principal production, there is a scene at the Turkuaz grocery store in Brighton that needs to be overdubbed due to adverse sound conditions (i.e., half a dozen fridges that could not be turned off). Other than that, it has been smooth sailing.

We are using an XL-2 in 16:9, 24PA mode, and honestly I have to say I love the camera — especially the lens. As good as anyone can ask of DV (admittedly, not saying much). The film looks pretty good for a no-budget production. The greatest technical difficulty that we faced so far, in my mind, was getting smooth dolly shots. They look fine shot wide, but reveal every little imperfection in close-up. I may have to investigate digital stabilization options. Easy to do when the camera is supposed to be still; not quite so otherwise, but I’m not afraid after all the rotoscoping I did in TFII.

A quick picture from the set, courtesy of Eugene:

Production was set for June 10 with the 11th reserved “just in case”. It turned out there was a bit of rain on the 10th so we ended up shooting on the 11th.

The film was shot at Blue Hills state park in Milton, MA. When we got there my D.P. (thank you, Dan!) and I spent half an hour looking for a location. It had to be well-lit (i.e., open-canopied) yet secluded, so we trekked up the nearest hill thinking there would be fewer trees. Sure enough, an appropriate spot was found at the top, so we returned to pick up the rest of the team.
The shoot was interesting, all right. It went pretty smoothly until the end, when my D.P. got struck down by pollen or something. I hesitated for a bit over whether to him (was it that bad?) or continue shooting, knowing that time was short. In the end I did get plenty of coverage. The sound was not too good though; lots of wind and noise (it’s a park, after all). I have not had a chance to watch the actual tapes, but I fear we might have to do dialog replacement. If anyone wants to retrace our steps, start here.

Finally, I can think about OTWOTW…