Looks

Well, the semester keeps on trucking. As I continue to pull together the project, I’m still struck by the insane number of options available with any given set of footage. Namely, I’ve been working with Rachel’s cut, which she tweaked from my last one, and I’ve experimented with a number of different “looks” that all give a unique feel to the proceedings.

I’ve looked at filter sets that stress the hot nature of the setting, as well as ones that utilize the color pallet of the centipede itself. Right now, I’m looking at a yellow-tinted, 1970s-inspired dirty look.

The budgeting process was interesting. I have a good bit of money set aside from the initial budget for this very reason, and I’m very thankful for that. With the seven festivals I picked, there is still several hundred dollars waiting in the wings. Rachel did really well with the spreadsheet, and I think I’m pretty in the clear on that front for the time being.

Hopefully, everyone’s having a decent time with their finalized edits. Looking forward to seeing the rest of them.

Update Nation

As the rough cut process begins to come to an end, I’ve begun to think about distribution and marketing plans. Specifically, I have started to research which website service would best serve the project. I would be interested to know if anyone has experience or success with any of these services. If so, let me know.

For my money, Squarespace is the frontrunner at the moment. Their own site is sleek, and the templates they offer look quite nice. The only problem I could potentially foresee is that the templates could be better suited for a personal website or portfolio, rather than as a project marketing tool.

I played around with Resolve, just to get some ideas as to what I’d like the overall film to look like visually. I’ve always, since principle shooting at least, been dedicated to a stylish green hue. However, every time I try something of the sort, it ends up looking more like The Matrix than I would prefer.

I am also dealing with a nasty continuity issue. To put it simply, food arrives out of nowhere. I have an insert of the plates arriving, but it just does not seem to fit anywhere in the edit without breaking the pacing. I will continue to work on it.

Best of luck on your rough cuts, everyone.

-DRV

Roughly Cutting

Things are moving.

Michaelangelo once said, "I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free." At the moment, the film looks more like a gorgon than an angel, but I'm now confident that it's in there somewhere. I now have about seven and a half minutes roughly edited, and I've put a hard deadline on a completed first pass. It's fascinating to me how obvious some shot omissions are now that we're actually cutting. I wish, for instance, that I had gotten more handheld coverage during the most tense parts of the conversation. Still, I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

My sound designer and I experimented with recording some sound using a shotgun mic and an H4N. We basically took turns picking up and putting down different plates and glasses, dropping things to the floor, and scraping knives together. The result is about thirty minutes of scattered noises that will eventually be utilized to create a bustling sound bed. I plan to get more of this in the days to come, but I think I'll try to find a roomier area to record in.

Speaking of sound, I've put a lot of thought into what to do about the electrical roar found in many of our shots. A friend showed me some samples of taking it out, and it is difficult to keep the dialogue sounding round. We'll continue to ruminate on that.

Also, has anyone begun to think about score yet? I realize that it is not exactly priority number one right now, but I'm curious as to where everyone has landed. I auditioned a couple of orchestral pieces with some of the film that I have cut together, just to try to get a feel for what it would sound like, and I can't decide if it helps the emotional tension of the scene or robs it of its authenticity. I think I need to go back to square one and watch some of the genre films that inspired the screenplay in the first place. Any thoughts?

Hope everybody's edits are coming along smoothly.

-David Vance

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/michelangelo.html#m5FCflz5QKsPhObd.99