On Editing Production schedules never go exactly as planned, but this past weekend Dex and I saw the upside of that chaos. We'd planned on shooting one sequence on Saturday and another two on Sunday, but we ended up getting all three on Saturday. That gave us an entire day off, and though it took us a while to adjust to such a completely alien concept, we managed to get in some serious leisure.

Our digital production process differs from more traditional methods of filmmaking in at least one major way. Usually, you'd film a "master" of an entire sequence, a wide shot that follows the action from start to finish. You'd then film the sequence again from another angle (perhaps a close-up of one of the actors), and repeat the process until you were comfortable that you had every possible combination covered. Then you'd decide what portions of those long shots to use in the editing room.

Instead, Dex and I storyboard the entire thing first, so we know exactly what we want the final product to look like. We plan a few more shots for coverage, but in general we go on set knowing exactly what shoots we need. Editing the footage goes much faster, because you've already decided what shots to use where, and we know exactly where those shots are on the tape due to production logging.

To make a long story short, we already have a final cut of about 80% of the movie. We still may make editing changes for pacing once the missing sequences are added, but we already have a pretty good feel for what went right and what went wrong on this production.

I'll save the full post-mortem for after we've fully wrapped production, but for now I can categorically state that Steadycam is more trouble than it's worth. Ah well, live and learn.  ¶ 4:03 PM 0 Comments

  Smile! You're on Supernatural Camera! Paul's script called for Inspector Hieronymus to use his "fabulous steampunk Polaroid" in our second short film chronicling the adventures of the intrepid occult detective. The camera needed to look like something that the Inspector would use to photograph supernatural activity, and in Paul's mind, I guess, that's "steampunk." The first Hieronymus short featured his "fabulous steampunk flashlight," and given it's brass fittings and such, I'd say it was, indeed, steampunk. (You can see the flashlight -- and the entire short -- here.) I'm pretty familiar with the historic line of Polaroid cameras, from the old Land to the Spectra and the "Go," but none of them were what I'd call "steampunk."

So, one Saturday a few weeks ago, I got together with JT Tepnapa of Star Trek Phase II, In the Closet (In the Closet isn't safe for work!) and Judas' Kiss for a walk through the Mission District of San Francisco to hit some thrift stores, looking for material to work with. We found a bunch of old cameras for cheap, and one awesome object that's a relic from the physical film days of home-movies (which I'm hanging on to for future projects!). Thrift-shopping for props is a great way to spend an afternoon hanging out with a friend.

Once home, I took apart one of the cameras, added some wood inlays, some brass brads, and some leather, but I still wasn't feeling it. It needed some brass fittings. So, I went to our local hardware store and spent more on brass lamp parts than I did on the rest of the camera and drilled, screwed and glued them on. The end result is the contraption you see the Inspector holding in the photo above. All in all I think it worked.

If we keep making these movies, we're going to build quite a collection of steampunk or para-Victorian items.

And that couldn't make me happier.

Labels: props, steampunk

  ¶ 2:56 PM 0 Comments

  Genius at Work, Again

As part of our workflow on Inspector Hieronymus, we do a rough edit of
our shoots as soon as we can to make sure we haven't missed anything
before we strike the sets. I finished the rough cut hours ago (and we
discovered some things we want to get -- not so much that we missed,
but enhancements we hadn't thought of until we saw everything on the
timeline), but Paul, takes things to Eleven by performing a first
pass at color correction and image enhancement.... Here you can see
him at work with Adobe AfterEffects CS4, tweaking the exposure and
color of the good Inspector. This phone snapshot could use some of
that enhancement!  ¶ 11:02 PM 0 Comments

  Inspector Hieronymus and the Case of the Comatose Filmmakers What a crazy week. We had to scramble to finish building the set and designing the props and storyboarding all the scenes, but somehow we managed to get it together in time for our first shoot on Saturday. We shot for seven hours and managed to get an two sequences in the can, breaking only for lunch, which involved the actors working the Castro in full costume and make-up. Unfortunately folk in the Castro are used to that sort of thing so I have nothing entertaining to blog about. *sigh*

Sunday we had an even bigger shoot, involving twice as many people, which made my tiny San Francisco apartment a bit claustrophobic. By the end our brains were all mushy, fit not even for zombie gumbo, but we completed the most difficult sequence of the movie—the one involving the total bloodbath—so it should be smooth sailing from here. What could possibly go wrong?  ¶ 8:26 PM 0 Comments

  Director at work!
Today we held a read-through/blocking session with all but one actor for the upcoming Hieronymus production.... Here we see Paul (in pajamas, as is his directorial wont) with Christopher Sugarman and Don Hardy. They're in our bedroom studio that Paul blogged about a couple days ago. We're starting filming next week.

The process of making a movie is in no small part one of organization. That's what today was about -- getting ourselves organized and ready to go once we start filming next week. Since this installment in the Inspector Hieronymus series has five characters, it's important that we all know what we're doing, and where we need to move on screen. So, we spent about 4 hours today planning the blocking before we have all those cumbersome lights and cameras and set pieces in place. It was a very useful few hours and should make the actual shoot go much more smoothly.

The cast really clicks well; they bounce ideas off one another and display a great deal of chemistry. It's great to find such a group of talented actors who work well together and seem to have a good time at it, too. I'm really looking forward to getting their performances into the computer and onto the screen.

Now, all that we have to do is finish building the sets, finish designing the shots and storyboarding, build a few more props, and finish costumes. Ah, the non-stop world of making movies!

I love it.  ¶ 12:10 AM 0 Comments