Jim Exton

Anniversary Update - Film Export and Music Score

2010-03-19T18:46:00.003-05:00

I am starting output tests for Anniversary. I don't know why, but this is always a nightmare. Why does one export option end up with blocky video but another one doesn't?

Probably has something to do with pixel aspect ratio, who knows? I can tell you this... I do get tired of editing sometimes. I don't know why, maybe because I just shoot what I need and there isn't any creative decisions that need to be made in the editing room. I don't know.

Anyway, I have figured out a dv export preset that works really good. I am exporting the whole movie for an actor's demo reel and for the musician who is going to score the film.

Next up is to export a high def version that is small enough to upload to YouTube. I think it has to be under 4GBs. The master file is 16gb as it stands now, so that shouldn't be too hard to do. IF... I wasn't the one doing it. It will take me probably 20 tries to get it right.

But this time I am going to save my presets AND write them down because I go through this every film.

I have found someone to do the score as well. I just need to get a signed contract with him. Should take him a couple weeks to get it done.

After that is audio mixing, which shouldn't take too long.

Then I can hopefully get everyone a copy and put it up on the internet for everyone to see.

Finally got footage back

2010-03-04T19:13:00.002-06:00

I got the hard drive back and have a master file of Anniversary in 1080p.

I will begin color correction in the next week. Need to get the music done still but at least the ball is back in my court as opposed to being in someone else's hands.

I am getting ready to shoot another short. Going back to 35mm. I have always preferred the look of film to video.

James Young is scheduled to DP again. If I get the right cast, I think this is going to be the best thing I have done, all the elements are in place and I feel like I have really learned a lot from the last couple of shorts. In addition, to a lifetime of trying to make this happen.

The short is called "Dual". It is a cool, who dunnit, fast paced thriller written by independent filmmaker Gregory Kerrick. I am looking forward to doing it. Here's hope that it will happen in the next couple months.

Finally

2009-12-08T11:55:00.001-06:00

So after 30 phone calls last week (none of which were answered), I am supposed to be getting the master file of "Anniversary" today. But then again... we will see.

Still looking for someone to write the music though. It will get done eventually.

That was quick...

2009-11-16T13:59:00.002-06:00

Over before it started, I didn't make the top 100 loglines for Scriptshadow's contest. Not surprised either. It is so hard to take a complicated locked room mystery and get it down to two sentences.

Not impossible, just really hard.

I am still working on it though because I do plan on sending out e-queries to production companies and hopefully get some script requests. In fact, I have come up with a better logline already... just a day late. LOL.

Up next is the Trackingib.com script contest. Considered one of about two or three contests that can actually do something for you, the deadline is in two weeks. I still have quite a bit of polishing to do. Not sure if I am going to get it to where I want in that time, but I am really close.

After that is Scriptapalooza in January. The other contest that could do a screenwriter good. The script should definitely be good to go by that time.

Scriptshadow - Logline Contest

2009-11-13T16:47:00.002-06:00

One of my favorite blogs is Scriptshadow. Carson Reeves runs it. He reviews unproduced screenplays and provides links to said screenplays.

I have been spending a large amount of time reading various screenwriting websites and blogs. I wish I had done this in my 20's instead of spending that time on camera specs and details.

Anyways, he is having a contest. There are three stages, the first is to send in your logline. The top 100 loglines then send in either a synopsis or the first ten pages of their script. Then the top 25 send in the full script.

Winner gets reviewed on his blog which is read by many industry people and could garner you a couple read requests.

More details to come.

Anniversary - Editing Finished

2009-11-13T16:45:00.001-06:00

Editing is done. Waiting for someone to output the master file so I can color correct it. Still working on finding someone for music. Kind of taking my time on it.

Some Stills from Anniversary shoot

2009-07-27T20:14:00.002-05:00

DP James Young (right) and camera operator Greg Stanford (left) confer while I am checking out something to the right.

Still waiting for footage

2009-07-24T19:55:00.003-05:00

One of the drawbacks to shooting on the Red is you really need a newer computer to work with it. Mine is too old and I don't really have the money to buy one right now.

So my footage is being processed by another person and I have to work around their schedule. I hope to have it by next week. They are burning dv copies for me with timecode so that I can edit the film and they can conform it later.

I am going Tuesday morning to get my audio transferred to digital form. Not going to be too expensive.

I am also still waiting for behind the scenes photos so I can put those up here.

So two weeks after I shoot my movie, I haven't even seen it yet. Nice.

This will probably be my last time shooting on the Red so I won't have to go through this in the future.

Actors

2009-07-18T10:39:00.002-05:00

The lead roles were played by Dan Reed and Melissa Haas.

And we had Donald Meyers and Deidra Tolliver playing the smaller roles of the manager and detective.

All of the actors did a great job. It is so hard to find good actors in Memphis and needless to say, it is kind of hard to get ahead without them. And too expensive to bring them in from L.A. just for a short.

There were a handful of people who also auditioned and did a great job, people I hope to work with in the future.

But back to Dan and Melissa. Although there is a big age difference between them, I feel like it worked really well. Both of them looked great on the reference monitor we were using. The Red camera is a 4k digital cinema camera which delivers a high resolution image. But we were using Russian Lomo superspeeds, which in my opinion deliver a softer, more film like image. Much like Cooke Series II/III lenses.

Not only did they look great, but they brought great performances along with them.

Melissa brought a vulnerability to the character, along with a sadness that what she once had is over.

And Dan brought the frustration and pain of a man torn between two loves.

I think the audience is going to feel this, so mission accomplished for both of them.

I am really proud of the cast, from top to bottom, the best I have put together. In combination with the production values we achieved, this is going to be another great showpiece to show potential investors.

Anniversary finished

2009-07-15T00:45:00.003-05:00

So we shot yesterday and today. We were on schedule Monday, and ran over an hour tonight, but it is in the can.

Not sure what I am still doing up at this hour writing a blog, but there are many stories and pictures to come.

DP James Young and camera operator Greg Stanford did a great job, the film looks fantastic. And this was definitely one of the best crews I have worked with in my life. But more on that later.

Anniversary update

2009-07-09T20:10:00.002-05:00

We went through blocking tonight for a couple hours so that I can make adjustments to my shot list. I need to make my shot list more detailed. I have too many different things to look at: script, shot list and camera diagram.

I need to get it all consolidated. Another lesson learned. Always nice to learn something.

Other than that, things look great, I have a good crew put together, four solid actors (so thankful for that!) and a great location. I feel like it is coming together perfectly and it is going to be a great film.

Teen Angst Script

2009-07-03T18:37:00.003-05:00

I continue to work on this. And it continues to get better. Which is a step in the right direction. In fact, just today I changed the character of Emily. Well, she hasn't changed but her function has.

In the original script, she wanted to hook up with the lead character Kevin and in the end he turns her down. This was meant to be show that what Kevin had wanted throughout the story (to get laid) had changed. Well, more specifically, he still wants to get laid, but not by one of the girls who hangs out with the straightedge crew. In the end, he realizes that hanging out with them was a bad choice. And she is one of them, so boobs or not, he doesn't do it.

I was thinking of changing it a love story subplot. I already had one of those before that got cut out, so.... I wasn't too keen on adding a new one in.

But I have been thinking lately of making Kevin a stronger character. After all, it is a character study, so it would probably be a good idea. LOL. So now, Kevin has a crush on Emily and he thinks that she digs him too, but he is mistaken. He has read her wrong. And towards the end of the film as we are getting close to the denouement, he makes a pass at her.

And ends up making an ass out of himself in the process. Good stuff, I think.

Anniversary Shoot Dates

2009-07-03T18:26:00.005-05:00

So we have scheduled the "Anniversary" shoot for July 13th and 14th.

We are loading up equipment and pre-lighting on the 12th. Since the movie all takes place in one room, that makes things nice.

We had auditions last Saturday. Dan Reed did a great job bringing in a nice range of people to look at. That is always nice.

I will be making the final casting decisions this weekend.

And I have found an excellent location, we are shooting in the historic Hunt-Phelan home on Beale Street. One of Memphis' last remaining treasure homes, it now serves as a bed and breakfast.

huntphelan.com

The staff down there, Vicki in particular, have been extremely gracious with me. It is much appreciated.

Stephen's Notes are in

2009-06-25T18:18:00.003-05:00

So I got Stephen's notes on the teen angst script and got some great information out of it. I feel like I am on the right path.

I wrote some today and came up with some great material. In the script as it is now, when Kevin ventures into the city on weekends to go to hardcore shows, he meets a crew of straightedge (sXe) skinheads and a black mohawked kid named Arthur

The purpose of these two chracters (the sXe crew counts as one for the purpose of this discussion) was always to provide a yin/yang for the lead character Kevin. Arthur represents the non-violent way of dealing with images. The sXe crew represent the violent/yang side of things.

Kevin does learn positive things from the crew, the straightedge lifestyle is a very positive thing for a teenager trying to navigate their way through those tough times.

But I love the idea that they influence him negatively. It is a complex character or group of characters.

Anyways, in the first draft, both of these characters were underutilized. Stephen pointed this out and I completely agree with him. As a coming of age film in the tradition of Trufaut, I felt like both of these characters needed developed more. And the tug of war for Kevin's soul, if you will, needed to be stronger.

So today, I have thought of more story elements that are going to make this happen and that is always a good thing.

Yesterday, I wrote a new scene for the first part of the film. A bullying scene that takes place out of school.

I have also marked at least one scene for possible deletion. Although I really like it, I have to admit that it is a little cliched and played out. Kevin comes into the locker room to find his locker empty and his clothes in the toilet.

I also re-wrote the opening scenes with Kevin familiarizing himself with his new hometown. There is a really cool opening shot that really serves a purpose and has meaning. Camera shots and moves should always be motivated; they should do something. This one does.

It is also really important on how you introduce your character to the audience. The introduction should say something about the character. The shot mentioned above does that as well.

I am actually really happy with the way things are shaping up with this script. I always knew the potential was there and I feel like more and more, that is happening as it gets rewritten.

Auditions on Saturday

2009-06-25T18:15:00.002-05:00

So Dan Reed has pulled out all the stops and we hope to have a decent turnout on Saturday. Usually in Memphis, you get 3 people show up. We are expecting 10.

That wasn't a joke.

But when you make a short film, you should only need a couple other people. Anyways, we will see how it goes.

Auditions are Saturday at Sleeping Cat Studios from 12pm-6pm.

Teen Angst Script

2009-06-21T17:50:00.003-05:00

Over the last five years, there have been a couple of directions the script could go in. It could focus on bullying and be "about" that. Or it could be a coming of age character study with the bullying in the background.

I always liked that idea better because there are a lot of cool scenes of Kevin getting involved in punk rock/hardcore.

At one time, there was even a subplot with a love interest for Kevin. That was cut because the script was too long.

So for the restructuring, I am going with the coming of age angle. This new structure will follow Kevin as he is a loner at school. He makes a couple new friends and finds some happiness. One of them, Johnny, turns him on to hardcore and takes him to his first show.

While things at school don't get better, Kevin and the gang look forward to the weekends when they go to the city and hang out with other kids in the scene.

I think I should be able to use most of what I have written, but do plan on letting things develop organically as I rework the outline.

Anniversary update

2009-06-19T14:28:00.003-05:00

So we are working on solidifying the Anniversary shoot. We have two locations that we are considering. Looking at a mid-July shoot.

I am working with a new DP, James Young. Since Stephen can't quit his job to work on a theoretical feature next summer, I need to find somebody who is able to work 4 weeks in a row and not lose their job. James is in the business, so that could potentially work.

James has been a professional gaffer for, I am assuming, 10+ years. Anyways, he is making the transition to DP and obviously wants to build a reel in order to get more work.

I have worked with him before on Greg Stanford's short film. Well, I was on set, but didn't really do anything. But I have seen James work and he is a professional, as well as a great guy. Now the ball is in his hands.

Greg is also joining the crew as camera operator. He will be working with Dave Hymel, who is recently retired and available to work on film projects full time. Dave is a Final Cut Pro instructor as well as a shooter. He has never worked with the Red, so Greg will show him the ropes and get a little on the job training in.

I have also been working with a local Memphis film producer named Chris Person. He has his hands in a couple different projects and is looking to get some stuff off the ground over the next year. He has been helping us out a lot.

Dan Reed is sending out the official casting notice to agencies early next week, once we have dates locked.

And I have four potential other crew people lined up. All of whom I have worked with on Matt Bowling's short films. In fact, Matt is one of them, he helped on Four Years.

So things are shaping up really nicely. Auditions are next weekend at Sleeping Cat studios from 12pm-5pm so we will see how that goes.

And I have the shot list complete, I made some modifications based on one of the locations that has been offered to us. If that doesn't work out, it can easily be modified again, but it helps to continually look at it and adjust it.

I am also working on a polish of the script as well.

First Notes from Stephen

2009-06-02T16:25:00.001-05:00

Stephen is done with his notes, but is taking a couple days to compile them together. He did send a quick email with some basic thoughts. Overall, some pretty good suggestions, but it is hard to say anything at this point until I read all the notes.

Dan and I talked last night about it again and he thinks there is a good film somewhere in there. He loved a lot of the individual scenes, most of which I thought were really good on my own. But it is always nice to have validation from someone else.

New Short - "Anniversary"

2009-06-02T16:17:00.002-05:00

So, I found this good short story online called "The Honeymoon is Over". I got the rights to it, it is going to make a pretty cool little film.

It is what I call a typical short film, one that has a little twist ending to it.

I changed the title to Anniversary because it doesn't give the film away and it is shorter.

I wanted to stay busy, I will be working with some new people this time, hopefully. My goal is to build a small group of people I can call on when the next feature happens. And it is always better to try people out on a short film than a four week feature.

I am trying to find a motel to shoot in right now, so hopefully that will take place and I can pull the trigger on this.

I am planning on shooting on the Red, but we will see how that pans out. I have owned one for two years and never shot anything with it, I am interested in trying it out with some filters I have bought for it. I am hoping combined with downconverting the 4k to 1080p, it will be soft enough for my liking. Because right now, it is way too sharp.

More Script Notes/Possible Restructuring

2009-05-16T22:49:00.003-05:00

So Dan clarified some things with me, overall good notes as usual. There were lots of things that I thought were good that he confirmed were good. In other words, he laughed in the right places and pointed out things that were nice touches that I thought I was pretty clever in coming up with. So that always feels good.

With that being said...

I have begun playing around with a new outline. I have managed to kill a lot of babies and not lose much of anything.

The way I did this was instead of having the protagonist be a new kid in town, I can have him already be a student there, he has his two friends and he is already involved in the hardcore punk scene in the nearest city.

This allows me to just get to the point. After all, it is not a movie about a new kid moving to town, it is a movie about a kid getting bullied and the rage that boils up inside him.

The problem I have now is there is a relatively big hole about 3/4 of the way through the movie. But every cloud has a silver lining, this could be a great opportunity to examine the core issues of the movie in more detail.

As it is now, the script is 2 hours long. Not much room to add anything. So by cutting out the fat, I have created a little pocket here where I work on the progressive complications in more detail as well as possibly introducing the fateful decision Kevin and Johnny make. And delay for a longer period of time whether they go through with it or not, e.g. create suspense.

I like that. But I am still going to wait for Stephen's notes before moving forward.

"The Safe House"

2009-05-13T18:14:00.002-05:00

So, this is another short film I have the rights to. It was written by Dan Smith, the man who wrote Four Years.

I am talking to some people about possibly squeezing this in sometime in late June or July.

Things are still in the planning stages, but I am working towards that.

Synopsis: Chris Rhodes tries to help his fellow high school teacher, Sheila, when he suspects she's been a victim of domestic violence. But when she accepts his help, he fears he's taken on more than he expected.

Teen Angst Script - Notes Back #1

2009-05-13T17:47:00.004-05:00

So Dan Reed got back to me with some notes on the script. There was quite a bit of confirmation on things that I wanted to achieve so that is always good.

He also brought up a couple good points about some issues. And he made quite a few suggestions, some good, some not so good, but... even the not so good ones are in their own way: good. Because they get you thinking, he pointed out a problem of things not starting fast enough and possibly moving an important plot point forward in the script.

I am not sure about the plot point, but I took the advice of ramping things up faster to heart. Will I do it or not? I don't know, but I am thinking about it and that is what I want. I want people to get me thinking about some different ways to achieve what I want to do with the script.

I have posed a bunch of follow up questions and concerns for him to address, mostly dealing with whether the film will be commercial enough for the type of movie I want to make.

See, this script isn't one that follows an accepted story structure to a T. It is more of a slice of life film, much like French and other European films, and those influenced by those films.

It has an open ending as opposed to a closed ending as usually found in American films. So, when one reviews the script, they have to take what the writer intended into account.

Really, the goal was to make it between those two schools of films as I don't want to make something completely action driven nor do I want to make a mumblecore type film where the plot points are kind weak as you are just typing to capture a small slice of life in a 96 minute movie.

So those are the things I followed up on. Ultimately we all have to make a decision regarding whether a project is too commercial or too arty that you are going to alienate a large amount of people. This particular project needs to be something in between, and I like that about it.

But all in all, the reaction from Dan was good. Food for thought. I have one more person providing notes, we will see what he says. You know if you have two or three or more people telling you the same thing, then you really need to step outside yourself and take a hard look at what they are saying.

Or just do what they say no matter what you feel/think.

Teen Angst Script

2009-05-08T19:15:00.002-05:00

So I have been working on this script since 2004, but the idea goes back probably about 10 years before that. The script remained unfinished until about three months ago when I started working on it again. It was just in outline form and before I stopped working on it, I couldn't figure out what to do in a lot of scenes.

In the outline, it would just mention "Kevin and Ricky talk about how school sucks" or something like that, but I couldn't figure out where they were talking and what, if anything, they were doing while they were talking. It is one of my major weaknesses as a writer: where to put people and what are they doing? In action films, that comes easier for me, but with dramas... a lot harder.

Well, that all changed because as I started to write it, everything just came out. I took it from outline form to first draft in about 2 months, which for me is a record.

So, I have given copies to Dan Reed and Stephen Leet. Both of them are excellent at analyzing scripts and giving notes. Both of them could make a living as script readers if they so desired.

I feel like one of the most important things for a filmmaker to have is at least one person who can do this for you. I have two so far. Now I just have to wait for them to read it and get back.

I am hoping they tell me it is worth filming. I feel like it is a good story. It is about Kevin, a high school senior who is getting bullied at school. He meets Ricky, a metal head who is in the same boat as Kevin; as well as Johnny, an anarchist punk.

The three form a friendship amongst themselves as they spend their weekends in the city where Johnny introduces Kevin to the hardcore punk scene. For the first time in his life, he finds a place where he feels like he belongs.

As the film progresses, Kevin learns to stand up for his self, which increases the tension level with the kids who are picking on him. After a fight, Kevin decides he has had enough and talk turns to getting the prom canceled as a way of revenge.

I really love this story, some of the events are things that has happened to me, mostly the memory of being drawn into the punk rock scene, those were some of the best times. Taking road trips to go see Social Distortion and Danzig (lol), Slapshot, etc. There are also a lot of emotions and feelings that are autobiographical. I wasn't president of the glee club in high school to say the least.

I was worried about the prom plot point. I never wanted it to be a Columbine type thing where they go into prom and blow the shit out of everybody. School shootings are a rare occurence. Most people who are bullied would never consider doing something like that. They might think about it, but they aren't going to carry it through.

So I have thought over and over again about how to actually get it done and finally came up with a solution. You will just have to wait to see what it is. It just developed organically as the script unfolded in my head. I love it when that happens.

This is one of the three features I am considering doing next year. And right now it is the only one written.

Dan Reed and I are working on a script based on an idea of mine. And I am working with another writer from Venezuela on a teen requited love film, for the lack of a better description.

But I really want to do this one, it is has been in my head and heart for a long time and I want to get it out. But I refuse to make another feature without pretty extensive and independent critiquing of the script. I don't completely trust myself to make that call. There is too much that can go wrong.

I don't believe in making films by committee but I really want to hear multiple viewpoints and notes from different people in order to correct or improve the script.

So I am just waiting now....

Four Years - On Location Screening Thoughts

2009-05-01T14:19:00.003-05:00

So Four Years played at the On Location Memphis festival on April 26th. They had requested that all filmmakers send them an uncompressed Quicktime file of their movie, but this was about four weeks before the festival.

That seemed odd because that doesn't leave enough time to compile the files and send them off to get a blu-ray master, which was their intent.

At least in my opinion it doesn't.

So Four Years screened with some stuff shot on DV and the Red Camera. But I think they used the MPEG dvd I sent them, you know one that will play on your dvd players. I know this because you could see the 4:3 aspect ratio and then the 1:85 movie playing inside it. So, all the 4:3 stuff played in just the middle of the screen and because four years was framed in 1:85, it took place in the middle of that.

It looked about two feet wide on the screen whereas stuff shot on DV and Red was twice as big. In fact, a couple of Red films took up the whole screen. How does that happen?

I sent them a 3GB Quicktime in the same aspect ratio as the Red stuff, why didn't they use that?

I wasn't too thrilled to say the least.

I sent them a hard drive with an uncompressed file of the movie. It was 85GBs!!!! But I suspect they didn't have enough time to get everything burned to blu-ray or I didn't get it to them quick enough. But they used my dvd file to burn to blu-ray, when they should have at least used the 3 GB H264 Quicktime, which they did have for quite awhile.

Sad. I know this happens all the time in film festivals, but they need to start earlier next year collecting files and verifying with all the filmmakers what file they are using to make sure they have the best that the filmmaker can provide.

There is no reason why they can't receive all films in 1080p format. The people who still shoot their films on DV can uprez, or you can crop their films. But don't take my cropped film and then crop it again by showing it as a 4:3 film. What a complete waste of the 35mm format.

So much for seeing Four Years on the big screen.

I have decided that after Dual is done, I am going to arrange a screening at Malco. I want to show both films in all their widescreen, big time glory.

Dual - Shooting in August

2009-05-01T13:45:00.002-05:00

Due to lead actor Dan Reed's schedule and holidays, I am shooting Dual the first two weekends of August. That is only three months away. More than I wanted it to be, but I didn't want to cram it in June because... well, I forget why.

But this gives us more time to think about it. I plan on shooting some stuff for the opening credits in the next couple months.

We are also working on an unofficial list of actors to call in to audition for the project.

I have a house to check out that I might want to shoot in. It has taken four weeks just to get that lined up. This is why I like having a pre-pre-production phase where I sort of line things up unofficially wise. When you shoot in the town you live in, you can do this pretty easily.

Dan and I also found a store online that sells clothing for Sunset Strip type rockers. The lead character in Dual (Adam) has a split personality named Crowe. In order for the audience to know who is who, it is vital that we make Adam and Crowe as different as we can.

The writer has already done his part, now it is up to us to do the rest. I decided that visually, these two had to be polar opposites, there needed to be something that stood out and would leave no doubt when we were seeing Crowe on screen.

I decided to make Crowe a flamboyant dresser, like a Sunset Strip rock and roller or the pickup artist Mystery. We are going to go with eyeliner (guy liner) and lots of jewelry on the fingers and neck.

But I knew we needed to have one of those Louis IV silk shirts or something else that a magician or L.A. rocker would wear.

So, we have a couple shirts/vests that we are looking at.

And Adam is going to be a straight laced, almost nerdy type guy. He will wear glasses and a suit. I guess we are going for more of a corporate look, business casual I think they call it.

I think the writer had them opposite of this, but Dan and I agreed when we read the script that we pictured it swapped around. We thought that Adam would be wearing the suit and Crowe, whose dialouge made him out to be a smart ass instigator, he would be the one who fits a more flamboyant style of dress.

One of the major things that bothers me about this short is my ability to make sure the audience knows the difference between the two personalities. This is one way we are going to make sure that happens.

Dan also suggested we show Adam/Crowe tripping and breaking a flower pot outside his girlfriend's house. This will help the audience differentiate between the flashbacks we show as well as which personality we are watching at a given time. Between this and the clothes, I think we have this particular problem nailed.

"Dual" Synopsis

2009-04-15T18:37:00.002-05:00

A young man, secretly plagued with Dual-Personality Disorder, receives a mysterious phone call from his best friend, only to find her brutally murdered when he visits her home.

Written by filmmaker/DP Gregory Kerrick.

I am working on getting dates set for it. My Dad is having surgery next week and will need 2 months to recover so I wanted to wait for that. That would mean a mid-July shoot (since no one is going to be available on July 4th), but the lead actor is busy the one weekend in July, so now I am hoping for the first two weekends in August.

That will give me plenty of time to re-paint my bedroom, which I wanted to do anyways, as well as purchase some additional props for the bedroom just to make it look good on film.

Anyways, this is a great story I was lucky to find and I can't wait to do it, but sometimes life gets in the way and we just have to roll with the punches.

Ground Glass Markings

2009-04-15T18:27:00.002-05:00

So one of the problems I had when filming Four Years was the ground glass on the BL-2 didn't have 1:85 aspect ratio markings. I marked the LCD screen I had hooked up to the video tap, but every time I would bump the video tap, I would have to line the lcd back up with the video tap image again.

Also, since the lines were penciled in by the previous owner, it was hard to see them at night.

That proved to be a pain in the ass. So today I removed the ground glass and used really thin camera tape to mark off the lines.

Another problem I had was camera noise, but I have bought barneys for the camera.

Also had a problem with only having two magazines. I have bought one more and ideally would like to get at least three more for a total of six.

My new favorite album

2009-04-06T16:15:00.004-05:00

I found this the other day, never heard of this guy, his name was Johnny Jenkins and the album is called Ton Ton Macoute. Recorded in 1969-70, it features guitar playing from one of my favorites, the legendary Duane Allman.

Pretty much all covers of old blues standards, this album is bad ass and mean sounding. I can't stop listening too it.

His cover of Dr. John's "Walk on Gilded Splinters" is one of the best I have heard. It is too bad Jenkins didn't record more stuff and he is no longer around. He is perhaps one of the best blues men you have never heard of.

http://www.amazon.com/Ton-Ton-Macoute-Johnny-Jenkins/dp/B000003CMQ

New Film - "Dual"

2009-04-06T16:05:00.002-05:00

Pre-production is beginning on my film, called Dual. It is a short story written by filmmaker Gregory Kerrick.

I am really excited about this, it is one of the best short I have read in a long time.

I am working on securing a house to shoot it, then dates will be set and we will be ready to rock.

Shooting in 35mm again. And... we are going completely old school, we will be using my Nagra 4.2 sound recorder to record audio.

The 1/4 inch Nagra was the industry standard for 30 years until DAT replaced it. But a lot of people, including myself, feel that analog audio tape records a more natural, warmer sound. And there are still a few companies who produce new 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch audiotape.

And the Nagra is a legendary machine, famous for it's high quality pre-amps and precision recording.

The only drawback, if you can call it that, is that analog audio tape is naturally noisy. But almost every professional audio program has a hiss removal filter, I have processed test audio myself, and after hiss removal you are left with a noiseless recording. At least as far as noise that the machine produces itself.

And it doesn't take an audio genius to use that hiss removal filter, it basically does it all by itself.

Anyways, we are going completely old school on this one. Aside from the editing. That is one area where digital technology has been a blessing. Although it would be kinda cool to buy an old Steenbeck and cut and splice together a workprint....

Four Years playing at On Location Memphis

2009-03-05T15:19:00.002-06:00

I just got an email that Four Years has been accepted into this year's On Location film festival. Yeah!

Should be a good time. Thanks to all of you for making it happen.

"August Evening"

2009-02-10T19:44:00.004-06:00

YOU. MUST. SEE. THIS. FILM.

Wow, I don't even know where to start. Trying to make it as a filmmaker is frustrating and full of disappointment and doubt. But every now and then you see a movie that reminds you of why you wanted to make films in the first place.

August Evening is that film for me. It has been so long since I have seen something this good. Shot on what looks like DV and for some reason in the 4:3 aspect ratio (???), neither of which matter in the end, this film is so engaging.

Now I must say, if you are not a fan of "art films", well, then there is no hope for you anyways. LOL.

But for people that enjoy quality films, you must see this. It will stay with you for days. Incredible job by everyone involved.

www.augustevening.com/

"Four Years" online at Vimeo

2009-02-04T22:48:00.002-06:00

http://vimeo.com/3071939

720p version. I am thinking of putting it up on YouTube as well since you can upload a 1GB file there, it would actually be better than this 480mb file.

Still looks good anyways if you don't blow it up to full screen.

Four Years - coming online

2009-02-02T17:58:00.002-06:00

I am working on outputting a file to upload to Vimeo and probably YouTube since they have HD now.

Got one rejection from a film festival. I have been doing some research on the film festival circuit, and there seems to be many reasons why films are rejected. I am not saying that Four Years is a great film and got overlooked, I am just saying that there are other reasons for rejecting a film.

It may not fit in with the features they are showing, it might not fit with what they would like to show... or it may just suck.

I am relatively happy with the way that Four Years turned out, but in retrospect it wasn't the right film to do. There is too much narration in it. Especially for the length that it is.

It would have been better to make a more traditional film. But that is what I am going to do next.

It was still nice to shoot 35mm for the first time. It was a new workflow to get used to, mostly because of the short ends. It reminded me of starting out on super 8mm because the cartridges were only 2 1/2 minutes long. It takes getting used to. It also isn't for everyone due to people liking to work different ways.

I have decided to not submit to any more festivals for Four Years, it is just a waste of money. I got what I wanted out of it.

The goal of the next one is to continue to build a network of crew people I can call on when I make my next feature (if I ever make another feature), plus I still have to sort out my disconnect of what I see in my mind's eye and what actually gets filmed.

This is mostly due to not spending enough time on set ahead of time with a director's finder and looking at the shots. Of course, when you have to operate the camera and move it around, it doesn't leave you enough time to be a director as well.

Which is something else that will change on the next film, assuming I find enough people.

Behind the Scenes - Part Five

2009-01-22T01:11:00.001-06:00

Behind the Scenes - Part Five from Jim Exton on Vimeo.

Another behind the scenes.

Behind the Scenes - Part Four

2009-01-11T20:11:00.001-06:00

Behind the Scenes - Part Four from Jim Exton on Vimeo.

This one is in HD. I think I have at least one more to upload which I will do next week.

Behind the Scenes - Part Three

2009-01-02T20:29:00.001-06:00

Behind the Scenes - Part Three from Jim Exton on Vimeo.

In standard definition because of Vimeo's upload restrictions. Still cool to watch.

Behind the Scenes - Part Two

2008-12-29T15:23:00.000-06:00

Behind the Scenes - Short Film - "Four Years" - Part 2 from Jim Exton on Vimeo.

Just a bunch of misc stuff, nothing too exciting.

Behind the Scenes

2008-12-21T01:59:00.003-06:00

Behind the Scenes of the short film "Four Years" from Jim Exton on Vimeo.

Here is the first of the behind the scenes video. This is a perfect example of: what can go wrong will.

The actor has to walk to the Lexus, start it and drive off. Little did he, or I, or anyone else know, that there is some kind of button or switch that needed pressed as well.

Not sure if that was just this Lexus or all of them, but it felt so good to waste 50 seconds of 35mm film.

Sorry about the audio quality, we were using the onboard mic. Thanks to everyone who picked up the camera and shot some stuff.

This was the last scene we shot on the whole film but is the first scene in the movie. Shot with a Panasonic HVX-200.

You can see my little ghetto dolly that everyone seems to love. Works great, I love it. Not a pretty thing, but it gets the job done.

Behind the Scenes Footage Coming Soon

2008-12-20T18:20:00.001-06:00

Buchanan gave me the footage last week, I am working on going through it and finding some good stuff to post.

Coming soon...

Watching the H264 File

2008-12-10T20:00:00.001-06:00

If you watch the H264 file on your computer, you might have to adjust the brightness in Quicktime. For reason too complicated to get into here, there is a brightness issue with Quicktime, it is an Apple Corp issue, not a Jim Exton issue.

Anyways, you will probably have to lower it just a little bit to make the blacks really nice. If you go to the climatic scene, you should just be able to make out the building in the background if the brightness is set correctly.

Not setting it correctly will cause grain to appear where no grain should be. The only scene where there is a little grain is in the climatic scene: there should be just a little bit there.

Film Threat submission

2008-12-10T19:59:00.000-06:00

I am submitting the film to Film Threat for review. I don't know how long it takes, I think it is a couple months, but we will see.

More Film Festival Submissions

2008-11-25T01:31:00.002-06:00

Little Rock Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
Nashville Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival

Watch HD files on your TV

2008-11-21T03:25:00.002-06:00

So I stumbled across this today.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572

What an easy way to play HD files on your TV. Around $200. Since a lot of filmmakers can't afford a blu-ray burner, and a lot of blu-ray burners won't play homemade blu-rays, this is a great alternative to get your project out there on HD. That is... if everyone bought one. But at this price it makes it a no brainer.

Gets rid of expensive blu-ray burners, not to mention the blank disks. Just copy a file onto a USB hard drive and hook it up to the device, which in turn remains hooked up to your tv, and there you go.

It even plays 1080p. Nice.

I am going to get one for my HDTV just so I can see Four Years in all it's HD glory.

DVDs - Cast and Crew

2008-11-20T20:55:00.002-06:00

I need for all the cast and crew to send me their addresses.

I will be putting in the last sound effect tonight and burning the film onto dvds. I am waiting for new dvds and dvd shells to arrive but I should be able to start shipping them out on Monday.

I am also going to send everyone a WMV HD file that will play on your computers. If you have a computer or laptop, please watch the film with this dvd as it is higher quality.

Thanks to everyone that helped, I appreciate it. It is definitely the best film I have made and it was due to you all lending your time and talent; and Dan Smith for writing it.

Still Tweaking

2008-11-19T15:08:00.002-06:00

I played the finished dvd and found some issues with the music. Since scene 3 was cut out, the music on scene 2 and scene 4 are too dramatic with the music peaking on an emotional note.

Anyways, I spent an hour last night editing and remixing the music for the first three scenes.

I got the switchblade sound effect I needed, I am going to record the camera one tonight.

Once those are done, the film should be done.

I am going to burn a couple more dvds because I think the aspect ratio output is wrong. It seems too stretched on my hdtv, I think I need to burn a dvd flagged for 16x9.

More Film Festival Submissions

2008-11-17T00:22:00.002-06:00

I have also submitted the film to:

1) AFI Dallas International Film Festival

2) Carolina Film and Video Festival

Screengrabs

2008-11-16T22:14:00.005-06:00

I think the above shot is my favorite. That is some great lighting there. Director of Photography - Stephen Leet

Another great shot. One Light, and I think one flag, but that was it.

This shot was posted before, but this is with color correction, mostly brightness control. The lab transferred my footage brighter than the end result. This gave me room to make it as dark as I wanted. Better to have to go darker, than to have to brighten something they made too dark.

DISCLAIMER - These are compressed jpegs made from uncompressed tiffs. For those unfamiliar, this means that the final image quality is better.

Film Festival Submission

2008-11-16T22:06:00.003-06:00

I have submitted Four Years to the Newport Beach Film Festival.

From their website:

Founded in 1999, the Newport Beach Film Festival has evolved into a prestigious multicultural event, attracting over 40,000 attendees to Orange County. Since its inception, the Festival has presented many acclaimed films such as the U.S. Premiere of Crash and other notable films including Waitress, Son of Rambow, Paprika, Broken English, The King of Kong, Layer Cake, The Illusionist, Art School Confidential, Emmanuel's Gift, Mad Hot Ballroom, Dogtown and Z Boys, Castle in the Sky, Born into Brothels, Pieces of April, Sexy Beast, as well as anniversary screenings of classics such as The French Connection, Sunset Boulevard, The Outsiders and Endless Summer. Through tributes, special screenings and seminars, the Festival has honored film industry notables, including Haskell Wexler, Robert Wise, Henry Bumstead, Elmer Bernstein, John Waters, Alan Arkin, Bruce Brown, Greg MacGillivray and McG. In 2007 the Festival hosted Ten Decades of the Duke, The Official John Wayne Centennial Celebration.

In addition, the Newport Beach Film Festival offers filmgoers a rare opportunity to meet the filmmakers. Directors, screenwriters and cinematographers eager to share their work will provide an exclusive inside look at the industry during post-screening Q&A's.

http://www.newportbeachfilmfest.com/home.php

Some New Framegrabs

2008-11-15T01:29:00.006-06:00

Audio Mixing

2008-11-15T01:24:00.003-06:00

I spend 2 hours tonight mixing the audio. I am still missing two audio effects, but I have decided to go ahead and start submitting the film to festivals.

I have already missed like four that I really wanted to submit too, especially Cinequest. There are a couple more coming up soon that I don't want to risk missing.

These effects are minor things, nothing that is going to keep the film from not making it into a festival, we are beyond that now.

So I am going to burn the master mpeg file this weekend and output the audio as it stands right now. I think I am still going to make tweaks here and there, but I am really close to calling it done.

No Feature Film Next Year

2008-11-14T18:43:00.003-06:00

So I was planning on making a feature film next year, but... Red announced the new Scarlet and Epic camera system.

It looks like it is going to cost me a lot more to upgrade to the Epic than I thought. And as usual I was cutting it close with the budget anyways.

But I will be making a short next year, I am looking for some properties (scripts) to acquire.

If I can find the talent I need locally, I will use the money to shoot on film. If not, I will use the money to bring in actors from L.A. and shoot on the Red.

Scenes Cut

2008-11-14T18:36:00.002-06:00

So the scene where Paul goes and talks to the theater employee has been cut. That wasn't the original location we were supposed to use, originally I wanted to use a real theater. The employee was supposed to be in front of the stage as a couple stagehands were milling around in the background.

But since we shot there, there wasn't anything visually interesting in the scene and it was hard to light to make it look good.

It really stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest of the movie so it got cut.

I also cut out the scene where Paul is on the couch waiting for Jill to come home. It ended up really being unnecessary so out it went.

Film not runs 11 1/2 minutes.

More Editing

2008-11-10T17:06:00.003-06:00

Also on Saturday, Stephen looked over the edit and made some suggestions that were really good. I made those edits today and the film seems so much better for it.

It now runs 11 minutes long.

I also did some sound work fading out the music and making sure it matches the picture at the right times, for some reason there was extra space at the beginning and ending of the two files, no big deal, took about 5 minutes to fix.

I am going to continue to lay in the sound effects tonight. I am in a big push to get this done because of the film festivals and also because I need to clear that room to put new flooring in. LOL. Nothing like a little extra motivation.

Really, it is because of the festivals. I really wanted to submit to Cinequest but I probably won't make it now.

But there are others coming up that we are going to submit to.

And I also want to get some new, color corrected stills up.

Color Correction Done

2008-11-10T16:55:00.003-06:00

DP Stephen Leet came over on Saturday to color correct. The original stills put up don't reflect what the finished film is going to look like at all, they were never meant to, they were just a quick grade to get some stills up for everyone to see.

The final grade is much more aggressive and reflects the dark, noirish look of the film that Stephen intended. It looks really awesome, I can't wait till you all see it.

DP Stephen Leet - Color Correction

2008-11-06T23:16:00.001-06:00

Stephen is coming over this weekend so we can color correct the film together. I have laid a pretty decent foundation and we will tweak it accordingly.

Hopefully by next week, all of the dvd issues, audio work and cc will be done and we can start sending out copies and submitting to film festivals.

DVD Results, Without a Box

2008-11-06T23:11:00.002-06:00

So I played the dvd and there seems to be an issue. It pauses in between the chapters when there is supposed to be a smooth, seemless transition.

So I need to figure that out. Not a deal breaker as I can just output the whole thing as a continous file if I need too.

Without a box is a website for filmmakers to submit to film festivals. It is supposed to be a convenient center to manage everything and make your life easier.

Well, one of their features is when you add a festival to your watch list, you can set up an email reminder for yourself that lets you know 14 days ahead of time when the next deadline is.

I knew that some of mine were the end of October and yet I haven't received any emails, so I checked today and sure enough, I missed two festivals. Two festivals that show I am signed up for an email reminder.

What a fucking pain in the ass. I guess I am just going to have to do a bulk submitting 4 times a year and just get it out of the way.

DVD Tests

2008-11-05T22:43:00.002-06:00

I am burning dvd tests today to check quality on different systems. Will keep you updated.

I am also going back and re-doing color correction for some different scenes.

Still have the audio work to do. My sister visited from out of town and I stopped taking my antidepressants. Sleep has been rough the last four days, but I am back on track.

Correcting an Error

2008-10-30T01:38:00.002-05:00

So I had to re-do all TIFF exports and re-do all the MPEG files because when I did it originally, I didn't export the tiffs as 24fps, I did it as 29.97.

This caused the audio to be off. I found that out when I went to test a dvd. But, the good news is I got that all done tonight.

I have to color correct and export the last two scenes.

And I still have all of the audio mixing to do.

Been a little lazy, as well as busy with other things. But I need to get it down by next week because some film festival deadlines are coming up.

MPEG Workflow

2008-10-24T23:41:00.002-05:00

So the 1080p Tiffs work just fine.

Here is the workflow:

Export uncompressed Tiffs from your editor. Color correction and all.
Import into Canopus Pro Coder 3
Make sure to check the "thread" button
Use MPEG profile - you will only need 1 pass. You will have to figure out your data rate depending on the length of your project

The tiffs do take up a bunch of space because of their size, but damn if this isn't the best mpegs I have created.

I did notice that the tiff came out a little darker than expected, so I had to re-do some scenes. Not sure why that is happening, but the mpeg movies from Procoder look just like the tiffs so it is a what you see is what you get type of situation there.

By the way, my computer is a three year old Dell workstation with (2) Intel Xeon 3.0 processors and 2.5 gb of Ram. Bought off of Ebay for $1000.00. So, if you are working with something newer, then the render times will be much faster.

Mine aren't bad, it takes Premiere about 10 minutes to render out about a minute of Tiffs. The Canopus takes about 5 minutes to stitch them together into an mpeg file.

Back to TIFFs

2008-10-22T20:32:00.002-05:00

Okay, so here is a problem I discovered. When you export Tiffs from a timeline, you of course get about 800 stills for every 40 seconds of video. Roughly.

Those 800 stills are 800 individual files, obviously. When I had been exporting them into Canopus Procoder, I imported all 800. Just like if you were copying them to another hard drive or folder, you would select all 800 to copy over.

Well, in Procoder, you don't do that, you select the last (highest named file) and import it. Then you can select if you want to stitch together frame one to the last. Or frame 85 to 754, or whatever.

I had been playing around with 720x480 tiffs and it was still taking me about 40 minutes to render 10 seconds. Of course I was doing everything wrong.

When I finally got things right, it took, oh about, 1 minutes to render 40 seconds. Quite a big difference.

So now I have gone back and exported 1920 x 1080 Tiffs to see if I can get them do work.

I will update tomorrow.

Encoding Solved

2008-10-21T14:40:00.002-05:00

So, the TIFF idea was a really good one, just one problem, it would have taken 37 hours to render 40 seconds.

That isn't going to happen, but it was some of the best dvd footage I have ever seen. I guess when I buy a faster computer some day, I can try it. I am running a dual Xeon 3.0, not dual core or quad core.

Anyways, I went ahead and output WMV9 HD files and burned those in Canopus Procoder. The results look good on my computer. I am going to burn a dvd tonight and check it out on my HDtv.

The quality is still real good, but nothing like the original files or the TIFFs, that's for sure.

I might still research around and see if some other company can render the TIFFs for me.

If not, the resulting files I am getting are pretty good.

The music is also ready for me to approve again. I had Mark make some changes so I need to listen to those tonight. It looks like I should be ready to do audio mixing this weekend as I continue to output the film.

Music is Done

2008-10-17T21:30:00.001-05:00

So Mark got the music done. I am going to listen to it tomorrow night and hopefully I can get those files this weekend.

I have four more room tone audio that I have to record and then I can do the sound mixing.

I will also be exporting the finished video this week and converting it to DVD format. Assuming I can get everything working really good.

Well didn't that work out great

2008-10-17T21:25:00.003-05:00

So I am having trouble, as usual, exporting anything from Premiere Pro that looks good. I am trying to create master files that can then be converted to dvd video (MPEG).

I exported some mpegs directly from Premiere but the Adobe Media Encoder doesn't have a good reputation for quality.

So, in my frustration, I figured well I will just export uncompressed Tiff sequences and see if another program will convert them.

I checked out Adobe After Effects, but it still uses the same shitty Adobe Media Encoder.

Then I thought, well, what about this Cinema Craft encoder I have that is really good. I checked on it, but it is the pro version at $2000 that can take tiffs, the basic version I have only takes 2 kinds of video.

Well, as a last resort, I thought was about this Canopus Procoder I have, which does a great job as well. I check and sure enough, this motherfucker takes TIFF images and converts them to different types of video.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to do that and hope the results are really good, which they should be. On Unholy Passion, it was the Canopus stuff that worked the best at converting from one type of video to another and also taking care of resizing and everything else.

Time to read that manual this weekend.

Another Still

2008-10-16T23:45:00.002-05:00

Paul masturbates over a picture of Jill.

This is one of my favorite shots, not because it is Paul masturbating, but I love the way the light hits Paul's (played by James Buchanan) muscles. In a plutonic way.

This shot would not look nearly as nice if it had been done on video. In my opinion.

Music Done

2008-10-16T23:33:00.002-05:00

I sent Mark the end credits tonight so he can score the whole way to the end, but he has the music done for the film.

I hope to have that by this weekend. I still have some sound effects to do, but it is getting close to being done.

I started experimenting with different outputs. I made a 1080p master of the first scene and burned a dvd compliant MPEG file. It looks really good, although some of the colors seems to lose their punch.

I am going to try some other settings to see if I can fix this.

I also have a list of film festivals that I will be submitting to as well over the next six months or so. We will see what happens.

Composer - Mark D'Errico

2008-10-12T12:08:00.002-05:00

www.markderrico.com

I found Mark on myspace about two years ago. He was going to score the horror film I produced in 2006, but was busy at the time.

Mark is starting the score today and says it should be done by the end of the week.

Guess that means I have to get busy on all the sound work that needs done.

Oh, the original dialog audio came out great, I didn't have to do anything to it, I think I cleaned up one clip, but that was it.

In fact, some of the audio was too clean, not that such a thing exists.

Editing is Done, Sound is next

2008-10-10T16:26:00.002-05:00

I am outputting a small res file for the sound composer to send to him this weekend.

I will beginning audio editing soon, adding some sounds I bought from Sounddogs.com.

Plus, I need to go out and record a bunch of ambient sound for the film as well.

Oh, the film ended up being 13 1/2 minutes long. Not bad.

Paul lures Ray into his trap

2008-10-07T18:17:00.002-05:00

This was a tough night scene. A few weeks previous to the shoot, Stephen Leet and I scouted the location on a Thursday night. Everything was fine.

But when we shot on a Saturday night, there was a house party nearby and everyone used this parking lot to park. Luckily we staked a claim to an area for ourselves, but it was still annoying.

Anyways, it came out good except for the one scene I forgot to shoot and we had to pickup the next day.

Rough Cut Finished

2008-10-07T18:15:00.002-05:00

I am working on fine tuning the cut. I hope to have a copy in the hands of the composer by the beginning of next week. That means the film should be finished by the end of October.

First Scene - Video - No Audio

2008-10-05T20:34:00.003-05:00

Scene 1 from "Four Years" - Rough Cut from Jim Exton on Vimeo.

This was supposed to have narration, but it got lost I suppose. To check out the HD version, go here: vimeo.com/1869433

This is one of my favorite shots in the film. It was designed by DP Stephen Leet.

Breakup Scene

2008-10-05T20:29:00.000-05:00

Jill, played by Amanda Taylor, tells Paul that she is in love with Ray.

Another Still

2008-10-03T18:11:00.002-05:00

This was a shot we added on the set, it wasn't on the shot list. This was James Buchanan's idea for his character to look at himself in the mirror and acknowledge to himself that he has become a new man.

I loved the idea and we were already there all setup and ready to go. So we did and it came out great. Besides, what would a movie be without a Scorsese mirror shot?

Editing Progress

2008-10-03T13:05:00.002-05:00

So it looks like the film is definitely going to fall into the 12-15 minute range. I am hoping for closer to 12.

I started editing scene 9 which is the climatic scene of the movie. Things are going well.

I need to get the final cut done in the next four days or so, so that it can go to the musician who will score the film.

I will announce details of that once they become more concrete.

As he is writing the score, I will be doing the rest of the audio work and color correction.

More stills are coming this weekend.

12-15 minutes?

2008-09-29T22:00:00.002-05:00

This is my guess as to the final running time. Which is close to the 1 page = 1 minute rule. That would have made the film 10 minutes.

Did some more editing, I got the first 8 scenes put together pretty well. That comes out to about 9 minutes, but I will probably take at least a couple minutes off that.

Scene 9 is ten minutes right now, but not edited at all. That scene is probably going to come in at around 3 minutes. I know my math isn't adding up, but it still looks like a 12 minute film.

It is starting to come together really nice. My plan is to get the final cut done, spit out a low res version for whoever is going to write the music and then start working on adding all of the sound elements as well as color correction.

I bought a USB flash drive the other night, it should be here in a couple days, that will make it easier for me to move stills from one computer to another. Plus, I want to make sure I get color corrected stills up as well.

Narration Editing/Film Update

2008-09-28T19:42:00.004-05:00

So I was editing narration today, probably would have been easier to just re-record everything, but I managed to take three different takes and edit it together to make one good take I was happy with.

The good thing about editing narration is you can control the pacing/pausing of the actor's performance. I ended up being happy but what a pain in the ass to have to do it in the first place.

I think it took me 45 minutes to edit together the first narration that only last 1 minute. Not fun times.

I only had to do this on the first two, the rest so far are okay.

The film is pretty much edited up to scene 5, so I am about half way through. Still have a lot of audio work to do in addition to editing the second half, but is starting to look like a movie.

Narration Done

2008-09-28T16:19:00.002-05:00

James and I got the narration done last Thursday, but I have been sick since Friday so I haven't done any editing since then.

I am feeling better today but I have some catching up to do.

I did find out that when you export from Premiere there is a cropping option, which is good, I will be able to crop for 1.85:1 aspect ratio instead of 16:9. I tried a sample clip and it looked great.

Anyways, back to editing. I will post more screen shots in the next couple days.

Very Rough Cut Done

2008-09-24T18:08:00.004-05:00

It is just a rough cut, but it came out at 35 minutes. Of course, a lot of that was repeated takes, but still, I was a little surprised we had shot that much.

Anyways, James Buchanan and I are supposed to get together this week to record the voice over for the film as I can't fine tune too much without it.

Plus, I have to sync the audio, that should help in getting that time down quite a bit.

I have also color corrected quite a few scenes and they look a lot better now.

The wide shots in the night scenes are a little grainy though. I can't remember what happened to the plan to light the church in the background, maybe because there were unexpected parties in the neighborhood and everyone parked in the church lot, we had to scrap the lighting idea?

I don't know, but I think the lab may have overcompensated in order to get some detail in the background. We will have to see what dropping the brightness a little does to the scene, it should be alright.

And when I say alright, I mean everything else is so grainless that I am worried about the night scene standing out like a sore thumb.

I viewed the rest of the footage...

2008-09-21T22:51:00.003-05:00

and everything looks really good. I didn't go through every frame, some of the stuff I just scrubbed through, but it is all there.

The lab had said there were two shots that were out of focus, but I could only find one. That one is of Paul sitting on his couch checking his phone to see if Jill called.

Not a deal breaker, we have what we need.

Maybe the lab was thinking about the one shot of Ray performing, it was a little on the soft side. I don't know.

Anyways, I have started to break things down little by little. I have done color correction on the footage that I posted stills from earlier.

I got that stuff looking really good. There is a whole couple of chunks of footage that won't need any color correction at all. Maybe just some brightness adjustments.

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the stuff of Paul in his bedroom, the scene where he masturbates to a photo of Jill. It was so awesome looking.

It is going to be really hard to ever go back to video, that is for sure.

The climatic scene

2008-09-21T12:48:00.003-05:00

Paul finally catches up to Ray, it helps he slashed his tires, now he has the man he wants to kill right where he wants him.

Notice how actor James Buchanan is flexing his muscles for the camera. That boy is so sexy. LOL.

I just dropped the brightness on this still, which increased saturation. I didn't correct for it. Also, a little red could be taken out.

Over the next week as I edit, I will be doing some basic color correction as I go along and will output stills that are a little closer to what the final film will look like.

John Sneed as "Ray"

2008-09-20T22:54:00.002-05:00

This is a shot of Ray's performance. He is doing a one man show when Paul catches up to him in order to kill him.

I exported a tiff from the Quicktime master. I just boosted saturation in Paint Shop Pro and saved as jpeg.

This is the one shot that I look at and pray I never have to shoot on video. Nothing beats film. Nothing.

First Screenshot

2008-09-20T15:35:00.003-05:00

This is the first screenshot. I exported a tiff file directly from the Quicktime 1080p master, imported into a photo program and added a little contrast. Other than that, it is untouched.

It could probably use a little green taken out of it, but... for first the film needs edited.

The above actors are James Buchanan (left) and John Sneed (right).

Film is Here

2008-09-20T13:54:00.002-05:00

I am just working on transferring my files over. They didn't break them up into pieces, so the first file is 78GB long and is going to take an hour to make it's way onto my editing drive. Nice.

Stay tuned for the results.

Lab Has Been Paid - Film on the Way

2008-09-16T11:10:00.003-05:00

Self explanatory. The files with the footage will be here Thursday.

The bill (transfer) was less than I thought it would be due to our crack DP Stephen Leet whose consistent exposure and lighting made it easy for the colorist to get the job done fast.

Stephen is definitely worth his weight in gold.

Hopefully we will have stills coming this weekend!

2008-09-16T10:33:00.001-05:00

Update

2008-09-15T16:53:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the long delay, I had a family emergency the last couple weeks and got behind on keeping up with the film.

I will be calling the lab tomorrow to settle payment and they will send everything back to me. I should have it the end of this week and will update everyone as to how it came out. And start posting some screen shots.

Transfer Done

2008-09-08T19:14:00.003-05:00

Well the lab called, they got the transfer done. The film and video files should be here by the end of the week.

They did say there were two shots where the focus was off. One was James sitting on the couch, but we covered that a couple times and had several different shots, so I am not worried too much about that.

But I am worried about the other one. I hope it is the one shot that was supposed to go out of focus, but I guess we will see.

Other than that, he said it looked good over all and their standards are pretty high, so I guess that is something to look forward to.

Some more thoughts...

2008-09-02T20:58:00.003-05:00

So I was thinking the last couple days about the film. Just random thoughts and whatever.

One of the things that I really dug was the fact that I stayed about 95% on schedule. I had a great crew.

It was pretty hot though and I get heat headaches, which is really the beginnings of heat exhaustion. I think this is due to the fact that I have spent a lot of times indoors this summer and haven't adjusted to the heat.

But... and I have said this before.... I need to stop filming in summer, I really do. Not my best season.

The other thing I need is to get off of the camera. Somebody else has to take care of building it and setting it up.

Fortunately, I have forged a great friendship with John Wee who came up and helped on the film. I am thinking he needs to operate camera for me on the next one.

All in all, it was a really good time. Filmmakers don't get to make films every day, who knows, for whatever reason, this may be my last. If so, I am glad I had a good time with the great cast and crew I had.

Hopefully we will re-unite again and do another project.

Film Transfer update

2008-08-28T19:57:00.002-05:00

Not till next Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest. They are slammed with work (I though everyone was going digital?).

Anyways, we will just have to wait.

Voice over had been re-scheduled. Hopefully, we will get that done this weekend as well as the behind the scenes footage.

Still waiting

2008-08-25T15:20:00.002-05:00

Flying Spot called me last week and said they wouldn't get to the footage till this week. Which is fine, that is what you get when you pay the stand by rate, you get to stand-by until they have the time to transfer your film.

It is pretty tough waiting though...

Up for this week is some wild sound capture for the audio bed that is going to be laid down on the film.

And James Buchanan and I are supposed to get together on Thursday to record the voice over, which should be fun.

By the time the film comes back, most of the audio work should be laid in waiting for the picture to come. Then it is just a matter of editing it all together which isn't going to take hardly any time at all.

I will get some screenshots up as well as soon as I can.

Next film is scheduled for January, shooting on the Red. Red is about to release a plug in for Premiere Pro that will allow you to edit the footage natively in PPro. No transcoding until final output. Very nice.

I am mostly doing the next one on the Red for financial reasons, but I have been experimenting with different color correction techniques in Premiere Pro and I must say I have come up with some great film-like looks. I am still working on the grain part, playing around with it, but as I discover more and more about color correcting, the more I am liking the Red's footage.

I hope I continue to, because I am not sure the feature I want to do next fall is going to be a 35mm project. It is just too expensive. Of course, I could wait another year, but that would be assuming I have the discipline to do so. And I definitely don't.

Filming the end of Scene 9

2008-08-22T16:45:00.002-05:00

That black bag on the camera is actually a homemade barney I made to keep the camera quiet. I didn't feel like spending $400 to have a custom one made, but if I was making a feature, I would definitely get one.

Buchanan and Sneed

2008-08-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

Working out the scene.

Inside Sleeping Cat studios

2008-08-21T13:07:00.002-05:00

Local playwright Jim Esposito was kind enough to let us use his studio to film in. It ended up being helpful in more ways than one.

Originally we were just going to shoot the exterior parking lot scenes and the scene with Ray on stage.

By the way, that man in the green shirt with his hands in his pocket is the very quiet and talented John Sneed, who plays Ray in the film.

Back to the story. The night before we filmed the climatic scene, but I made a major mistake. I forgot to film the end of it. The scene fades to black and then comes back up some time later with Ray wanting to pay Paul for changing his flat tire.

Anyways, on Sunday there was talk of just scrapping it, it would have been a pain to wait till night to shoot it and it was an important scene, but not necessarily crucial to the film.

But then I got the idea to shoot it in Sleeping Cat's bathroom. I figured since it took place some time later, and they just got done changing a tire, they would wash up before going their seperate ways.

So we did. And the scene was saved and will be in the final film.

Hopefully on the next film I will have someone operating the camera for me and I can actually have some time to make sure we get everything.

And a more clearer camera diagram that didn't hide that scene in a group of other shots might have helped as well.

Group Photo

2008-08-21T13:06:00.001-05:00

From Left to Right: Stephen Leet, Jim Exton, James Buchanan, Matthew Bowling, John Wee and John Sneed.

All still photos were done by Dave Hymel. This is a really good shot, thanks Dave.

James Buchanan

2008-08-21T13:05:00.001-05:00

Getting into character while waiting for action.

Director Jim Exton

2008-08-21T13:01:00.002-05:00

Doing my best "I am the director, I am important" pose. Buchanan has this look on his face that asks: how much am I getting paid again? just kidding.

These were the scenes were Paul watches Ray's peformance. We got some really cool shots here, one of which I thought of the night before. It is just a simple dolly shot that starts on two people walking in the aisle and ends with revealing Paul sitting there.

More pics

2008-08-21T13:00:00.000-05:00

The lovely Amanda Taylor as Jill.

The film set

2008-08-20T17:39:00.001-05:00

We got a pretty good shot for this scene, the camera dollies along the railing and ends up with a two shot for their conversation.

There is also a reversal that we have were we push in on James at the end of the scene. I am going to use the dialog for that part, but use an echo effect, as if he is only half listening as we transition to a flashback where he talks about the woman who left him.

Pictures

2008-08-20T17:35:00.002-05:00

Above: James Buchanan and actress Jennifer Dinwiddie wait while director Jim Exton measures for focus.

This was shot in a local church basement that was doubling for a theatre lobby. Due to film restrainsts, we could only shoot two takes. It would have been one, but one of those pictures in the background fell down on the first take.

Recently, the company that makes gaffer tape stopped producing it and another company picked up the slack.

I don't think they are using the same formula as before. It took a quarter of a roll to get that picture to stick to the wall.

Film Transfer next week

2008-08-20T15:41:00.001-05:00

The lab called today and said that they won't be able to transfer the film until next week because of a heavy workload right now.

Sucks, but that is the price you pay when you can only afford a stand-by rate.

I will be uploading more pictures soon as well as talking about the actually film shoot more.

Quickest way to get a heart attack...

2008-08-19T12:01:00.002-05:00

Getting a phone call from the lab.

Luckily they just wanted to check to see what stock it was since some of it was in Kodak cans and some was in Fuji.

My bad. Label your cans with the emulsion number kids.

At least I got confirmation that they have the film in their hands.