Got in yesterday and headed straight for the IN N OUT burger near LAX. Nothing like a burger for breakfast, even though it is really lunch for me, since I’m on east coast time. That’s what I like to tell myself. Caught this little scene in front of me. Dude, can you stop at the IN N OUT on the way to the airport?

Ate in the car and headed to SONIC MAGIC for an ADR session with the man of the hour Tim Chiou. It was really good to see Tim. Hadn’t seen him since China. That boy brings a smile to my face every time I see him. Such a great attitude.

Met up with Bob Shoup and Andrew, our ADR engineer, in the studio and we started our session with Tim. It turned out to be Tim’s first time doing ADR, so he was a bit rusty at first but then started really nailing things after a short while. None of us knew that Tim was an ADR virgin until the end but there was some confusion with the countdown beeps that was kind of funny.

The countdown beeps tell the actor when the line that he has to record is coming up to help with the timing. We noticed early on that Tim was either coming in too early or too late and Andrew kept telling him to listen for the beeps to help with that problem. Tim thought Andrew was saying “beat” and figured it had something to do with getting into a rhythm or something, he didn’t quite get what Andrew was referring to. Finally, about a third of the way into the day, something connected and Tim told Andrew that he wasn’t hearing any beeps at all. Andrew fixed the problem and we all noticed a major improvement in the timing after that.

Here’s Tim doing some great screams of death.

Matt showed up a few minutes late and I gave him a bit of a hard time for it, but it was good to see Compton again. I forget how much I miss that boy. He was very helpful, though, taking our lunch order and hanging out…doing whatever he was doing.

Him and Bob (who came down from SAN FRAN just for this) did Amy Smart’s ADR the day before. I was on the phone from Maryland for half the session. It was the only day Amy could do it (she started CRANK 2 the next day) and I couldn’t come in because of a family trip but it worked out all right. I wish I could’ve made it and seen Amy again but it wasn’t meant to be. I hope to hook up with her while I’m here.

It was a long day for each of the actors but we got everything done and it sounds great, so I’m happy. And it was great that Bob came down for it. He really helped things along. And Andrew was pretty great, too. Really great with directions for Tim.

So today I start the color correction at FOTOKEM. 4pm to midnight for the rest of this week and two days next week. Should be fun. Well, not really fun, but it’ll be good to see the film looking it’s best for the first time ever. We’re going to tweak the hell out of this thing.

I also have to do a little bit of ADR over the phone to China tonight. One of the actors is coming in to do some stuff we need from him. Should be really fun. I guess.

MUSIC SPOTTING

The music spotting session in San Fran went very well. Tony and Kent seemed to get along and were soon talking geeky, audio technical shit that Gregg and I didn’t have a prayer of comprehending. We met at Kent’s house studio in his basement and Kent started showing Tony the equipment and the his custom-made instruments and you could tell that these two were going to make some cool music together.

We went through the film, cue by cue, talking about what I wanted and what they were thinking about bringing to it. It was a good run-through and it seems like they have a clear picture of what I want. It helps that I wrote the screenplay with music by both of them playing so it’s pretty much as custom-made a score from beginning to end as you can get.

Ended the trip by going with Kent’s family to a great little Chinese place called House of Nanking and it was just about the best Chinese food I’ve ever had in my life. Highly recommend this place next time you’re in San Francisco. Tony found an interesting place next door, too.

Anyway, a great trip to Skywalker Ranch and a lot of good work done on the audio front, and we look forward to going back in June with the families.

More from LA later this week. A lot of action going on as we color correct, sitting in a room for 8-hours a day , adjusting the film shot-by-shot. If you think I’m sick of this film now, wait until later this week.

Peace.

-ed

YOUTUBE FLICKR

Sitting at my room at the SKYWALKER RANCH Inn with a nice fire going in the fireplace, another IN N OUT burger in my fat but happy belly. Julio Iglesias just came on on my iPod. Life is damn good.

Very productive spotting session with Bob Shoup and the team today. We went through the whole film reel by reel (with a short break for lunch and some shopping at the SKYWALKER store) and talked about a ton of things. We’re working with four of the same guys that worked on ALTERED, so it’s a bit of a reunion for us. This time, Kent Sparling is both a mixer and one of the music composers but otherwise, we expect it to be as smooth as the ALTERED sessions went.

A lot of great discussions today about just about everything, from Amy’s screams to which birds are native to southern China, where the film takes place. Many problems worked out and a ton of work ahead for these guys, who seem genuinely jazzed about the sound for the film. They keep saying that there are a lot of unique sound moments in the film, that this is not your average film for sound. They think it’s going to take a lot of actual recording to fill the landscape of sound for this film, not as much building from the huge sound library here at SKYWALKER SOUND.

Like take the car, for instance, where the most intense scene in the film takes place. They don’t think they’re going to find the right sounds of the Pale Figures savagely beating their way into the car so they’re going to bring an old junker here to the studio and record a noises inside and outside of it. Mostly hitting the car a bunch of different ways with a bunch of different things to simulate the Pale Figures hands. They seem pretty excited about this little adventure.

Also, a huge amount of the dialogue is going to have to be replaced, which also adds a lot of work. A lot of the location sound is not loud enough or has other noises interfering with the dialogue. It was a challenging film to mic because we were always on location and shooting with three cameras a lot of the time, which made getting a clean boom mic into the scene very difficult for Tat, our sound recordist. He used mostly wireless mics and while they work pretty well, they don’t sound as good as a good boom mic. Whether it’s interference or distracting background noise or low levels, we’ve got them all in this film.

What was a pretty welcomed surprise was having Kent be in on the spotting session wearing both hats as a mixer and music composer. He brings so much to the table working both sides of the fence, making sure both equally important sound layers work seamlessly together. He knows where he has to make holes for sounds effects and can keep the sound team keyed-in on what the music is doing or going to do at any time during the process. It just seemed like many issues came up today where it was helpful that he knew both sides of the sound equation for the film. It’s going to work out really well.

All these guys are cool as shit, too. It’s going to be a fun mix for sure.

They’re going to start sending me stuff next week. Can’t wait to start hearing stuff. The biggest hole we need to fill is what noises the Pale Figures are going to make. I’ve always thought of them as being mostly silent, but we’re going to play around with giving them creepy little noises that we can use to heighten the tension throughout. It’s a difficult job since I want to make it cool but avoid cliches and build something original, which is alway hard for scary creatures. Everything you can imagine has been used and re-used so it’s definitely a challenge.

After the session Gregg and I rode bikes back to our rooms and then headed back to the SKYWALKER SOUND movie theater to watch a beautiful print of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. They’re showing each of the three films leading up to the release of the fourth one in May and we just happened to be lucky enough to be here for the first one. It’s such a great film and it looked and sounded marvelous.

Then we drove out to IN N OUT for another late night burger meal and now we’re back, ready for bed.

Tony comes in later tonight and we’re meeting at Kent’s house tomorrow to spot all the music in the film. They’ve got a lot of work to do, too, so tomorrow is also going to be about dividing up the work and building deadlines for keeping up with their progress. It’s the main thing that I have to work on now, helping these guys do their magic. I love what they’ve done so far.

Well, another Julio song just came on and the room is getting kind of smokey, so I better quit while I’m ahead. Time for sleep.

Checking out of here tomorrow but I look forward to our return in June. It’s going to be a real hoot for sure.

Peace.

-ed

YOUTUBE FLICKR

At the Ranch, mother****ers!

Got in late last night after not following directions very well and having to drive through the city of San Francisco to get here, which is always interesting but not so much around midnight (3 am my time) and fighting sleep off while driving. That was not fun.

Plane landed a bit before 10 pm, I called Gregg and he was almost at the Ranch already. Gregg said he stopped at IN N OUT BURGER for a late night dinner, which is exactly what I was thinking of doing. Monkey Man see, Monkey Man do, I searched an IN N OUT in the area on my iPhone and bee-lined it there after getting my rental. That shit is so good, man. I can’t even believe I was eating a burger and greasy fries at like 2 am my time but it was glorious. Glorious.

Then I ended up in San Francisco after a wrong turn, a painful one hour detour, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and arrived a bit before 1 am PST. Checked in at the fire house, got my key, parked in the underground garage, and headed up to my room, the Frank Lloyd Wright on the second floor of the main house. I’ve never been in this room but at least my ignorant ass knows who Frank Lloyd Wright is. He was one of the dudes that invented the airplane, right?

It’s so peaceful and freaking quiet out here. Walking in from the garage I just soaked it all in; the stone walkways, the big trees, the natural-looking landscaping. It’s breath-takingly beautiful, even at night. Got into the main house and walked up to my room and that great smell I remember from my other visits brought back so many great memories and put me in the relaxing Skywalker Ranch spirit. We had such a ball here while mixing ALTERED and Stef and I can’t wait to get back here with the kids and everyone else in June.

But today is the spotting session with Bob Shoup. It’ll be good to see Bob again. We’re meeting at the coffee area at SKYWALKER SOUND at 9 am, just a short walk here from my room. I’ve got to get going.

I can already feel the tension of the last few months melting away. Not much to complain about at this point. Filmmaking good. Ranch good. Monkey Man like.

Off to meet with the White Ape and come up with a plan for the sound.

Peace to all from the Ranch.

-ed

YOUTUBE FLICKR

Word to all.

Final day of the edit here. Final day of the edit!

Cronin goes home on Sunday for good so we are done, at least with major stuff. Johnny will still be here for another week but he is crammed with technical work so getting in to edit anything will have to be extremely minimal.

Two of the three producers, Rob and Gregg, are here, giving final notes but basically just sitting here taking up room in the edit room. It’s good to have them here, though. It’s a big moment and we’re all anxious to move to the next step of this journey.

The film is looking pretty good. I am so sick of it that I can’t honestly say how it is, but people seem to dig it enough. I am ready to be done with this phase, man. Done.

Heading out tonight for a little PICTURE LOCK dinner we’re giving ourselves. I plan to get mighty celebratory tonight, that’s for sure. Gotta let off some of this stress, man. I’m about to boil over here, dudes.

We had a few trouble spots to fix, especially a third act transition that has been kicking our asses for a month now, but we’ve added enough audio tracks in there and tweaked it enough to leave it in SKYWALKER SOUND’S hands now. It’s a very sound-dependant scene that we’re trying to pull off, so after many hours of work on it we’ve gotten it to a point where we’re confident in handing it over to the pros.

Actually, doing mostly image stabilization on this pass. We thought these last few days were going to be light, but Cronin and I discovered that we could actually do some really decent image stabilization within FINAL CUT PRO, so we have been some image stabilizing mother****ers the last few days. One of the issues some people have been having is that the film is too shaky at times, so we have been smoothing out things for sure. It doesn’t take the shake all the way out, that’s not what we want, but it definitely makes it easier on the eyes. I’m very happy with it.

But it takes a while to do each shot so that’s basically all we’re doing now. Gregg, Rob and me are on our laptops doing other stuff and Cronin is stabilizing, playing his guitar as the computer analyzes the long shots. It’s funny that it should end like this.

Whatever we can’t finish today I’ll try to squeeze in with Johnny early next week. Then I’m off with Gregg to San Francisco where we’ll do our spotting session at SKYWALKER SOUND. That’s when we meet with our sound designer Bob Shoup and go through the whole film, scene by scene, and talk about sound ideas.

Then the next day we meet with Kent Sparling and Tony Cora, the music composers, who are bi-coastally collaborating on this score, something that no one involved has ever done. We’ll go through the temp music cues and figure out what we all want to hear. I haven’t seen Kent since the ALTERED sound mix and Tony and him have never physically met, so it’s going to be good visit. Or a really bad one that ends up with someone getting stabbed. Never know with musicians.

So that’s the deal with all of this junk that’s happening over in this joint. We are hours away being done. I’m going to miss Cronin like crazy, but he’s anxious to get home and I don’t blame him. It’s going to be quiet around here without him or Johnny around, but we’ll be making another movie soon, so it’s just so long for now.

I can’t believe I’m thinking of making another film. I must already be drunk.

Peace and love for the last time from the SEVENTH MOON editing room at CAMDEN CLEARBROOK APARTMENTS in Frederick, Maryland. SKYWALKER RANCH, here I come!

-ed

YOUTUBE FLICKR

Word to your sisters.

Finished another version of the film on Tuesday. Super tight. We worked on a bunch of the notes that we got from the LA screenings, spending most of our time on the third act transition that wasn’t working for a bunch of people. I think we nailed it. It was mostly sound design but Cronin and I finally got it to where we think it worked, and that’s before SKYWALKER SOUND gets a hold of it.

We also cut out a bunch of the shakiest shots, which were bothering a bunch of people. Much steadier film now, though still very handheld. No locked off shots in this sucker. Well, maybe one.

Johnny posted the cut this morning and the reaction has been pretty great so far. Gregg and Rob dug it and have some notes, of course, but Gregg thinks the third act transition finally works now and dug a bunch of the new stuff we added, including some sub-titles that we’ve kind of struggled to put in. He was pretty much against them until this cut and now he’s on the fence, leaning toward keeping them in. That’s kind of where I am.

The whole film was originally supposed to be without subtitles to give the audience the same isolated feeling that our main character, Melissa, is feeling. But our executive producer Bob Eick watched a cut with a dude that spoke Cantonese and filled him in on some of the juicy stuff the Chinese characters were saying, especially in one scene where a pretty important moment in the film is foreshadowed half-way through the movie.

So we put that one exchange in but the test audiences were kind of bothered by this one instance of sub-titles right in the middle of the film and not anywhere else, so I added more subtitles on this pass and I have to say that I like the extra dimension that they add to the film. Now the audience gets these little bits of info that our main character isn’t getting and it’s kind of creepy sometimes.

So Cronin and I took Wednesday off and went downtown to see the cherry blossoms in DC with Stef and the Duke. The weather was pretty good and we had a good time. It was good to be away from the film for a day, even though I had to keep answering emails about a few things. We’ll probably take the day off tomorrow, too, and wait for notes. Michael might work on the trailer a bit, then we’ll probably get back on it on Friday.

So we’re in great shape to finally hit our picture-lock date next Friday the 11th. Then it’s off to SKYWALKER for the sound and music spotting sessions and then to LA to do the color correction. It’s just going to be great being done with this edit. Been a lot harder and longer on me then I thought it was going to be.

All right, time for bed. Gotta work on tax stuff tomorrow so it’s going to be a fun day for sure.

Peace from Urbana.

-ed

YOUTUBE FLICKR

The screening went very well! Very well indeed.

I was going nuts last night when Rob called and said that the film had just started and that he would call me back as soon as it was over. I kept looking at the clock every two or three minutes it seemed, then Gregg called, said he was doing the exact same thing. I mean, we were confident in the film, but you never know with these things. Maybe we were just being delusional.

But Rob called after an excruciating hour and a half and said that everyone dug it pretty good. They had a few notes but they were pretty happy with the results. They gave us a grade of A-, whatever the hell that means. And that’s before our final cut, sound mix or music. I was very pleased with the results. Made my night.

Reed then called and said he couldn’t believe the difference between this and the last cut he saw back here in MD. He said that Amy Smart and some of her family were there and that Amy’s mom cried at the end! That’s kind of cool, eh?

So we have another screening on Sunday with a few close friends, most of them filmmakers, to give us the final read on any notes. Should be a good night.

Then Cronin and I digest the notes and get back to work on this thing. We have two weeks to lock it down and lock it down GOOD. Yeah.

I need to go to sleep. But we did it! We may actually have something good here! Hot-diggity-dog!

Peace.

-ed

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