Post-Production

Igori and I finished filming our second unit photography yesterday and began uploading the footage around 4pm. We ended up with four tapes in total, reaching nearly four hours. Everything was going well until I played back one of our uploads and we realized it was grainy! We were about three hours into our footage so there was no way we were going to start all over. I immediately began to panick but tried to conceal it as best as I could. To make a long story short, there must have been a computer error because it turned out fine.

Today, I debated whether I should edit the material at home or work. I ended up transfering the footage to our external hard drive and connecting to Mary's laptop. Then, I connected my HDTV screen to the laptop along with my keyboard. I set this all up in my living room, where I'm in right now. As soon as it was all set up, I plugged in the headphones and realized I only heard the audio from the left side. Of course, I panicked. I rushed back to work to double check the audio there and same problem! I was devestated. Somehow, we captured the audio in monoraul! I immediately burned some unedited footage to a DVD and brought it home. Honestly, it sounds pretty good and I'm very happy with the idea. Woody shoots his films in mono and I believe it gives my film a much more realistic feel. It took a lot of panick and worry to get to this conclusion, though. I thank Mary for her patience.

As far as my living room goes, I feel as if this is the perfect enviornment to work in. It feels right, and when you're doing something as time consuming as editing, you have to work with what feels good. However, I don't like the idea of working through a laptop, so I'm thinking of doing it all at work. I guess I'll end up making my decision tomorrow. I spent a few minutes looking at our footage and I'm pretty impressed. The film may never be as good as I first envisioned it, but at least my audience won't be able to tell. I think editing will be a lot of fun as I tell another story and shape the original one. I have a feeling it's going to take months with my busy schedule.

We're officially in post-production!

My Best Friend's Girl: World Premiere

I woke up yesterday feeling like I was going to get a fever. I couldn't miss out on class because we were going to have our first math exam. After class ended, I decided I didn't have the energy for Anthropology class and ran home. My head started to ache and I started to feel cold all over. By the time I got home and in bed, I was freezing!

Usually, I wouldn't mind having a fever if I have the chance to rest. Although having a fever is horrible, you have to sleep it off to feel better and that is one of the best sleeps in the world. However, we had a plan; pick up Mary from work at 3:00 and go to Arclight Cinema for the World Premiere of My Best Friend's Girl. I got into bed around 11am and only had a few hours to feel better if we were going to make it. I took medicine, sweated as much as I could, and took a shower. It was almost 3 at this point and I told Mary we should forget about going. Before I knew it, I had already changed my clothes and left the house.

Standing in line was, of course, tiring but well worth it. This theatre wasn't nearly as large as Westwood's for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. We didn't see any stars until after the show ended until we finally saw Dane Cook himself. While walking to the car, I bumped into Jon Lovitz who was casually walking with a small crowd. Such a small, unusual looking man.

High Definition

Igori came to the office today so we could upload our footage so I can begin editing. Easier said than done...

He brought along the three high definition tapes which we used during filming and two edited footage in standard definition. Because neither one of us had never used Adobe Premiere before, we tried to figure out if it was possible to upload in high definition. It seemed to work, but we had to render the files which ultimately ending up looking like standard definition. We watched both tapes separately on a TV and the high definition footage was absolutely beautiful. I was greatly disappointed because I didn't want to settle for standard.

I didn't give up. After some research, I figured out my version of Adobe Premiere was supposed to support HD uploads. Igori messed around with the settings and we finally figured it out! It was going to take another three hours to upload the footage so we rescheduled. We did upload a short script as a sample so I could preview it at home. Although the footage does get downgraded, the final version will still be high definition. We also came across a huge problem. For some reason, our boom and equipment is visible because the camera screen displayed wrong images. Hopefully, we'll be able to work around this problem during editing. Something new to worry about...

The Hard Part is Over

We finished up our film on Friday, almost a week ago, so why didn't I rush in here full of excitement? I have an excuse.

Thursday, we met in Glendale to reshoot a certain scene. The weather was very gloomy but luckily the sun came out in time for the park and beach shoots. Friday, everyone was stuck in traffic for an hour, so we started a little late. We didn't wrap up until 11pm. Everything went pretty good.

From that night until last night, I couldn't sleep. I kept telling myself some scenes could have looked nicer, etc. Now, I'm completely unhappy with the film -- although I haven't even seen any footage yet! We may upload the footage this weekend but we have several small shoots to do without the actors. We'll see how everything turns out.

School started on Tuesday and I had my second Cinema class today. We'll be making three short films this semester. It's being taught by the Department Chairman but we're also holding the class with my previous professor's class.

I'm so eager to screen one of my films. That's my goal for the end of this year!