2009 June 30 « 12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

Hitting a Dead End

June 30, 2009 at 3:45 pm | Posted in Mike Lavoie | 2 Comments
Tags: dead end, when a hero comes along

What would Jason Bourne do?

As Keith struggles to make sense out of mutilated chunks of the Untitled Improv Movie, we are concurrently avoiding the conversation of what exactly we’re shooting this coming weekend. The good news is we know what we’re NOT shooting:

My “Whiteboard” and “The Proposal” are in varying states of disrepair
Keith’s “Spirits” takes place largely in a subway station and his “Still Life” roams all around Manhattan; so both are highly dependent on NYC not being a mob scene of tourists and police officers. Clearly, we did not take into account the July 4th weekend when we mapped out the shoot…
Keith’s sister, Caitlin McEwan, submitted a treatment we both like a lot, but it’s not quite ready to shoot
Other scripts that were submitted need rewrites, are too long or would blow our budget out of the water (ie: military Command Central, lake house in Seattle, Hospital helipad with a slew of EMTs awaiting a patient, etc.)

Now that that’s perfectly clear, what are we actually doing?

We just did our improv movie and we are planning on making another 24-hour film this fall for the Brooklyn Film Race, so those gimmicks are out. We have a very sexy “secret bar” that we MAY be allowed to use at some point, but it’s unavailable this weekend. We could also do a “one-take” movie, but that’s a gimmick that can tread perilously close to being just a gimmick, and the first priority, as always, should be to make a good movie.

We do have one script that has been sticking in my brain like a thorn, submitted by a friend of James Fauvell’s, Rick Lattimer. It’s an untitled acid trip of a movie that would make Salvador Dalí proud. Moreover, it’s unlike anything we’ve shot yet. Anything I’ve ever shot, in fact.

In action movies, when the hero is stuck in a dead end, he just kicks down the door, or scales the fence, or some deus ex machina rises over the wall behind him in a helicopter and blows away the Nazis with a couple M134 Gatling Guns. Could Rick be the pilot of that chopper?

Stay tuned…

Posted by Mike

Update on the Roadblock

June 30, 2009 at 3:56 am | Posted in Keith Boynton | 2 Comments

It’s now almost 4 AM. In the past four hours, Joe and I managed to repair only two of the broken clips. The rest have stubbornly resisted all our efforts, but at least Joe was able to figure out why. To make the two-camera shoot possible, Joe rented a camera from a friend, and that camera had a glitch that affected both its shooting and its footage-capturing. The footage captured using the defective camera is fixable; the footage shot on that camera is not, at least not with the equipment we have. Joe’s going to see if he can get access to a professional editing suite in the next couple of days; if he can, he should be able to recapture all the affected footage. In the meantime, I’m going to blaze ahead with the editing, using the broken-up clips I have. Who knows? Maybe having fewer options will help me stay disciplined. Maybe the movie will actually benefit from this FUBAR situation. One can only hope …

Posted by Keith

Roadblocks

June 30, 2009 at 2:03 am | Posted in Keith Boynton | 1 Comment
Tags: editing, Final Cut Pro, frustration, post-production, rage, stress

I don't look like this. But I feel like this.

As I write this, “Improv Movie” cinematographer Giuseppe “Joe” Pugliese is seated across from me at my dining-room table, recapturing a tape full of footage for the third time. It’s 2 AM on Tuesday. The movie has to be up Friday morning. And two hours’ worth of footage is being chopped into mincemeat as we digitize it, leaving it, if not unusable, then maddeningly flawed.

I’m sure in a few days, I’ll look back on tonight and laugh. In a few weeks, I’ll be telling the story to anyone who’ll listen. But right now, this is a massively frustrating roadblock in an editing process that I was worried about to begin with.

I have to say, Joe’s being great about it. He came out here from Long Island just to work on this problem, and he’s remained cheerful as the situation has evolved from “annoying” to “borderline disastrous.” Two hours after his arrival, we’re basically back where we started. I’m tempted to give up and try to cut around the problem, but Joe perseveres.

The good news: I’ve nailed down a composer for this film — my old friend Michael Rhoton (professionally Michael Redfield), who starred in the first movie I ever directed (the ill-fated Miles), and who is an absolutely stunning musician (and new father, and cool guy). Michael will do an amazing job, on any timeframe, because he is amazing.

Not just a pretty face. But SUCH a pretty face.

The bad news: I have no idea how to edit a movie where every take is a different script.

The weird news: I have put together a rough cut of the dialogue-free portion of the film — the last “act,” basically — and the running time is already up to four minutes. This may end up being a long one, folks. That is, if it ever gets done …

Posted by a very frazzled Keith