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

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[...] Keith himself documented, we had mangled video and peaky audio issues. We finally got the video into working order and Keith was up until 6AM [...]

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