12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

Keith’s Week in Hell

“Hell is other people” is an oft muttered refrain around the 12in12 production household. Everyone here has strong opinions on what makes a good movie or script or cast, and they are rarely the same. But this week, Keith has been in hell and he’s been there all by himself.

It began innocently enough, like all great disasters: the Titanic hit a giant icecube — that thing sunk, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated — the Great War ensued, my 2nd grade girlfriend broke up with me — now I can commit to no one. And so it was with our usual sense of adventure and hope that we set out to make an improvised movie last Saturday. Not the most straightforward of assignments, but we tackled with with considerable foresight: We assembled a killer team, a secure location, a tried and true sound guy, and a great DP with two super cameras. What could go wrong?

During the shoot, the answer was nothing. We wrapped, we cheered, we drank, we slept like babies.

After the shoot, we hit a giant icecube.

As 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 today color correcting and getting things in order for the “picture lock.” Since little could be done to restore the audio, Keith and Kevin our sound guy have been in our makeshift basement sound studio since 11AM trying to ADR the entire movie. Angela Perri went first and had to miss her Shakespeare class, I went from 4 – 6:30PM and now and James Creque is recreating “George” who, God willing, will be on display tomorrow morning.

Trust us. We're professionals

I say “we” had to deal with this disaster but it has been Keith spearheading the editing and recovery efforts all week long. Like Sumi and Tom and the rest of the team, all he gets as reward is a big hug, but unlike Sumi and Tom & co., he cannot take a week off. In fact, he can’t take so much as a day off and in the past 72 hours, I’m confident he hasn’t had more than a few hours off. As Dr. Dreyfuss from The Apartment would say, he is a real mensch.

Hopefully he can get some sleep tonight tomorrow after we post since he will be directing the troops again for a FILM #6 on Saturday. Cast announcement coming soon!

Posted by Mike