Combine that with THE HUMAN LEAGUE's greatest hits and we've got ourselves a dorkfest, musically speaking. Don't you want me baby? Keep feeling fascination. These are all valid statements of my emotional and mental state.
As is now becoming apparent, I delved into the making of another short form piece. I shot on HD and worked with a semi familiar crew. This was a quickie project to appease a request from Sony Pictures' CRACKLE.COM, where I have been wracking up the views for a few months now. I'm experimenting with viral marketing to see if I still have some instinct as to how to get views and the interest in subject matter. Also, it helped to get back in the saddle a bit.
For my techie, filmmaking geeks – we shot with the JVC HD110 HD camera, John Whitney edited for me in AVID XPRESS PRO, but I did the finishing pass, sound mix, and titles/FX in the full ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE. We had lavaliere mics on the actors as well as a boom. I mixed the best audio levels from both tracks and added the rest myself on about an average of 6-8 stereo tracks of audio. It's amazing how much time an energy goes into the creation of a soundtrack, music, and effects, to make a good sound.
Sound represents 50% of the experience of any movie, so it's astounding how few filmmakers take the time to make and work with good sound. Nothing will rip you out of a movie faster than bad sound, and yet so many movies, especially from amateurs don't work on or with their audio more.
My Sexy Fiancé Veronica -- and I are preparing for a journey to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a film festival in a few weeks. I can't wait. I'll see several people I met via INDIECLUB, as well as from the other appearances and speaking engagements. I can't wait to meet Uwe Boll. He seems like such a character, but I just confirmed a long sought after dream – I will meet Mark Borchardt from American Movie. In 2000 I met Sara Price and Chris Smith at the Drexel Theatre after the screening when they did a Q&A. The only thing to top this will be to meet Mike Schank and to buy his CD "Songs I Know" and possibly engage in a 1980's metal thrashing guitar solo.
All seems to fare well in Rossdonia these days. The weather remains unseasonably warm. I still have work, and continue to get paid for it. I'm just enjoying the peace and sanity from without.
Rossdonia's activity level has increased exponentially. Editing happens no less than 6 nights a week. Several of which are for the Derek's ETERNAL, more are for a feature length documentary on the Making of Horrors of War. I also did all my own post work on these shorts in between, and I shot and will soon edit a very short musical piece for my cousin, Ian in HD at the studio as a camera test and a post production workflow. So Rossdonia is afire with filmmaking activities.
Working on ETERNAL has many benefits in that I am training another army of assistant editors and that in itself if a microcosm of the real process. They are doing the logging, creating bins, subclips, and organizing everything for the actual editing process. I will let the assistants do a first pass of all the scenes to get us to the assembly, then I'll work directly with the director (the Derek) to fine trim and reduce the film down to its final form.
Aside from the politicking of the politicians, the world seems to be a better place for now. Of course when the real estate bubble bursts, we might all be in deep Shiite, but until then, stay cool my acolytes. Stay way cool.
- Peter John Ross
