A Ghastly Notion of Persistence

So Brant Jones edited my newest movie. Then we stitched together fragments of my edit into his cut and we made a “best of” edit. The cinematography is astounding, both due to the RED ONE camera, and mostly due to its operator/cinematographer, Greg Sabo. I am very happy with the results. There is still much to do. Color correction, sound mix, scoring, and various other technical details, but I can now watch a movie and foresee what it shall be.



Bryan Michael Block came up to the studio last night and looked at the cut with me and we made some minor tweaks here and there. I also realized I had not done a test on how to go from my 1280x720P proxy edit back to the 4K RED files. So I tested out the procedure of making an EDL from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and then editing that file in NOTEPAD and changing the file names from *.AVI to *.R3D, then re-opening the EDL in Premiere. So far that is the single procedure and technical aspect that has worked without any kind of hitch.



I’ll screen this cut as is to a select few people to gather some opinions. It’s too fresh and I’m too close to it to arrogantly decide this is all the editing that needs to be. I want feedback from key personnel, as well as other people whose opinion I value.

Started some of the minor visual FX work on this today. More RED issues reveal themselves. Exporting to RED is not as easy. There are no settings for it. So exporting files with edits to an FX artist ain’t gonna be easy. So we’ll do it old school and send the whole clip and tell them the time code. Or export as an uncompressed file. I have options, but each one has potential downsides with color, etc.

Once finished, the next step is to use this to raise the rest of the budget to shoot an entire feature. I have a few ideas on what to do, some things I’ve never tried before. I view this as my last real attempt to make something out of what I’ve been doing for 10 years now. After this, might consign myself to a life of day job editing and working for other people in other capacities, but I don’t know if I could ever overcome the urge to make movies of my own. I have something to say and I like communicating it to people via moving pictures and sound.



In other news, I won some awards at the BEST OF UNDERNEATH CINCINNATI FILM FESTIVAL screening last weekend. I won BEST CONCEPT for Relationship Card, plus I got an HONORABLE MENTION for BEST SOUND (take that Tim Dutton with your professionalism and surround sound!). Relationship Card also got a half an award for BEST ACTOR with Amanda Howell, sharing with John Whitney’s Measured Sacrifice performance with her. We joked because the screen said John’s movie, but the award had a picture from my movie. The official statements credit it to both movies now. It’s like 2.5 awards for Relationship Card.



Speaking of Relationship Card, that and How to Deal With Telemarketers were official selections to the TROMADANCE FILM FESTIVAL, run from Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Studios. I wish someone had let me know. I got the rare experience of finding out my movies were playing from someone unrelated to the festival who was going. Weird. I could have gone too.



Now Sonnyboo productions has 5 movies in the TIME WARNER ON DEMAND FILM FESTIVAL/VIEWERS CHOICE competition thingy on channel 1111 or 411 (depending on where you are at with Time Warner). The most views win s $500. I hope someone else wins this. I don’t need the $$$ that bad right now. Although, 2 out of the 5 Sonnyboo movies were not directed by me, so GRUDGE MATCH (The Derek) and REFRACTORY (Joanne Fromes) could win and I wouldn’t mind helping out the others. I even got mentioned in the COLUMBUS ALIVE for this.



I’m also working on another book thingy as a quickie. Royalty free screenplays if you buy the book, then you have the legal write to make a movie based on the scripts therein. They are all short screenplays, some that I’ve made and some that are unproduced at this time.

That’s all I got for now. Peace out and Respect,
Peter John Ross

Metonymy & Polysemy

I got lucky. In preparation for editing on this feature film from another local filmmaker, those who keep up with this here bloggy blog are aware that I faced a technical problem. To reiterate, I had footage that was supposed to be 23.976 frames per second being recognized as 29.97 frames per second. I could not tell if this was a user error or a technical glitch. I approached one of the creators of the software and I got a response by the next morning (if only the local director was as expedient at answering emails…).

He suggested 3 different things to try, 2 of which I already had. The 3rd idea however was something I had never heard of, and it was to use a simple program called “AVIFrate”, a simple EXE file that you run and you can change the header in the AVI or MOV file and dictate how all computers see its frame rate to any of the standard frame rates. This works without a hitch, as I tested it on a couple files. That means I’m in business with about 2-3 hours work as opposed to 29 hours of re-digitizing tapes of footage or 60+ hours re-rendering the files to the correct frame rate. I just knew there was a work around, and this saves the day with no cost and very little time.

This week is much slower on the regular work front, but I am then inundated with freelance. Whilst though not forsake mine soul for but a little while? Oh Fleance, I have not what you desire, which is the ability to control myself and not kill your dad Banquo. These are the cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose.

I want to take a full day off and edit my own material. It has been taking too long and I want to get ‘er done. Ere the passing of another cycle of the moon, I shall have completed one, lest the demons of the muse forbear upon my whims.



In the last few years of my life, I have increased my reading exponentially. I read a piece of fiction; then alternate with a non-fiction film-related book. Right now, I’m reading THE MAKING OF RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK from 1981 by Derek Taylor. I love these old straight to paperback BEHIND THE SCENES books. I have several. Some of the best perspectives on making these classic films can be found in the old paperback MAKING OFs. In the MAKING OF SUPERMAN 1978 by David Michael Petrou, I read an insane amount of stories about how the Salkind’s (producers) tried to fire Richard Donner (director). Alan Arnold’s ONCE UPON A GALAXY THE MAKING OF THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK has some wickedly interesting tidbits on drug abuse, ego, and power struggles and this was written by their PUBLICIST!



I wondered what ever happened to these books and then I realized, looking at my 3 book cases of film related literature, they became these full sized, glossy color picture books.

The book for films were like this:


Now they are more like this:


Now, I like these, but somehow I prefer the well written words to the sidebars to a photo gallery. I really miss the sassy stories and much more educational idea of the text versions of the books.

- Peter John Ross