Obsequious and Ignoble

Why do I do this to myself? I have a sick, nasty compulsion. I just signed on to edit another feature film for someone. This time, it’s an HD feature where I started out just offering some technical advice, and then the curse of knowledge bit me. Next thing you know, I’m scheduling out how I can get assistant editors in to re-synch audio and convert files.

My desire to see things through to completion, AKA obsessive compulsive disorder, appears not to be limited by my own projects (as if Goodnight Cleveland didn’t already demonstrate that). Now I’ve signed on to put together an editorial team to see another feature through the editorial stages. My role starts out more as a “Post Production Supervisor” because I have to get all the technicals lined up and taken care of. Overseeing the flow of footage, sound, and then assembling the files to a point where creative editing can even start to take place is something, unfortunately, I’m good at. Being organized and anal about folders and systematic ordering of massive amounts of data can hardly be labeled “talent”, but it is a skill. One I’m cursed with. Who am I kidding? I do this to myself.

So already, I hit my first major snag. The footage came from the Canon XH A1 HDV camera. It was shot in 24F, which is Canon’s answer to 24P, or 24 progressive frames per second format, the coveted frame rate of actual celluloid film and the key to making narrative pieces look more “serious”. Since their CCD chips are natively interlaced, they have some kind of work around to getting a pseudo progressive “film like” format. Since this is yet ANOTHER HD format I’m learning in the last 3 months, I have hit the hardest wall so far. My beloved CINEFORM codec is not dealing with the footage as well or automated as all the others have so far. The way CINEFORM handled the Sony Z1U footage, shot in PAL 25 frames per second mode and converted it unconventionally to 24P impressed me so much; I thought there was no mountain I couldn’t climb. Now I might have to go back to the source tapes and re-digitize 29 hours of footage. Ugh.



I plan on finishing the two Sonnyboo produced shorts ASAP. I have another weekend of freelance work kicking me, but I need to stockpile the $. Again, the comedy short is already more or less picture locked, minus the 2 pickup shots. The other one needs a solid 8 hour day to just immerse myself with the footage, watch the cut about 20 times, and start to see what annoys me first. Part of my new editorial process is to kill myself watching a piece over and over until something starts to bother me. You have to utterly destroy your association with the piece by over analysis, then you can start to find things that bother you, and those tend to be the same things that an anonymous person either online or in a theater will see on their first viewing and hate to. This chaotic method works far better than you might think.

I still struggle to carve out time to actually WATCH movies. Tonight I forced in the time to watch the black & white “director’s cut” of THE MIST from Frank Darabont of the Stephen King novella. I liked it the first time, and I even love black and white, but I preferred the color version. No other changes to the movie really. It didn’t suck in black and white, but I don’t think it added anything either. Oh well. It’s so freakin’ cool that we live in a world where a director can have it both ways on the same DVD release, so there’s that.



“V” only semi-hates Jessica Cameron. I suppose its progress. He really really hates Micah Jenkins, so this is definitely several notches more friendly than that relationship, but we had such high hopes that upon their first meeting my baby boy “V” would be more like every other boy on the planet and fawn all over miss Jessica. He let her pet him for about 20 seconds without mauling her flesh, so it’s somewhat hopeful. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ says he has claimed me and I’m his pet. He lays on my desk before me now as I type just purring like a motorboat eyes closed in a blissful sleep.

Whatevah…

- PJR

The Man-gina Chronicles

Last night’s shoot went great. That’s 2 in a row where things were pretty much spot on. We shot in my parent’s house and that was odd because there are pictures of me from all ages all over the house, so it was like a “Ross Museum” or more akin to freak show as people tried to figure out where the svelte good looking teenager disappeared into the fat hairy guy who must have eaten him.





Because of the rush nature of putting this together, I did not get to rehearse and that does bother me. I very much prefer to work for at least an hour or two with actors without a crew standing by or working so we can build some kind of rapport, and work without a net. There needs to be an environment of trust so that when we talk about things I like or not like, and what they prefer and want to try, we can experiment and talk without it being under pressure or with an audience. I don’t want an actor to be self conscious if I tell them I don’t like something they are trying because with 10-12 people watching it might seem like I’m shooting them down and embarrassing them. Similarly, I don’t want to have an argument if they don’t like the way I want a line to be read and we’re in the thick of the shoot with me behind the dolly, camera, and bank of monitors.







Now for this shoot, we shot with the Sony Z1U. Since I have Cineform’s ASPECT HD codec, I read up on it and they recommended shooting in the European PAL format of 25CF (cine-frame) mode. This is a Sony workaround to get the “film” like image, they shoot in an HD PAL format into a 50i image, and my software can extrapolate the 25 progressive frames from it and converts it down to 24 frames per second, but then re-works the audio so that it keeps the pitch normal without slowing it down too. It’s all very technical and makes sense to me. If you’re reading this and feel dumb, that’s okay. Maybe you are, or at least you aren’t as super-duper intelligent like me. Or maybe if you watch Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and the techno babble makes perfect sense to you, we can be friends. It’s a miracle I have a girlfriend, and if I have to tell you that the last 2-3 sentences contained incredible amounts of sarcasm, then you are in fact dumb and that’s not a facetious stab.







What is cool for me about working on some shorts again is trying out several HD camera makes and models. As I gear up for 3 features later on, I want to have some firsthand experience with several cameras and see how they edit, handle color correction, effects, etc. Before I shoot on another feature, I will have seen how these cameras’ footage looks projected too. All of this combines to make more informed decisions about what to shoot the features with when the money is on the line. Shorts can serve a VERY important piece of the process and be multi-beneficial if you use your noggin.







I am proud of John’s sister Joanne Fromes who is doing well with her first few projects as a director. Again, My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ had to work, and there is some tension over the amount of time I spend with this young nubile girl. The editing sessions will begin tomorrow and she’ll see that not many hot young chicks are into hoggin’ it with the biggies. It’s very weird to not be the director on these pieces and just a co-writer and producer. I’m having a blast anyway. Maybe I’ll stop directing and only produce. And maybe it will rain beer.







I’m still waiting for this PAL 50i conversion to 23.976 Progressive frames to finish conforming the .M2T files to .AVI. I’m telling you, if that sounds like Chinese to you, then you need to get busy studying CODECS. Your first assignment? Tell me what CODEC stands for!





Peace and B WILD,

Peter John Ross

coup d'etat de resistance

I am producing a new piece next week. To help out a first time female director has many levels of appeal to me. It’s the whole big brotherly fraternal aspect, plus the philanthropic endeavor. I want to see more great pieces come from Columbus in terms of film. The bar has been raised and I want to see it met and surpassed.



We’re shooting on the Panasonic HVX200A with the P2 cards. I like the look of the Panasonic cinegamma style color curves. I would never say “film like”, but I can say that it is aesthetically pleasing and doesn’t look like video, which is good. The clean codec also merits mentioning, as it is a lot less compressed than HDV with its MPEG2 evils. I have worked with this material before, but I have never edited with these file types. The HVX200A is a tapeless format and everything records to a memory P2 card. You put that card into the PCMCIA slot of a laptop, then transfer it off the card to your hard drives and start editing. We’ll have someone on set to offload cards and copy footage at all times. It’s not unlike loading and unloading film magazines with the film shoots, only less potentially fatal to the source footage (unless you delete something or fail to copy something).

I did a test ahead of time to make sure this will work with my systems. This entailed getting some basic footage and converting it to the Aspect HD codec I use at home. I needed a driver to read the P2 cards first. Then I needed a P2 reader software so I could read the native *.MXF files that the video and audio is recorded to. Once I got both of those installed, it was effortless to get editable AVI’s and the quality is astoundingly good. The HVX200A has a better low light image than its predecessor.



Continuing on a thread from one of my last blog entries, I find that my interests in filmmaking are shifting a little. I’m not as into comedy as I once was. The appeal of drama and performance from actors captivates me. Not to say I’ll abandon the funnier material, especially in light of recent successes in regards to UNCLE PETE’S PLAY TIME, but I digress. Yet again, a trip to Ohio from George equates to another rush to shoot a short with George. I want to take my time and be a little more precise in the things I produce, but George is too good not to take advantage of using as an actor. He’s especially good at fleshing out ideas.

I have another short script/story that has been brewing for over a year. I had a great setup, but no payoff, at least not one that equates the layup. Brainstorming with George, I stumbled on the answer. Sometimes the pressure of time squeezes out the best ideas. It’s hard to find people who “get it” in terms of brainstorming. I liken it to the process of writing on Television. It’s a flurry of “no, that’s not right” until you get those nuggets of gold. You know its right when you hear it. There is no other rhyme or reason. In this case, it was several of George ideas that were NOT right that I found the right ending to the piece. Collaboration isn’t an exact science I guess.

Inspiration comes from life and the bizarre nooks and cranny of the brain. The kernel of the idea of this short is over 11 years old from when I was working at Banc One Securities Corp ™. In conversation with a girl who was one of the few that I actually liked, she said things about her relationship that struck me as odd. The key is to not be inhibited by the realities. This is a work of fiction solely “based” on this discourse, and I’m not making a documentary, so I’m not obligated to any truth other than the truth of the human condition. I like to take real events, conversations, etc. and nudge them into a workable fiction that says something I want to say about life, the world, people, or anything else that tickles my fancy.

I find that when I right outlines, just to get the ideas “on paper” (in a virtual Microsoft Word ® sense) that I start very vague and by the end I always get more detailed and include exact dialogue in quotes et al. Then I go back and start filling in more dialogue at the beginning and the next thing I know, I already have an entire first draft. It’s a process of cracking the writer’s block and getting the flow going. Once the characters start talking, I feel more like I’m transcribing not writing. That is the BEST feeling. When characters develop an actual voice and speech patterns all their own, plus saying things or doing things you had not pre-conceived; that is the shiznet, if you can excuse my colloquialism and pseudo nomenclature.



My cats are still being defiant as ever. The Might “V” has utterly destroyed the colored mice toys in record time. He has taken to bringing their slobbering remains into my bed in the morning. “V” will proceed to flip the item in the air, then jump around the bed to catch it and tear it apart…. On my legs, on my arms, and on my head. He is a demon, but he’s my pet demon and it’s so hard to be mad at him. I did eject both cats and My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ from the bed the other morning so I could get another hour’s sleep. Shock and awe ensued as I denied any desire for Spoons in favor of the almighty shut eye.

What more can I say? Time to boogie on down the road.


Peace and love and good happiness stuff as Steve Vai used to say…
Peter John Ross
Of Rossdonia Farms
“Fresh Manure with French Fries”