A Timorous Disposition

Now I’m truly done with this short, REFRACTORY . I let the movie ferment for a week; now I made the final adjustments today. Nothing major, just some minor clean up and tweaks. Probably the most significant thing I did was trimming a shot and add a few quick flashes of something else. I have Megan making a sudden movement forward and I now cut the shot before she stops, whereas she clearly stopped before the shot ended.

I like this piece. It’s not for everybody. Not everyone will like the choices made, but I accept that. Overall, it’s something a bit darker and more dramatic, but it is something I like and relate to in some weird way.



This past Saturday was interesting. No less than 3 film projects were running at the studio at the same time. Shane Howard did some technical work converting frame rates for the feature film MINUS ONE. Rachel Hanna edited on her segment from DREAM 13 while I did some graphics on the next Sonnyboo short. I love that every single editing machine was working and creativity was abound. It made me feel like a lot was being accomplished, even when we horsed around and conversed. That’s what editing sessions should be if you’re not being paid, so I love having fun and chatting, but still getting work done.



The graphics work on the next short is killing me. Each shot takes about 2-3 hours to create, animate, and then render. Part of what gets me is that I have too many options on the animation I can do. How do I have the graphics appear on screen and then leave the frame? They can get small into infinity, they can move off screen up, down, left, right, or they can just fade off. Then there are the colors, the placement, framing, and trying to come up with a thousand little tiny graphics to fill in the spaces. This reminds me of the screens in the back of the bridge of the Enterprise where someone has to create all that crap that no one looks at but everyone sees. Unfortunately, I’m that guy. TJ made the main graphics, but I’ve got nothing for the small, illegible stuff that fills out the frame. Getting the pickup shots I need (all 2 of them) are on hold as the actress loses some of her tan from vacation. No problem as without the graphics, I’m in no rush to finalize this.



Last night I made the trek down to Cincinnati for a SOFA meeting. That’s the SOUTHERN OHIO FILMMAKERS ASSOCIATION, a good group of people. The movie theater where they gather was a 1941 building all tricked out with modern stuff, still retaining its original designs and style. I highly recommend people get out and mingle with other filmmakers, even in other parts of the state. Building bridges and sharing resources are what can make a better whole.
I love inspiration. It’s impossible to truly know where it comes from or why it strikes in the way it does. I’ve had an idea for a movie for over 10 years and I wait for them to grow. Much like the short with graphics I’m working on, sometimes the ideas just need to finish themselves before they come together. Half baked ideas are never as tasty as the ones that ripen just right and get consumed when everything comes together. Describing this half baked idea to someone else opened up a ton of fresh ideas and a fuller picture came into focus for me. I’m using too many metaphors, but when I don’t want to discuss details and still have someone understand something of what I mean, this is what I do.


Anywho. Good day to you all. I’m going to make bread and eagerly await a final render.

- Peter John Ross

Anagrams and Deviant Art

I have a minor secret. I want to tell people, but devilry and not a small amount of childishness prevent me from being forthright. So I came up with a fun way to delay the inevitable revelation.

Here are two anagrams, a free DVD of the latest Sonnyboo HD shorts to the first to get them correct:

am so free man, join

and

sore Nina Joss



The answer to one of these is also the password to seeing the latest sonnyboo produced short film, directed by Joanne Fromes on VIMEO.COM. http://www.vimeo.com/4110271


Refractory from Peter John Ross on Vimeo.

I named the short REFRACTORY, as the word significantly relates to the subject matter. Here’s a secret, I like big words; as if the titles to my blogs were not a giveaway to that little secret. A huge hint to the anagrams is in the paragraph above, as one of those words is in both…



I finished the edit today, at least for now. I am tinkerer, so I expect some revisions and changes at some point. Thank God for a Terabyte drive because for color correction I used uncompressed video files. I chose a vignette look for this to emphasize characters and it worked out in my opinion. The images were pretty good as is, with a consistent color and look. I chose not to over process it too much. I pulled about 15% saturation from the overall image to “depress” the look. We set out to make a green or blue tint, but since the location was primarily red and burgundy, that really didn’t work out so well. I’m not at all disappointed, though.

To emphasize some dialogue and other points, I digitally added two small camera moves. The beauty of HD is that I can manipulate the images a lot in post to do this. I had not considered these camera moves on the day, but here I am 9 weeks later popping in tighter, zooming in. I love the control that editing has over the whole process. You can rethink almost anything and in the High Definition world, we have latitude to affect the picture a lot with little loss in quality.



The music should be sparse. In some ways the sound design and score is same thing here. The sound design is rhythmic and musical, and the music is more ambient and environmental. I love a good sound mix, and one of the lessons I have learned over the years is to bring the volume down and keep it balanced so that you can boost it later more cleanly. If you go for the volume it distorts and no matter what you do later, you can’t un-fuzz the sound, as opposed to being a tiny bit low, you can boost it cleanly.

I’m sending this out to a few peers for review before I make it public. I don’t know if it will be a web video for a while. It’s a drama and not the most appealing to the masses or of interest to many, but it was a story I wanted to tell.

I knew that all I needed was a day or two with a solid block of time to just hone in and focus. I had no new Blu Rays from Netflix, no TV shows to catch up on, and no lingering freelance or day job work handing over my head. I wasn’t particularly in the “mood” to edit, but without these distractions I was able to zero in and get ‘er done.



The sole inhibitor wound up being my kitty “V”. Every time I’d start to cut, he would cry and whine, demanding attention. He was not satiated to sit on the desk and be pat. He brought me many toys that apparently I was meant to play with along with him. Luckily the later processes required a lot of render times, so we could play fetch or in “Cousette’s Cave” (which is me holding a blanket over our heads whilst holding a flashlight). In “V” world, if I am home, my sole purpose is to be his playmate. Cousette is perfectly happy to lie in a ball nearby and pass out.

Starting this coming week, I have one more short film to complete. That includes some pickup shots and one helluva lot of FX shots, but at least it’s edited already…

Now I am to dance the dance of joy, pantsless as usual. Mayhap My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I will get around to watching CASABLANCA on HD tonight. Or maybe I can get THE SPOONS ®; it is after all the Zombie Jesus Holiday weekend.

- Peter John Ross,
- All loosey Goosey
Great ZOMBIE JESUS!