Launching Into Post-Production

Some pick-up shots are planned for next weekend, Jan 30-31, which will include a scene we cut out of the bridal shop shoot and some additional dialogue I'm working on. We're planning to shoot against a green screen so we can experiment with beach or vacation-like backdrops. After that, we're heading into post-production.

At the moment I'm reading "In the Blink of an Eye" by the renowned editor Walter Murch (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Apolcalypse Now, The Godfather II, The English Patient, etc.) to get in the mode for cutting and organizing scenes. Walter has some great metaphors about editing, but my favorite concept is his theory about blinking. His philosophy is that although we live in a 3-D world of continuous time, we blink not only to water our eyes, but also to "cut" our own internal film, and shifts in pace according to the nature and frequency of our thoughts. While in film we can assume that someone has moved from the entry to the door without seeing them walk there, we don't do that in real life, but we BLINK, which in effect cuts the scene for us. We blink to separate and punctuate ideas, just as a cut should do in a film.

One of his great tricks to keep perspective is to put paper cut-outs of little people next to his editing screen to keep the 'big screen cinema' in perspective. I like that. I'm adopting it.

From the animated film entitled “Dead All Along” by Giles Timms. Cut-out figures, inspired by illustrator Edward Gorey.

I'll be meeting with our post-production supervisor on Monday night and with another investor on Thursday, so everything is moving forward. First step, buy a new editing system to put together a clip. I'll also be listening to a lot of CD's over the next few months to get the pacing and energy and vibe together. Production may be over, but the film still has a long way to go.

In graduate school, I studied the arts as social and political expression... reading plays, novels and watching films for political content. My thesis focused on Czechoslovakia, whose arts community was instrumental in overturning the Communist government. Playwright Vaclav Havel became their first president after the Soviets left. Coincidentally, the most well-known Czech writer is Milan Kundera, a long-established refugee in France, and author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being (a film edited by Walter). You can check out the trailer for The Unbearable Lightness of Being here. It's very avant-garde and has a uniquely strong European feel to it. Haven't seen it in years, but I think I'll be previewing it before we start editing.

For a little Q&A on Walter Murch, you can read this article here.