Keeping the Faith: Surreal Endings and Exposing Yourself

It's now Wednesday July 28. Monday I got the music for the intro. Yesterday I sent my last note to Scott. That was the day he also received the final sound files from our sound editor Richard Ross. The film is now complete, and needs no more direction from me or anyone else. By Saturday July 31, I will have 4 DVDs in my hand. And on Sunday August 1, I will be on a plane to Dublin, Ireland.

While most people might think this is a moment to celebrate, I'm only pondering how and when I'll get the rest of the work done.

Things I still need to do:

• 
  
  finalize and send out the licensing contracts
• 
  
  complete list and schedule of film festivals
• 
  
  prepare film festival marketing material
• 
  
  write and distribute press release
• 
  
  plan cast & crew screening
• 
  
  burn DVD's for cast and crew and investors

These are the little things, but they are still part of the process. As a creator, whether writer/artist/filmmaker, it is our obligation to not only create the project, but to make sure it is seen, that it speaks, and it's allowed to breathe in the light of day.

It would be easy enough to take a photograph, write a book, paint a masterpiece, and let it lie dormant in the closet, gathering dust, left alone and frozen in time for posterity. And in many cases that's what we do and there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, just sometimes, our creation takes its own journey and we follow along, or drive the train. It craves to be exposed, revealed.

I don't feel like I'm quite done with this film yet, because it still has an unknown destination, a destiny if you will. So my happy ending is surreal... fluid, unknown, and floating freely forward.

After my return, when I've had some time to digest the production of it all, perhaps I'll be able to write then what I can't write now. Lessons learned. Gratitude unleashed. Goals and forsaken dreams. Promises and commitments. And directing, dear lord, directing.

It has, thus far, been a sweet voyage. And now I shall leave for my own travels - secure in the knowledge that I have accomplished what I set out to do, met my goals, and (hopefully) properly acknowledged and shared the journey with a team that I admire and love.

One thing I can say... I could not have done this film without the team of creative people who pulled together beside me and offered their time, talent and trust, dedicating themselves to this film while asking very little of me. That, my friends, is faith.

Keep the faith, and the world is yours.

p.s. Don't get me wrong. I'll be celebrating -- in Dublin, Oslo, Avignon and London. And I'll keep you posted about our progress later in August. For now, I'm making new memories.  

Museworks Logo Intro

It's official. Love it.

Notice the details... logo gets bigger as it moves up the tree. First you see "muse", then there is a flash, then you see "works" as it fades out.

Superb music - nice rhythm, subtle crescendo, sweet dissonance, and a shift in key at the crescendo. It makes me feel like there are possibilities in the world.

In a word, Magical

Outstanding work by composer Douglas Pipes, artist Jennifer Downey, and special effects master Matt Rhodes.

The image can change, but this is the theme that's mine, for any film I do.

FILM LOCKS

Today, we got the email from Richard Ross, our sound designer. The film is locked. What does this mean? It means, my friends, that all video/pictures/frames are set. We are making NO MORE CHANGES to the film.

At this point we are "laying off" the sound, cleaning it up, mastering the levels, adding sound effects, adding music (so that it fades in and out at the appropriate times visually), and general scrubbing the sound so it's squeaky clean. Sound sweetening. Oh yes, this is a good place to be.

Once all this sound sweetening is done, then we will "lay on" the sound track (all audio files) and the entire film will be completed. Oh, and while the sound is being worked on, Mr. Scott (editor extraordinaire) will be working with me to complete the color correction process. Some scenes are white, some scenes are darker, and some scenes are shadowed. Nothing's perfect. So we will perfect what we can and try to create a uniform look and feel.

After these two Very Important Final Tasks are done, we will create our Master DVD file.

While it may seem like the end, or near the end, I still feel the weight of the work in front of me, probably even more so than ever. Each of these last steps is harder and slower than I could even have imagined. It's like dragging yourself through thick, goopy mud, when before you were jogging sprightly through the grass. Tough stuff.

In the midst of this madness, I have purchased a new bed (replacing both the mattress and box springs at least once), bought a new car, dyed my hair, and started re-training for an October triathlon. Maybe I need to find myself a nice poppy field to lay down in instead...

I leave August 1 for Europe. 15 days. Dublin, Oslo, Avignon, London. And I will be taking 4 DVD's with me. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it.

I hope everyone has a FABULOUS weekend!

Creating the Brand... courtesy of Artist Jennifer Downey

It's been over a month since I've written a real blog posting, but oh, it has been one long journey. We are, my friends, nearing the end of production. Final edits have been completed. Versions have been posted. Effects have been added, changed, re-added, edited and changed again. Credits writted and changed. Music composed. Licensed music edited, cut in and laid on the video. Conference calls with the composer. Meeting with the sound post-production guru (aka Richard Ross, AES). And, totally unforeseen, we had to create an intro graphic announcing Museworks. As soon as I saw the rough cut, I knew it was wrong, so wrong, to have my logo, or any logo for that matter, laying on top of the first scene of the film. That's a core rule of branding and something I do know a little about.

Spent a couple of hours yesterday at the studio of our effects master Matt Rhodes. Yesterday, June 30, was Film Lock Day. And although we didn't officially lock it, we did indeed lock the direction and changes to get there. I drove over to Oakland and sat down with a big fat glass of red wine (yes, it was quite delicious) and we started tackling all the little finishing touches remianing to be done -- which effects to stick with, which to dismiss, at what point we fade out the effects, etc. Then we hashed through the credits -- how to pace them, which to de-emphasize, changing the order, adding new names, adding music credit details, on and on. Then we headed into unknown territory: the graphic intro.

This is a little project I've been tackling for the last 10 days or so. Once I realized that I needed the intro, I flashed back to Jennifer Downey, our original storyboard illustrator. She's a talented artist and has a lot of really great art that we could choose from. So I perused her website and selected two images that I thought would work for the intro. But talented often means busy and despite multiple phone and email messages back and forth, we never connected live. But she made it happen. She was able to access the electronic file of one of the paintings and emailed it over, cropped exactly how I needed it. I thank God here for the blessings of technology (again) and for all the years of extended love shared among my friends. As Jennifer was getting ready to board her flight for vacation, she emailed me the image and went on her way. That's trust AND love right there. Doesn't get any better than that.

The image:  Old Wise Limbs

Oil on Canvas
24 x 44 x 1.5 in


So with our film composer on the line (again), we reviewed the intros used by Paramount, Universal, Dreamworks, and 20th Century Fox. Each was almost exactly 22 seconds. Weird. So we stuck with 15 seconds and created a little graphic "pow" moment for Douglas, because he's a musician and he'll like that.

The intro looks fabulous. Mucho thanks to Jennifer for making the time to get us the artwork. It's just beautiful.

Jennifer Downey

A native Californian, Jennifer lives and works in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. After graduating from UC Davis with degrees in English and Economics, she pursued a "sensible" career in business. However, after finding office politics, hour-long commutes, dress-down Fridays, and cubicle confines anything but conducive to creativity, she quit, packed her bags, and left for Ireland. In the small, coastal town of Galway, the Atlantic wind cleared her head and she rediscovered her original love: art.

In her illustration work, Jennifer combines bold, graphic color with clean line. She is interested in how line and color interact--how an image transforms as one views it from a color-dominant perspective and then from a line-dominant one. She strives to create images that engage the viewer and make the accompanying text or message memorable.

Jennifer is inspired by wilderness, mythology, activism, travel, salon-style conversations, trail rides, the changing of seasons, live music, and people who see no choice but to follow their passions.

You can view Jennifer's art on her website or at mesart.com.
Check out other studio intros on youtube.
Dreamworks Intro

Meet Douglas Pipes, Musician/Composer/Funny Man

Yesterday I had a short but important conversation with the music composer, Douglas Pipes. He has the Fine Cut of the film (I don't say Final here because I know I'm taking out a couple of frames to clean it up) and he had questions -- about music, sound, vibe, feeling. We talked about what he needed to understand the "vibe" that I wanted, and I listened. Officially, he has all the temp tracks on the iPod and a little table chart that I created that said where each track should go in the film. And he'll be taking it on vacation with him to the Caribbean. So picture this: Man lounging on sailboat, drinking beer, laughing with friends, remotely composing (in his mind, of course) the lovely and bittersweet score to our friendly little bridal film. Very nice.

I'm amazed that this project has come together the way it has... and I look back at all the little seeds I've planted along the way to get here. Douglas is one of those flowers.

I first met him when I was 29, aka young and having lots of fun living on the beach. We became immediate friends and have remained in touch throughout the years. I was fascinated back then - and still am - by his talent, sense of humor, and simply just the way he is. But he knows this. He was at the time playing in a band, singing, writing songs, and generally figuring out the next big thing. I was really impressed by the work he'd already done on other films. He'd done film soundtracks and played some of the music for me. One night we were hanging out in the basement, or the garage (I forget what that room was exactly, but it had a piano there, and his computer) and I asked him to show me how he did the music. He was surprised... do you really want to know? why are you asking me this? But I did really want to know. So he walked through the software he used, how he worked with the timeline and extending or cutting the sound to fit the scene. I remember sitting in there, writing in that room, pen and paper, with him next to me, headphones on, breathing hard, just working on music. It was sweet. (I wish I had a picture of us from that time, but people just didn't have cell phone cameras then folks)

When my original composer decided early on that he didn't have the time or interest in this film, I immediately thought of Douglas. In fact, I had thought about Douglas much earlier but figured he was too busy, too talented, and just too big to work on this short film. In the end, I thought, heck, won't hurt to ask. He responded immediately via email. "Yes! Would LOVE to!"  All I could think was "wow"... and then, "Thank God."

In the years since those idyllic days on the beach, he's gone on to do many cool things. Finished his degree. Worked in an ad agency. Composed for shorts, features. His most well-known work to date is the 2006 soundtrack to the animated film, Monster House, which my daughter has seen at least half a dozen times.

His most recent big film was Trick'R Treat, a  feature released by Warner Brothers in 2008. It has received universally great reviews from blogs and critics, and has a huge following among horror film fans.

Next up on his plate: Dinner with moi. Then we finish the film.

I know I've said this a lot, but we are indeed so very lucky to have him on our team. Douglas is the Big Fish here, and I promise to cook him a mean dinner... with Cat Stevens in the background.

MUSIC COMPOSER
Douglas Pipes

Douglas Pipes is a film music composer whose music has appeared in a spectrum of short and feature films including City of Ember (Universal Pictures) and the 2006 soundtrack to Monster House (Columbia). His loud, brassy instrumentations have drawn comparisons to action-music composer guru Alan Silvestri. He has won a variety of awards for his compositions including World Soundtrack Awards, Royal Television Society, and Gold Spirit Compositor Revelacíon (Spain). Doug’s most recent work is the score of horror film Trick ’r Treat.

Heartlessly Saving The Heart

This week we had some celebrating to do. On Tuesday, Scott and I sat side by side and went through the film scene by scene from start to finish, over and over. Going through my revision notes and making edits I tried to be heartless, without of course taking the heart out of the story.

As the screenwriter I really had the authority to remove unnecessary scenes, take out fat, make it lean, cut out entire sequences… at the same time, there was dialogue that explained something specific about a character, a particular reference that illuminated something that was, to my mind, unique. But I’m a fan of the “the more eyes the better” philosophy. So during those few moments where I felt a pang of remorse, I explained the sentiment, the exposition, to Scott… who politely, gently and respectfully pointed out that that segment of dialogue was (a) already SHOWN elsewhere, or (b) was really [ruthlessly] unnecessary. Muchas gracias to my editor. And an additional grazie to my co-writer, Mick, who also previewed the rough cut and identified the same things that I had seen but wasn’t sure about. Additional confirmation helped me put on my butcher gloves and get to the heart of the story. I felt very French.

At some level, one could say that it was almost a disadvantage to be the screenwriter, that perhaps knowing too much about the meaning and symbolism behind the dialogue might get in the way of the bigger story, that sometimes deeper illumination of the character doesn’t serve the story and kills the pace… perhaps. And perhaps not. But it’s something that’s there. Kill it, or don’t.

I recently read the autobiography of one of the more notorious screenwriters, Joe Eszterhas, writer of Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Flashdance, and Showgirls. Like most writers, he had a deep connection to his words and his journey culminated in him writing and directing his own film (the “you all aren’t doing it right, so I will” philosophy). That humbled him a bit, and no, the picture didn’t do fantastically, although having never seen it I can’t say whether it was simply a lackluster story or if the precious dialogue got in the way of the journey. But he learned that later. And I just learned it too.

Took my gal Connie (Casting Coordinator extraordinaire) out for a drink at the new pub in Point Richmond to celebrate. The film’s now officially off to the composer.
Drinking Menage a Trois red and having a sleepover. Life is beautiful.

Whippin' It (Good) With Shoes Fully Tied

Right now, at this very moment, listening to Devo, drinking Chardonnary courtesy of Chateau St. Jean, I am officially celebrating. Three weeks behind. It's been a wild two weeks. Took a hatchet to the world and spent a few days dealing with the bleeding. And throughout all of it, I'm smiling.

Just when I was ready to finalize the editing process and begin refining the film, I had to take a little break to deal with life. My full plate was waiting: reviewing the rough cut, finalizing the montage, completing and sending out the music licenses, meeting with my post-production team to refine the edits, pull out and relabel the audio recordings -- all this to stay on schedule. The key is that our composer is leaving May 15 and will be gone for two weeks. He wanted to see the rough cut by May 1 so he had time to watch it, lay down some draft music, and meet with me to move forward with his ideas and my changes. Alas, it was not to be.

Sometimes we have to stop to tie our shoes, so that's what I did. The rough cut sat for 9 full days without me even looking at it; the montage was posted up for nearly a week. So I took care of business. In the back of my mind, it was nagging, like a Very Important Meeting that you had to attend and where you had to give a speech but had never written it. I had dreams about old boyfriends and semesters in junior high. The whole school year had gone by and I hadn't attended one class the whole time. I woke up mildly panicked. Oh man, didn't I dump that guy? Oh no, could I make up the classes in a week? It Was Crazy. Amusement Park Crazy. Alice in Wonderland Crazy.

Just when I felt like I was hitting a wall, I got an email from a neighborhood friend, a kid from my junior high and high school, who was with another friend in L.A. They were talking and my name came up. (I don't ask how or why here, I just accept the blessing.) The best part of this story is that the mutual friend is Don Terbush from Universal Music Group, who has been one of my great sources for film music over the last ten years. One of my (still-to-be-done) tasks was to call Don. So an angel knocked on my door that day. Well, literally, it was an email angel in the form of an old neighbor, whose dog bit my brother when he was 10 years old. I called Don right away, gave him the details about the project and sent him the music list for licensing.

100 lashes to me. Nothing like a little lashing to wake a girl up. But I'm a traditional kind of gal, with a nice little whip. I plowed through the film a dozen times, identified where to tighten, where to cut, where to use an alternate shot, where we're going to need music, and laid out the remaining edits to complete it from Intro to Fade to Black. Shoes are tied. No tripping over life here. Bring it on.

And because I'm in a friendly mood and slightly drunk, here's a list of songs we're licensing, or at least hoping to license... just for fun.


Opening - HONEY IS COOL, On The Beach
Montage - THE MIGHTY QUARK, Kangaroo #1
Patio Scene - WYE OAK,  I Don't Feel Young
Closing scene - NOUVELLAS, These Days Are Gone
Credits - KASEY CHAMBERS, If I Were You