TREE

Cast & Crew Screening

We are trying to organize a date and venue for the Cast and Crew screening at the moment.  It won't be until the beginning of June, but we'll email everyone once it's confirmed. 

Stay Tuned.

The Finishing Line

It's over.   

Last week saw all the final finishing touches come together into a completed film.  Rushes delivered the effects shots to us.  A big thanks to Carl and the gang for fitting little old us in round their busy schedule of high profile film and commercial work. 

We also mixed the sound design and music at Fonic.  Simon's music and Barnaby's sound design meshed brilliantly to create a wonderful soundscape that really elevates the film to new heights.

Then, last night Tree was shown at the Rich Mix cinema along with the other Tower Hamlets and Hackney funded films to an invited audience.  It was a great evening, and like last year, there was a really impressive line up of films.  I'm sure all of them will go on to find an audience at festivals around the world.

So its been quite a year, and I have enjoyed making this film immensely.  It has afforded me the opportunity to work with some brilliant new people, and some trusted old friends again.  So many hours were contributed to making this film happen, the monetary value of which would run into tens of thousands!  I really wish that it were possible to have paid everyone who helped, the money that their skills and craft deserve, but sadly that sort of funding just does not exist for short films.

I am really very proud of the film we have made, because as well as looking and sounding gorgeous, it succeeds in communicating all the ideas we set out to achieve, and you can't ask for more than that.
Sure there are things I would do differently had we more time during the shoot, but those are the lessons I'll now take forward with me on future projects.

So the production side of this films journey is now over, but, the life of the film is only just beginning...

Time Consuming Titles

It feels like it has taken forever to complete the end credits to this film.  So many names to get right, so many people to thank.  In the end we have decided to stick with Tree as the title.  Nothing else quite fitted.

So we were at Soho Images last week placing them against our picture.  I had pre rendered everything the night before on my old but trusty laptop, so it should have been just a case of handing over the files and placing them into the time-line, which is what we did very successfully until we got to the end roller and I suddenly spotted the typo "Camera Tranees"   A quick correction, and a little wait for the file to re-render and we were back on track though.

Its good to know we are not the only film in the final throws of completion, fellow awardee Lizzy, is also racing to finish her film, which I can' t wait to see. 

http://newsfromthebog.blogspot.com/

The Grade

On Wednesday, Pete, Liz and myself spend the day in the company of the fantastic Rob Pizzey, who can be found at Soho Images.

As a Digital Colourist, Rob is responsible for grading the film; that is playing with the colours, hues, contrast, and tones that give the film its final look.  Rob has graded such recent films as Tideland,  Black Book, and Red Road amongst many others, and we were very fortunate they were able to squeeze us in between work on two features.

Before our Grading session Peter and myself had spent an evening in front of Photoshop playing with some images to rough out the look we were after.  This proved really useful, as Rob was able to quickly translate that look to our footage with stunning results. (see image above)  We where then able to spend the rest of the time being creative with masks, grads, and vignettes.

Being able to grade the film this way means that we now have a very unified look and feel that adds tremendously to the fairy tale theme that has guided us through production.
The film now looks even more gorgeous than it did!

What's Been Happening?

I'll tell you. 

A few weeks ago we did an ADR session with Beth and Clive at Fonic.  We were there to recapture the vocal performances we had lost to faulty equipment during the shoot.  It was a strange afternoon spent recording all manner of heavy breathing, gasps, squeals, and gurgles.
Previous to that Fonic had got Foley Artist Sue Harding to recreate all the countless physical sounds that the characters make as they interact with their environment.  These ranged from foot falls on the ground, to the creeky sounds of someone wearing leather jacket.
As well as all that, Simon Allen has been writing the musical score which we got to hear.  It never fails to amaze me how much music can lift the visuals to a new level.  In the next couple of weeks the music and sound will be given a final mix.

Liz and myself have been collating the names of all the wonderful people who have helped us this past year, and adding them to the credit list which I will post here soon for all to see.

One of the things I have been looking forward to most happens tomorrow; the grade! 

More about that soon.

New Title?

Ain't it always the way, you wait round for ages then two post appear at once!

TREE is the working title of our film, but now is the time to start thinking seriously about finding a more appropriate name to encapsulate our film.  It's a problem have been thinking about for months, and was hoping that inspiration would hit.  Sadly it has not.

So if anyone has a suggestion - feel free to comment.

It needs to be memorable, poetic, concise, and convey the idea of "crossed paths" without being to on the nose.

Edit Locked

If you've been in or around London's Soho over the past fews week, there's a fare chance you might have glimpsed me darting back and forth across Oxford Street from, Framestore, where I'm currently working, to Wardour St, where Ralph Foster our editor is based.

We have been busy whittling away at the edit, sharpening, refining, and generally polishing the film to a point where we can now lock the edit and pass it on to Barnaby Templer at Fonic to start the sound design, and Simon Allen to begin scoring the music.

Due to the time constraints when shooting, the weather conditions we faced, and also my own oversight, there are a few places in the film where we did not quite get all the coverage we needed, but thanks to Ralph I don't think anyone will notice.  For all our cutting however, the film's length has not decreased that dramatically, but the pacing and tempo is so much tighter.

Overall I'm very pleased with what we have done, add music and sound and it can only get better!

Progress

As was mentioned in my last post, we have a rough cut, which we are now in the process of showing round to a select band of people to help us gauge if the film is working.  Are we hitting the right notes for pace and tone? Does the film communicate its theme? Is it entertaining?

From the response we have so far it is very encouraging, but there are one or two story points in the film that need fine tuning. 

We are hoping to have a finished cut by the end of December.

So, this just to say things are happening, just very slowly.

Rough Cut 02

This week saw a big leap forward in the editing process of the film. Ralph Foster our editor was able to spend some time cutting, during lunch breaks and after work, to get a more fleshed out edit of the film ready for Friday.  It was important to get a cut ready this week because we are applying for some completion funding to help us with the post production of the film and the deadline for submissions was 5:30pm on Friday.

Unfortunately we need extra funding at this stage due to a problem we had during shooting that only came to light after we had wrapped.  It appears we had a fault with two pieces of our sound equipment not quite talking to each other in the right way.  This means a lot of the location sound that was recorded is unusable.  To be fair, even if we had that sound it would still largely only be a guide, due to the fact that when ever we turned over, some man deep in the woods would start his chain saw up at the same time! 

The up shot of all this is that, the sound design guys at Fonic will have to try and reconstruct a lot more of the sound than was anticipated.  It is annoying, but I have a lot of faith in Fonic.  Thank goodness it is a non dialog film, but nonetheless, there will be a huge amount of foley work to be done...which costs money!

Ralph did a great job in patching some atmos, spot sound effects, and music together for this edit just so it didn't feel so empty.  However now that I have had some time to review the edit again, we may have gone a little over board with the musical cues.  Its too busy, and some of the tracks don't quite fit right.  I always knew that sound and music would play a big part in this film, and it will be a fine balancing act to get them just right.  For all its rough cut edges, it is encouraging to finally see a film beginning to emerge.   

Now for something completely different...

Went for a walk this weekend back to see the TREE. It had lost all its foliage and was looking very stark, but still beautiful.

Autumn this year is very late, but the colours this weekend are extrodanary.

Happy Happy Joy Joy.

People have been ringing me up asking if I'm OK.  They have read the blog and are worried I'm depressed.  Well I was...for about a day!  Sorry if this blog has given you the impression I'm a tortured soul.  I'm not.

See, I did enjoy myself.

Reports back from the crew are that they really enjoyed the film too, which is very good to know.

Having watched the rushes from last weekend I am absolutely delighted with the shots and performances we captured.  The Tree just looks gorgeous, and the other pick ups add so much to the story.  I'm really pleased we got them.

Looking forward now to see what Ralph does with his edit.  I'm sure he'll surprise me.