To be standing there with a copy of my movie, I felt so relieved because the last month leading up to that day, I’d become increasingly paranoid that something was gonna happen to my computer, or my hardrives and I’d lose everything. So to have the movie in my hand, free from the fragile computer world that it was previously living in, I felt a million times better.
As I watched the whole thing for the first time on our big screen tv, I got so overwhelmed. When the ending came, I couldn’t keep it together. I mean, I’d seen the thing probably fifty odd times before but watching it all together, in one sitting, made me realize it was an actual movie, and for the most part, it worked. Part of the reason I was overwhelmed, was because this movie represented my whole life, for all intents and purposes, for the last 8 months. And if it didn’t work out, or it sucked, man I would’ve felt shitty. But to see it come together, felt so good because up until now, I was apprehensive to tell anyone what it was I was up to because of the fear that the movie might suck, and I’d be embarrassed as hell to tell people that I spent the last 8 months making a piece of shit amateur Canadian movie. So to see it together and find out that wasn’t the case, I felt able to proudly tell people what I’d been up to. This next pic by the way, is the entire movie in final cut, the scale is an hour and a half across.
Having said that…this thing is far faaaaaarrrrrr from being done. And it’s been tough to free myself from my self-adulation to realize: right now, it has potential to be good, and the people who have seen it at this stage, can see the potential. But if I don’t get my ass back in gear and fine tune this movie, it will be just an unfinished movie that had potential and will just be chalked up to a cool accomplishment. That ain’t gonna happen. This movie must be THE SHIT! It must be.
So the movie’s edited together…what else is there to do you might ask. Well, the audio is still choppy and there’s probably only 40% of the music in there, not to mention anytype of sound effects/ mood setting atmospheric sounds. The main issue with sound is achieving continuity of sound. No changes in levels from cut to cut.
This has proved very challenging, because when we were filming, the ambient sound always seemed to be changing. It doesn’t matter if it was inside, outside, whatever. From take to take, something was always different. Maybe the furnace turned on, or just the different sounds from one direction of the microphone to the other. Or maybe the asshole birds would chirp away for ten minutes straight then not make a peep. Or maybe there was an airplane within 20 miles of our filming (which there always was) that would fuck up the sound. Or maybe there’s a guy mowing his lawn at 8pm on a Friday night right across from the spot where we’re filming an emotional scene, trying to get it finished before the sun sets. This means that in any given scene, I need to find out what the loudest ambient sound is, and overlay it over the cuts that don’t have that sound. Ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that us retarded actors would always try to get the best performance even if that meant talking over one another, which is the single biggest nightmare for audio editors, because if there’s no break in speaking…how the shit do I cut it. I don’t know how it’s really done by pro audio editors, but those guys are working some magic let me tell you.
Now music on the other hand has been a great process so far. I know I still have a long way to go, but so far so good. One of the best parts about doing something creative like this film, it tends to bring out the creative side in everyone you know. I’ve connected with buddies I’ve played hockey with and friends of friends that I probably wouldn’t normally have because we have this common creativity. So I tell them I’m making a movie, I find out they play the guitar or sing or whatever. And just like that, they start making music for me. It’s like these guys have this creativity and this represents another outlet for them to express themselves. This is all sounding very pompous I know like actors talking about their craft and all that, but you know what I mean.
I’ve recently been working with a guy named Ty Williams, this guy’s got skills on guitarra. It’s been a strange process because here’s how these recording sessions go down.
We watch the scene that needs music.
Neil: K Ty, we need something that sounds badass, maybe kinda bluesy maybe, I dunno.
Ty: Well should we do it down low like this (ty plays some blues magic) or up higher like this (ty plays more magic again, this time higher)
(Neil scrambles across the room to try to set up the camera and microphone as fast as possible)
Neil: Both, we’re doing both!! Do that exact same thing again. K you ready?
Ty: I don’t even know really what I did.
Neil: Just do it again…k we’re going.
We record, Ty busts out magic…Not always exactly the same, but the same vibe at the very least.
Like I said, it’s been a strange experience to have something very abstract in my mind: basically just a vibe, then telling someone that vibe, and they turn it into something concrete. Now the little above convo doesn’t always yield a complete song right away, that’d be too good to be true. But what it does do is get that initial vibe out prepped for us to sculpt it to fit the scene.
And the way we’ve been scoring this movie is the definition of DIY, I love it. I set up my camera on my tripod, on the far side of the room, I get Ty to sit, guitar in hand, on the couch closest to the tv, I bookend the shot with Ty on one side of the shot and the tv on the other. I set the mic up on the boom. I press record on the camera, I press play on whatever scene we’re working, and Ty watches the scene and plays as he watches. And presto!!! Haha, usually it takes an entire night of playing, recording, writing, re-writing, and not to mention one or two beers (or a case haha) to get about three or four scenes, depending on how productive we happen to be that night, or until Ty’s fingers start to bleed. Whichever occurs first. On occasion, we would toss on a movie as inspiration, one of the most memorable being "It Might Get Loud" a documentary about the guitar that follows three terrible guitar players ;) Jack White, Jimmy Page, and The Edge. Nothing gets you into the creative guitar playing frame of mind better than that movie. One of the year's best by my account.
And then I started employing this method in my own way by myself. I hooked up my new (Christmas present (thanks mom and dad!!)) tv in front of my computer editing area. And I would watch a scene as I attempted to do some scoring of my own, using the program logic express. Add a little violin and add a little piano in for the more emotionally driven scenes. Anyways that’ll do it for now…back to work, instead of sitting here typing about it haha.
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