Dénouement

Well, the screening’s finished, and I feel... well, I have mixed feelings. The screening itself went well — in terms of overall quality, I think we were in the middle of the pack — but I couldn’t help but notice all the things we could have done better — even accounting for the time limit. Still, there’s nothing to be done about it now, so I’ll just have to consider them lessons learned for next time.

We have to keep a much tighter rein on the writing process. Yes, I’ll still need the actors to handle a large part of their own characterizations, back story, and such, but we’ll need to have just a few people (at most) handle plot, and probably even general character arcs. With luck, this’ll be easier once I have a better understanding of the preferences and capabilities of our “troupe.”

We’ve got to have a much more rigidly defined set of roles for our crew, and as a corollary, I need to be much more assertive about enforcing those roles (it also might help to have an on-set producer with a temperature below 103 degrees...). It’s hard when you’ve started by basically begging anyone and everyone to help out in any way they can, but now that we’re a little more established, I think we’ll be able to be a little more demanding. Not that everyone didn’t make a huge effort, but there are times when we need to make sure that people are doing their assigned tasks, and not those of others.

We can’t let our need to work quickly detract from our insistence on professionalism. In editing (and later, in viewing the finished product), I noticed how we’d short-changed things like on-set color checking and exposure levels in the interests of speed. And while I’ll defend the effort I made at setting up our opening shots — which put us behind schedule but served as a necessary starting point for our picture — we’ll have to make sure that part of that setup time is devoted to making sure the camera’s actually picking up what we need it to.

There are other things we’ll need to remember for next time (setting audio levels properly, considering more creative choices in editing), but the most important thing to remember is that there will be a next time. Tohubohu lives — and I’m already kicking around some ideas for another project...

Tonight’s the Night!

Ooh, I’m all atwitter with anticipation.

Tonight, at long last, my big-screen debut as an indie director. Frankly, I can’t even begin to explain the excitement this brings. I mean, sure, I had produced “Loose Ends” before, but that never got shown except to friends and family — and certainly never got projected up on a real movie screen. (No, running it through a tabletop projector at the office doesn’t count.)

I’ve mastered at least a rough version of a Tohubohu DVD; it’s pretty bare-bones at the moment, but the structure’s assembled — and frankly, even now it’s got more “extras” than some commercial releases. For “Loose Ends,” there’s a Director/D.P. commentary track, on-screen text notes, the original Project Greenlight edit, cast and crew mini-bios, original storyboards (with running commentary), a slew of production photographs, the complete original script, and selections from the soundtrack. For “Schlimmer,” the selection is obviously a little lighter, with just a promotional trailer, cast and crew bios, and the soundtrack pieces. But I’m not through yet — we’ll be putting some more on there soon enough. In fact, I’ve structured the disc so that we can add films as they get produced; after all, even with all of that stuff, we’re using up less than half of the available space on the disc. (Now all we have to do is get the website working and I’ll be able to post updates...)

Well, for those of you who are coming to the screening, I’ll see you there — I’ll be the guy in the “Where’s the Schlimmer?” T-shirt bouncing around like a rat on crack.

Aaand... That’s a Wrap!

I can hardly believe it, but yes, it’s done.

We handed our tapes in with time to spare, after a particularly grueling post-production process. After my last post, I kept editing until about 8 a.m., finishing the rest of the rough edit, then Ginny came back in to do audio fixes, color correction, and cleanup, and then around noon we both worked on polishing things up. I’ll admit we were a bit nervous at not having some necessary graphics or music until Sunday afternoon, but once we got them, we couldn’t have been more ecstatic. The graphic design (by producer Geoff Long) was perfect, and the music was phenomenal — Scott Andrew LePera gave us not one but two tracks, which allowed us to incorporate a tension-inducing drumbeat underneath several scenes.

I’m slowly getting back up to speed again — a good thing given how much work I’ve got to catch up on. We were working almost literally up until the last minute (our final running time was 7:53, including credits), but we did it. And for me, the real test came when we showed it to a couple of “outsiders”; I’ll admit that I’m too close to the project to judge it objectively, but seeing their reactions made me realize that we’d really accomplished what we set out to do.

So where do we go from here? Well, the first step is obviously this Friday’s screening. We’ve started a sort of “viral marketing” strategy, pushing the tagline “Where”s the Schlimmer?” along with “Tohubohu Productions” (and the not-yet-up-and-running website, tohubohuproductions.com).

In related news, I’ve decided to include my last short, “Loose Ends,” under the Tohubohu umbrella. I’m doing this largely because I’d like to ensure that Tohubohu remains a viable entity going forward, and while “Schlimmer” was our first official production, I kind of like the idea of our having a “library” of material. It’s as if our made-up production company “Tohubohu” bought out my other made-up production company, “C Media.“

As for the future, we’re not finished yet. As far as I’m concerned, I can officially announce that we will be reuniting for next year’s 48-Hour Film Project, and if we’re up for it, I’d also like to propose working on the National Film Challenge — picture the 48-Hour Film Project on a national scale. Of course, that may depend on how we fare in this competition, but I can’t help but start thinking ahead.

Beyond that? We’ll just have to see. But for right now, it’s on to the screening!

Oh, I Can’t Be Getting Tired Yet

Yes, you’re reading that time-stamp correctly. It’s three a.m., and I’m only now about to start my “shift” as editor on our little picture. Not that we haven’t done any editing yet — Ginny’s been cutting like mad since three this afternoon (after helping shoot since nine a.m.), and only just left to get some sleep about an hour ago. Right now, my workstation’s capturing all of our later footage (i.e., the tapes we made after Ginny started on the first set).

For those of you keeping track, the genre we drew was “Mystery,” and the three randomly selected requisite elements were a character named “S. Baxter, a professional photographer,” a “rubber duck” as our prop, and, “You know, I love the _______,” as our line of dialogue. I won’t go into any detail just yet (particularly since the machine just finished capturing the footage, and I’ve got to get back to work), but it’s entitled “Schlimmer.”

Want to know more? Be sure to pick up a ticket to next Friday’s screening...

Almost Showtime!

The cast and crew are a complete as we’re gonna get ’em, Geoff’s got the production well in hand, we’ve got our equipment (thanks in no small part to a more-than-generous contribution from the Creative Solutions Group at the Corporate Executive Board), we’ve got a decent array of locations secured...

Now, all we can do is wait.

Just a little more than three hours to go...

Tohubohu Is Seeming More Appropriate by the Day

Yes, I am still here. But between preparing for this weekend’s 48-Hour Film Project and the mind-boggling workload that built up during my vacation, I haven’t had time to make even a quick note here. Still, since the event’s this weekend (holy crap), I thought I should at least check in with all of you with an update.

I’ve handed over the official “Producer” reins to Geoffrey Long, which leaves me free to concentrate on the “Director” end of things. So far, I think we’ve got a pretty good division of labor established, with me in charge of the creative side, and Geoff handling the practical. Not that he’s completely out of the creative loop, as he’ll also be joining us as a part of the writing team.

Yes, that’s right, team. On the one hand, writing by committee doesn’t usually produce the most artistically coherent work, but given our time frame, we’ve opted to go with more of a television model than a cinematic one. Another concession we’ve made to time constraints is to use a script outline rather than a complete script, leaving it up to the actors — a largely improv-trained group — to work out the details on the fly. I must confess that I’m not sold on this idea, but I think we’ll be better able to extract credible performance by allowing our cast to work naturally as opposed to trying to conform to a hastily cobbled-together screenplay. In all likelihood, there will be elements scripted in more detail (particularly the requisite “line of dialogue” we’ll be assigned), and we’ll have to run multiple takes (not to mention two cameras) to keep things tight, but I’m optimistic that our approach will work. Kori Lusignan — my fellow team Tohubohu leader — will be in charge of “wrangling” the actors and directing the improvisational aspect.

Rounding out the core crew are Adam Young as our D.P. (and storyboard artist) and Ginny Filer as our editor (who will no doubt have a bear of a time matching those improv takes), with my wife Pam joining us at the writing roundtable. In front of the camera, the actors will be lead by Kori, Courtney Davis, and Nello DeBlasio, and it looks like we’ve got a pretty good array of talent lining up along with them.

By the way, if anyone else will be in the area and wants to join us — even if just for a portion of the weekend — drop me a line ASAP. If you’re unable to join us, but would like to help in some other way, we do have several areas in which we need assistance. One, we need to find interesting or unusual locations — offices, rooms, apartments, cells, what have you (and, of course, we need releases for anywhere we shoot). Two, we need whatever additional video equipment we can get our hands on; we’ve got a decent assortment, but could always use more, particularly the more high-end stuff. And three, we’ll need props and costumes; because we don’t know what genre we’ll draw, we could need anything from a detective badge to a medieval sword.

We start work Friday evening at 7 p.m., with shooting tentatively slated for Saturday and “post-production” on Sunday. In reality, there will be a lot of overlap, but our deadline is set in concrete. In addition, we’ve gotten our screening slot — next Friday evening at 9 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre, no less. Even if you’re not able to join us for the production, we’d appreciate your coming out to support us then — particularly since there’s an “audience award” portion of the competition; the more friendly faces in the audience, the better our chances. Tickets are $7.50 apiece, and are available online via the AFI Silver Theatre site (just click on “Film Information” and look on the list for our “48 Hour Film Project” screening time).

Almost showtime...