Sweetmint – the Blog

Yes, so… um.  Where was I…

Oh yes, we are making progress on the audio clean up.  Katy and Luke came over last night, worked with me for about an hour and we finished up all the ADR work that I needed her to do.

I just wanted to thank Katy and Luke again for giving their time to this project, you guys have both been great to work with, and I hope we can work together in the future.  And remember the fun stuff is yet to come…

Now, there’s a few stragglers out there who still need to come do some ADR work with me… let’s do that sooner rather then later.  mmmkay…

Anyone wondering what’s going on with Sweetmint?
I released a trailer for the movie in December, it was my Christmas gift to my fans. 
I think it was pretty well received, a lot of people were excited to see it.
I hope to have the chance to polish the trailer once the audio, and color correction is done.

If you are a fan of the movie on Facebook, check it out there.  I hope to add it to YouTube sooner, rather then later.

I’m still working on the not so fun tedious work… that would be audio correction.  I’d say I’m about half way through that process right now.

I worked really hard this past weekend to get as much done as I could.  I think by the end of the day on Sunday I was just exhausted from working on it for about 16 hours straight.  I predict an “all-nighter” is in my future, but I just don’t know if I could handle that (or if it’s necessary).

I have been in communication with my composer and he is off to a great start.

So more to come, if I’m not too busy… but that May deadline is going to come fast.

I am having a rough week with Sweetmint.  I am not happy with Final Cut Pro mostly, and it’s causing a bit of frustration for me. 

I’m having some issues with FCP’s “Round Tripping” feature” – Basically I can send files directly to the Soundtrack/Audio editing software, and then send it back.  Without having to render or export a file each time.  Everything works fine, but then the next time I restart the computer or close FCP, I lose all the files I have worked with, and FCP can’t find them for me.  So I have to manually reconnect them one by one, and also crop the audio file to make it work.  I know that something isn’t working right… but as you just read by my rambling of incoherence, I don’t even really know how to explain it right… all I know is that it’s pissing me off.

So, in essence what’s going on is… that for every scene I do, before I can move on to the next one I have to back track and rework that previous scene.  I’m going to do some experimenting an see if I can’t get that round tripping to work properly without this issue, I have a suspicion I know what’s causing it, but at the same time I know nothing.

All I know is that I hate fixing and mixing the audio… and I want nothing more then to take a break, but this process is so long and tedious that I just have to keep my head down and push forward on it. 

One step forward, two steps back… One step forward, two steps back. 

Two big announcements to share with all of you…
I was feeling ambitious, and I finally… finally after being too busy to get it done, contacted our Graphic Designer.  Jonathan Johnson, local Graphic Designer, and host of the Rotting Flesh Radio Podcast has agreed to do some design work for Sweetmint.  As I told him, I have no idea what I want for Design… because if I did, I’d probably do it myself. So I have given him complete artistic freedom to do what he wants…

We talked about the aesthetics of the old style movie poster, with a modern feel.  I’m feeling pretty good about our conversation, and I’m glad that he’s on board as our designer.

Another thing worth noting… we now have a musician who will be scoring the film.  I intend on using music by independent artists to add to the soundtrack… but there are going to be places that will require a score, quiet instrumental music just to add a certain ambiance to the scene.  And for that, I have hired a friend of mine from College named Nick Pecone… Nick’s a pretty talented musician, and I think he’ll do a great job with the soundtrack.

Glad to have both guys on board… I can’t wait to see what their talents bring to the film.

My friend, fellow Podcaster, and Sweetmint supporter Eric Martin passed away on Wednesday evening.  Eric has been a guest on Cine-Rama many times… for those of you who don’t know, Cine-Rama is a movie review podcast hosted by myself and Sweetmint Co-writer Keith Cunningham.  Most recently Eric was a guest on a special episode where we discussed the TV series Twin Peaks…

I’ve said many times that Eric is the one person, who knew more about Frank Zappa then I did… and we would have conversations about Zappa that would last days.  Discussing specific albums, songs, and concert movies.  There was a lot of things that Eric and I had in common, and we talked about them often. 

The podcasting community that Cine-Rama is apart of is really feeling the effects of Eric’s passing… even though as a community we are spread out throughout the country, and don’t get the chance to meet in person… we still reach out to each other through the power of the internet.  I am grateful to have called Eric my friend… and have enjoyed the many conversations we had, and I thank Keith for introducing me to this strong and supportive family. 

Thanks Eric, you will be missed… I’m listening to Roxy & Elsewhere for you buddy.

Last Friday, I took a copy of the rough cut of Sweetmint to my Executive Producers home, and had the opportunity to watch the film in it’s entirety… straight through, with no interruptions.  At this point I had only seen the film in bits and pieces, but never straight through.  It was fun to watch it, and think about how this is only the beginning… this film will look and feel a whole lot differently when we are all done.  I keep reminding myself that there’s a whole lot of work that still needs to be done, and I know that there’s a long way to go until it’s finally complete… but it was neat to see it from start to finish. 

Tim had some really constructive comments that will only help me as I move forward.  I noticed a week or two ago, that there is a particular spot that could use a little short scene.  And Tim caught that as well, so I am going to write some sort of scene to go in this hole… that will help tie the scenes before it, and after it together. 

I think I was suprised at exactly how well the film flowed together… I was concerned early on that things moved too quickly, but seeing the film laid out, it moves really well, and keeps your attention throughout the film.

I took about 2 pages worth of notes on things that I need to fix as I start the re-edit, and I will address them as I can.

Next thing to do, is to schedule a screening of the rough cut with the cast and crew… I’d like to get their opinions on things as I movie forward. 

This weekend I made a big push to get the last 10% of the film edited…
I worked for about 4 hours on Friday, and about 9 on Saturday (I think it was 9… it was certainly a lot more then it felt like).

I don’t know why I had this desire to get the film done, maybe so I can move on to the next part of the process, I’m not entirely sure.  But either way, I had the time… I made the effort… and the film’s rough cut is complete.

When I initially finished it on Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, I declared the run time to be about 1 Hour 27 Minutes and 30 Seconds.  Then on Sunday I looked at my work again, and discovered that I had a portion of the timeline that I used as work space, and had some raw clips in there.  So once I removed them and put them back in place, the run time became 1 Hour 24 Minutes and 30 Seconds. 

That’s okay though, although I like the 1:27 time, I’m okay with 1:24… because if you might remember I stated many times, that my hope is to have a film that’s between 1:20 and 1:30, so I’ve hit my mark irregardless. 

Also, I’m already thinking of things to add to the film as I’m watching it… for example.  There is nothing between the morning that Roger calls Sadie, and then they go on their date.  At one time, Krueger suggested we do a “getting ready” montage for that date.  I agreed, but for some reason it fell by the wayside.  So I’m thinking some time in December we may film that montage, of both Roger and Brett getting ready for their date.  That will be a good connector between early morning and late evening… and will most likely add those 3 minutes.  If I add any more, it will most likely be small and simple like that.

I have to admit, that I the editing this weekend wasn’t totally easy… I ran into a few snags, and had to make some difficult choices. 

Friday night was spent mostly editing the band performance at the Sweetmint Theatre.  I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to pull that off… but I think the footage turned out pretty well in the end.  I’m anxious to get other people’s approval, and opinions on it.

Also, I had to cut a few lines of dialogue in one of the scenes that take place 5 years later.  When Brett and Roger exit the theatre, and go lean on the popcorn counter… Dave and Wes come out and say hello.  Well, we had some issues with that… because the actor playing Wes, cut his hair from one shoot to the next.  So we see a shot of those guys in the theatre, and Wes has short hair… but when they go into the lobby he has longer scruffier hair.  We did notice this at the theatre, so we tried to shoot a quick pick up shot without having to redo the whole thing.  But of course the lighting was off, the framing was off… the exposure was off.  And it just looked like garbage in comparison to the rest of the footage.

So in order to make it work, I’d have to make the good footage match the bad footage… and I didn’t want to do that.  So I experimented with just cutting that portion of dialogue.  I lost about 30 seconds of the film doing it… and I didn’t miss it.  So I’m going to cut it together to make it a deleted scene.  (except in the deleted scene, Wes will have scruffy hair).   That’s the way it goes sometimes… there’s not a whole lot I could have done.  Or actually there was, but it was a matter of whether I wanted to do it or not.  And I chose not to…

On another note, I released the first of our teasers this weekend… and as Co-writer Keith Cunningham points out “That tells me nothing about the movie” – to which I respond “Your right Keith, that’s why it’s called a teaser…”  As my Mac’s Dashboard Dictionary Widget points out… a teaser is a short introductory advertisement for a product, especially one that does not mention the name of the thing being advertised. 

And to further prove my point to Mr. Cunningham… Here is what Wikipedia has to say on the matter*.

A teaser trailer, or teaser is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming movie, game or television series.

Teasers, unlike typical theatrical trailers, are usually very short in length (between 30–60 seconds) and usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film. Sometimes, it is merely a truncated version of a theatrical trailer. They are usually released long in advance of the film they advertise. One of the reasons for the name “teaser” is because they are shown usually a long time (one or one and a half years) before the movie comes out, so as to “tease” the audience.

Their purpose is less to tell the audience about a movie’s content than simply to let them know that the movie is coming up in the near future, and to add to the hype of the upcoming release. Teaser trailers are often made while the film is still in production or being edited and as a result they may feature scenes or alternate versions of scenes that are not in the finished film. Other ones (notable Pixar films) have scenes made for use in the trailer only. Teaser trailers today are increasingly focused on internet downloading and the convention circuit.

Here it is, the first of many teasers for Sweetmint…

Sweetmint Teaser 1 – Krueger and Katy talk about the director…

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*Reference to Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaser_trailer

I made a huge push this weekend to break the 1 hour mark on Sweetmint…
Actually that was my goal on Wednesday of last week, but I just didn’t quite make it.

I finally hit that milestone on Friday night… I edited the scene where Roger finds Sadie sitting on his front steps.

This scene was very challenging in a lot of ways, most of it had to do with the natural light coming in from the left.  The color temperature kept shifting, or the sun kept going behind clouds.

I think it would have been beneficial to shoot that scene on a dark day, a cloudy day, or even a rainy day.

At one point I thought about scrapping the whole scene and redoing it, but I worked a little harder at it, cut in for more close ups, and it actually turned out to be pretty decent.  Especially the kiss that happens at the end of the scene, on set that day I capture as much b-roll as I could possibly get, and then used as much of it in my scene as possible, and it really helps drive the scene forward a bit.

I know it’s been awhile since I posted, I’ve just been engulfed in the editing process… but another thing that happened that I wanted to point out, was that I had scheduled a reshoot in Brett’s Apartment that ended up getting cancelled.  I wanted to have the scene shot by the time I was ready to edit the scene, well there was some issues that meant we had to postpone the shoot. 

So I thought I’d sit down and edit the scene anyway, with the footage that I already have.  And quite surprisingly it turned out well… I don’t want to say that I “made it work” because there was nothing difficult about it.  It was just me being paranoid, and called for a reshoot before even looking at the footage.  So I didn’t “make it work” it just worked.

The next major scene that I’m going to be editing is the band performance, and Sadie’s goodbye scene… I’m hoping that that will bring the runtime of the movie to at least 1 hour 15 minutes… as of right now, it’s 1 hour and 4 minutes…

I’m approaching the end of the rough cut pretty quickly here… and my goal is to start calling in actors to do some audio recording. 

This is minor, and probably only interesting to other FCP editors out there, but I changed my layout from the standard lay out to the two-up layout… and I find that once I got passed the adjustment phase it’s actually a really nice way to work.  And particularly working with 16:9 footage… you have a smaller timeline, but bigger viewer/canvas window.  And a much smaller browser, but that’s insignificant.