A world revealed

We spent the greater part of the day yesterday at Vision Globale doing color correction.

Wow! For the first time, we saw the images we shot on the RED on a large screen. Really, really nice. This thing looks like a film, a real cut above anything we've done before (and all of which was pretty good, too, may I submit humbly.) When a 35 mm print is struck this thing will be a real knock-out. We had been working with the offline files for a long time, at way lower resolution, and I had got used to looking at images that are maybe 20% of what you the viewer will see.

Speaking as an old-timer once again, it is a marvel to see what has become possible with digital technology - colour correcting just a small part of the image, or changing the correction in mid-shot after a camera movement. As Jacob said yesterday, this used to be possible optically in the analog world, but it would take forever and cost tons and tons of money. With the wonders you can do digitally in sound and image, it's no wonder so many are tempted to "fix it in post."

But you must resist! If you've got a great script, performances, and images to work with from the start, it's all so much better. Sound, too - but that's another story, for our next chapter.

Tomorrow we go back to Vision Globale for the final online. Next week, we should stripe final sound.

Working the other fifty percent

As I wrote before, what you hear in a film is 50% of what you see. Lately, that's what we've been working on.

Last week, Jacob and I drove out to Robert's house/studio, somehow taking the most circuitous route possible through the suburbs. We spent a few hours with V Bob working on the final details of his score, which is now completed and works beautifully.

Yesterday, we spent several more hours in Boogie Studio, with our favourite engineer Denis Eric Pednault. Denis' first professional job was sound engineer on LEONARD,LIGHT MY CIGARETTE! which his training could not have prepared him for. He's been working with us ever since. Now he's a Dad and owns his own place - a big man.

We were there for a few reasons. My father Tom came in to read his parts as Narrator, bringing the voice we loved from ARTIE'S FILM to the mix. I also ADR'd one of my scenes that hadn't been recorded properly. And, finally, we started mixing, mastering, etc... But time ran out and Denis will continue to do it on his own.

Attached: photos of Jacob and Denis-Eric in the studio at Boogie, and Jacob with my father in the recording booth.

We're almost there!

And now you can hear the Demo!

Robert has posted the IN THE COOLER demo at his MySpace page. It's the last selection inthe Music player.

Here is the link:

http://www.myspace.com/robertmarchand

Enjoy!

Bob's open - pass the puck!

My friend the musician and composer Robert Marchand can take a lot of credit for IN THE COOLER. After all, it was his putting the poem to music at first that got the project started.
We met at Jimmy Lee on Friday to view the currently incomplete offline edit, so he could start thinking about scoring the film.

Robert has been a close collaborator since 1994, though we actually met in 1992. He's always been very open to new ideas and the expression of same, which made our working relationship a huge pleasure when he produced my various compositions and noodlings over the years. We've also written together (the score for POINGS D'APPUI.)

But his score for CORPS was all Bob, and so, too, will be what you hear on in the cooler. And as he likes to say, what you hear is 60% of what you see.

I mentioned this before, but will close by mentioning it again. Bob has done a lot of work with me in the last year, particularly for the live events we put together with Circo de Bakuza. For a guy who claims to have played at Expo, it's cool to see him hitting his stride now.

And that original music? Maybe Bob will post the recording we did with Jesko to his Myspace page, so you can hear it ! And I think it would go great over the end credits....