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....

We could have been much greener

Jacob is now well into his offline edit - I've watched the first three minutes, and it's cutting well. Onscreen, René is wonderfully funny and soulful as I expected, just more so. Jesko will love himself. And why single them out? It's all coming together smoothly and artfully.

So, while I run around taking care of production accounting details and other things, I reflect on one part of the experience that maybe wasn't so great. And this is that, sustainability-wise, the production was so wasteful. All of the plastic and paper and styrofoam used in craft service alone was many orders beyond what it could be ideally. We produced a nice film, but also produced many, many bags of garbage.

I wonder if anyone out there has thought of a greener, cleaner way to service a production?

The poem: bouncing off a moving target

So Jacob is now editing IN THE COOLER, and it will be completed in a few weeks.

In the meantime, let's take a look at process, shall we?

This whole project was sparked by a poem written years ago. The script for the film we shot transforms the poem into mise-en-scène and dialogue. There are other bits of dialogue, too, suggested in the script or improvised on set. The see how the poem informs the script, then becomes part of the script, which then becomes incarnated by real actors on location, it's good to go back to the source.

Some may think: "how did this inspire that?" And the answer to that question is the mystery of the creative process. I think I know what I was on about when I wrote this thing. I think Jacob and Jesko and Robert and René totally got it, too. I think Actor Tony understood, but when I was confused and asked Director Jacobsomething about why we were doing a thing a certain way, he chided me, saying something akin to: "pay attention to what you wrote! "

Ultimately, even this is ink on paper, or dots on a screen. A moving target, which we may have succeeded in hitting, but not pinning down:


IN THE COOLER

Through a small slot in the heavy metal door

Hauptmann and The Doctor

Observe The Writer at work.

He scribbles desperately:

If He is the Great Physician

Is this God’s Waiting Room?

Are we being admitted to the Final Examination?

Oh, these lives

Piled like so many old magazines

To the infinite ceiling …

Maybe, maybe in those eternal pauses between seconds

When we sit here, frozen like statues

He comes out of His Office

His meaty thumbs absent-mindedly peel back

Page after page after page…

Hauptmann giggles, and points a bony finger:

“Words are his cage, Herr Doktor.

He thinks they might form some key,

Dig some clever underground passage.

But look at his feeble, womanly attempts!”

My words, I think, are bluish dots on Bounty white clouds

Who opened this blue door?

Who let out this torrent of word upon word?

I know they’d like me to dissect this poem

And rearrange the words upon words

And still your eye and my heart

Never satisfied with unmeaning

Would construct a new meaning.

I would love so much to reach out beyond these words,

Hold your yearning heart next to mine,

And lay out our hearts and souls

Like childish treasure bracelets

In the angels’ careful, grateful hands.

Listen, you!

This is the pouring out of my noisy self

These scribbled words are my mumbled testament

This is my sleepless yearning, yearning, yearning…

Hauptmann ran a white sleeve under his dripping nose

And laughed:

“This trap of yours is ingenious Herr Doktor

Words will never be meaningless to him

Which would be his only escape

Instead every newspaper,

Every empty advertising gesture

Will create a nightmarish world of his own imagining.”

“Yes, Hautpmann,” the Doctor whispered coldly,

“We will break this Polish cur yet.”

What an incredible experience

So, after three days of shooting, we've concluded production of IN THE COOLER. It was a wonderful experience: no tension, no problems, a smooth road all the way. The performers were all superb, the crew efficient and professional. Everyone was in good, uncomplicated cheer, giving 110%. We are very, very lucky to have been supported this way!

Our third day shoot was in one of the coolers at Moishes in Montreal. I spent a lot of time on camera - this was the Poet's lair. A lot of fine two-handed scenes with Jesko and René. If nothing else, this will be a funny film thanks to them.

Here a few shots from the day. Jacob starts editing next week. We predict a launch in mid-October.