Things That Shoot Into The Sky
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Big picture, I’m working away on the post-production of our horror film, Dead Media. My goal this week was to get the draft of the film passed off to the VFX artist.
And I did it! Because I had to! A week where I had to live up to the ethos of this blogletter and finish a specific monster.
I’m approaching many deadlines with the post-production of the film. We’ve scheduled a premiere date (more on that soon!) So now we’ve got lots of cascading deadlines. In order to get started on the color grading on time, the VFX needed to get started this week.
Which meant I needed to go through each shot with VFX and make final editing decisions. Then create a spreadsheet with notes on all individual shots that needed some VFX. Then load all of the 11 Terabytes of information on to another physical back up drive to drop off with the VFX artist.
I worked hard over the weekend but I was still running behind so I got up at 4 am on Monday and Tuesday to get it all done. It’s not fun, but I can function on four hours of sleep. So I also spent some time trying to emphasize the FUN in FUNCTIONAL.
Anyway, if you’re interested in helping DEAD MEDIA, I need to raise a bit more money for post-production. You can make a one time tax-deductible donation via Film North here. Thanks to the folks who have made contributions in the last few weeks. Deeply, deeply appreciated.
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
This week was an adventure in choosing where you look.
One of the really fun things about editing a film is the vast amount of control over where people are looking. Particularly, for someone like me who was worked a lot in theater.
Some of the editing I’ve been doing is revising scenes to add more reaction shots. One scowl or smirk or deadpan stare from a non-speaking character can change how we process the meaning of a scene entirely. It changes which character’s perspective the audience is feeling.
So I was paying more attention to literally where I was looking. How did where I look affect the experience I was having?
My wife and I try to go to a Hollywood Bowl show at least once a year. We’re lucky to live within walking distance.
I love the Hollywood Bowl because it’s a famous concert venue, but it’s also just like a big bandshell in any public park in America. People gather with their picnics and crowd around as the sun goes down, the air cools, and the music floats away into the night sky.
It was an evening of classical music. A Brahms concerto and music by Edvard Grieg from Peer Gynt. I’ve been really fascinated with Grieg after our visit to Norway last year and how many of Norway’s most famous artists (Grieg, Henrik Ibsen, Theodor Kittelsen) are all telling tales of trolls and formative adventures in dark forests.
The conductor was fantastic. Extremely dynamic. She started the Greig section by changing the audience’s perspective. She explained a bit of the story of Peer Gynt for anyone who didn’t know it and summarized it as “basically it’s about one of the world’s biggest assholes.” That really opened up the music for me.
I have a problem listening to classical music, though, because it’s like a word association game. One phrase of music makes me think of a movie, then a little horn blast makes me think of a pop song. I’m working with a composer on music for Dead Media so my mind kept jumping tracks to that.
I tried to concentrate on the music by staring at different sections of the band. I tried to focus by listening analytically to how the music was constructed. Then there was a particularly haunting section that made me think of a brooding sky so I just looked up at the sky.
Which was this view:
And my mind stopped wandering.
Suddenly, it wasn’t a concert being played by musicians at a specific place and time. It was bursting out of the trees, echoing in the hills, stealing the glow of the spotlights in the sky.
I floated around staring AWAY from the concert until I was brought back to the stage by the intensity of In The Hall of The Mountain King which is a real banger.
It was a good reminder to sometimes turn off the analytical and just feel the art. And another reminder that all you can do as an artist is your best job to express yourself. I’m sure Grieg had no idea some guy in a squirrel t-shirt was going to get the most out of his music by looking away from the orchestra and staring at a tree. Art is a conversation always.
Later this week, I took a break and went for a walk with the SPECIFIC PURPOSE of changing my perspective. Seeing something hopeful.
I walked a block away from my apartment and heard people yelling and running toward a car accident. The authorities hadn’t arrived yet, but as more people got to the scene they tried to run toward the cars and were assured the drivers were already out of the cars.
But more and more people in the neighborhood kept coming toward the accident—because one of the cars had totally smashed the fire hydrant and a giant plume of water was blasting into the air, hitting power cables.
I stood and watched with my neighbors for a little while then I heard the fire fighters’ siren and wanted to clear out to make room for the helpers.
Once I got a block away, I turned around to take a photo of the water and saw the RAINBOW.
To be clear, I don’t believe we should just look for the one nice thing and that fixes all the problems. This was a bad accident, it was traumatic, and potentially dangerous. The air reeked of gasoline and water was smashing into electric wires. One rainbow doesn’t make that all okay.
But in all of that danger, the main thing I saw was neighbors rushing to help. If the rainbow was a symbol of that, I will take all the rainbows I can get.
LIGHT PLUGS—
DEAD MEDIA! We’ve got a fiscal sponsorship with the great Minnesota organization Film North. They can accept one-time donations that will go directly toward finishing the film: SCORE, VFX, COLOR GRADING, etc. It’s like a Kickstarter where the rewards are A) a tax deduction and B) helping us make the film.
For full info, please check out the page for the upcoming horror film, DEAD MEDIA!
Or if you have any questions about supporting the film, feel free to reach out to me personally!
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
For Dead Media, I’ve really got to get moving on some of the sound design. So my goal for this week is to get six specific pieces of sound design done and placed in the film’s edit.
YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? How can I help you literally finish your monsters?
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week’s sketch is a person trying to hold on to all the notes as they fly off into the night. Good luck, mystery human.
Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you hear and tell some good human stories this week, and best of luck finishing your monsters
