Editing Part……Forever!

So the process has begun, but filming hasn’t finished.  I need to wait for it to stop raining, or it will look a bit strange.  Still, at least I have something to keep me entertained.  And when I say entertained, I mean massively annoyed.

The footage looks good, but the problem I now face is sound.  It looks like a technical issue means I’ve lost about an hour’s worth of audio recording, which puts me in a bit of a pickle.

Do I reshoot everything missing, or do I use the audio gained from the camera’s on board mic?  Part of me says I should reshoot, but as there’s no budget, I don’t want to ask people to give up their time again for free. 

It was all indoors, so I can play about with it, and it should be ok, but it’s an issue, and it means the overall quality of the sound will drop.  This is a bad thing.  There is nothing worse than bad sound, bad pictures can be forgiven, but the sound…..well not so much.

So what do I do, do I continue and see if I can get away with it, or reshoot?  I’m thinking of putting the hours in trying to fix it, but having tried to do that before, I know how hard it is.  I suppose the best option is to see if I can fix it, but basically I’m just trying to put it off.

On the plus side, even with a very basic, quick edit, I’m pretty happy about it.  It could be a lot worse so I can’t really complain.  Time to put the hours in I think, more syncing, more mind numbingly boring work, but essential.  Then it will be time to start thinking about the music I will need to include to try and hide the audio problems.  Not a good solution, as Mike Figgis says, once you add music, you can’t take it away.

Other than the filming and editing, I'm extremely happy.  It's nothing to do with filming in any way, but I just wanted to share!

Live well, love life, have fun.

Filming, Days 1&2

So, filming has begun, cameras rolling, or least, the little red light in the corner saving data to the memory card.  As always, with filming there are nerves before you start, so in retrospect I'm happy that I was waiting around for a while before we started.  Happy because it meant I wasn't thinking about it what needed to be done, only getting myself annoyed for no reason.  It distracted me from getting nervous about everything and the huge job I've created for myself.

The first day's filming did create one issue I could have done without.  Namely, having to sack an actor and get a replacement.  Never a nice thing to sack someone, and I suppose I really should let him know he's surplus to requirements, but then, they never got back to me......

The replacement wasn't what I expected or wanted, I know they can act a bit, but they didn't really want to the part, hates being on camera, and dislikes the whole process.  Namely, me!  Thankfully it's a very small part, and doesn't take up a lot of screen time, so I should be able to get away with it.  Taking the role was a slightly traumatic experience, and as always, I'm amazed anyone wants to be an actor.

The actual technical aspects to filming went very smoothly, the lighting rig worked perfectly, looks ok and everything so no complaints there.  All I used were a couple of desk lamps, with spot light bulbs in.  Worked a treat.  The rest went smoothly, the shot list worked, although there is the continuing fear that I didn't shoot something, despite all precautions I doubt that will go away till I finish the edit.  I arranged the shot entirely by camera set up, so it wasn't just shot out of order, but all over the place.  As I was acting as director/cameraman/1st AD/production manager/actor there was so much to think about I had to put the fear away.

Day 2 began with the lead actress, who has a lot more experience than the lead male.  She's also an excellent actress, meaning she comes to the table with an actual character in mind, knows her lines, and needs minimal direction.  All things that help to make a day go well.

Her preparation meant that the first two scenes/segments finished 45 minutes ahead of schedule, despite starting 45 minutes late. That's how I like filming to happen.  I didn't even feel an once of stress, until we were on our way to the next location, when we had to turn round to get an important prop.

The scene filmed today was the ending, and this meant that the two leads would be meeting for the first time, and they had good chemistry on meeting.  I can't imagine what it must be like to use two actors that hate each other.  It must be really draining to everyone on set.

I was very tempted at this point to move on and film the last scenes for the lead male, but decided to give it miss.  Partly I was tired, but mainly as there was a market near the filming location.  A market being visited by Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman.  They were in town filming as well, and why it would have been fun to have tried to get them to do a cameo, I really didn't want the extra hassle.......

Jesus!  What the hell am I talking about.  Getting them to do a cameo would have been brilliant!

I should have done it.