Welcome to the Livelihood Blog
Welcome to the Livelihood blog!
This blog exists because there are a lot of people out there who keep asking me, "How's the movie coming along?" Instead of answering that question over and over, now people can just come here to get daily updates on the status of the movie.
As many of you know, the release date of the film has been pushed back a few times. The reasons for this are numerous, and will probably become a lot clearer after reading this blog each day. But, mostly, the reason it isn't done yet is because it turns out that it takes a really long time for one person to do post-production on a feature-length film.
Let me explain the process of making a movie, for those who don't know:
1. Pre-production: This is everything that happens before you actually start filming the movie. It includes the writing of the script, revising of the script, casting, auditions, rehearsals, location scouting, equipment tests, costume and set design, storyboards, and securing necessary funding. The more time spent planning in pre-production, the easier the production process will be. I estimate that we probably spent about 6 months total in pre-production. Of course, we also filmed this movie in three segments, as three separate films, and had time between each segment to plan for the next one, which was nice. It also made our shooting schedule much longer than those of most independent films.
2. Production: This is where you actually shoot the movie. We started shooting in March of 2004, and finished shooting everything about a month ago (May). So it took over a year to shoot this film. In that time, we shot three segments: Rock Zombie, Corporate Zombie, and Mother In-Law Zombie. We also shot a bunch of zombie commercials that will be interspersed thoughout the film.
Towards the end of our final segment, Mother In-Law Zombie, our Sony VX1000 camera fell on the floor and split into two pieces. So that held us up for over a month as we secured a new camera and rescheduled the rest of the shoot. That sucked.
3. Post-Production: This is where we're at now. It involves a few key things: editing, color correcting, special fx, dialogue editing, sound fx, and scoring. The first edit of the film is complete. The dialogue editing is also complete. For the most part, the special fx are complete. What I'm currently working on is the color correcting. The sound fx are partially done, and most of the Rock Zombie music is done.
--
So, what's taking so long, you ask?
Well, color correcting is a tedious process. It involves going through each shot in the movie, and making sure that the brightness, contrast, and hue in that shot match up with all of the other shots in the scene. On average, a typical 3 minute scene in this movie will probably have over 100 edits. That means that I have to go through 100 shots, and tweak each one so that when one shot goes to the next, there is no visual differences between the two shots aside from the angle. If this sounds tough, it is.
My color correction process also involves "film-looking", which makes video look like film. It does this by changing around the contrast and colors, and also by changing the motion of the footage to match the frame rate of film. While this is a fairly easy process to setup, it takes forever for the computer to process these changes. Rendering out 1 minute of video-to-film takes about 1 hour. So, usually I'll work on a scene when I get home from, stop at about 11PM, and then render out what I've done that evening. The render usually takes all night and most of the next day, which is fine, since I'm sleeping and working during that time.
--
After the color correcting is done, I'm going to have to re-edit the film.
We screened the first cut of the movie (with rough color correction and hardly any music or sound fx) at the end of April, and it turned out to be 2.5 hours long. Which is too long. Way too long. We need it to be about 1:45. So I have to cut out 45 minutes of some really great stuff.
--
After the re-edit, I'll be adding sound fx, and then composing and recording all of the music. I'm hoping to get someone to help out with the music composition, because if I have to do it all myself, this movie won't be out for another 6 months.
--
So, that's where "Livelihood" stands now. When is the premiere going to be? I don't know. Hopefully at the end of August. I do know that we'll be renting out the big theater at The Charles, so you'll all get to see it in style on a big screen. We're also supposed to screen it at The Creative Alliance in early October, so it has to be done by then.
Regardless, it is getting done, and part of the reason I've created this blog is so that people can see that I really am working very hard on finishing this film. I'm going to try to give daily updates of exactly what I'm doing to the film, no matter how tedious.
This will also be the place to go for updates about upcoming screenings or events related to the movie. Eventually, it'll turn into a real website with pictures and links and all of that good stuff.
Finally, if you're not already aware of this, the trailer for the film can be found at http://www.37point5.com
So, that's that. Nachos.
Ryan Graham
This blog exists because there are a lot of people out there who keep asking me, "How's the movie coming along?" Instead of answering that question over and over, now people can just come here to get daily updates on the status of the movie.
As many of you know, the release date of the film has been pushed back a few times. The reasons for this are numerous, and will probably become a lot clearer after reading this blog each day. But, mostly, the reason it isn't done yet is because it turns out that it takes a really long time for one person to do post-production on a feature-length film.
Let me explain the process of making a movie, for those who don't know:
1. Pre-production: This is everything that happens before you actually start filming the movie. It includes the writing of the script, revising of the script, casting, auditions, rehearsals, location scouting, equipment tests, costume and set design, storyboards, and securing necessary funding. The more time spent planning in pre-production, the easier the production process will be. I estimate that we probably spent about 6 months total in pre-production. Of course, we also filmed this movie in three segments, as three separate films, and had time between each segment to plan for the next one, which was nice. It also made our shooting schedule much longer than those of most independent films.
2. Production: This is where you actually shoot the movie. We started shooting in March of 2004, and finished shooting everything about a month ago (May). So it took over a year to shoot this film. In that time, we shot three segments: Rock Zombie, Corporate Zombie, and Mother In-Law Zombie. We also shot a bunch of zombie commercials that will be interspersed thoughout the film.
Towards the end of our final segment, Mother In-Law Zombie, our Sony VX1000 camera fell on the floor and split into two pieces. So that held us up for over a month as we secured a new camera and rescheduled the rest of the shoot. That sucked.
3. Post-Production: This is where we're at now. It involves a few key things: editing, color correcting, special fx, dialogue editing, sound fx, and scoring. The first edit of the film is complete. The dialogue editing is also complete. For the most part, the special fx are complete. What I'm currently working on is the color correcting. The sound fx are partially done, and most of the Rock Zombie music is done.
--
So, what's taking so long, you ask?
Well, color correcting is a tedious process. It involves going through each shot in the movie, and making sure that the brightness, contrast, and hue in that shot match up with all of the other shots in the scene. On average, a typical 3 minute scene in this movie will probably have over 100 edits. That means that I have to go through 100 shots, and tweak each one so that when one shot goes to the next, there is no visual differences between the two shots aside from the angle. If this sounds tough, it is.
My color correction process also involves "film-looking", which makes video look like film. It does this by changing around the contrast and colors, and also by changing the motion of the footage to match the frame rate of film. While this is a fairly easy process to setup, it takes forever for the computer to process these changes. Rendering out 1 minute of video-to-film takes about 1 hour. So, usually I'll work on a scene when I get home from, stop at about 11PM, and then render out what I've done that evening. The render usually takes all night and most of the next day, which is fine, since I'm sleeping and working during that time.
--
After the color correcting is done, I'm going to have to re-edit the film.
We screened the first cut of the movie (with rough color correction and hardly any music or sound fx) at the end of April, and it turned out to be 2.5 hours long. Which is too long. Way too long. We need it to be about 1:45. So I have to cut out 45 minutes of some really great stuff.
--
After the re-edit, I'll be adding sound fx, and then composing and recording all of the music. I'm hoping to get someone to help out with the music composition, because if I have to do it all myself, this movie won't be out for another 6 months.
--
So, that's where "Livelihood" stands now. When is the premiere going to be? I don't know. Hopefully at the end of August. I do know that we'll be renting out the big theater at The Charles, so you'll all get to see it in style on a big screen. We're also supposed to screen it at The Creative Alliance in early October, so it has to be done by then.
Regardless, it is getting done, and part of the reason I've created this blog is so that people can see that I really am working very hard on finishing this film. I'm going to try to give daily updates of exactly what I'm doing to the film, no matter how tedious.
This will also be the place to go for updates about upcoming screenings or events related to the movie. Eventually, it'll turn into a real website with pictures and links and all of that good stuff.
Finally, if you're not already aware of this, the trailer for the film can be found at http://www.37point5.com
So, that's that. Nachos.
Ryan Graham
posted by Ryan Graham at 3:38 PM
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