Two Hours Long

Worked on the sound for "Mother In-Law Zombie" for the past few nights, and was able to finish through scene 14. Now I only have 3 more scenes to go, although the next one is a big pain, filled with a ton of sound fx (it's the scene with the plate throwing in it). The audio for this segment should be done this weekend. After this is finished, I'll get started on the "Rock Zombie" sound.

I'm happy to report that I have received a few submissions for the music. I won't comment right now on how I feel about them, but I will say that I'm going to keep the deadline open until at least Monday.

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We're still waiting to hear back from The Charles, so please be patient for news about the premiere and subsequent screenings.

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After finishing the chopping and slashing of some excellent scenes, I finally sat down and figured out the running times for CZ and MILZ. CZ runs about 44 minutes, and MILZ runs about 40 minutes. I think RZ is probably around 30 minutes, and the commercials are about 5 minutes total. So that sets us at almost 2 hours, without credits.

And that's about that. There's not really much more I can do to it. Sure, I can trim a few more seconds here and a few seconds there, but there's no way in hell another 15 minutes is getting shaved off. So, it seems as if we have a 2 hour movie on our hands. Which I guess isn't horrible, as long as it doesn't seem like a 2 hour movie. I mean, I've sat through some horrible 80 minute movies that seemed like they were three hours long, and have watched some three hour films that went by in a flash. I'm hoping "Livelihood" is in the latter category.

The two main problems with the length are:

1. The Charles usually only rents out the theater for 2 hours. Which leaves no time for an introduction, a Q&A, a screening of a short beforehand, a DMFS performance, etc, etc. But that's one of the things that we need to talk to them about.
2. Regular home-burned DVDs can't really fit 2 hours on them without looking pretty bad. However, I'm going to get a dual-layer burner today (only $50 at Circuit City!), though, which can fit twice as much on one disk. Hopefully the finished disk will play in one of my players. If it does, I can just take my player to all of the screenings, and hook it up if the player that is on site can't do the dual-layer thing. If my players at home can't read the disks, then I guess technology just sucks. But for $50, I guess I can't complain too much.

Ryan

The Artistic Character

Sorry for the delay in the blog. Things have been busy at work and at home.

I finally managed to finish the color correction on Mother In-Law Zombie. Matching up the GL2 and the VX1000 was a big pain in the ass. I actually had to add grain to the GL2 footage to match it. In retrospect, it would've been nice to shoot the whole movie with a better camera, but we just didn't have the budget. For the next movie, I'll probably be getting one of the new HD cameras, which are basically consumer versions of the ones used in "Attack of the Clones" and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". I'm pretty excited about them, since they basically remove the resolution/quality barrier from indie filmmaking. Now, if you can't make a great looking movie for no money, then you can't blame it on the camera.

I also finished the audio for the first eight scenes of Mother In-Law Zombie. While doing the audio, I've also been cutting out parts to shorten the running time. I've decided to cut out a whole scene towards the beginning that ended up being pretty unnecessary. I've also been shaving off blocks of shots here and there. The problem with cutting stuff out is maintaining continuity in the shots, and in the audio. For example, if someone has their head turned one way in one shot, then it has to be turned the same way in the next shot. So, a lot of the time I just can't cut something out because it won't cut back together properly, and I don't have any coverage shots to mask the cut.

Anyway, the rest of the week will be spent finishing the audio for Mother In-Law Zombie. On Saturday Steve Thomas (Billy Jump - The Rock Zombie) is coming over to get into makeup one last time for publicity photos, and also to do the dubbing for the therapist in Scene 2 of Mother In-Law Zombie. He's bound and determined to be in all three sections of the film, and this is the only way to get him in this section.

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I haven't heard back from any of the composers that I sent CDs to. Not even to confirm receipt of the CDs. And I sent them on Wednesday and Thursday via Priority Mail, so they definitely should have received them by now. So, I'm a little worried. The CD that I sent to a local person who seemed promising got sent back with a "return to sender" stamp on it. I double-checked the address he gave me in his e-mail, and it was correct. I e-mailed him on Friday to see what the deal was, and still haven't heard back from him.

So, I'm going to send out more disks in the next few days to other people who have written to me since the first batch went out.

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I spent the entire weekend working on the film. About 12 hours each day. I started getting a little annoyed about it on Sunday. But it has to be done by mid-September so that I can send it out to some festivals and to the critics/press, so I don't have any choice but to work non-stop on it. I've put in for vacation for the week of September 5th so that I'll be sure to have time to get it done, even if I have to do the damned music myself.

Tracey had a good idea regarding the critics/press. She suggested having a press screening in lieu of sending out DVD screeners. That way, they could all see the movie with an audience (the best way to see a comedy, since laughter really is contagious), and then would have time to take pictures and ask questions afterwards. We'll have food and press packets available, too. We're thinking sometime early in the third week of September.

The only thing we haven't worked out is where to host this screening. Which is, admittedly, a pretty big sticking point.

Ryan

P.S. The premiere stuff is still being worked out. Watch your inboxes for an announcement later in the week!