Thought I'd let you all know that despite the glitches I've experienced about a month ago, editing on my upcoming short film (for now at least) is going smoothly. Over the last couple of weeks, I ran into more trouble trying to get a separate project done. That project was a 60-second montage of still shots I took at the Joshua Tree Park at Twentyninepalms, California last summer with the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic” in the background. Whenever I outputted it from the Avid editing system to a JVC deck, I get a lot of noise on both the video and audio portions of it. I then tried to output it on a Panasonic camcorder instead, again, no luck. With all the problems I had, I was starting to wonder (in jest of course!) if I had some sort of supernatural infection in which anything I touch goes haywire!
The following week, I found out that I was not alone. EVERYBODY was having the same trouble. It turned out that there was some sort of compatibility issue with the latest release of Avid Xpress Pro and the Mac OS X Panther operating system. One editor who has worked with Avid for years suggested that Avid be put on the Mac OS X Tiger system instead. Anyway, I don't know what both the tech and IT people did, but they did manage to fix it in a way so that any outputting from the Avid system to mini-DV would not produce audio and/or visual noise.
Anyway, we had our class presentation with our montage stills. I saw quite a few from my classmates that I thought was very good and that they really put a lot of work in them. Our job was to critique the montages, discuss what we liked, what we didn't like and what we could have done to make them better.
As far as work on the short film which I still hope for a Christmas release, that is going more smoothy. I have my first draft ready, but I have only another week to get my second draft ready in which it should be mostly finished. The deadlines are fast approaching!!! I have also been working on my film at home using the Final Cut Pro system I have in which I need to edit the phone conversation scene between "Steve" and "Tina" in which the shots cuts back and forth to both people talking to each other on the phone. I also worked on the cafeteria scene in which while "Tina" is talking to her friends, "Steve" notices she leaves her cell phone unattended, so he sneaks up to her cell phone and quickly pulls up her phone number, so he could call her in the phone conversation scene.
Finally, over the weekend, I did some volunteer work at the inaugural International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival held in Tempe, Arizona.
It is put out by the same people that put out the annual Phoenix Film Festival (the next one is scheduled for March 23-30, 2006). I volunteered to work on floor operations where I guide people as to which line they need to stand in for the right movie, manning one of the booths in which I sold DVD's and books and ticketing in which I sell movie tickets to the public. I worked on this so that I could see their movies for free (!!!) and to introduce myself to the directors and board members of the festival to get some recognition, so that hopefully I could improve my chances of getting the Phoenix Film Festival to exhibit the film I'm working on. The deadline for getting my film in for next year's festival is December 16. Right now, I feel that it's pretty close and I'm not sure I will be able to get it ready in time for next March's festival, but there will be other festivals I will enter my film in. Plus, it would give me ample opportunity to put together a winning press kit that should get festival judges' attention. At worst, I could try to enter the Phoenix Film Festival for 2007.
At the Horror and Sci-Fi Festival, I got to see some horror films, including "The Dark Hours" from Canada and the film that was just made on the "Project Greenlight" series run by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon called "Feast".
So that's what's going on. I'll keep you all up-to-date on the work in progress.
Monday, October 24, 2005
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