The decision to use voice over must be a well thought out one, and one made long before the script is finalized. Voice overs are the voice of the mind, and it must correspondingly have the gravity of that impossible weight. Use it wisely.
- Frank Darabont
This entire post was a very enjoyable read, but this quote is especially fitting to something I keep coming back to in FToM. *fingers crossed*
Source: lilithfilm
Only took a few hours to type in all the sticky notes and feedback into the script - as of around 5:30 today I have an up-to-date draft of the FToM script to edit from. We trimmed a few lines out that haven’t been working for some time, and I’m feeling much better about how those scenes will cut together now.
via mikeambs:
2) Going over 64 Days parts 5 - 8 with Amanda. … 4) Watching the wave-tank at the Long Beach Aquarium. …
The above video is my most recent 7x7, I only shared it here because I wanted to write about a really great meeting Amanda and I had on the next-and-last four parts of 64 Days - the shot is only of a yellow draft page on the table while Amanda is talking, but still, it’s semi-related to what I’ll be talking about.
I mentioned in a November post that my focus this month and over the next few months ahead would be writing for our 64 Days series, I have been doing just that, while also finishing up some freelance editing work for a school in Michigan. Before Amanda and I sat down to go over the draft-scripts though, I was stuck… very stuck. Being stuck for a day is a bad-day, being stuck for a week keeps you up half the night tossing and turning, being stuck beyond that - well. When Amanda and I started reading what I had been working on, the areas of the script that were wrong quickly became obvious and I walked away with about 5 pages worth of notes.
I admit, I do miss the early stages of writing - the FToM script is 99.9% complete, only a word or two here and there that we keep coming back to, and it’s nothing that we are waiting to move on, the film is moving forward as it’s written, but in the meantime, each time I re-read a page I find myself making a minor adjustment. But, working on 64 Days again, after so much time has passed, is very exciting. It’s difficult for Amanda and I to visit some of those days on the road - many of them were wonderful and productive, but a few were some of the most difficult days we’ve ever gone through as friends. Talking about them again and finding ways to approach them narratively was a great exercise and I’m anxious to revise my drafts based off the notes that we took.
Source: vimeo.com
The other morning I rode my bicycle across town to meet with Amanda’s Mom, Laurie, to go over the script notes she provided - Amanda joined us on iChat.
We are so excited to be at this stage of writing - I can’t even explain how happy and rewarding it feels to hold the finished script in my hands.
From here on during post-production, things are about to pick up pace very quickly. I’m doing my best to prepare myself for the next several months… they are going to be our hardest yet… but I know all of it will be worth it.
Note: I realized, only after recording this, that if you use the front-facing camera on the iPhone that it is *not* 720p HD… so this is a little low-light and crazy looking.
Earlier today Amanda and I went over the film’s script with Amanda’s Mom, she has 28 years of experience (as an english teacher as well as a published author) in editing and cleaning-up novels to scripts to essays to short stories.
Her feedback has been one of the end-goals in Amanda and I’s writing process for quite some time - so, today was very exciting to be sitting there in her upstairs office, pouring over her notes, because it meant, above all else, that we are near the end.
I just returned from Kinko’s, where I had all 81 pages of script, plus notes, scanned into a PDF - later tonight Amanda and I will be going through page-by-page and adjusting the finished script so that I can record one last temporary narration track.
As some of you have probably noticed, I’ve been moving the archived blog post onto Tumblr so everything is nice and clean and in searchable. I’ve been having some strange bugs with posting-dates that keep resetting on me. I emailed the Tumblr team about it, but until then, I’m sorry if the RSS feed here seems buggy.
Aside from that, I’ve been up till 4 or 5 in the morning the past week writing notes and doing research for what I’m hoping will be an aggressive 6 month FToM roadmap. I had a really great conversation with Vu a few nights ago and he left feeling very exciting and motivated and… honestly, relevant still.
I think being bunkered away here in Ypsi, working on the film and the script and the project as a whole, has left me feeling cut-off and outdated for what-ever reason. I’ve been in a rut and creatively I’ve felt foggy. But not the last few nights:
I’ve been planning out all the next levels of the film. Setting up Skype video calls with people I’ve been wanting and meaning to ask advice of for a long time. Budgeting out the challenges I’m facing with time and exactly *how* fast I want to get the film locked down (which, for those of you have been following the project for a few years, the answer is: fast). I don’t want to talk about too much just now, as it’s all scribbled notes and unfinished thoughts. I have some questions to answer before I announce anything else - but I’m anxious to do so.
I feel close… and that feels good. Thank you to all of you have been a part of this project and helped Amanda and I get to where we are today.
The first of the three pages was written well over a year ago, and the 2nd two are variations on the same moment from different approaches. One version focuses more on the “chain of events” perspective; that Larry’s own experience will go on to influence other people’s experiences, and how that relationship feeds itself at a level that often goes unnoticed.
Another page deals with the rush of emotions that come at the very end of any long adventure… all the memories associated with your trip, all the struggles and little memories seem to snap together at once and it’s an overwhelming rush that comes and goes all too fast. I guess I just thought that writing about this might help me find what I’m looking for, and also it’s been 9 days since my last post and I wanted to let people know what I’ve been working on piecing together. All this talk of Bar Harbor and arriving at the Atlantic has reminded me of this video Amanda and I recorded, knowing that we had finally made it to the end of production. Also, before I sign off, I wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the feedback on the Digg*athon question. I’ve been working on putting that together as soon as possible. Stay posted.
It’s been a year since sitting down and importing the first hour of footage into the computer… a lot has been checked off since then, but there’s much, much more left to do before we’re done. It’s exciting… it’s overwhelming… mostly the overwhelming part.
I have to admit, it’s been a slow week, I don’t feel I’ve made much progress… and that, when it happens, becomes a heavy feeling in my chest… I guess there’s a few things in my life that have been getting to me. And it’s causing me to loose pace… when I need to be moving much faster as it is.
It’s the 52nd week of post-production. Looking at those words is kind of hard, I don’t feel I’m as far as I should be – as far as I want to be.
These type of “anniversaries” are tough when you’re working on such an overwhelming project. Rounding out the number to a full year, instead of one step, one week at a time, makes you feel like a loser in a way. Like you’ve failed to get as much done as was expected of you. But it’s just a number… it’s important for me to keep my head down and focused… to not step back too far and get distracted by what we’ve done vs what we have left to do.
I mentioned in our post about 64 Days – Part 4, that we released the script for it – but judging from the number of hits we got on the video, compared to the number of views on the script (and how many times we’ve been asked if we really write on a typewriter), I think it was just too far down in the post and people’s eye were drawn to the large video thumbnail. So I just thought I’d mention it again, with a pic this time :)
I recored a weekly update tonight – and I’m trying to import at the moment, but my laptop has been freaking out the last two days. iPhoto hasn’t worked and now I seem to be having issues with iMovie… don’t know what I did wrong. I think I’ll run a couple clean-up apps and keep my fingers crossed. Vlog will be coming soon.
64 Days - Part 4, via Vimeo
It’s taken Amanda and I a long, long time to put out this episode – and in the last several months since we released 8, the script for 9 has gone through many changes. The last two weeks that we’ve been working on this has been exciting, I didn’t realize how much I miss posting new episodes.
I’m watching the progress bar on Vimeo slowly climb past 8% and it’s a little before 1 in the morning as I’m writing this. It’s gonna be a long night – but it’s worth it.
So – a brief introduction to this episode. This is the 9th episode overall that we’ve put out, and it’s the 4th chapter in the 64 Days series. It introduces in greater detail the three crew members: Olan, Olivier, and Jef. Who all flew out from Belgium to work on Pedal without any pay… at least yet, I hope I’ll be able to change that when the film is finished *fingers crossed*
Our time on the road with them taught us both so much. It was an experience I will never forget – and never really know how to properly put into words. Well, enough talk. I hope you enjoy it. Amanda and I worked very hard on it.
If you do enjoy it, as always we’d love to hear your comments and questions – but also, if you have a twitter account, we’d really be flattered if you send out a quick twitter about it. Which you can do all with one click here.
We’re also excited about being able to embed this episode on your own blog in beautiful HD – we purchased 10,000 HD embeds from Vimeo so you can see it in full resolution *anywhere* on the web – so please help us put those 10,000 embeds to good use!
And as I mentioned in my last post – here’s a link to the PDF of episode 9’s script. This was scanned in about two weeks ago, so you’ll notices some slight differences in what’s typed out and what ended up in the timeline. We tend to make small changes and rearrange the edit up until the last minute.
Thanks for being so patient with us – and thanks for all the support.
I spent all day yesterday and most of this morning editing episode 9. As I’m writing this, it’s about 99% done, there’s one shot I still need to take after I shower, but the rest is pretty locked down. Amanda will be coming over later today to watch and re-watch it, taking notes, tightening things up. Short of some disaster, I should be hitting export around 10 o’clock. If you’re not subscribed already, you can subscribe to our RSS feed here, and be notified immediately when we post the new episode. There’s a lot of work still left to do this weekend: I need to write up a newsletter, prepare the PDF of episode nine’s script (I decided it would be fun to include that, show people how we work), and it’s always tough uploading such a large HD file to several sites… this time we’ll be doing it twice (with a newly edited 8, along with 9). This was a difficult episode to write – it introduces the crew members – Olivier, Olan, and Jef – and we tried to really share what their personalities were like, and how being on the road with them shaped the film and Amanda and I. I’m sure we fell short of doing them justice, but I hope we made it clear that they are three amazing, talented, complex, and engaging individuals. Okay. I have a lot of work to do. Thanks for all the support, everyone.
cold in california
I’m fighting a cold. I couldn’t breath through my right nostril if my life depended on it, and my left nostril won’t stop dripping like a faucet.
I’ve added a excerpt from the 6th draft of proj:pedal’s opening montage, you can find this file in the left menu, under ‘the production / script drafts’. This version doesn’t include the film’s prelude, you might call it, but I am planning on adding that separately at a later time. Right now I need to take a hot bath and a handful of cough drops.
Source: blog.projectpedal.com
