Friday 12 February 2010

Finishing a Feature Film...


...is more work than I remember. In fact it seems like more work than my first feature, and I was doing that all myself.

With CrimeFighters, Tony's spent the last couple of months doing the picture cut, with copious notes and nagging from me, although really this is the first time I've made something this collaborative, and it's a great feeling knowing that other people are working on it (when I can quell my control freak tendencies) and that it's not just me doing everything.

Over the last couple of weeks Tony has turned the film over to me, Dan (sound recordist) and Alan (our man in Miami) for sound editing. At this point the film goes from a visually impressive film with a tinny (or non-existent) soundtrack to a loud, thumping, punching, music-saturated MOVIE. I think sound editing might be my favourite editing job, because 50% of a film is the sound, possibly more in terms of what you feel while watching it.

As an experiment, just try turning down, or off, the sound in one of your favourite movies, and see just how unemotional you feel while watching the images flash silently before your eyes. It's sound that makes you scared or makes you cry, it's music that swells the emotions and influences how you feel while watching the movie. And thankfully we have an amazing soundtrack by Hayley Hutchinson and Sam Forrest, who I already knew were gifted musicians but have now been elevated to the status of kick-ass soundtrack composers! Many of the scenes in CrimeFighters are about twice as good once the music goes in.

As for the long-awaited second trailer, it is coming but there have been many issues in its delay, such as life, jobs, and making sure we get it just right. No point putting out something that isn't technically to our satisfaction. So it'll be along as soon as we're satisfied.

Meanwhile, here's the ever-decreasing (finally) CrimeFighters TO DO List:

- A day of shooting filler shots of buildings, props and people to plug the gaps in the edit
- Test screening at the cinema, Feb 28th
- Finishing the sound edit and adding the mixed and mastered soundtrack
- A few FX shots
- Creating the opening and closing titles for the film, which involves typing out dozens of extras' names
- Creating posters for City Screen
- Booking the film into a few cinemas around the country to screen in the period between the premiere and our hopeful return to York

That's it. Better crack on.

2 comments:

Mike Ritchie said...

Hope it all goes well!
Got my tickets booked for the second screening in York. Looking forward to it very much :)

~ Mike

Miles said...

Cool Mike, awesome. As TP reminded me, there's also the colour grading, framing and exporting to do, but that's not my department ;-)