I Ran Against Us [COMPLETED]

by **ntbullock** » March 7th, 2009, 4:38 am

Wow. I've taken some time to clean my place back to its original state and get some shit together like my taxes.

Jared and I have been working on these new sound notes and plan to burn a new DVD Monday at the latest. I'll burn it and mail it to him. Even after this stage is over it'll switch over to a pure mixing stage, which I'll do more on my end. I have some Waves mastering plugins that he doesn't. We feel like two or three more rounds of this type and we'll have it to the nitpicky stage. We think we can be through it by the middle of the month.

by **ntbullock** » March 14th, 2009, 4:38 am

It's been a week since the last post because it's been monotonous grunt work. Watch, notes, tweak, burn, watch, notes, tweak...

Jared came back up this weekend and we watched our latest iteration tonight. It only netted a page and half of notes from both of us combined. That's DEFINITELY the least amount of notes we've had. We're starting to let some things go and accept that at least they are better and not instantly noticeable. Tonight's viewing made us feel better as a whole. It desperately needs music still, but that will come with time. We're very close to being done with this stage and moving on to the overall final mixdown, which requires music to be in place.

by **ntbullock** » March 16th, 2009, 6:09 pm

Going to try and get one last piece of music from Harry [the finale] before we get it to Crossroads. It'll be near complete, but not finished.

by **ntbullock** » March 20th, 2009, 2:24 pm

We've gotten an extension from Crossroads.

Some of our "problem lines," as far as audio, have disappeared or fly under the radar now. Our lists grow smaller of things to change, and the changes themselves smaller and smaller. We're fast approaching a point where we've done our best. A real audio editor would probably want to take us out back and flog us if he saw what we did to these files. Hell, we could even be arrested in some states with the filters we used. It's downright inhumane.

I'm trying to do some more graphic work on my end. Our CG artist has rendered another small detail I'm working in.

http://crossroads.bside.com/2009/films/ ... sroads2009

by **ntbullock** » March 24th, 2009, 7:50 pm

Trying to do some last minute volume mastering to the entire movie. I miss the good ole days of "just turn the volume up" for mastering. ;]

I'm supposed to deliver it tomorrow or the next at the latest. There's a dry run coming up where I've been told I can view it in the environment it'll be shown so I can gauge what needs to be done. I hate adding this layer so soon to a delivery date, but we were hoping some more music might trickle in at the last minute. Regardless, the festival is being gracious with us.

Mastering this when the overall volume differences vary a little and haven't been hammered a little more bothers me, but it'll be acceptable. I'll start working on that more after I deliver this.

When we called this finished depends now on when we get all the music in.

by **ntbullock** » March 26th, 2009, 12:30 am

Probably delivery tomorrow evening. We're trying to fig out a frame rate issue with them.

I watched it again tonight from the HDD I'm delivery it on to make sure it plays correctly. I made some more notes. Nothing major - mostly slight volume tweaks on specific lines and scene leveling. The changes I start on tonight may not make it in, but it's not make or break. Hell, we're already premiering an unfinished version.

Also, apparently an animated music video for one of my songs is playing the night before at Crossroads. Small world.

by **ntbullock** » March 27th, 2009, 12:31 am

I had it rendering some more alterations when I went to sleep. I woke up this morning and watched it off the delivery HDD. I took it up to Jackson today.

When I got home this evening I made some more minor changes from my notes from earlier today. Right now I'm compressing it to DVD to watch on some different systems and to send to Jared for review.

by **ntbullock** » March 29th, 2009, 11:44 pm

I watched the newly mastered version on my sound system that we've been "cleaning to." The mastering raised some scenes that re-introduce some noise here and there. Music will cover most of it later, but I'm trying to make adjustments. It sounded fine on my M-Audio studio speakers, but my SONY system "reveals" noise pretty well. It's a balancing act. I hope the theater system for Crossroads will be more like my studio monitors. ;]

by **ntbullock** » March 31st, 2009, 4:45 am

I've made some alterations to the audio [and a couple to video] that I'm hoping to take up Wednesday for the dry run for Crossroads. I don't feel 100% about going, but we'll see. I had a commercial to shoot today, but I still managed to get the newly mastered audio rendering while I sleep. Tomorrow I have to watch it to make sure it plays fine [and make more pesky notes I'm sure]. At least Crossroads will be a good test run for us to gauge all this audio work.

by **ntbullock** » April 1st, 2009, 2:41 am

Busy day full of odds and ends. About to watch the final version I'm to hand off to Crossroads hopefully. I've also been looking into better DVD compression software.

by **ntbullock** » April 6th, 2009, 1:48 am

Just got back from Crossroads Film Festival. We had a good showing. We definitely appreciated people coming out. We picked up a Director's Choice award.

by **ntbullock** » April 8th, 2009, 11:54 pm

Made some minor changes to some audio from my notes that I took before I left town for Crossroads. Worked on a poster image a little too.

by **ntbullock** » April 10th, 2009, 4:14 pm

At this point we are waiting on more music, but still making small changes. I'm also looking into creating a shot I think we need, but it will take some graphic work. If it doesn't work then "oh well," but I'm trying it.

by **ntbullock** » April 18th, 2009, 11:26 pm

I watched the newest version Thursday night and made another round of small changes. I haven't gotten any new music, but I'm creating another DVD for a couple of festival submissions. Neither Jared nor I feel this is really a festival movie, which is why our list of submissions was pretty anemic to begin with. It's a weird beast of a movie. We've never denied that. ;}

I've been working on some graphics for promotionals, and we've also decided that the moment we have most of our music in that we'll release a couple scenes to the site.

by **ntbullock** » April 24th, 2009, 1:17 am

Got a few more festival DVDs out the door yesterday and I've done a few minor adjustments to the film. Spoke with Harry today and he's working on some new pieces. I've told him that the music is my main priority in life right now. It's nice to hear some new stuff.

I've also been working on some promotional images. The main page of the site [http://www.iranagainstus.com] has been updated and desktops of the new image are here: http://www.iranagainstus.com/photo.html

by **ntbullock** » May 15th, 2009, 6:22 pm

Spoke with Harry again today. We've been going back and forth on a music cue [he hasn't been feeling well]. I think we've finally got this piece bagged though.

by **ntbullock** » May 22nd, 2009, 11:57 am

A few more alterations and this music piece will be final. Harry should be getting me something today. Had a long talk with him the other day. He desperately wants to finish the project, but it's difficult balancing everything. We definitely understand. He's got another big gig coming up in August so we're going to try and finish the score before the end of July. We'll see how that goes.

It's really an odd feeling to've worked on bringing a story to screen for a year and a half to find yourself in a space where you're not actively working on it everyday - and it's still not done. Jared and I both are anxious to get this one done and out the door so we can start thinking about other projects. I guess it's good because we needed a break, but at the same time we don't get to enjoy the accomplishment during that time off because it's not finished.

Even after the movie gets completed there's plenty of work to do in promoting, showing, and trying to get it distributed on DVD. But, if we can do that then we will have fulfilled our original attempt to write something doable, shoot it, and get it on DVD - no matter what.

by **ntbullock** » May 24th, 2009, 2:24 pm

I've been working on a seemingly simple DVD menu animation that is taking me a second to work out.

by **ntbullock** » May 29th, 2009, 1:08 pm

The DVD menu is sufficient for now. Today I plan to start on creating a better trailer. We threw the first one together terribly quick before we even started editing the movie. Some of those picks didn't even make it in the final cut, so...

Now we also have some original music to choose from as well.

Harry finished the last music cue from last week and we've moved on to another.

by **ntbullock** » June 5th, 2009, 12:58 am

Harry and I worked through another piece of music - this one very small. Hey, it's progress.

I'm going to wait another month or so to really start putting this new trailer together. This month Harry is supposed to output a good bit of score and there may be a better suited piece for it.

Jared's trying to get the premiere in New Orleans going. It won't be 100% finished music-wise but it'll be close.

by **ntbullock** » June 6th, 2009, 3:41 pm

Harry is working on an up-tempo piece towards the end of the movie. He'll probably knock it out soon. He's supposed to send me the full draft later today. Next week I'll recompile a new DVD with these recent additions, and I'll send a few screeners out.

I also contacted Arthur, our CG guy, about that "wish shot." He said he might have something this week for me to look at.

by **ntbullock** » June 17th, 2009, 11:33 pm

Harry is working sporadically and we've now got a date for the premiere of the movie in New Orleans on the 29th of June. That's less than two weeks away. We still won't have all our music, but we need to go ahead with the premiere. It'll mostly be cast and crew I presume. Maybe we can get another piece or two from Harry by then.

That also means I'll need to prep another baked down version for projection. I was having some issues burning this latest DVD. I finally got it to burn correctly and watched it tonight, but there are some things I was to tinker with. It's been awhile since I've seen it, so it was good to watch it a little fresh. I've got a small list I'm about to start on - mostly minor things. I did see a couple spots that need some foley so that's good.

by **ntbullock** » June 18th, 2009, 2:52 am

Just got done with all the alterations. Tomorrow I have to bounce out an audio master [in realtime] to match back up with the picture. Then I'm back to compressing for DVD, which takes about 4 or 5 hours of rendering. I am having problems with this lately. Maybe I updated something that's conflicting? My goal now is to get it on DVD, watch it to verify, and send it out Friday or Saturday at the latest.

by **ntbullock** » June 19th, 2009, 4:09 am

Did some research and changed my workflow. It's apparently quicker to trick Compressor into thinking it has a cluster of computers by creating a virtual cluster using the Mac's multiple cores. What? Yeah, never mind. Anyway, I just got done verifying the disc on my laptop. I'll send out on schedule. Next it's boogey time on the premiere version. Jared is waiting to announce it until he signs for the theater [you never know] and for a promo flyer I'm almost done with.

I just got off the phone with Harry. It's four in the morning here, but he's getting started on us at eleven pm! He's got a lot of late nights ahead. We went over the next three pieces I think may be possible to incorporate into the premiere version. Here's hoping as usual. We've only got a week.

by **ntbullock** » June 19th, 2009, 4:14 pm

Had a small list of things to alter from my viewing last night. Got those done and finished the flyer for the premiere:

Getting some DVDs burned today and hopefully working with Harry on some score.

by **ntbullock** » June 25th, 2009, 3:25 pm

So, the other day was a big one because I finally decided to attack the timeline. That's a little complicated at this point because the movie is in sections and then in separate sections for audio editing and then rebuilt into an overall line and then rebuilt yet again for mastering. So if I trim even one frame off this sucker I end up having to update 5 different timelines to make everything congruent. These were all necessary steps, but here towards the end it's a task to keep straight. It took 5 or 6 hours to trim a whole 24 seconds from different sections of the film.

I still haven't mastered out the audio because I'm waiting on three pieces of music to test the mixing. I'm also trying to work with Arthur at the last minute to get this last graphics shot in. I'll have to make the call Saturday if it's far enough along to include in the showing Monday.

All that being said I do feel good about the edits. A couple had been bugging me for some time but truly not worth the headache at that point. We're talking 15 frames in some case to have a better reaction time to someone's line. Others were more substantial. It was good not having seen the film in a while because quite a few things jumped out at me that I'd never noticed before.

by **ntbullock** » June 26th, 2009, 12:08 am

Set up my small greenscreen and shot some elements for the graphics shot Arthur is working on. He should be sending me the next iteration in just a bit. Harry is also supposed to send me two pieces of music for review in the next little bit too. Busy, busy.

I'm keying the footage in After Effects and comping it all at the moment.

by **ntbullock** » June 26th, 2009, 4:00 am

Arthur sent me an update. It's coming along. The footage I shot adds to the shot nicely. I'm thinking it'll be acceptable by the time I leave Sunday for New Orleans.

Also got some music. I gave him a couple notes, but it sounded good. I also sent to Jared for a different set of ears.

by **ntbullock** » June 27th, 2009, 12:08 pm

Harry last night sent me the "romantic" piece again. There were two small changes and then he shot it back to me again. Now I'm about to mix it in. He's on to working with a short piece we call "spy." I'm hoping both Arthur and Harry can have these to me today in enough time for me to test them and create a master. I have to make a digital master and a DVD disc just in case.

Arthur started the render last night and it was going to take 15 hours for a 4 second shot. I should have it late afternoon.

by **ntbullock** » June 27th, 2009, 11:45 pm

The spy section isn't going to be in the film Monday. Arthur sent me a preliminary shot that will be re-rendered after the premiere. I'm about to watch the movie to make sure all the changes went through alright. I leave tomorrow afternoon for New Orleans.

I Ran Against Us [COMPLETED]

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