I Ran Against Us [COMPLETED]

[ntbullock]

Griff was in town tonight so we strung EVERYTHING we had together and watched it. It came out to about an hour and fifteen minutes. We've got the last big scene and the closing scene and we're done. We'll need to cut and trim to keep the time down, but that's a good thing. It seemed to go by decently fast even in it's rough state, so hopefully we're on the right track so far.

Harry sent us some music for the opening credits that fit perfectly. Good on 'em. Nice stuff.

Tomorrow evening I'll cut my silly car commercial I shot today and get back to work Saturday. Jared just left for New Orleans and he'll get back to work Saturday night.

[ntbullock]

Silly car commercial is cut. We're back to work this afternoon. I started working on a greenscreen/graphics shot over the weekend.

[ntbullock]

Last night I did some tedious graphic work, and Jared worked on the huge last scene of the movie. Tonight we shot a series of pick up shots involving a briefcase. Other than that we didn't get much done today. We'll make it up tomorrow.

[ntbullock]

I have been wrestling with an After Effects issue, which has slowed my progress down. I spent 5 hours this afternoon trying to fig it out or at least a workaround. I'm now at a point that I should have been last night. I'm about to start on a montage section and Jared is still working on the last, large scene. Productivity has been slowed the past week I'd say because of numerous elements. We had wanted a completed rough but by the middle of the month. Guess what day it is. We definitely will in the next four or five days, though.

[ntbullock]

It's looking like we'll have a rough cut by the end of the week. I made good headway on the montage. Jared made good progress on the last scene. Pretty soon here we'll be needing to snag some pick up shots - nothing major though. While Jared finishes up the last scene tomorrow I'll probably go back through a do some graphic work [green screen, mattes, etc.]

The next stage is drawing nigh, and it's a big one. Sound. We've got quite a bit of mixing and foley to do. I hope [and doubt] we'll have to do any ADR.

[ntbullock]

Still making headway. Good Lord it's seven in the morning.

I cut together a teaser trailer that has a much more serious tone. Harry wrote a great piece for us for the opening title sequence, and it beckoned me to lay some shit over it. Beckoned. We'll probably post it later today. It's a minute long, no dialogue.

[ntbullock]

Here's the new teaser:

http://www.iranagainstus.com/IRAU_teaser_2.mov

I haven't put it up on the site yet. I want to play with compression a little bit more...

Great music by Harry Hansen.

[ntbullock]

We may change the new teaser a little to make it clear it's a comedy, but we just went ahead and threw it up online.

We watched a rough cut of the movie last night and both Jared and I have a full page list of notes we need to go through. The beginning felt longer this go 'round, but we did have computer issues early in the viewing so I don't know if that effected it or not. We're about and hour and half right now without credits. We want to shave it down, but that's not bad. At least we don't have a two hour movie we're trying to cut down. We've had to alter elements in editing that weren't like the script, but you gotta do it sometimes.

[ntbullock]

We compiled and conversed about our individual lists we made while watching the rough last night. We had about 45 things to change that we agreed on. Most are very small, but some will take a second. The list is half done at this point. When we get through it we'll watch it again.

We're not evening looking at audio yet - just trying to lock picture. Audio notes will be ridiculous!

[ntbullock]

We got a little more done late last night, and I ended up finishing one of my chores that wasn't on the list. I've been steeped in graphic work it seems this past week. We plan on finishing up our list tonight - at the latest tomorrow.

We're about to go see a couple movies. All work and no play does stuff.

[ntbullock]

We finished up our list of roughly 45 elements to tweak last night except for one we need to look at together. We're going to do that this evening and then have another viewing with a couple friends for some feedback. We'll ignore their criticisms, alter the movie in secret, and boast our wisdom on the DVD commentary. That's how it works. ;]

[ntbullock]

We didn't watch it with friends tonight and I'm glad because we found another 44 things to trim and finesse after watching it again. I'd say we've got all but a few left to do after working all night. A majority of them were quite easy and quick to do.

[ntbullock]

Most of the day was spent washing clothes. It just HAD to be done, I guess. Very domestic of us. ;]

I finished up a couple more issues and put another rough cut together. We're about to send our composer a full cut just so he can see it as an entire idea. It'll help him with pacing and recurring themes.

Tomorrow we head up to Jackson for a dinner and then come back to work.

Hopefully watching this next version we won't have another list of 40 things to do. We're also getting to a stage where we're having to replace temp fixes and start moving towards finalizing some graphic work, too. I'd like to think that starting next week we might start working on sound. We'll see.

[ntbullock]

Went to Jackson this afternoon, came back, and watched the rough with a couple friends tonight. They gave a lot of honest feedback. It was interesting. We might not agree with EVERYTHING they said, but they had a lot of good points. Some elements need to be made more clear and some elements that we weren't sure if they needed to be cut are now cut. Some of the issues will be solved in later stages. We both made smaller lists this go 'round [mine was about 20] and they dealt with smaller issues still. It can be hard to listen to criticism strung together like that, but the info is invaluable. Sigh. Tomorrow we go another round in the ring with our beast. ;]

[ntbullock]

Our combined list was up to 39 changes. Mostly small though. We're taking the night off.

[ntbullock]

We'll finish up our list today and hopefully get a rough to Harry this evening.

[ntbullock]

I put the rough together last night and watched it tonight. I made another list of about 28 nit-picky things. There are bigger fish to fry here, but these can be "fixed" easily. I'm getting it to Harry now.

We still have a ton left to do. Getting a rough cut is still only a little over half way home... it's a milestone though.

[ntbullock]

Got it to Harry yesterday. Last night I fixed all but one of the small issues. Jared will do the last one today and we're burning the rough to DVD to send out to a couple of close associates - one of them being the DP [direcor of photog].

There will probably be an interim period where I'm working on graphics and Jared is putting together actor reels and handling office/budgetary duties. After that - onto sound.

[ntbullock]

We watched it another "go 'round" and made yet another list. The lists are getting smaller at least. We're trying different things here and there. We're gonna spit out another rough tonight and send that one on DVD. I'll be uploading a new one for Harry too.

It's also been a process unto itself of getting these roughs together. It used to take maybe three hours to do. Now it takes half that. It's a lot to render and assemble. Even from there it takes another hour to spit out a web version for Harry.

No new music lately, and I'm still trying to rope in some help on some graphics.

[ntbullock]

Got it uploaded and ready for DVD tomorrow.

[ntbullock]

What time I did work yesterday was converting video for DVD. Got one burned, but I want to try and fig out how to burn a 24p DVD and see the difference. The files are ready for me to try today.

Oh yeah, and apparently Halloween was last night? Who knew?

[ntbullock]

The disc I burned today looked better. Jared is out of town working on a commercial and come Wednesday I'll have three commercials to spit out myself. Until then I plan on watching the rough cut on DVD and making more notes. From there Jared and I will watch it again together and make even more notes. We'll make those changes and try to finally move on to the audio stage, starting with the dialogue pass.

What's good is that we've got entire sections that feel good - you feel like you're watching an actual movie. We're still trying to iron out what we've got. Most things have been "fixable" and others we have to live with, but ultimately we feel we're making progress in this stage where the sum of its parts is undeniably more important. Where can we trim as much fat as possible? What pushes the story along? Where do we get bored? We're trying to answer these questions to ourselves and letting a few others watch it and help as well.

Like I've said before we've only cut one entire scene that wasn't necessary and trimmed down others to their core. There are some scenes that we've had to rethink order and intelligibility for the audience.

It'd be nice to have all the audio work and pick-up shots done by year's end. It's completely possible.

[ntbullock]

I watched it today on DVD and made about 25 notes. Changing one thing can sometimes impact another thing so that's the ebb and flow. We'll watch it again when he gets back. If it weren't for a few of these changes being "bigger" than a trim then we would've already sent out the DVD. We'll feel better about after the next round I'm sure. Most of my new list was small, but for a few.

[ntbullock]

Got some good feedback from a couple people. I learned tonight that I'll have to get some stock animation, so now I need to look into that as well.

[ntbullock]

Shot some crappy commercials today. Jared gets back tomorrow. I'm finishing up client work to get it out of the way and tomorrow night we'll watch it again on DVD and make notes. I went ahead yesterday and made all but seven on my previous corrections.

[SIDE NOTE: This weekend will be plagued with heavy Gears of War 2 playing, so I doubt much will get done then.]

[ntbullock]

Watched it again tonight and we made notes. We had about 22 between the two of us. Plus, the eight left over from my last list. We're feeling better about it. We'll get most of these changes done tomorrow afternoon. Jared leaves tomorrow night and comes back on Monday. Early next week we'll finally get these DVDs out.

[ntbullock]

We got the changes done and I'll work on getting it to DVD while Jared's out of town.

[ntbullock]

It's a process getting it onto a 24p 16:9 DVD in black and white. It takes quite a few hours of render and conversion. I got it burned yesterday. I needed to watch it before Jared sends it out Monday afternoon, so I watched it with my mother. Yeah, that's right. You heard correctly. There's no better way to count expletives than with your mother. Want to know exactly how many curse words and awkward moments are in your movie? Watch it with your christian conservative mother. That's balls, son.

Actually, she's really cool about it all. She laughed quite a bit - even at the dirty jokes. I told her she was dirty for laughing. My mother is a dirty christian apparently. Don't tell nobody. ;] No, really she gave good feedback.

I made some more notes as I watched. I only had about 10 things written and most of them were ridiculously small. I made some of the changes already, but they'll go in the next version of the rough cut. I'm making copies right now and printing labels. I also got the small version spit out to send to Harry. He should be back composing for us Monday. He's had some other work to tend to the past few days.

Oh yeah, and I did some looking around and finally found some decent animation for a good price. It's ordered and on the way.

[ntbullock]

Got the animation discs in a day early, and I'll be working on that. I might have a commercial tomorrow, and Jared is heading up to Jackson tonight to see his grandmother in the hospital. He's working on straightening finances at the moment.

[ntbullock]

My commercial in Jackson was pushed back for weather and Jared is going up in the morning. He got the finances straightened, and I've been working on the NEWS animated intro for the film.