I Ran Against Us [COMPLETED]

by **ntbullock** » January 25th, 2009, 11:01 pm

Got some much needed sleep and still need more. Griff comes in tomorrow for some ADR. We recorded Eric Kohn and Scott Bullock today for some voice work. We got that on the line and then I looked at our audio issue from yesterday. I exported again and it was fine. The good news is that it's fine. The bad news is that I didn't do anything different. Fluke? Will it happen again? We'll see. I'll finish bouncing out all the audio and getting the mix sequences going after we get Griff done. I also have to go through each sound effect sequence and check that every 11KHz file is converted to 48KHz. That was the problem with the "hiccup" from yesterday. I don't have too many of those, but it's the double checking and conversion that will slow down that process. We need to get a version on disc soon so we can gauge our audio progress. Is it better and cleaner or did we filter it into hot garbage?

by **ntbullock** » January 27th, 2009, 3:52 am

Good man Griff drove three hours and then right back today because he loves us [or the movie... same thing I guess]. It took about three hours of solid work to record his dialogue. He's got a knack for it. Even if you're good at it it's difficult. Hopefully it'll mix in well and we did meaningful work today. I hope it solves these issues. Leanne comes Sunday for hers. It's her first time doing dialogue replacement, but she doesn't have near as much to do. Griff's was almost two hundred takes and fills half a gig of zeros and ones.

Mike D, our 1st AD on the picture, comes up tomorrow for the night. Tomorrow I'll be working on figging out this sound issue from the other day. I take Jared up to Jackson Wednesday and he will stay the night and also spend a night in New Orleans this weekend, so work will be splotchy.

by **ntbullock** » January 28th, 2009, 4:06 am

We had company today, but I did manage to take a couple hours and go through each FCP sequence and find every audio file that was below 44 kHz/16-bit and convert it. Hopefully this will avoid the "hiccup" from earlier. It scared the shit right out of me when in headphones the first time. I also did a little online research about the FCP export drop-outs in audio. I've never had this exact problem.

Harry sent us some fitting music today that he's almost done with.

by **ntbullock** » January 28th, 2009, 10:38 pm

Corresponded with the CG artist a little this evening. I also finally got the highlight pass done over the entire film. I was able to bring back some detail in the whites of some scenes. It only took a couple hours to do.

I found some info online about the audio issue, and I'm about ready to give it another go building our new sound version with cleaned dialogue. I also did some backing up this evening.

by **ntbullock** » January 30th, 2009, 4:14 am

I've spent the last five hours going through and making this new sound build for every sequence and then making a new rough cut. The sfx file is still unmixed and scarce, but at least we can finally get a gauge for where we're at with the dialogue track. After we watch this tomorrow I'll take a look at Griff's ADR session.

Jared is working on the closing credits text file.

by **ntbullock** » January 31st, 2009, 6:19 am

We watched it tonight and made about 80 notes. Here we go again. ;] A lot of the notes were small, but some weren't. The voices are sounding very consistent in volume and most of the cuts "sound" better, but there's still a great deal to do. It was only the first pass on dialogue. It sounds different in headphones and every pair of speakers you listen to it on so it can be frustrating. On a typical film you'll have about five to ten people doing this mess [and doing a better job too].

Jared left for New Orleans and gets back Sunday. I started going through the list and got about three hours in.

We're coming up on the fifth month of post. Even if you averaged three hours every day for the both of us that'd be close to a thousand hours.

by **ntbullock** » January 31st, 2009, 7:18 pm

I'm about halfway through the list - mostly doing the quick fixes and making notes of larger issues.

Here's a screen grab of what we stare at:

CLICK FOR HI-RES http://www.iranagainstus.com/IRAU_screen_grab.jpg

by **ntbullock** » January 31st, 2009, 10:17 pm

Worked for six more hours today finishing up all the quick fixes for most of the list. Even got some new music from Harry and laid it in. Gotta eat today I guess, but I also need to get an ADR session set up for Leanne who comes early tomorrow afternoon.

by **ntbullock** » February 2nd, 2009, 4:23 am

Got the new DVD burned for us to watch after the ADR session. Leanne did a good job. It's difficult to do and she's got a knack for it. We only needed about two hours to get it done. Jared and I made more notes while watching this evening. We made about half as last time and there were still some larger issues left over from the first batch I didn't have time to get done before she came in. Tomorrow is all about knocking out these list items although I doubt we are able to complete everything in a day. Hopefully we'll have another DVD with updated sound in the next couple to a few days. The update will include trying to lay in all the ADR work and trying to make it sound similar - that's the hard part.

by **ntbullock** » February 3rd, 2009, 5:29 am

I got through the list and Jared started re-looking at a whole scene he worked on earlier. Tomorrow I want to get to some of the ADR and take a gander at some of these entire scenes that need work. We have another festival to submit to on Friday, and it'd be nice to have this newest updated version with ADR incorporated go out. That's the goal.

by **ntbullock** » February 4th, 2009, 6:07 am

Got a good bit of odds and ends done this afternoon with sound effects and minor adjustments. This evening I was able to get all of Leanne's ADR session into their respective sequences. She didn't have as much as Griff. Tomorrow I'll get all of his on the line. Then the trick is trying to float those lines in under the radar.

One day I'll go back and read this damn journal to re-live the utter tediousness of it all, and I want to note that today was the first day I glimpsed the bright light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

by **ntbullock** » February 5th, 2009, 5:10 am

Jared's been re-cleaning block 018-029. I laid down all the ADR into each sequence. I made some of them fit in and others will definitely need tweaking. We've got to get a DVD rendering, which takes about three to four hours, so we can watch it tomorrow night to see if we can send it out Friday and also make more sound notes. A good bit of sound effects have been added and altered/mixed on top of a lot of dialogue work since last render. There are some scenes I didn't get to take another look at for this burn, but that's the next goal. Here's hoping we didn't make some things worse audio-wise - it's such a push and pull.

by **ntbullock** » February 5th, 2009, 11:50 pm

We watched it and made more notes. We've got more of these notes than first time, but we are getting more particular with them and also making music cue notations for Harry too. Some things definitely sound better. Other things still need fixing. We're not going to be able to have pristine, million-dollar audio but we just don't want it to sound like we mixed it on the fourth of July while eating potato chips. You know... noisy.

I'm also having to look into a decent way to create the ending credits. You wouldn't think this would be a technical issue, but it is.

by **ntbullock** » February 8th, 2009, 2:10 am

Worked on the credits last night. After researching a bit I went with scrolling one long image [1280x8000 right now]. It looks decent. Also had to research fonts and licenses. The credits aren't done, but a majority of the work is completed. It's set up at least.

Jared's working on some sound, and I'm about to get back to that myself.

by **ntbullock** » February 10th, 2009, 6:36 am

Finally made it through the terribly long list. All of the "quickies" are done and now it's down to sections and/or scenes that need re-looking at. We're shooting for another DVD burn by the end of the week.

by **ntbullock** » February 11th, 2009, 4:18 am

We're making good progress. We'll definitely have a new burn soon. Jared's got one more small scene to look over and I've got a few. A lot has been done this pass.

by **ntbullock** » February 12th, 2009, 4:24 am

We're burning a new one tomorrow of where we're at right now. I've still got two scenes to clean and spent the night figuring out what to do. It's a lot of trial and error... tons of error. Jared's got most of what he was doing done.

We're shooting a commercial tomorrow afternoon, and should watch the new DVD tomorrow night and see where we stand.

Jared created a Facebook page for the movie:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/I-Ran-Against-Us/62241658012?ref=nf

by **ntbullock** » February 14th, 2009, 11:02 pm

We watched it a couple nights ago and made plenty of notes. Some things are better. Some things didn't work. I'm hoping the next burn will get fewer notes. The credit scroll also had issues when burned to DVD, so I'm researching that.

by **ntbullock** » February 16th, 2009, 4:39 am

Jared gets back tomorrow [actually today - I never know what day to type]. I've pretty much gone through our lists, and tomorrow I'll get to work on the two scenes I didn't get to finish before the last burn. Jared's got a section he's been working on, and he'll do the notes for that.

A little foley work has been done as we've been going. Nothing extensive though.

by **ntbullock** » February 17th, 2009, 5:43 am

Jared did the notes for his section and tomorrow will be tackling a "trouble sentence." I got a good start on my two scenes. I'm trying something completely different than before.

We hope to watch another version by Wednesday night. The time between burns should be getting less and less. Once we get it to a decent form of acceptability then we'll master the overall audio and test that on different systems. Every set of speakers has its own "personality," and we want it to sound decent on as many sets as we can adjust for - especially since we're sending it off to festivals.

by **ntbullock** » February 17th, 2009, 5:43 am

Jared did the notes for his section and tomorrow will be tackling a "trouble sentence." I got a good start on my two scenes. I'm trying something completely different than before.

We hope to watch another version by Wednesday night.

by **ntbullock** » February 19th, 2009, 3:17 am

Watched a new version. We've definitely got some problem sentences here and there that are not sounding right when we put it on the theater system. We made almost as many notes as last watch, but more and more of them are smaller and smaller issues.

Since we "locked" the picture the timeline has only changed about 5 seconds. We're considering a couple more small cuts. At some point you have to live with what you've got. I have to keep reminding myself that this is just our first feature and were fortunate to get what we got. There are definitely a couple of wish-list shots we'd like to get if we happened to get picked up for distribution, though.

Tomorrow we'll try to knock out the quick fixes and buckle down on these tougher ones. We're getting to a point where soon we'll just be burning scenes to disc that we need to hear instead of the whole thing.

It's amazing what you start to notice isn't there as the soundtrack gets cleaner and cleaner.

by **ntbullock** » February 21st, 2009, 6:49 am

We'll be through our list tomorrow, and we'll burn another disc for tomorrow night. I'll be putting chapter markers on this one because we've started referencing the DVD on the stereo and then heading back to the computer to adjust.

We've got some foley to look at tomorrow too.

Some of these "trouble lines" we've had numerous shots at we are having to concede a bit and settle. These are few, but we are getting to that point. Most of it is sounding completely acceptable.

I also looked at refining some of the news graphics a touch. Jared had a good idea for some news elements and I knocked them out too.

At this rate I'd like to think that in a week or two we'll be more concerned with getting music from Harry. Harry has been busy himself with paying his bills and such and has a little bit of catching up to do.

by **ntbullock** » February 22nd, 2009, 6:06 am

Jared has been doing some "extra" fine tuning on his scene blocks and will probably get done tomorrow. I finished my blocks and also got some foley done. Hopefully we'll watch the next version tomorrow night.

by **ntbullock** » February 25th, 2009, 6:39 am

We're at a repetitive stage. Watch, take notes, change, assemble, burn DVD, watch, take notes, change, assemble, burn DVD...

We made well over 100 notes the other night, but the good news is that the minutiae is outweighing the problem areas for sure. We hope to watch the next version Thursday.

Got a bit of music from Harry, which was a needed boost. We've made a couple more small cuts to the line. We may have jumped the gun on calling it locked awhile back, but sound has changed out minds here and there. If it's not absolutely necessary AND it sounds bad it gets whacked.

Jared may be heading back to New Orleans in a week or so.

by **ntbullock** » February 26th, 2009, 5:10 am

This afternoon we had a foley session. We mostly replaced some footsteps and a handful of other various movements, etc. This evening has been about incorporating those foley elements onto the line and finishing up our massive list of sound alterations. We still hope to watch another version tomorrow night.

by **ntbullock** » February 26th, 2009, 7:03 pm

Here's a screen grab of the entire constructed movie:

CLICK FOR HI-RES http://www.iranagainstus.com/IRAU_screen_grab2.jpg

by **ntbullock** » February 28th, 2009, 7:46 am

We watched it again last night and made more notes as usual. We're making progress. We had less notes this time [down to about a hundred but most of them truly minutia]. We'll be able to watch the newest version probably Saturday night. When we wake up we'll do another batch of foley that we think we need and incorporate it.

If we do watch it tomorrow night, and I feel we will, then it'll definitely be the quickest turnaround between viewings. We pretty much worked all night long.

by **ntbullock** » March 2nd, 2009, 7:19 am

Watched it again, made notes, made changes, and looking to burn it again tomorrow and make notes. Same ole, same ole. We did some more foley work today. Jared leaves later today after we watch the new version. The movie obviously isn't done, but he has work down there to prepare for and get his life back on track. Plus, we can still work separately and shove files back and forth through my server.

We're starting to feel a little better about the movie. We hold it in no high regard, but we're proud that we haven't let the workload cave us. That light in the tunnel is getting brighter.

It's looking like it will premiere at Crossroads in Jackson, MS. I doubt we have every bit of music by then though. Hopefully we'll have most.

by **ntbullock** » March 3rd, 2009, 2:24 am

We had another one day turnaround - our last actually because Jared went back today. Jared has been living on my futon for a little over 6 months. Accumulated he's probably only been away from here no longer than three or four weeks total in that time.

We took more notes on the movie, but I think for the first time we feel like it's basically all there. All that's left is music and overall finessing of what we have. Sure we have wishlist items if we had more time and money, but for what we've got to work with we're getting pretty close.

We're both kind of reclaiming our lives. This is the start of it anyway. There's plenty more work to do - definitely no shortage of it - but this is a mile marker for the production.

I've been able to sell the Brevis35 system and lenses that we purchased out of pocket before the production started. That money has helped a little bit, but we still have more to pay on the film. If anyone reading this is interested in investing then call 1-800-I HATE TO SEE NT BROKE. Operators are sitting by.

Back to work now... and hopefully a more "normal" sleeping schedule.

I Ran Against Us [COMPLETED]

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