First semester wrap up, FINALLY

I just reread my last entry and realized it's gotten far more personal. I'll try to include more general information in this entry, but as it's a catchup from me being a sucky blogger, I really tend to focus on my stuff directly. At any rate, here goes.

In our second film last semester, we were allowed to build a team, in fact, we were required to fill the positions of Producer and Cinematographer, while also being heavily suggested to get at least one more person to do sound work (boom operator).

I can't stress enough how nice it was to just run up and ask people. It was a little nerve wracking as that first day they told us to pick people was a little like asking people to go to the school dance with you. Though, in retrospect people really stretched themselves and worked on several projects (I know I did) which was amazingly considerate.

In maybe a short-sighted choice, I decided that my primary goal for my second film was to shoot a fight scene. A bondafide, rock 'em sock 'em fight scene. Probably not the best way to enter into a film project, but I had to be honest with myself and I wanted to get something done that I had never done before.

I managed to manufacture an idea that I didn't feel was too contrived, and hit home maybe a little moreso than I'm willing to admit. In addition, I received some very solid advice from my Producer in that I essentially rip off a fight scene I liked and fit our scenario. While this might sound disingenuous or like down right plagarism, I might tell you that filmmakers basically do it all the time or I might also tell you to cut me some slack as I'd never once done a fight scene before or I might also tell you that after showing it to a bunch of film students only one person could call me on the fight scene I aped.

Regardless, my Producer delievered in a serious way as far as talent was concerned (even jumping in himself), and we even got to (actually had to) work with a legit stunt coordinator, which ended up working out great.

The day started amazingly. Everyone was there more or less on time, we worked diligently and quickly. The guys were game for anything. It was going awesomely, or at least I thought it was until we had to break for lunch and I basically still had 75% of a movie left to shoot. The rest of the day was a lesson in conservation of shots, multitasking, and giving up a certain degree of control to those around me.

By the end of it, I was completely spent, knew I hadn't gotten even close to everything I had needed or wanted, and was worried I'd learned a semi expensive lesson about bugdeting time correctly.

At this point in the semester we were required to screen dailies. For the uninitiated, Dailies are the raw footage you shot, completely out of context, unedited, and completely naked. Everyone watches these and then asks you about all the shots you didn't get, and basically demands answers as to why you didn't get them. Essentially, you sit up there and get attacked (or praised if you have what they think you should have, which didn't happen for many) and your recourse is to simply utter varitions on 'I swear it'll cut together' until they let you sit down.

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I hate dailies. I can see how they'd be useful on longer shoots with bigger budgets, but to ask us to screen stuff even this semester where we have two shoot weekends is pretty futile. Nearly everyone can't go do reshoots even if they had the money, and nearly all the comments are about what you didn't get and should go get. That said, there are a few jems in the attack which you can keep in mind for next shoot, so perhaps it's worth it.

All I can say is that after getting blasted for not having a 'Bourne' style fight I felt pretty beat up. I was specifically ripping an Indiana Jones fight, but it was still difficult to take. I did my best to restrain myself, smiled and nod, and then sit back down muttering under my breath about how I'd cut it together and show them.

However, the abuse continued through the rough cut stage. After examining my footage, I discovered that one of their comments, about shooting in a terrible sound location, turned out to be maginifcently true. I had basically no useable sound for the fight scene itself (which was obviously most of the movie). This meant the rough cut had a huge silent chunk in it, and if for one second you think this probably doesn't matter in a fight scene, I beg you to go pull any of your favorite action movies and watch them silently.

All was not lost, though it just meant more abuse for the rough cut. I worked through the picture edit, until I had my visuals completely locked, and then went to work on the sound design. Some hollywood movie magic for everyone, every punch you've ever heard in any media at all was completely fake. Punches sound gross and dull in real life; hell most don't sound at all. That satisfying crack/slap/smack that you hear is completely artificial. This mean that for ever hit I had, I had to comb through the sound archives and build each hit and each reaction.

I recieved great advice on sound from Midge Costin, a professor here (IMDB her for creds), who explained the importance of layering. Each hit you hear is probably not only one hit, but several. Lower 'body' hits are a good bass, while face hits a more slappy. Combining them can yield interesting results. In addition, you can add bone cracks at interesting times, and even layer in some really weird sounds if you want to get fancy. All I can say is I'm glad USC has a serious sound effects library.

By the time I layered in all the sounds, and then layed in a temporary music track (which eventually became my permanate), I felt a lot better about the film. I continued to massage here and there, and by the end I was really happy with where it ended up, and satisfyingly it played. Each new cut brought more satisfying results. The class ended up really digging it, and I learned a lot about fight scenes. I really couldn't have asked for more, well maybe a few more shoot days.

I'll catch up with the rest next time...sooner than this last one.