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Archive Thirty-Three
July 9, 2008 -
Letting Go
An originator's growth process, no easy duty
...
Jose (left)
assists Bob (our editor) with sound issues
Moving forward through the process of this film hasn't come
without some unusual pains for me. In the beginning was the
word, and of course the writer has to eventually spit it out.
Right there in that first word, from the imagination to the paper,
an act of creation, is also an act of separation, of letting go.
For once out, it has realization, form and impact. For all
the world to see, a decision was made and there it is for all to
see (if you're so lucky). We write and write, edit and edit,
and finally have a workable script in hand. But to get to
the next step, another letting go, one of greater magnitude, has
to happen, for you turn it over to a team to try and realize a
possible potential, or maybe not. Either way, you still have
to let go to get to the next stage, whatever its fate. If
you can't or won't, then there is no place from here. Except
the desk drawer or the trash can ...
If you're
so fortunate to get into production, you watch your work expand
and grow into, into what? Very possibly into something you
didn't quite envision, or didn't like, but hopefully into
something beyond what you had ever expected. But through it
all, you continue to let go, for it's in the letting go that you
help give it life. You let it grow up to something totally
separate from you. A force with momentum and traction in the
world, a force hopefully someone will want to see and experience
for themselves. For it is a gift, a gift of creation to the
world, one that rises or falls on its own ...
Yes, as
the originator and creator, its merits or lack of will fall on
you, but it is as a separate entity from you. You are it's
father and mother, creator and nurturer, but in the end it must go
off into the world without you. To have its own life and
livelihood. For you will move on to create again, hopefully
having learned enough to do better the next time, and the next
time. Always letting go, insuring more will come, for we are
creatures who must create, one way or another ...
For me,
watching our editor put the pieces together, I've had to let go
even more with each passing day. It is the only way, and it
feels right no matter what else may be going on. But I also
find it getting easier to do as we move on. Maybe after
doing it so much, I'm getting used to it? Possibly, but in
the end I think it's because we are getting closer to the end.
When the film will have to stand on its own, whatever it turns out
to be. I will love it and be proud of it, no matter what
anyone else thinks. For it came from me, and will leave me.
A creation. A film. A gift ...
Jerry
July 19, 2008 -
Oh My!
The pieces assembled, a new film takes shape
...
142 minutes, 2:22, two hours and twenty-two minutes. A monumental day. In the beginning was the word, and now we
have a film. I just saw the assembly of the film for the first time.
I am very happy with what we have. Of course it's rough and
too long, and we need to snip and add here and there, and we need
visual effects, sound effects and a score. But hey, if it's
this good without all that, we're certainly way into the ballpark
...
Now the
heavy lifting for me begins as we bring this baby to home plate.
Monday we start that before I head down to meet with several
composer candidates later in the week. I have six, maybe
seven, possibles to speak with. I have leanings towards a
couple of them, but we'll see how this goes. I now have a
much clearer understanding of what we need musically ...
On another
front I'm going to bring aboard a visual effects person (people?).
Bob is handling some of the simpler effects, but we're going to
need some heavy duty work on possibly a dozen shots. I have
no idea how long (or how much?) that is going to take. It's
an area I wish I had a better grip on ...
And, I'm
still waiting patiently for the new website to get together and be
up ...
And, I'm
still trying to put together a marketing and distribution
strategy, of which getting into film festivals is a more immediate
issue. I just made a list of about fifty possible ones, and
dividing them into three different tiers of importance. Part
of this will determine when we actually have a viable film to
show. I do have an arrangement with the Mt. Shasta Film
Festival in October to show a work-in-progress preview showing.
My feeling at this time is that we will have a finished film
between November 15 and December 15. (Don't even get me
going about Sundance) ...
Jerry
July 28, 2008 -
Moving Forward
Looking good, feeling good
...
I just got back from the southland of LA last night, after a
number of interviews with prospective composers the past few days.
I was hoping that the skies might be clear at Shasta again, but it
seems the fires up here are still dirtying the atmosphere.
Never thought I'd see the poor air down south competing with the
usually pristine air up north. Anyway, I met with six
different composers and have narrowed that down to two, but I
wanted to meet with two others who were too busy. I've
scratched one of them off the list and am now down to three
possibilities. I'm hoping to make my final decision by
August 15th at the latest ...
For me this decision is as important as my DP and editor decisions
were. Because of the importance of sound and music in this
film, the right composer is paramount to make all this work.
I feel we already have the right sound designer and once we put
them both together, the final leg of this journey will really fly
...
Bob and I
spent several hours going through a couple more reels today,
narrowing in for a true first cut. We should be there in
about an about a week and a half. It's looking good, and I'm
feeling good about it. We also finally imported all the
footage from my Panasonic HVX and I must say the footage looked
pretty darn good. In fact, we're making a list of some
possible supplementary shots we may need to shoot. And since
we're right here where we shot it, that shouldn't be a problem.
I recently
did a visual effects breakdown and a voice-over breakdown, since
those are areas we still need to nail down and process. So,
things are rocking and we're moving forward full blast ...
Jerry
August 7, 2008 -
Letting Go, II
Threading the needle, narrowing the destination
...
There are times when trying to balance the good parts and bad
parts of filmmaking can be quite a unique balancing act. For
me, one of those times is right now. Watching footage we
labored so hard to shoot getting trimmed and stripped before my
very eyes. Oh hell. Did I sign on for this? Yes,
of course I did. Watching this film, this child, turn into
something beyond what I thought my genes had programmed it to be.
Gad, beautiful and ugly at the same time. What's a
filmmaker, a parent, to do? ...
Try and
let it be all it can be? Insert yourself more into the
formula, and force it to be exactly as you had envisioned it to
be? Maybe a balance between both? I'm fighting all
kinds of forces inside myself right now, the closer and closer we
get to our final destination with this film. Sometimes I can
hardly look at what it's becoming. Other times I'm
enthralled and amazed at what it's becoming. Nice surprises
pop up here and there, and new challenges never considered
sometimes block our way. Yet through it all, there seems to
be a way to go, a solution to uncover, so that this piece of work
can actually be realized in this world ...
There is
one thing I'm certainly thankful for. That I even had the
opportunity to be here and do this. No matter what happens
here on out, I got to do this. I got to be there and
participate, and create something the world has never seen before.
I feel lucky and yet even so, that makes me want to do it again
even more. Will I know more, do it better, realize even
more? Speculation never really does much for me, so let's
drop it here. I know there is a place this film will call
home. And I hope the people who it's made for will get to
see it. In these changing times, such wishes appear to be on
shaky grounds. But not any more than the way it was made in
the first place. So I'd say we have an even change to find
our place ...
Yet in the
end, the letting go never seems to end. Except. Maybe
that's what moving onto another project is partly about.
Letting go of the kid that has found its own way, and creating a
new one to try and bring into this world. All over again.
All new again. All ready again. Yes, beyond this
horizon, I'm almost getting there ...
Jerry
August 15, 2008
- Spinning Hats
Do this, no that, go here and/or there
...
Bob (editor) and David (sound designer) hard at work
We all know indie filmmakers wear lots of hats, usually out of
obvious necessity and often times more than we thought we'd really
have to. Having already been the writer, director and
producer on "Dreams Awake", I figured there would surely be
more to hats out there to try on. Of course. Having
been the Post Supervisor for a while now, I was wondering what
would surely be on the horizon. Looks like VFX Supervisor is
around the corner, but wait, cameraman is actually next in line.
Looks like I have to go capture a few shots this weekend.
Hey, should be fun. So bring it on ...
As you can see above our post crew is hard at work. In fact,
five of us got to view the first real cut (since the assembly)
yesterday. New running time -- 127 minutes. I figure
we need to end up between 100 and 110 minutes. So we got
some serious work ahead of us. As far as the film itself, it
was mixed. When you're in this phase, it's usually about the
warts, since that's what you need to get rid of to make it
palatable for an audience. Whereas, we could find a number
of things that needed to be worked out, for the most part they
were minor. Everyone agreed that we had a film, we're just
not completely sure what we have. Intriguing, there's still
some mystery in the process. Not so cut and dried. I
love it ...
The editor
(not a reporter) from the local newspaper came in a couple weeks
ago and interviewed us (mostly Bob since they're probably getting
tired of me by now). So there should be a story about that
soon. We are officially the first feature film that was
written, shot and edited in the Mt. Shasta area ...
Jerry
August 24, 2008
- Have you heard the one about...?
A bold, hard-headed rock, a couple sappy, yapping trees, and the
nutty flower with a bad joke
...
We recently spent most of the day dealing with the
fantasy-mystical parts of the film, more specifically parts of the
mountain who speak to our main character. Yes, speak, as in
proper English. However, we will doing some intriguing sound
design with the voices. And it looks like we have some local
actors who may be up to the task of providing us with those much
needed voices, as well as a local sound studio to do the work.
Hooray! I don't have to travel to do that bit ...
But, I
will be leaving tomorrow for the Sacramento area for a day to
transfer some of our full res HD footage to a hard drive for our
visual effects person(s) to work with. Yeah, we're finally
getting that together. We also need to get some stock
footage of some space, stars and galaxy shots. It's actually
amazing how much of that there is these days ...
FYI, I
will putting on a seminar at the Mt. Shasta Film Festival in Oct.
More specifically, on Sunday October 12, 10am--2pm. Called
"Behind the Scenes of 'Dreams Awake'", we will have
several clips from the film, a slick trailer and some
behind-the-scenes footage that our videographer shot. Also,
there will be a drawing for five people to win tickets to the Mt.
Shasta premiere of the film. There may also be a surprise or
two. In addition, we're also going to have a videographer (2
or 3 cameras) there to get it all on tape. And, we're
considering doing a live Internet stream. So, if you can't
make it, maybe you actually can. Should be fun! See 'ya
there ...
Jerry
September 2,
2008 - Story Work
A few more beats, a few less
...
Well, we've got the film under two hours now and will be viewing
the next cut very soon. Beyond the normal trimming of most
of the scenes, several scenes have been repositioned, and of
course a few others have been cut entirely. Not only that,
it seems a few of the minor characters are not only trimmed down,
but gone completely. To make the story work better, we just
had to ax them. Oh well, so goes the way of the story, an
ongoing journey that never seems to end. Expansion,
contraction. Not just a creation, but a deconstruction ...
We're
still doing voice auditions for our fantasy sequences, and I think
we've found some local drama students who will work.
This will be a bit tricky, since we will not be putting faces on
the trees, rocks, flowers that talk. Meaning the voices will
need to carry the character of what (who?) is speaking. Not
an easy task. Yes, the animator can help some, but the voice
work will have to pull it all together. I hope to get in
that studio soon and put all this together ...
On the VFX
front, Bob and I are still trying to determine what we can do in
house and what we have to contract out. We do know some of
the scenes that will be outsourced, but a few are still up in the
air. I think by the end of this week we will have a handle
on all that ...
I'm
getting close to choosing a composer. Guess it's about time,
but this decision has been the most elusive of them all for me.
I really don't think I'll know I've chosen that right person until
I've worked with him for a while. So on this one I'm diving
into the deep end of the pool before I've ever swam there before.
Another adventure to take on ...
Over the
Labor day weekend I hiked around to take a few POV shots we needed
in a couple scenes. These were shots from the characters
point of view that we just didn't have time to get, or didn't
realize we needed. But the edit has shown we do need them.
They'll enhance those scenes a bit and underline some story
points. And it's about the story, right? ...
Jerry
September 9,
2008 - A Story About Us
What the local press says
...
MOUNT SHASTA HERALD
Wednesday,
September 3, 2008
"Deal's
'Dreams' moves toward Big Screen"
A small one-room
outbuilding surrounded by tall pine trees on a hillside with a
view of Mt. Shasta has served this summer as a film editing studio
for Jerry Alden Deal’s “Dreams Awake.
A powerful Apple computer
with a 4 terabyte hard drive contains all the raw footage for
“Dreams,” much of which was filmed last year on and around Mt.
Shasta
Some of it was shot on the
same piece of land where veteran film editor Bob Gordon was quite
content to sit for hours in front of three computer monitors for
several weeks electronically stitching together scenes using one
small high definition video segment after another.
The property belongs to
Deal, the writer, director, and producer of “Dreams Awake,” which
features a cast of both Hollywood actors and a few Siskiyou County
residents
Deal has said previously
that Mt. Shasta, too, is a character in his film. He said he uses
stories about the mountain “as a tapestry for the story that
happens to the family” the story revolves around
"Dreams Awake” is the
feature length film directorial debut for Deal, who has made film
shorts in the past and has written numerous screenplays.
Though the film’s final
mix won’t be ready until sometime after this year’s Mount Shasta
International Film Festival in October, Deal said he plans to show
a trailer of “Dreams” at the Festival, as well as clips from the
film and some behind the scenes footage shot by John Cumming of
MCTV. He will also be giving a
seminar for the Festival.
Gordon, who lives in
southern California, has been a film editor for 30 years and has
worked on more than 30 films. He started with some low budget
features before his first studio film, 1980’s Blue Lagoon, which
was filmed on a small island in Fiji and starred a young Brooke
Shields. Gordon also edited 1985’s “Return of the Living Dead,”
which he describes as one of the first movies in the horror/comedy
genre.
Then in 1991 he began a
year and a half of working as a consultant, and eventually editor,
on the first all-digital full length animated film, Disney’s “Toy
Story,” which was made by the animation studio that later came to
be known as Pixar.
A self-described
“inveterate game player and puzzle doer as a child,” Gordon sees
film editing as “the ultimate jig saw puzzle. It satisfies me; I
get great pleasure in doing it and seeing it when it’s finished.
It also pays well."
Deal said Gordon came
highly recommended, and it wasn’t difficult to convince him to
leave crowded and smoggy LA for a while to do some work in the
mountains of northern California.
Using the film’s script
supervisor notes as his guide, Gordon created what’s known in the
business as a “first assembly,” which has all the scenes of the
movie put together without a film score, sound design and visual
effects.
The “real editing work”
began after the first assembly was complete, Gordon said. That’s
when he and Deal made further changes in the process of getting
Deal’s “vision of the film onto the screen."
At each stage the film
will be pared down to an approximate final running time of about
100 minutes.
In the end, about a third
of the raw film material – Deal calls it “the clay I needed to
work with” – gets cut. Individual scenes as they were originally
conceived were shortened or expanded to get the tempo right.
Deal described his script
as the film’s blueprint. Once the assembly process began with the
real footage, things changed. “There’s a saying that you really
make three movies,” Deal said. “The one you write, the one you
shoot, and the one you edit."
Deal said the film will
soon move on for visual effects work, after which a DVD will be
created and turned over to a sound designer in Los Angeles, who
will work closely with the film score composer
Then it moves to the
mixing stage, during which all the tracks are blended together.
“Dreams Awake,” according
to Deal’s description, tells the story of a disconnected family
that gets stranded while on vacation near Mt. Shasta. “A family
drama grows into a spiritual mystery, and finally becomes a
mystical adventure. A glimpse into the subtle but intense
possibilities of the human spirit, this story delves into that
magical lore between reality and illusions, dreams and awake, and
life and immortality."
The film’s title comes
from a quote by Henry David Thoreau, “Our truest life is when we
are in dreams awake."
The mother in the film is
played by actress Erin Gray of “Buck Rogers,” “Baywatch” and
“Silver Spoons” fame. It is during her journey of self-discovery
that “she wakes up in the dream of her life,” Deal has said.
Comments --
ELEVATE Film Festival -- 9/15
ELEVATE Film Festival, the first ever
filmmaking competition to challenge the international film
community to create works of social and global importance,
announced today that the fifth annual ELEVATE event will take
place on Sunday, October 5 at the brand-new, 7,100-seat Nokia
Theatre L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles. Founded by producer Nadia
Salamanca and award winning filmmaker Mikki Willis, ELEVATE 5 will
premiere 20 short films by some of the industry¹s hottest young
talents for a night of cutting edge cinema devoted to stimulating
positive change.
Growing from just 500 attendees in 2005 to 3,600 at last year's
star-studded event at Hollywood¹s Kodak Theatre, turnout this year
is expected to top 7,000 guests, making ELEVATE the largest single
screen film festival event in the world. "All Tribes Unite" is the
theme of ELEVATE 5 with the competing filmmakers challenged to
create works that inspire people and societies to break out of the
limited thinking and prejudices that persistently divide mankind.
The search for emerging and professional directors is global,
supported through numerous filmmaking outlets and networks. Once
selected, the competitors¹ challenge kicks off two weeks prior to
the October 5 event, when they are randomly assigned the topic on
which they must create their film around. Seven tension-filled
days and sleepless nights follow as the filmmakers hustle to
complete their music video, narrative short documentary, or
commercial for its debut on October 5th.
ELEVATE is free to the public and tickets are awarded on a first
come, first serve basis at the Nokia box office starting at noon
on October 5. Additionally, a limited amount of guaranteed premium
seats can be purchased through Ticketmaster or at the Nokia Box
Office. For more information, please visit:
http://elevatefilmfestival.com
September 18,
2008 - Got Gremlins?
Here, there and everywhere ...
Yeah, it usually happens at one point or another in every film
project these days. Getting trapped and enslaved by the very
technology that has allowed us to be here. I guess you have
to pay the piper sooner or later ...
Anyway,
here we are, seemingly coming down the home stretch in the picture
edit, and...we're practically dead in our tracks. The old
Mac Pro has decided to bloody our lip and make us fight for it,
crashing at will now several times a day. Frustrating, as
for almost two weeks now we've been wrestling with it's demons.
And technology was supposed to serve us, right? ...
That
reminds me of the "Twilight Zone" episode, about the space aliens
who came to Earth to 'serve humans'. Problem was, the book
they had 'To Serve Man' was a cookbook, which the knucklehead
humans figured out too late into the course servings. Yeah,
technology is serving us, huh? Say what's on that menu,
again? Grilled gremlin? ...
So, we've
called in an expert from LA, who we'll probably work with through
the weekend and try to get this all smoothed out. We did all
the updates, both with operating system and with Final Cut Studio
that everyone told us to do. They thought that would fix it,
but, ha ...
But hey,
there is some good news to report! We have hired a VFX
wizard to do our special effects. And we have chosen our
composer and are preparing to hire him. More about both of
them in the next installment. Provided the gremlins don't
take over this blog ...
Jerry
September 26,
2008 - Flying Along
I feel the need for speed ...
All right, now we're clicking. Bob and I are finally soaring
along, fine-tuning the edit. I'm feeling a lot better now,
even though post is sure brutal. Letting go of so much we've
shot is beyond what I thought it would be, but very necessary.
And while it's never easy, it has become a lot easier. Maybe
I'm just getting used to it? Or, after losing a couple
limbs, what are losing a couple more? Nothing, as long as I
can still fly...
Some of
these changes have been subtle, but we have made a couple major
ones that do reflect a new direction in part of the story. I
have finally come to realize the limitations of film. It
seems that injecting too many things for the audience to think
about and consider can easily bog them down and tire them.
It is so much easier to do that in script form, or in the normal
dramatic narrative form of a novel. However, the other side
of that is that film can narrow your focus and thus present a more
direct, sure path to story, allowing you to strip off the excess
baggage we're all so fond of carrying. Usually to our
detriment ...
And right
now, as we get closer to finishing the picture edit, we are
considering the most radical change of all. One so dramatic,
I can barely speak of it. In fact, I'm not going to.
First, because I'm not sure we're even going to do it. And
second, because it is going to be very difficult to do, both for
me emotionally and for us to actually physically do it and make it
work. I do believe that if we do it and can make it work, it
very possibly will enhance the film to a different level.
But, that's a big if ...
Anyway,
our edit will be a little sidetracked a few days, because we have
to prepare clips and behind-the-scenes footage for the upcoming
Mt. Shasta Film Festival. Ha, in my spare time, I've been
going through the hours and hours of the b-t-s footage to pull the
gems out that an audience might find interesting. And I have
found some great tidbits. In fact, I've seen a few things
happening behind the scenes I was not even aware of. Very
enlightening ...
Jerry
September 30,
2008 - New News
Hot off the presses ...
A new one about us and the film festival. Enjoy ...
"Film Festival seminar to feature Hollywood stars"
Erin Gray as Hope and Tim O’Connor as Ambrose
look to the sky in this still from the movie "Dreams Awake." Gray
and O’Connor will be in Mount Shasta Oct. 12 to participate in a
filmmaking seminar as part of the
Mount Shasta
International Film Festival.
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