Productioneering
Hi! How are things? Hopefully they are great. The things. All of 'em.
You know what I've learned about myself in the last couple years? I'm not really terrific at regular updates. This is something some of you may have caught on to already. Most of the times I think to myself, "Hey, Jared, why don't you go update that production blog for 'The Roomies'? After all, you've been productioning. I'm sure there's something worth bloggering about," those thoughts are followed by me thinking, "Nah. I think I'll go boil some water." And then I do that instead.
Well, boiling water doesn't get production blogs written. Getting drunk and writing production blogs gets production blogs written. The first part probably shouldn't be a factor but TOO BAD.
On a completely unrelated note, surprised to be surprised that the cheapest wine with a foot on the label would actually taste like actual feet. I mean, you'd figure, right?
Anyway, you know how the production blog's really pretty much been a post-production blog with a little pre-production at the beginning? Well, we're right back around to productioneering so there's that for whoever wants it. See, we've shown the rough cuts to a few small test audiences and the good news is that people tend to dig it. Bad news is that the issues people did have with it are things I think could've best been solved in the screenwriting stage. Fortunately after discussing said issues with co-producer/lead actor Quinn Allan, it occurred to me pretty quickly how we could address that with not a lot of extra footage. It also gives us the opportunity to throw some more of our buddies into the film, so hey, score on that one.
Fun fact for filmmakers/screenwriters: rewrite! Rewrite until your goddamn hands bleed! I've been watching this thing over and over for months and months and I'm still bashing my head in for not catching issues way back in the screenwriting process. I like what we've got and there's always that strange magic that comes out of the production process that results in things you'd never anticipated before you started shooting, but there're still too many moments that I'll always have to live with knowing they could've been so much better if I'd just spent more time rewriting the damn script. I was in a hurry to finish because I was dead-set on shooting in a location that'd be unavailable after June '09, but still, you know. Damn it.
Regardless, as I said, there was quite a bit of that magic you never anticipate happening along the way. It's my favorite thing about filmmaking, when you have a plan and you're working the plan and then something comes up out of nowhere that's way better than your plan. One of my favorite lines in the movie didn't exist until a minute before we shot it. One of my favorite performances is from an actress who replaced another who disappeared at the last minute (turns out the missing actress is still alive and well after all, at least on Twitter, for all of us who were freaking out about her well-being). And I'm actually kinda stoked that we'll be shooting this extra footage now; I'm not sure I'd have ever written it out this way, but now that we've been forced to get creative I think it's going to turn out better than it might've otherwise.
Other cool things: our illustrious sound editor, Alexandra Fehrman, came up to Portland to visit and we got to chat about the film and all that jazz. She's a friend of Quinn's that I met once way back in weirder times and it was fun hanging out with her again. I'm really excited about hearing her work on this and am also really tired of waiting for me to finish the final picture lock so I can send it to her. Too bad we're shooting more footage and have to put the sound edit off that much longer. Way to go us for trying to make the movie better. Futz.
Hey! So you know what else is futzing great? The soundtrack to this futzing movie is what! Man, I don't know what I'm more excited about. This soundtrack is turning into the best mix-CD I could ever give a buddy. I can't really go into detail until I've got all the paperwork locked down, but holy crap, I'm pretty happy with it. I need to give special credit to Andrew Parish for contributing a ton to the score and soundtrack and just being ridiculously sweet on the electrics. Also stoked to have some buddies from previous Mongrel productions contributing some tunes, so as soon as I can say, I will say away. It's funny how much this movie revolves around music, it really wasn't something we thought too much about beforehand but it's been great to see it go in that direction.
So, things are coming along. Working on a website for the movie, scheduling the extra footage, refining the edit and adding to the soundtrack. That's what we're up to. How about you? How're you? Good, I hope.
Or better.
You know what I've learned about myself in the last couple years? I'm not really terrific at regular updates. This is something some of you may have caught on to already. Most of the times I think to myself, "Hey, Jared, why don't you go update that production blog for 'The Roomies'? After all, you've been productioning. I'm sure there's something worth bloggering about," those thoughts are followed by me thinking, "Nah. I think I'll go boil some water." And then I do that instead.
Well, boiling water doesn't get production blogs written. Getting drunk and writing production blogs gets production blogs written. The first part probably shouldn't be a factor but TOO BAD.
On a completely unrelated note, surprised to be surprised that the cheapest wine with a foot on the label would actually taste like actual feet. I mean, you'd figure, right?
Anyway, you know how the production blog's really pretty much been a post-production blog with a little pre-production at the beginning? Well, we're right back around to productioneering so there's that for whoever wants it. See, we've shown the rough cuts to a few small test audiences and the good news is that people tend to dig it. Bad news is that the issues people did have with it are things I think could've best been solved in the screenwriting stage. Fortunately after discussing said issues with co-producer/lead actor Quinn Allan, it occurred to me pretty quickly how we could address that with not a lot of extra footage. It also gives us the opportunity to throw some more of our buddies into the film, so hey, score on that one.
Fun fact for filmmakers/screenwriters: rewrite! Rewrite until your goddamn hands bleed! I've been watching this thing over and over for months and months and I'm still bashing my head in for not catching issues way back in the screenwriting process. I like what we've got and there's always that strange magic that comes out of the production process that results in things you'd never anticipated before you started shooting, but there're still too many moments that I'll always have to live with knowing they could've been so much better if I'd just spent more time rewriting the damn script. I was in a hurry to finish because I was dead-set on shooting in a location that'd be unavailable after June '09, but still, you know. Damn it.
Regardless, as I said, there was quite a bit of that magic you never anticipate happening along the way. It's my favorite thing about filmmaking, when you have a plan and you're working the plan and then something comes up out of nowhere that's way better than your plan. One of my favorite lines in the movie didn't exist until a minute before we shot it. One of my favorite performances is from an actress who replaced another who disappeared at the last minute (turns out the missing actress is still alive and well after all, at least on Twitter, for all of us who were freaking out about her well-being). And I'm actually kinda stoked that we'll be shooting this extra footage now; I'm not sure I'd have ever written it out this way, but now that we've been forced to get creative I think it's going to turn out better than it might've otherwise.
Other cool things: our illustrious sound editor, Alexandra Fehrman, came up to Portland to visit and we got to chat about the film and all that jazz. She's a friend of Quinn's that I met once way back in weirder times and it was fun hanging out with her again. I'm really excited about hearing her work on this and am also really tired of waiting for me to finish the final picture lock so I can send it to her. Too bad we're shooting more footage and have to put the sound edit off that much longer. Way to go us for trying to make the movie better. Futz.
Hey! So you know what else is futzing great? The soundtrack to this futzing movie is what! Man, I don't know what I'm more excited about. This soundtrack is turning into the best mix-CD I could ever give a buddy. I can't really go into detail until I've got all the paperwork locked down, but holy crap, I'm pretty happy with it. I need to give special credit to Andrew Parish for contributing a ton to the score and soundtrack and just being ridiculously sweet on the electrics. Also stoked to have some buddies from previous Mongrel productions contributing some tunes, so as soon as I can say, I will say away. It's funny how much this movie revolves around music, it really wasn't something we thought too much about beforehand but it's been great to see it go in that direction.
So, things are coming along. Working on a website for the movie, scheduling the extra footage, refining the edit and adding to the soundtrack. That's what we're up to. How about you? How're you? Good, I hope.
Or better.
