Good Thing I'm Not an Accountant

I just realised that it's not a week until the CinVegas deadline. It's TWO weeks. Man, you have no idea what a relief that is. Whew. Okay, breath.

Never stop

Okay, so I've got two feature-lengths scripts a-working and a short one, too - all while trying to get "The Bet" finished up and submitted. Looks like it might be a work in progress that gets submitted, but hoping we'll be able to get it finalised. We'll see.

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days

Sunday we're recording music and Monday (hopefully) I'll get to see the new edit. Starting to freak out a litte bit. Got a lot to get done and not much time to do it. Only TWELVE days until the CineVegas deadline. gotta get a locked picture, shoot the "missing" scene and composite it with the other shot (intentionally vague there), adjust the Donnie and Maree image, record the song, record Announcer VO, record Sportscaster VO, sound design and mix - with possible additional music, color correction, credits, render and burn. oh. my. GOD! okay. Freakin' a lot. If I miss the CineVegas deadline, it's not like there's not 2000 more festivals waiting behind it, but CineVegas was the goal from the beginning. And March 3rd & 12th are the deadlines for two other festivals I wanted to hit, But March 15th is CineVegas. I am not going to miss it.

Feature-Length Happiness

So, I sent a quick, rambling treatment/outline to Chris for the feature I mentioned a few days ago. He likes. I like. And it looks like we might go tandem on this one as well. I can't wait to start digging my claws into the story and pulling out the slimy intestines and forming them into a script. It has all the trappings of a great suspense thriller with a nice psychological drama brewing underneath. And a good dose of slasher horror to top it off.

Mmm, good.

"The Dark Hallway"

Looks like we might be recording the song for the end credits, "The Dark Hallway," at the end of this week. Justine Bellinsky is singing and playing violin for the song Rachel Bellinksy wrote. The tracks from that will be filtered through the film as the score. Hoping to get in to do the finishing by the end of the month.

EDIT 2/13/07: We are recording on the 25th. Rachel will be there with us. Should be fun. I've never been to a recording session before.

“The Bet” Writers Develop Feature

Michael Dunn and Chris Smith, co-writers of “The Bet” have begun developing a feature-length script currently titled Detox. Details are being kept secret until the script is complete.

So, I had this idea... part two

Back in June of last year, I started this blog with the same subject, leading to (finally) the creation of my first short film. So, not content with a single short film, I started thinking a few days ago and came up with the premise for another short. Well, apparently not content with another short, I thought, Why not a feature-length script and film? Well, after a few weeks of hemming and hawing, trying to come up with something compelling, but relatively low budget, I had a breakthrough.

Yesterday I was at a photoshoot at Francis George's and he had this awesome horse syringe sitting on his shelf. It was from a past photoshoot he'd done and I was like, Wow! This thing is cool! So he said I should write something where that could be the poster image.

So last night, lying in bed (which is where the idea to do "The Bet" came from) I was thinking about that syringe and how it could be used. As I was drifting off to sleep, an idea started formulating. And I liked it.

This morning, while putting together our bed from IKEA (actually, it was already together, but I hadn't gotten the midbeam and this morning my task was finishing it off) my mind kept swirling around the idea that had crept in last night. I twisted it and turned it in my head, adding bits, changing bits, rethinking this, retooling that, and by the time the bed was done I had the basic outline of what was going to happen. And I still liked it. Really liked it. A lot!

Now, I'm not gonna give anything away just yet. I'm instead going to chat up ol' Chris Smith who co-wrote "The Bet" and get his take on it. If he thinks it's something worth pursuing... well, I'm gonna go for it.

Stay tuned.

Those Magical Two Words

While waiting to get into finishing on "The Bet" (which is driving me a bit crazy, the waiting; I want to see the darn thing finished), I typed those two magical words: "FADE IN:" and started on a new screenplay. Tentatively titled "The Skin of Mother," the story follows a convicted child molester/murderer who is released from prison after serving his time. He tries to resume a normal life and finds it impossible. Not only does the world around him know he is a sex offender, which makes it difficult to forget what he had done no matter how hard he tries, but he is also haunted by the vision of the young girl he killed. Whether his mind is playing tricks or she really exists, he can't escape her or the harsh reality that people will never forget.

Of course, the other two magical words, as equally frustrating and exhilarating as "FADE IN:" are yet to come. Those two words are: "FADE OUT."

New version of the edit

Dropped off the hard drive with Chris DeFranco at Sun Media who is going to noodle around and see what he can improve upon this weekend. Can't wait to see what happens when someone else with fresh eyes goes through it. Pretty exciting. Hopefully I'll get to see something next week?!?! I wanna lock picture and get to the finishing. Can't wait to see (and hear) it all done.

Did I mention I'm already sussing out a new script? An original idea, not an adaption, and basically taking what I learned on the execution side of "The Bet" (like having to build sets rather than shooting on location, limitations based on the structure of the one-minute-per-room setup, etc.) and working to eliminate the issue that befell "The Bet." Another short. No title yet. But it's got some pretty cool shit in it.

More Color Tests

Version 5 and Version 6 of the color testing are up.

Both were done by exporting the frames as individual images, then batch processing through Photoshop to apply specific color treatments and such (including some frame-by-frame hand fixing). Some things, like the very white highlights in the plaster on the wall were created by masking out the right side of the image and boosting the white. Similarly, the wall went from blue to almost black by masking the right side of the image. While it would be extremely fun to go through and do the whole film this way, I'm hoping the tools available to us in post will be able to achieve the same effect.

Version 5 is much grainier than 6 (which has a blur effect on one of the layers, making the highlights blur out, giving it more of an ethereal feel. Both are FAR darker than Version 2 which was posted a few days ago. Take a look. Let me know what you think. (both files are about 3MB each).