01/19/05 Illume is finished!

YES! That's right, I am finally done working on Illume! The final sound mix was completed on Sunday January 16th, I just have not had the time to update this log until now. The only work that is left, is to get tapes and DVDs made and start sending them out to as many festivals as I can afford. This could be a lot of work itself, as there will be a lot of time spent dubbing and watching each tape/DVD to make sure it came out well. Also, there will be a lot of paper work.

Since I do not yet know if I can post the full film on my site yet, as it may conflict with certain festivals' rules and regulations, I'm going to hold off on posting it while I start to read a lot of festival material. However, I will post the first third of the film to the right.

Enjoy it. Or don't, but it give it watch either way, a lot of hard work and time went into it.

I will write about my festival submission experiences once I have done enough to be able to comment. It may very well be a while until I provide updates on Illume, any festivals it gets into I will post on the main page of the site.

01/07/05 Another year has started...

Progress is moving ahead very well. The music is finished and the sound design is close. We might be able to work on the final sound mix this weekend, though I don't want to finish the sound design prematurely, and if the mix needs to wait a little while longer then that is fine by me. I think it sounds great, and hopefully I'm right.

Seeing as I have some time there are a few drawings of the cat that I am most likely going to redo. The difference will be slight, and might not even make any difference to anyone except for me. Even so, I'm going to indulge myself with these little details because the film is otherwise finished. I started to look into festivals recently, something that I have never had to do before.

Festivals.... this may be a problem. It seems(rough guesstimate) the average submission will be about $40 including postage; this takes into account $50 fees and fee-free entries (not many). $40 just to have the festival consider your film. This seems like a lot of money with no guarantee of entry, and it's a lot more than I can afford. Let's say I were to submit my film to 100 different festivals over the next year, which would be great. This would cost about $4000, which I do not have. I'm not really sure what to do about this, do I only submit to entry-free festivals? Do I do entry-free and the big name festivals only? Or do I be pessimistic and decide not to bother with big name festivals with the idea that my film is not good enough to get in, therefore save the money? But what if it does get into a big festival? Then it would be worth it.

As of now I plan to look into grants, hopefully there is some money out there somewhere that I can use. It'd be a shame to get this far and not be able to have the chance for my film to make the rounds in the festival circuit...that is of course if it's good enough.

12/29/04 - No more than 33 days left to polish

Work on illume is going great! The music is almost finished, and soon we will record actual instruments. The sound design will take more time than the music to create, but it is going very well too. Most of the basic sounds are already together. These include footsteps, 'contact' sounds (when characters get hit or fall), etc. Watching illume with sound has given me a new bit of objectivity with which to watch the film. Soon I will have seen AND heard it so much that I will likely loose this false objectivity, but until then I can at least enjoy watching the film. While I cannot guess how an audience will react to it, I am enjoying the visuals (with help from the sound) very much.

I have not mentioned the names of anyone involved with the sound on this project before, and I'm glad I did not. This was just in case something happened and they did not end up getting the work done, which has in fact happened. Now that the sound is going so well, and sounding great I would like to give some credit to the man behind half my film, Erik Desiderio. He's a pleasure to work with, a fast worker, is very talented, and has a great ear. A director couldn't ask for anything more. Well, a director could, but it wouldn't be very cool.

The visuals are compiled and there is very little that I need to do with them. I still need to finish color correction, add my credits, and add film grain to the entire piece, but then it will be complete. What a great feeling.

I do not know for sure if I can publicly display illume on my webpage yet. I want to, but some festivals do not allow it, they all have their own rules and regulations. I'll be submitting illume to over 100 festivals over the course of the next year (year from Feb 05 - Jan 06) and need to make sure it is allowed. If not I can hopefully put up a trailer, and create a page for it after any given festival is over. Of course, this is assuming it gets into any festival that does not allow web hosting of films until the festival is over.

That's all I have to report for now, stay tooned for updates as illume will be finished at some point in the next 33 days!

12/19/04

It has been a while since my last update because we have been very busy at work with a couple of ad campaigns, some of which I'm not allowed to talk about at all, so I wont specifically mention any of them to be safe. Sorry.

Sound. So very important, and apparently so hard to get done when you have a lack of funds. I finally have a new sound designer/composer who should be able to get the so-very-important 2nd half of my film finished fairly soon. There was nothing wrong with my other composer, he's great, but he's very busy at the moment and I really want to get my film finished ASAP. Even if it's only to sleep better at night, my new composer can do BOTH the score and the design and has the time to do so right now. Because of this I decided to just have him do it all. We are meeting up tomorrow night to talk about the sound design and for me to hear some more sketches for the music. The one I heard was a great start, so I feel confident that after trying out a few things, and adding/tweeking various aspects over the next few weeks I will finally have a finished film, maybe even by mid-January.

The next few weeks will probably be busy for me with work/the sound for my film, but the deadline for the First Run Student Film Festival, which has my paperwork already, is Feb. 2nd, and I don't like to leave things to the last minute if it isn't necessary.

11/20/04

Visuals complete. I still need to assemble the final edit with all the finished visual work, and then when I watch it I may find that I want to change a few more things; but unless I decide to tweek anything I just need the sound finished.

Sound. Ah, what an important part. I recently had my sound designer bail on me because of some work. I can understand it, but it's not cool. I'm now left with only a tiny bit of sound design and 2 months until I need to turn in my film for NYU's First Run Student Film Festival. The paperwork is already in for the festival. This leaves me in a bad position because I need to find someone else to re-do the sound from scratch or finish what has been started, with a tight deadline. If I cannot find anyone I will have to finish the sound design myself, which I can do, but not as well as an actual sound person. I am working 22 miles north of Grand Central in Manhattan, and we've been working late recently to get a spot finished. It's hard enough to meet with someone when I have a 2 hour commute each way and am working up to 12 hours every weekday for the next few weeks, but when I'll have the time to do it myself if I need to... I don't know. But it has to be done one way or another.