Now that I’ve updated what went on in 2001-2002, here’s an update on what we’re doing right now in 2007.
Mullet is slaving away on the issue 2 script. This is taking a lot of his free time, naturally. But he’s way ahead of where we were for issue 1 so there’ll be more time for story editing and polishing. I’ll see the script eventually and give him some feedback as his story editor.
Writing a comic book is a unique craft compared to screenwriting or prose—you have to come up with the usual story elements (plot, character, dialogue, action), but you also work on the layout of panels and pages. Until Mullet started writing our comic book, I had no idea what the roles of the writer, artist, etc were in that format. Like with movies and TV, well-written and well-designed comics make the writing transparent, so I never really thought about it before. I have more respect for the writers now, to be sure.
Meanwhile, back at the video ranch, I’m chasing a bunch of loose ends. This blog takes some of my time, and I’ve used it to find the discipline necessary to get back to writing almost every day (with the goal for every day). I am working on several script ideas, which I hope to have ready for Mullet by December. I have 4 shorts on the go as rough drafts, plus about a dozen interstitial/blackout type ideas that I think we’ll either use on the DVD as transitions and/or as a collection of short bits that we’ll post online.
When I get tired of writing, I’ve been playing around with the Babysitters final cut, and I finally got back to working on the edit of Can that Andrew Currie did for us. I still have to put Stalled together, and I’m working on an idea for opening credits (for the shorts) that will tie into the comic a bit (I sketched out some quick storyboards and then started some tests in Motion to see how I could accomplish what I’d drawn).
I’ve also downloaded the demo for 2 elements of Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Suite. More about that next time, once I’ve had the chance to play with it.
So that’s where we’re at, for the moment.
Showing posts with label Can. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Can. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
September Roundup, Part II
If you made it through Part I, congratulations! This part will deal with the non-writing stuff I’m doing right now.
I have started work on a few video projects in the last month or so. Andrew Currie delivered the first cut of Can last month through the magic of a portable hard drive. I have AC’s project file as well as all the clips as he had logged and captured them—I haven’t had to go near my camcorder on this project!
AC’s cut was a first cut, so a lot of the clips are not trimmed completely so it plays really, really slow. In the second edit, I’ll trim everything up to pick up the pacing. I’m not changing any of the shots AC chose or the order he placed them, so the only differences will be the trims and any slow-mo and, er, fast-mo shots. There’s also a bit of CGI in it, a gag that AC came up with that wasn’t in the original shooting script. I’m using Motion to create it, and I’ll probably end up doing 10 different variations. I’ve tried 3 different ways so far, without coming up with what I want, but that’s how I’ve always worked with pixel-pushing software like Motion or After Effects: hack away at it until you get something.
After the CGI is done, I’ll start the audio work and get some sound effects in there, adjust the dialogue tracks, and prep it for whoever ends up scoring it. I will likely put in a temp score courtesy of my iTunes library to give us and our future composer an idea of what the music should do in different places. A couple of shots will need “stunt music,” specific genres to help set up or payoff a gag.
So that’s where Can stands this month. Next, the other short we worked on this summer, Bags.
Mullet has to come over and watch the rushes from the 3 shoots we did. We still need to shoot the exteriors for it, but all the interiors are done. Once we watch the footage from the 3 shooting days, I’ll start putting the takes we liked into a first cut.
We’ve always watched “the rushes” together after a shoot, just to pick out what works and what doesn’t work. Of course, sometimes in the editing you can’t use the best take because it either doesn’t match the preceding or following clip, or the best take is way too long/short and kills the pacing, or it steps outside of the story for too long or at the wrong time in the story. Most of the time, though, the best take ends up in the final edit. Sometimes, watching the rushes reveals that the takes we liked on the day aren’t the best takes on tape. We judge the takes by feel as much as by story logic, visual and aural clarity, etc., so it’s all about listening to your gut. The best takes tend to make you laugh out loud, even if you are watching a few hours after doing whatever it is that is making you laugh.
I make my notes, noting takes and timecode (we don’t usually keep continuity records while we’re shooting—we’ve evolved into a looser system where I number the takes on the clapper and don’t bother making notes about no-goods and goods until we watch the rushes.
Afterwards, I rewind the tapes, fire up the Mac, and start logging everything to batch capture. I capture all takes, even the false starts, because you never know when you’ll need something unexpected, and you can quite often find good stuff in bad takes, between takes, etc., especially with closeups. Most of it, of course, will never see the light of day, but during editing it’s invaluable to have all your crap handy, just in case.
Also on the go is a blast from the past, Babysitters. This was our first project, a 74-minute epic that took nearly 2 years to write, shoot, and edit. More about it in a later post….
Finally, I’ve been working on a teaser to post on our website and elsewhere to promote the DVD. I’ve done a couple of versions of one that I think we’ll likely put up when Mullet revamps the website in the New Year. I’ll have to come up with followup videos, of course, so that’ll be an ongoing process until we head to San Diego next July.
And, of course, we need opening credits for the shorts.
I did some quick ‘n’ dirty credits last July to loop on DVD at our table at the 2006 San Diego con, but it was basically Miller & Mullet running around. Someone recently gave us advice about the comic book, suggesting that their lack of knowledge of the characters made the story harder to understand, and I think this applies to the DVD as well.
We’ve been performing the act for 7 years, and it’s sometimes hard to remember that the rest of the world doesn’t know who we are.
So, our opening credits will likely be a Gilligan’s Island type with the lyrics carrying exposition as to what’s going on. Another, more recent model is the House of Cosbys from Channel 101. An animated series of shorts, House of Cosbys has a great, funny theme song that, with animation over it, explains the backstory to the series so that you know instantly what’s going on. We need the same thing, so as I work on these other things on my Mac, I’ll earmark footage that we can use. Of course, we’ll have to come up with a theme song, or at least lyrics that someone can compose a song for, but that’s an entry for another day….
I have started work on a few video projects in the last month or so. Andrew Currie delivered the first cut of Can last month through the magic of a portable hard drive. I have AC’s project file as well as all the clips as he had logged and captured them—I haven’t had to go near my camcorder on this project!
AC’s cut was a first cut, so a lot of the clips are not trimmed completely so it plays really, really slow. In the second edit, I’ll trim everything up to pick up the pacing. I’m not changing any of the shots AC chose or the order he placed them, so the only differences will be the trims and any slow-mo and, er, fast-mo shots. There’s also a bit of CGI in it, a gag that AC came up with that wasn’t in the original shooting script. I’m using Motion to create it, and I’ll probably end up doing 10 different variations. I’ve tried 3 different ways so far, without coming up with what I want, but that’s how I’ve always worked with pixel-pushing software like Motion or After Effects: hack away at it until you get something.
After the CGI is done, I’ll start the audio work and get some sound effects in there, adjust the dialogue tracks, and prep it for whoever ends up scoring it. I will likely put in a temp score courtesy of my iTunes library to give us and our future composer an idea of what the music should do in different places. A couple of shots will need “stunt music,” specific genres to help set up or payoff a gag.
So that’s where Can stands this month. Next, the other short we worked on this summer, Bags.
Mullet has to come over and watch the rushes from the 3 shoots we did. We still need to shoot the exteriors for it, but all the interiors are done. Once we watch the footage from the 3 shooting days, I’ll start putting the takes we liked into a first cut.
We’ve always watched “the rushes” together after a shoot, just to pick out what works and what doesn’t work. Of course, sometimes in the editing you can’t use the best take because it either doesn’t match the preceding or following clip, or the best take is way too long/short and kills the pacing, or it steps outside of the story for too long or at the wrong time in the story. Most of the time, though, the best take ends up in the final edit. Sometimes, watching the rushes reveals that the takes we liked on the day aren’t the best takes on tape. We judge the takes by feel as much as by story logic, visual and aural clarity, etc., so it’s all about listening to your gut. The best takes tend to make you laugh out loud, even if you are watching a few hours after doing whatever it is that is making you laugh.
I make my notes, noting takes and timecode (we don’t usually keep continuity records while we’re shooting—we’ve evolved into a looser system where I number the takes on the clapper and don’t bother making notes about no-goods and goods until we watch the rushes.
Afterwards, I rewind the tapes, fire up the Mac, and start logging everything to batch capture. I capture all takes, even the false starts, because you never know when you’ll need something unexpected, and you can quite often find good stuff in bad takes, between takes, etc., especially with closeups. Most of it, of course, will never see the light of day, but during editing it’s invaluable to have all your crap handy, just in case.
Also on the go is a blast from the past, Babysitters. This was our first project, a 74-minute epic that took nearly 2 years to write, shoot, and edit. More about it in a later post….
Finally, I’ve been working on a teaser to post on our website and elsewhere to promote the DVD. I’ve done a couple of versions of one that I think we’ll likely put up when Mullet revamps the website in the New Year. I’ll have to come up with followup videos, of course, so that’ll be an ongoing process until we head to San Diego next July.
And, of course, we need opening credits for the shorts.
I did some quick ‘n’ dirty credits last July to loop on DVD at our table at the 2006 San Diego con, but it was basically Miller & Mullet running around. Someone recently gave us advice about the comic book, suggesting that their lack of knowledge of the characters made the story harder to understand, and I think this applies to the DVD as well.
We’ve been performing the act for 7 years, and it’s sometimes hard to remember that the rest of the world doesn’t know who we are.
So, our opening credits will likely be a Gilligan’s Island type with the lyrics carrying exposition as to what’s going on. Another, more recent model is the House of Cosbys from Channel 101. An animated series of shorts, House of Cosbys has a great, funny theme song that, with animation over it, explains the backstory to the series so that you know instantly what’s going on. We need the same thing, so as I work on these other things on my Mac, I’ll earmark footage that we can use. Of course, we’ll have to come up with a theme song, or at least lyrics that someone can compose a song for, but that’s an entry for another day….
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Finally something in the can!
We finally have something in the can!
After all these months of moaning about preproduction and rewriting, we actually went out with camcorder and director in hand and shot stuff.
This past Saturday (May 12), Mullet and I were joined by Andrew Currie, esteemed grad of the Second City mainstage company, one half of the Devil's Advocates, blogger extraordinaire, and producer of the late Second Cine video show which played a couple of videos we did. AC is also a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, so he actually knows what he's doing.
This was our first experience with a pro, and it was a good learning experience for us.
We shot it on location on a side street one block north of Queen West, between Spadina and University. Behind the Rivoli, really. In fact, we used their garbage cans for a few shots, much to the dismay of some tired-looking cooks and a bemused manager. The street had these great alleys and laneways, strewn with garbage, brilliant and mundane graffiti, and that big city grunge that can't be craeted by art directors (unless they have a lot of money or use the real thing...).
AC wanted to work chronologically as he was basically editing in camera with minimal coverage. He didn't need the slate as he'll be editing it himself, but I did grey-card the first tape just to make sure I can get colour-balance done later on. I brought along my usual continuity log sheets, but they weren't needed, either. This was one difference between how AC shoots and how we did it, but with a 5-page script, I guess the usual slate/log stuff is probably borderline overkill. We have shot stuff without logging it or slating it, like our Aristocrats DVD contest entry which was 5 takes of the same story with 2 cameras, so I only changed the take number on the slate to mark the start and end of each take.
We did a number of takes for each set up until he got one good one and one safety in the can. This is basically what we do, so this was nothing new --though he did apologize when making us do another take when hunched over or fumbling through garbage (not necessary --we've made ourselves do a lot worse for a lot more takes...). With the lines being minimal and me not having to do more than perform, I was more focussed on the performing than I usually am, so I believe I sucked less than usual.
Mullet was good, too,
After all these months of moaning about preproduction and rewriting, we actually went out with camcorder and director in hand and shot stuff.
This past Saturday (May 12), Mullet and I were joined by Andrew Currie, esteemed grad of the Second City mainstage company, one half of the Devil's Advocates, blogger extraordinaire, and producer of the late Second Cine video show which played a couple of videos we did. AC is also a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, so he actually knows what he's doing.
This was our first experience with a pro, and it was a good learning experience for us.
We shot it on location on a side street one block north of Queen West, between Spadina and University. Behind the Rivoli, really. In fact, we used their garbage cans for a few shots, much to the dismay of some tired-looking cooks and a bemused manager. The street had these great alleys and laneways, strewn with garbage, brilliant and mundane graffiti, and that big city grunge that can't be craeted by art directors (unless they have a lot of money or use the real thing...).
AC wanted to work chronologically as he was basically editing in camera with minimal coverage. He didn't need the slate as he'll be editing it himself, but I did grey-card the first tape just to make sure I can get colour-balance done later on. I brought along my usual continuity log sheets, but they weren't needed, either. This was one difference between how AC shoots and how we did it, but with a 5-page script, I guess the usual slate/log stuff is probably borderline overkill. We have shot stuff without logging it or slating it, like our Aristocrats DVD contest entry which was 5 takes of the same story with 2 cameras, so I only changed the take number on the slate to mark the start and end of each take.
We did a number of takes for each set up until he got one good one and one safety in the can. This is basically what we do, so this was nothing new --though he did apologize when making us do another take when hunched over or fumbling through garbage (not necessary --we've made ourselves do a lot worse for a lot more takes...). With the lines being minimal and me not having to do more than perform, I was more focussed on the performing than I usually am, so I believe I sucked less than usual.
Mullet was good, too,
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