Tuesday, November 4, 2008

5-Day Film Contest: Day 5

After my six hours at the tiller at Pella Windows, I voted in the election, making my voice count. Well, making it count toward the electoral college. My voice counts for very little. At the most, it offsets and negates the vote of one of my friends who voted for the other guy.

I headed over to Rob's for the final hours of work on our short film contest entry. I got there and he was working on some visual effects while Adam was putting all the waivers and permission forms in order. Rob was exhibiting his traditional "stressed-out" posture of hunching over the computer screen while Adam and I went outside to film those last couple of pickup shots for the film, shots that ultimately went unused in the cut for the contest. They had worked on cutting down the film to the proper length during the day, so it was just the matter of finishing the effects and then fixing the sound and dropping in some sound effects. They were working on that, and I was sitting in the corner trying not to hurry them. They both have technical experience on the editing program, and there's only one computer. So it was a little frustrating not to be able to help very much.

Until photocopies were needed! Rob's printer ran out of ink while printing out some of the waivers, so I grabbed the originals and ran out to Office Depot to do some literally last-minute printing. Rushing back with the papers, I found them more or less done with the edit, just fighting with the computer to drop in the last few sound effects. Rob cut the sound and visual effects into our WWII battle sequence in about 10-15 minutes, which even impressed him later when he thought about it. We rushed over to the college where we needed to drop it (I drove like a maniac but broke very few traffic laws.) When we got to the school, Adam dove out of the car and sprinted across campus in order to get in under the wire. We later heard that he did make it in time, and the person at the desk advised him to relax now that he was in time.

After we could all relax, we went out for a few beers and dinner to celebrate the completion of the project. We talked a bit about some other projects coming up, talked about expanding our current idea into a longer project or even into a webseries. Lots of exciting ideas came out on the table, and I certainly hope that the three of us work on something else in the future. Of course, the most exciting thing on my table right now is the new script for "Reggie Donovan's Best Day Ever." It's due Friday, so I better get started. Better quit this job at the window place....

1 comment:

JParis said...

That's awesome being able to work on a film from start to finish and be a part of the various different creative elements involved.

Well I knew the day would come when your true calling would begin to beckon you away from what I like to call the window mill (as in puppy mill, only with windows, and yet with the same gut-wrenching sadness you feel seeing puppies crammed into dirty cages. Or is it really a people mill, we being the ones crammed into our dirty little cubicles, desperately waiting for someone to come take us away and give us a loving home? OK, I've said too much!) Meanwhile continue bringing in the toys, for all too soon the fun will leave with you.

Anyway, I can't wait to see this latest project!