“My Most Difficult Case” Update - 2012 March 25

After a long (too long) delay I am back to work on My Most Difficult Case. I hadn’t done any work on it since last October. I wasn’t even sure what I had to do. I was glad to find that I made some notes back then. The major piece of work left to do is the sound track. Thanks to some good advice from Patrick Aull, I solved the problem I had with noise on the sound from the set.

I didn’t work on the sound this week though. Instead, I tried to modify a couple of brief shots in the film. They are the shots where the killer stalks and kills his victim. These two shots were very difficult to get. I had to shoot them three times before I got something I could use.

The problem with them is that you can see some of the pictures on the wall in the background. If I want to sell the film to a commercial network, I need to get releases for the picture. I tried to find out who owned the rights to the pictures, but got nowhere. I don’t see any way I can hope to get releases for them.

I could likely cut the shots out and not affect the film much. However, after all that trouble I went through to get the shots, I find it hard to just toss them.

I tried several times before to use a garbage key to create a composite to cover up the pictures. I did that successfully with another shot in the film. I didn’t have the same success with these shots. I tried a difference matte this time. From what I read, it should have worked, but it didn’t. I think it was partly because I had a monochrome image and it needed some color to identify the differences. Also, since it was a transfer from film, the grain meant that each pixel would change slightly from frame to frame.

I went back to a garbage key. I reviewed all my takes and found ones where the actors didn’t block out the pictures. This resulted in slightly shorter shots. I am not quite done yet. In the middle of one of the shots, the camera shifts a little and you can see where I covered up the pictures. I think I can fix that without too much trouble.

I was disappointed that the alternative takes were not as dramatic as the originals. I have something I can use now, but I still want to experiment some more and see if I can get a better result. The sound track is the priority now.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

My Most Difficult Case Project Update 2011 April 7

I was a little shocked to realize that I hadn’t done a progress update on My Most Difficult Case since last October. I’ve made some good progress since then.

I’ve “locked” the video for the film. I don’t plan to make changes to it now, so I can move on with the sound. The film now runs about eight and a half minutes. That is down from 11 minutes with the original version. The cuts make it a tighter film.

The composite shot I created of the two lawyers seemed too short for me, so I made it two-thirds of a second longer. I’d still like to remove a couple pictures on a wall in a couple shots. I tried several different ways, but none of them worked. I’m sure I could do it if I spent a lot of time on detail work, but I don’t think it is worth it.

Vildo Sturam did an animated DynamicLethargyFILMS logo for me when he did his cut. After all the file conversions I did with it, the quality was not very good, so I created a new one.

Walter Sheppard http://www.youtube.com/user/TangibleImages did a new music track for the film. He’d done a number of videos with his own music that I thought would work well with the film.

I’ve arranged for Chris James to handle the sound production. He arranged a recording session at Christopher James Connelly’s studio www.music.connellystudios.com and we rerecorded Louis Koutis’ voice over.

My current task is to review the voice over recording and decide which takes to use. Once I’ve made those decisions, I can turn everything over to Chris James to finish the sound.

I am optimistic that the final film will be ready soon.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Image Cleanup and Composites for My Most Difficult Case

I did a little clean up work on My Most Difficult Case. I noticed some visual glitches in the film: spots, dust, light flashes, and stuff like that. I used the composite feature to replace the parts of the image where the problems were. I’m not sure that anyone would notice, but since I did, I wanted to do something.

One thing that had bothered me was that there was a picture on the wall that I didn’t have a release for. I don’t have any information on the picture, so I can’t even contact the person who did the picture to ask for a release. That is a lesson that’ll I’ll need to take to heart on my future projects. Next time I will contact some local artists to get some of their pictures on loan.

A few weeks ago, I tried to superimpose a different picture, but I wasn’t happy with how it looked. This week I replaced the shots where you could identify the picture with other shots where you couldn’t. I did it primarily to cover up the picture, but I think it improves the film as well. The shots I replaced were wide-angle shots and the replacements are tighter. I think that makes the film more intense.

I wanted to replace another shot I didn’t like, but I didn’t have a shot that would work. I decided to try a composite shot. I combined images from several different shots, eight shots altogether, to create the new shot. I can see that it is a composite, but I do have to look closely. It is only on screen for a three or four seconds, so I don’t think anyone will notice.

I have been at a bit of a loss about what to do next on the project. I think I’m pretty much done with the images, so I should start on the music and sound. I still have some releases and other paperwork I need to do.

Cuts, Composites, 16:9 and My Next Film

Louie Koutis, who played the judge in My Most Difficult Case http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php , came over for a visit this week. I showed him the most recent cut of the film and he had some suggestions. I had been thinking along the same lines, so I went ahead and did the cuts.

I tried to replace a picture on the wall in some shots of My Most Difficult Case with the composite tools in Premiere Pro. I have had some success with that, but it is a long slow process, and I haven’t been able to get something good enough to use. I think I can do that if I put more time into it, but I wonder if it is really worth the effort.

One of my ideas was to do a widescreen (16:9) version of My Most Difficult Case. I tried that out this week, and it was easier than I expected it to be.There are still a lot of tweaks I can make to it. I am not sure about the image quality though.

My distribution contract with Ouat Media http://www.ouatmedia.com/ for My Next Film http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_next_film.php comes to an end next week. I haven’t heard anything from them about it. I am not sure just when I can start selling it on my own. I did some work this week to create a good quality version of it that I can use.

My Most Difficult Case 2010 September 12

I contacted some of the people who worked on the film to sign releases. Not everyone has gotten back to me, so I still need to follow up on this.

I read Michael Ondaatje’s book “The Conversations” recently. It is a series of conversations with Walter Murch.

In one section, Murch talks about using music to help a visual transition. There were a couple of transitions in My Most Difficult Case where I thought that might help. I added some music. It’s in the place where I want it, but the music isn’t quite right. I think it will work eventually.

I tried some experiments with compositing. There is a picture on the wall in one scene, and I have no way to contact the person who did the picture to get a release. I want to cover it up some how. I made some progress and I have something that looks OK. It is finicky business and it will take me a while to get it looking good enough to use.

My Most Difficult Case Progress Report – September 5, 2010

I got back to work on My Most Difficult Case (http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php) this week. I didn’t do much in August, because I decided to write and post some articles on Triond. I did six altogether.

My first goal was to recreate what Vildo Sturam did when he did a re-edit a few years ago. I got that done this week. While I worked on the recreation, I got inspired.

I cut some of the Judge’s lines and I want to rerecord some of them with different emphasis. With the defence lawyer’s presentation, I only made a few minor changes. I redid most of the prosecutor’s talk from scratch. Besides that, I did several small tweaks through out the film.

Overall, the film is about nine seconds shorter. There is still more I can do with it.

The sound needs more work. I've done some stuff, but I think it is better to get an experienced sound person to help me on the sound. Someone suggested I add more music too.

When I sold My Next Film, I had to scramble to get all the releases in place. I have most of the releases for My Most Difficult Case in place, thanks to the production manager Tyler Shandro. Still, I have several more that I need to get. Mostly from people who worked on the later shoots.

My Most Difficult Case Progress Report - July 18, 2010

I started to edit My Most Difficult Case. http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php Several years ago, I decided to reedit the film before I tried to distribute it. Vildo Sturam did a new cut for me that was a big improvement over what I had done.

However, other parts of my life intruded and the project went on the back burner. Last month I got the video transfers of my negatives converted to computer files and this week I started to reedit those to conform to the edit Vildo did.

Progress has been good. I am about half way through the film, although I have left the transitions, music and some of the sound until later.

When I matched up the video from the negative transfer with the video from the final film, I was struck by how much more detail I can see in the negative transfer. These two images illustrate this quite well. I haven’t decided how far I will go to match the old look because I like the additional detail.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Example of film image"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Example of negative image"][/caption]

Another problem I need to consider is that I wasn’t able to get a release for the picture on the wall behind the judge. I asked Vildo to obscure it when he did the reedit. What I would like to do is replace it with another image. I know it can be done, but I’ve never done it myself.

My Most Difficult Case Re-Edit

I made a small step forward on My Most Difficult Case this week. I arranged to get my Digital Beta tapes converted to computer files by Digital Video Masters so I can start the re-editing.


They will be converting the tapes into 10-bit uncompressed format. The files from that are large, but they are better quality. I read on-line that because they are uncompressed, the processing time is much faster too.


When I shot the film back in 2002 and 2003 I had all my negatives transferred to video. While I planned to complete the film on film, and did so, I always had in my mind that I wanted the option to go back later.


When I was looking at the tapes at Digital Video Masters, one of the shots caught my eye. Due to a technical glitch, some shots wee out of focus and we had to reshoot them. Looking at the out of focus shots, I thought they had a look that might work well in the film.