A New Start For "My Most Difficult Case"

I got back to work on "My Most Difficult Case" this week. My goal was to get all the files organized, but I also started to make some changes to the movie.

Initially I tried to clean up the computer files and get rid of duplicates. That proved to be difficult, so I just sorted files into those I thought I would need to finish the project and those I didn't think I would need.

The video editing program links to all the input files, and so I had to re-link all the files. That was picky work.

I thought I had it all done, when I noticed a problem with one shot. I had done a overlay to cover up some pictures on the wall because I didn't have the rights to them. It turned out that I had a missing file. I went to the back up drives on the assumption that I had accidentally deleted the file when I got rid of duplicates. I spent a half day searching for the files, and couldn't find them. They weren't on the back up disk either, so I must have accidentally deleted them long ago. Finally I decided to recreate the files. It only took a fraction of the time I spent in my search.

I re-cut part of the movie. Years ago I had a professional video editor re-cut the movie and it turned out much better, so I kept most of his changes. One change I had left in was where he put  the murder scene. It had been at the front of the movie and he moved it to the end to be a flashback.

He recognized the actor from the way he walked and felt that would give away the end of the movie. I wanted to move it back to the start, but hadn't tried it until now. I felt that the vast majority of people who see the movie won't know the actor, so they wouldn't recognize him. I'll have another look at it before I decide to keep it or not.

I need to think through what to do next. There are a few tidy up edits that I think are optional. The main issue though, is the sound. I'm not very sure just what I want to do with the sound. As it stands, it is fairly bare boned. I'd also like to do something to build up the voices too. They sound tinny to me.

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“My Most Difficult Case” Update 2011 October 9

My progress on My Most Difficult Case has been slow. A while back, I started to think of it as My Most Difficult Film, and it has certainly earned that moniker.

Last March I arranged with someone to do the sound postproduction. Unfortunately, they didn’t deliver, so I’ve had to cancel that agreement. That was a big disappointment for me.

I turned to Pat Aull for help. He helped me earlier with My Next Film. He came over one day and in an hour he taught me enough to do the sound myself. Obviously, you don’t learn to be an expert sound technician so fast, but I only need a competent sound track.

A major problem I had with the sound was that the sync sound recording had a lot of noise. My attempts to clean it up were not very promising. I used Audacity for my sound work. With it, I could remove the sound, but it also changed the voices in ways I didn’t like.

Pat suggested I retransfer the sound from the original tape. I didn’t think that would help, especially since the original recorder, a Sony Walkman modified with Chrystal Sync, was no longer available.

Nevertheless, I went ahead and redid the transfer. Much to my surprise the sound turned out much better. I really should have more faith in Pat. There was still a problem with noise, but I found that in my tests I could remove the sound without adversely affecting the voices.

The only problem with the new transfer was that the speed drifted a bit. Over the length of the 44-minute recording, it shifted about 15 seconds. I did a speed adjustment in Audacity. I found that the drift varied and in some places, it was still up to two frames off. I adjusted that after I replaced the sound in Premiere Pro.

I see what I’ve done so far as an experiment. I will go back and redo the noise removal and time adjustment before I move on to the rest of the sound work.

I see three more steps I want to do before I feel I’m done with the sound.

First, I want to do some adjustments to the voices. I think that if I add some room ambience and adjust the tone a bit, they will sound much better.

Second, I want to add in some background noises. For example, Bryson closes some books, but there is silence. The screech when a chair moves as people stand would add some realism. I could use some noises, like a coughs to emphasize the dialog at appropriate places. I could do the same with bits of music.

Finally, I need to balance out the sounds, so the voices are all the same level. The background noises should be in the Background.

I had hoped to have this film all wrapped in 2011, and I still might do that. However, with two other movies on the go for next years $100 Film Festival, that may be too optimistic.

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

Thoughts on No Budget Filmmaking

The concept of no budget filmmaking appeals to me. Largely because I can’t see that I’ll ever get the money for even a low budget movie

The other day I followed a link someone posted on Twitter to the article The Rights and Wrongs of No-Budget Filmmaking http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abe-schwartz/the-rights-and-wrongs-of-_b_940438.html I encourage you to have a look at it.

The essence of no budget is to know your limits and work within them. One bit of advice I like is to use only the money you have immediately available. Never go into debt to make your movie.

I think the key to success is in the writing. It is there that you really need to be aware what you have to work with. In some of the stories I’ve developed I have critical scenes that are well beyond what I could do in a no budget movie. That eliminates those projects right off the top.

What I am starting to realize is that I need to identify my locations and cast my film before I write my script. In my project The Crying Woman I did talk to one actor before I started to write, but I never gave any thought to the other main character. I have no idea who I might get for the part.

The danger of approaching actors too soon is that if it takes a long time to get the project started, they may lose interest.

The more of the work you can do yourself, the better. I do prefer to use a cinematographer rather than do it myself. When I direct I want to concentrate on the actors and not worry about the camera work. I like to edit and write too. Both of these can be very expensive if you have to pay some one else.

The biggest issue for me is sound production. In many ways sound is more important than the images. Sound is also more difficult to do right. I’ve also found that it can be very expensive to hire someone.  I like to work on the sound, but I don’t have much confidence that I can produce an acceptable quality sound track.

Aside from the creative aspects of sound production, I don’t know the technical specifications. I know that there are a lot of tricks that can improve sound quality, but don’t know how to achieve them. The problem I have with My Most Difficult Case is noisy live sound. I haven’t had much success with my own attempts with noise reduction. I can eliminate the noise, but it changes the quality of the voices.

Given the cost of sound production, I think it may make sense for me to take a course in sound production.

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