Sound Mix

Mitch Lindskoog and I put in another six hours yesterday perfecting the sound mix.  We still have work remaining on the sound edit.  But we are nearing completion.  It is extremely satisfying to hear the movie coming into focus.

(Mitch in his native environment - with The Last Hurrah playing in the background)

We knew we would encounter challenges shooting in one take.  What we didn't anticipate is that the sound edit is the most challenging hurdle of all.  Our beleaguered sound team has to make sense of 16 lavalier and boom radio channels often distorted by static, production sounds, or even Spanish radio frequencies.

To further complicate matters, our sound designer's band is away on another 6 week European tour.  This is his third tour in 2008, and this has effected our desired schedule.

All this being said, I do believe sound is very close to completion.  The remaining focus will be on Jay to complete visual effects and titles, and Chuck to do color correction.  I cannot wait to have this movie in the can, and begin to submit it to festivals in earnest.

Web Site

I created the web images this week, flexing my wimpy Photoshop muscles. I also rewrote all the actor and crew bios, and prepared all the material for the web site. Faith, our web developer, is really together. I showed her my design for the web site and it sounds like she can make it happen. I love having a strong team.

Here is Faith's first mock-up of the web layout. I love simple, clean design.

Set Photography

This is Carolyn, our set photographer. It so happens, she's dating the editor, Jay. So we seem to have an unusually high number of editor photos.

I compiled all the set photography this weekend. This means sorting through roughly 800 photos from four different photographers, adding captions and credits of the best 100 for the distributor package, and then choosing 20 images for the web site. I wish I had an odometer to show me how many hours I've spent on The Last Hurrah.

On second thought, I really don't.

Musician Agreements

Getting permission to use a single song in the movie may require negotiating and signing six different contracts.  The Masters contract, the Synchronization rights, the composer's contract, the label's contract, the publisher's contract, and the performer's contract. I generated 120 musician contracts in December, and I have signatures for 70% so far. People have asked me if it's hard to direct a movie.  I tell them directing is nothing compared to producing.  Writing and directing comprise about 2% of the time I have spent on The Last Hurrah.  Everything else I do is producing.

As far as wrangling musicians to sign their agreements, I'm very glad to have Adam Boardman to help me chase down a few folks.

I'm thrilled to be using Sugarman 3 in the soundtrack. I've been such a big fan of them for so many years, and it is wild to talk to Neal Sugarman on the phone and get his thumbs up for the movie!

Malibu

I got many, many things off the to-do list this week. Measurable progress. Minor physical and emotional exhaustion. Chuck says I'm pushing too hard and need to give myself some distance. So I forced myself to take the morning off. I drove to Malibu, which is a different world from Silverlake. I sat in the sand and watched pelicans and dolphins. I read Notes from Underground and just stared at the Pacific. Finishing this movie, there are so many emotional highs and lows that each week feels like a month. I can dig it, but it is nice to take a day off.

ADR

Had a really fun ADR session today with Randy Wayne. Randy is this guy:

Randy plays "Dogbowl," a hyper character with ADD who is in constant motion. To add depth to the sound design, Jeff and I recorded a lot of extra dialog for Randy that we can pepper throughout the movie. So any time there is a break in conversation, Dogbowl can be heard screaming something in the background.

Practical ADR

Remember that we filmed The Last Hurrah all the way through from start to finish, each day of our shoot. This means that if an actor flubbed a line 34 minutes in, we didn't yell cut and start over at the beginning. We just kept rolling. This makes ADR especially important for this movie!

Randy's was a fun ADR session because it involved a lot of improv. But several of the actors needed more meticulous ADR because their lav mics on set had too many pops and cracks. In these situations, the actor stands in a sound booth watching film footage on a monitor, and gets recorded saying the same lines over and over until the ADR recordist gets a usable take. Actors must match the pitch, rhythm, and characterization of lines they spoke six months ago. It's hard work!

Put on some head phones, lock yourself in a closet, and read each sentence of this blog post, out loud, fifteen times in a row. Now do that for four hours. And you will begin to get a sense of how an ADR session works.

ADR for the Director

My background is in sketch comedy. Sketch comedians are a neurotic breed who will eagerly invest hours perfecting the rhythm, nuance, and timing of three minute comedy sketches that will probably only be performed on stage once.

With our extremely limited rehearsal time for The Last Hurrah, there was barely enough time to memorize lines, let alone perfect comedic timing. Going into post production, there were about forty lines in the movie whose pace and comedic delivery I was not satisfied with. ADR is giving Jeff and me a second chance to let the actors perfect their comedic performances.

The Weird Part About ADR

Maybe it's because our actors are hilarious, or because there's a lack of oxygen in the recording studio, or because you get punchy after hours in a windowless room...but ADR is hysterical after a while. Every one of our actors had me cracking up - recording themselves doing funny voices and saying ridiculous things.  I'm surprised to discover that ADR is one of the most fun parts of the process, with the added bonus that I get to spend time with our actors again.

Foley

We spent about six hours recording foley today. I love working with the sound team. There is nothing like five guys on four computers in one room working toward one goal. Foley is ridiculously fun. To give a taste, we need to Foley the sound of a very inebriated character peeing in the shower.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but people are used to the sound of urination in a toilet...which loudly resonates in a bowl full of water. By contrast, micturition on flat shower tile sounds high-pitched and wimpy - it doesn't sound believable. Engineering this sound may require a creative mix of noises that have nothing to do with either showers or urination.

I have to stress that the shower-pee sound is really important to the character. The audience must understand that this gentleman is so shnookered, so unbelievably plastered, that he walked past a perfectly good toilet to pee in the shower instead. Before today, I never fully appreciated how many potential laughs in a movie are the work of the sound designer.

Sound Design

Every sound in a movie is built by a sound designer. Often, the only sound being recorded on set is the actor's voices. And even then, the actors are often re-recorded in a carefully controlled studio during post-production. The Last Hurrah was filmed at a house party with as many as 50 dancing, partying extras. But the party was completely silent except for the two or three actors on camera. The extras who appear to be conversing in the background are lip-synching. And the dancers moving to the music are miming.

Movie Magic

Watch closely the next time you see a dance club in a movie or TV show. The dancers in the background probably aren't dancing to the beat. In fact, the dancers may all be moving to completely separate beats.

Notice how lead actors are able to speak in conversational voices during a crowded night club scene. Why aren't they screaming into each other's ears?

Crowd noise and music are created in post production. The editor has no way to cut together a sequence if there is real music recorded in the background. Every dog bark, every cricket chirp - it's all carefully recorded and controlled by the sound designer.

Sound Designer's Job

Our Sound Designer Jeff loves to think big picture. In one sense, Jeff's job is very similar to Chuck's (Cinematographer) and Shane's (Production Designer). To make a one take movie feel as if it's divided into separate scenes. To give each area of the party its own distinct mood by assigning noises and environments to different areas of our blocking charts.

Another part of Jeff's job is to make the audience listen very carefully to our dialog. Our movie does not have big sex scenes, car chases, or explosions. We need a quiet and delicate sound design that will pull the audience into the party and make them listen to all the voices around them.

This is a finesse job. The crinkle of red beer cups. The clink of beer bottles. The sound of ice dropping into a glass. These delicate noises tune the audience's ears to listen, as opposed to deafening everyone with a loud score and violent explosions.

The Era of Sound Design

Thanks to incredible movies like "No Country For Old Men," Sound Designers are finally getting the attention they deserve. Someone told me (I tried googling and can't verify this statistic) that two-thirds of the Academy Award winners for Best Picture also win for best Sound Editing or Sound Mixing. I can certainly believe it.

A statistic I can verify is that since 1950, two-thirds of the Best Picture winners also win one of the two Best Screenplay awards. This makes sense to me, too...

Composer

The wonderfully talented Dominic Mazzoni has signed on to be our composer for The Last Hurrah. And I am absolutely thrilled. Jay (editor) and I went to college with Dominic and have always known him as a great jazz composer. After school Dominic got a second degree, worked at JPL as a geologist, created the Audacity sound editing software, and now works for Google.

Scoring The Last Hurrah

I always envisioned The Last Hurrah to be a sort of Woody Allen movie for Generation Y. Like if Woody Allen were 25 and could somehow stand to live in Los Angeles. This is what I was aiming for anyway.

I love jazz. When I lived in Manhattan, I kept my food budget down to an insane twenty dollars a week (you don't believe me but this is true) so I could spend every free dollar I had going to The Vanguard, Birdland, The Blue Note, Iridium, Fez, St. Nicks, and of course, Smalls.

Jay and I scored a lot of Grant Green into The Last Hurrah's temp mix to simulate the lighthearted feel of a Woody Allen movie. I had a lot of discussion with the producers about whether jazz would be thematically appropriate for a movie about 20-something hipsters. In the end, I found that when we scored the movie with rock-and-roll it felt more like American Pie than Annie Hall. Jazz and comedy just go together like tomatoes and basil.

Dominic's Role

I didn't even attempt to negotiate with Blue Note for use of their musicians. Especially when we have a wunderkind like Dominic Mazzoni in our corner. He is amazing to work with.

To give a taste, Dominic composed the opening credit music as a jazz trio. And then brought back the same theme as a piano solo for the final scene in the movie. I love the bookends!

Scheduling

To give a sense of the complexity of post-production, here is my to-do list for this weekend... Jon's Action List Saturday, January 5 - Sunday January 6

 
• *Randy thumbs up for ADR
• *Ravi thumbs up for ADR
• *Jeff's thumbs up on Susan/Lex for ADR
• *Jeff's thumbs up for additional Indira sound files
• *Jay to deliver Jeff sound files for Dogbowl end credits
• *Jay to deliver Jeff sound files for pre-credits and credits
• *Jay to deliver Reel 1 footage to Chuck for Color Correction
• *Jay to temp new Afghanistan music
• *Jay complete Lex and Ritalin After Effects
• *Adam Music update
• *Chuck/Jon/Jeff discuss Color Correction
• *Chuck/Jon exchange bank cards
• *Chuck research/complete Brand Image
• *Chuck sign Peter's release
• *Chuck $62 check to TLH, LLC
• *Peter $207 check to TLH, LLC
• *Jon $888 check to TLH, LLC
• *Jon write Composer contract when Dom gives song titles
• *Jon complete Richie's extra list
• *Jon raise more money
• *Foley Prop Gathering for Tuesday
• *Lunch and Sound meeting tomorrow 12pm
• *Richie Rotoscoping Update
• *Richie/Lisa to sign New Epic Transfer
• *Richie Festival Calendar
• *Richie writes Deal Memos for Lisa (get signed) and Jay and Jeff
• *Richie Tribeca Cost?
• *Dominic to deliver music files, new drum beat, song titles
• *Investors to sign and fax LLC Operating Agreement, Subscription, and Promissory Note

Great Books I Read in 2007

Taking a big cue from the over-achieving Aaron Swarz, I decided to post my favorite books from 2007. It would be nice to read 52 books a year, but I fell short with 37, possibly due to directing and producing a movie. What follows is an unranked list of books I loved. I hope this list doesn't out me as a philistine; while I read some literature in 2007 (Flaubert, Dante, Henry Miller, Gabriel Garcia Marquez*, Jorge Amado) these literati did not ring my bells enough to make the all important Stokes' 2007 list.

The Hero With 1,000 Faces - Joseph Campbell

Reread. Myth as social-psychoanalysis. The advent of the monomyth. And the belief that denial of the ego and realization of the whole is the central enlightenment of all religions. A must read.

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

GREAT!!! The first half is sensational; halfway through the story seems to resolve and loses some momentum...plus the cleverness of the dialog and description seems to fall off a tad. Still, the opening half is absolutely pitch perfect and carries the whole story; an amazing novel.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris

Wonderful; possibly his best - the story about SinterKlausen is laugh out loud funny.

Blink of an Eye - Walter Murch

The legendary editor. Very readable book on film theory. A central idea is that for an audience, editing is blinking. Understanding when humans tend to blink helps inform what will feel natural in timing your edits.

One of the most under appreciated areas of "movie magic" is good editing.  The best editing is often invisible.  Poor editing reminds you that you are watching film, and pulls you out of the story.

From Reel to Deal - Dov S-S Simens

Wow, what a great book, and written from an incredibly likable voice. Really a tremendous source of great information about independent film.

The Areas of My Expertise - John Hodgeman

Every few pages I stop and think, "how did he think of that?"  I'm glad for this book's success.

Antigone - Sophocles

Some great, great, Shakespeare-level speeches; particularly from Antigone and Haimon. Not sure it would translate well to modern theater without major revision - but it's a pleasure to read.  Here's a taste: "Leave me alone with my hopeless scheme; I'm ready to suffer for it and to die.  Let me.  No suffering could be so terrible as to die for nothing."  Boo-yah!

Trouble is my Business / Finger Man / Goldfish / Red Wind - Raymond Chandler

Great, Great, Great, Great.

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

The last scene is remarkably good, particularly when he finally has it out with the treacherous femme-fatale. This is enjoyable writing, the height of craft.

Medieval Europe; A Short History - C. Warren Hollister

Basically making the point that the middle ages weren't the "dark ages" but a continual evolution from the ancient to the modern, giving rise to legal, constitutional, nationalistic, scientific, architectural, and technological innovations.

No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

The first 2/3rds are brilliant; witty characters with wonderfully colloquial dialog.  The last 3rd of the book is the long, moralistic ramblings of an old man.

I found the tone of the movie to be remarkably faithful to the book. However, because the movie obeyed classic three act structure, and kept the denouement short and sweet, the film ending felt more satisfying than the novel.

Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler

Just Great, Great, Great. It's just incredible writing, regardless of genre. As poetically beautiful as Proust or Shakespeare.

World War Z - Max Brooks

Really wonderful. It captured my imagination - how to stave off a Zombie attack. It's so realistic and stunningly well-researched.  I agree with the author's politics. Perhaps best of all, it successfully tells a compelling story while abandoning classic structure. Really great literature.

Harpo Speaks! - Harpo Marx

Amazing autobiography. A reminder of how to live and how to be and an amazing snapshot of American history. Probably the most important book I read all year.

Screenplays I liked

*Bim-Bam-Baby Screenplay by Jeremy Catalino

A strong lead character with funny lines.

*The Bucketlist Screenplay by Justin Zackham

A powerful story about death and the meaning of life.

*Flamers - Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor - aka "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"

This script's concept and structure are great. There are almost no jokes on the page, but it doesn't seem to matter. The characters and situations completely drive the story, creating all the textbook required tension. They are forced down this path - every step seems inexorable. The pages turn themselves on the strength of the story and its conflicts.

Good Will Hunting - Matt Damon and Ben Affleck

Read the original screenplay; it's very good. There are many extra scenes not in the movie and probably not necessary; however every scene is a great scene - with a clever beginning, middle, and end. Some great dramatic writing.

It continues to be a great mystery in Hollywood how these guys wrote one script, won the Academy Award for best screenplay, and then never wrote again. How is this even possible? I've heard rumors around town about the writing credits on this movie... What is the explanation?

*Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude" or "Love in the Time of Cholera" are among my absolute favorites. But this year I read "Autumn of the Patriarch." It was intriguing because each sentence lasts forty pages and switches POV multiple times. But it may be an example of experimentation sacrificing story rather than supporting it.

Jay Trautman

Jay Trautman has been one of my strongest mentors throughout The Last Hurrah.  Ostensibly, Jay is our editor.  But he's also attended every single production meeting, and is responsible for hiring our excellent sound department on set.  On top of that, he brought on Jeff Byron for post production.

Jay doesn't treat The Last Hurrah like a job.  He treats it like a creative project - like being in a band.  I find myself seeking his feedback on everything from story notes to budget questions.  When I couldn't figure out a two-shot with Steve and Will on set, it was Jay who pulled out Masculin-Feminin to convey how two shots are sometimes superfluous.

To convey the scope of Jay's creative influence on the movie, Jay is largely responsible for turning me on to the local Silverlake punk bands who will be populating our soundtrack.

(Adam Harr, Jay Trautman, and Yours Truly)

You might wonder, how much work does an editor do on a one-take movie?  A tremendous amount.  We have some extremely tricky special effects sequences that are taking months to design.  We also have so many people to coordinate with for color, picture, and sound editing.  And we have not yet worked on cutting a trailer and making of.  It's a decent amount of work.

Music

Set at a house party, The Last Hurrah has wall-to-wall music. Forty-one separate music cues! The Mae Shi

My friend and editor, Jay Trautman, has turned me onto a lot of local Silver Lake and Los Feliz punk bands. Underground groups that play The Smell or Spaceland. There are some real gems.

Jay - our one-take editor - also "edited" this one-take music video for The Mae Shi. They are a local pop-punk band.  It sounds like we may get to use their music in our movie!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUKAcKKQns4&rel=1]

Getting Great Musicians

I am so thrilled to be working with musicians I have admired for years. You spend years playing their CDs in your car on the way to work, and never dream you'll one day be calling them on the phone telling them about your movie. I am completely stoked to be including music from amazing musicians like Adam Daniel, Sugarman 3, and Typical Cats.

Working with Friends

It's also a great feeling to be using music from my buddies. Libbie Schrader is a really talented singer songwriter who was in my college a cappella group. Kelly Perine, of Birthday Suit, was in my college improv group. And rapper "DW" is none other than David Wachs - one of the stars of The Last Hurrah.

Music We Can't Use

There are musicians I love who I have not been able to get permission from. Earlimart, M83, The Airborne Toxic Event, Tandemoro, and Spoon. Well, I didn't expect everyone to say yes. No matter how "indy" a band is - their labels are in the business of making money.

What surprises me is when the unsigned bands don't return my calls. That's not good business sense, in my opinion. But it's fine - we want our musicians to be as enthusiastic about us as we are about them.

Finding the Right Fit

It is amazing how hard it is to fit a song to a scene. I estimate I listen to twenty songs for every one song that makes it into a temp session. The process is fun, but unbelievably time consuming. I don't know what music supervisors did before MySpace.

Bands under my magnifying glass include:

Geggy Tah, Division Day, Meiko, Nasoj Thing, The Kax, Alison Block, Nous Non Plus, Tigers Can Bite You, The Deadly Syndrome, The Transmissions, Thinking Aloud, The Shark That Ate My Friend, The Henry Clay People, Gabe Mann, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Monolators, Castle Door, The Happy Hollows, Eagle and Talon, The Primos, Thailand, The Eulogies, Andy Frasco, Blood Arm, Die Rockers Die, Totally Radd, Bang Sugar Bang, Spindrift, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Health, Prefuse 73, Bizart, Radars to the Sky, Eskimo Hunter, Ferraby Lionheart, One Trick Pony, Matt Nathanson, Porterville, You Me and Iowa, Kissing Tigers, 8bit, Mezklah, I Make This Sound, and Lo-Fi Sugar...

Raising Money

Raising money is proving to be the most challenging part of this process. We just end up paying for everything out of our own pockets. Peter and Anthony signed off on the project July 23. So Richie is my only remaining producer. We can't move forward without money. And there is too much work and not enough team members.

I'm promoting Chuck to the role of Producer. And I'm bringing on my friend Adam as assistant Producer. Post production is not as glamorous, but it's where most of the work gets done.  I need a strong team.

The Strike

It's official. The studios aren't reading any new material now. They're in strike mode. My reps never went out with The Straight Man. Everyone agreed it was a good script. My reps had the script for two months and just never did anything with it.

The Waiting Game

My agents still haven't gone out with The Straight Man. It takes me four days to write a script, it takes them four weeks to read it. The writer's strike is approaching.  Tick-tock, guys!

The Straight Man

I wrote "The Straight Man." A tough Italian mobster gets placed in witness protection on Fire Island. He's forced to maintain his gay persona or risk getting iced by the mob. Now I just have to polish it up. I'd love to go out with it after Labor Day. We have to move fast with the rumors of the writer's strike. Everybody says there will be a buying frenzy in September.

Road Trip

Richie (Producer) and I cut out of town and drove north. Nothing restores my energy like getting out and seeing America.

We headed up to a friend's house on a winery in Sonoma. It was fantastic. We also spent a few days in San Francisco, which is a great city.

These pictures are all from an afternoon in Big Sur.

I got a lot of writing done, and outlined The Last Hurrah's trailer and making of. I also thought of a comedy called "The Straight Man." I plan on writing it once I get settled back in Los Angeles.

I love Italian Cypress trees. So ancient and expressive.

The Morning After

Katy and Carolyn came over and surprised me by cooking me breakfast.  This was incredibly nice.  Nevertheless, I did have some trouble getting out of bed.

Off to set for a day of cleanup.  Our location contract ends today.  So we need to strike everything from the set.  Still, it will feel good to work hard in the sun, and not have to think about anything.

It's a Wrap

After we wrapped the shoot, Anthony popped a bottle of Champagne and gave a really wonderful speech. My attention diverted, I have to admit I did not see this coming...

Ravi Patel and Randy Wayne. Other directors, be warned about these guys.

You can see Anthony got hit in the crossfire.

The art department got me a '40 as a gift, and I made my closing speech to cast and crew. All I feel is gratitude. To everyone who contributed their time and hard work, their talents, and their heart. Much love to all of you.