So What Happened In Those Two Weeks?
(Originally Posted October 4, 2020)
I've had my evening cocktails, so it's as good a time as any to post.
Remember two weeks ago when I posted that I was doing a deep dive into finishing the film? Well, that dive ended up being deeper than I could've imagined.
Like, "The Abyss" deep.
Basically, the day after I made that post, my post-production sound person informed me that his computer was fried and dead.
Yep. Remember those big smoky and fiery days a few weeks back? (Weird how that seems long ago.) Anyhow, the effects of those days caused some power blackouts in Washington, and they struck the apartment that my sound person lived in. He had a huge surge in power that fried everything connected to outlets on a certain wall. Blargh.
His computer was dead. FORTUNATELY, all the files he had been working with were backed up on a drive that was safe. Unfortunately, they were set up for software that I (and my picture editor) didn't know how to use.
My sound person would've kept working on things, but he had a family emergency that required him to run to California. (I'll exclude the details here, but suffice it to say, my sympathies are with him.)
So my picture editor and I were left to pull the sound files into a program we both knew and get the sound to a place where we could mix it. And we had two weeks before the Sundance Film Festival submission was due.
Essentially, I spent between 8-14 hours a day on the computer. I went over every sound file with the loving care that a parent would take for their film-child. The day before we went into our mix, I spent 20 hours straight working on the film. (No exaggeration.)
Then my picture editor and I spent two long days (and one semi-long day) mixing the film to the best of our ability. (For those non-film people, mixing is when you try to make the different sounds balance out in the film.)
At the end of the day, we did it. We have a good-sounding film that I'm pretty excited about.
It's funny, because in an earlier post, I mentioned how finishing the film in a digital world was an anti-climactic event. But there wasn't anything anti-climactic about finishing this film.
I ran a marathon and made it to the end. I probably didn't come in first, but I got across the finish line in a way that I'm pleased with. Not too shabby.
