journal page 8

march 22, 2000
sorta late
yet another long few days of mixing sound. good news is the film is getting better than ever. bad news is we're cutting a scene. or maybe that's good news. i've got this scene in the middle that's a momentum speed bump that's just got to go. so the running time will drop to about 8 or 9 minutes and things ought to zoom along from there. the scene will turn up in the special DVD versions, i swear.

you know what movies never have anymore these days? dance-offs. in the climax where the good guy and the bad guy face each other all passionate and angry and somebody turns on some beats and they just have a big dance-off, taking turns trying to one up each other with sassy dance moves. what ever happened to dance-offs? or did this never actually happen?

march 11, 2000
1:15 am candy coated
sorry i haven't had time to update this thing in a little while, have been pretty swamped. yet more sound mixing on "rejected" tonight, plus rob stopped in to do yet further vocal recording. we are almost sort of half way there but not really. THIS FILM WILL NEVER BE COMPLETED. things are taking forever, but eventually maybe it will see the light of day. just trying to avoid burning out right now, though we are beyond the "is this funny anymore?" point and heading towards the, "gee, the lines sort of sound better when we just play them all backwards" stage. the general consensus seems to be, "is don ok?" what a fascinating document this film is going to be. between that and the launch of this comic strip thing next week and redesigning the website and writing other things, well, there it is. very tired. be good.

don

february 22, 2000
do you ever notice how sneezes sometimes smell like copper? so rob did a great job recording on the 13th, and his vocal tracks to "rejected" are finished. further sound work was halted last week when tim our trusty studio engineer came down with some sort of military virus. but he is well again now and we return to the sound mix tonight. also have been working more on this upcoming comic strip doing all sorts of additional design things. it should be pretty good. i think i may have a title for it finally but not sure. one of the neighbors got his ass pierced. all the cool kids are doing it now. he's got this giant brass ring sort of like a big heavy door knocker hanging through both cheeks. tiny people knock on his butt and he turns around and says, "yes?" and then they eat pastries. i'm going to stop writing this now.

february 9, 2000
sucking blood out of hole in mouth
more quick production updates - i got back from LA last night from more editing with rebecca, took more notes today, and will return tomorrow for what should hopefully be the last editing attack. the running time teetered towards over ten and a half minutes and we managed to chop it back down to just under ten. things are looking great, so barring the film bursting into flames, we should be in good shape to have a locked picture thursday night. i start studio sound work on friday while a video is prepared for studio work on sunday with rob's vocals. that is where the magic happens. or where rob wrecks the entire film. no, that was a joke he will do super. then it's lots of sound nights refining it all until we're done. once the film is more or less finished, i should have about a week before production on the next film begins in march with some extensive vocal performances

january 29, 2000
editing continues on "rejected", which is only getting better each go-round. we're working on the big ending now, having locked up much of the film itself, and i've been watching the video transfer endlessly trying to figure out a better shot order, etc. sleepy. i don't think i've ever gone through this much heavy editing before.

the people downstairs are giggling. a friend just had a baby and she e-mailed me a picture of it. the picture is massive. the entire photo does not fit on my computer screen and when i first opened the picture there was just a fullscreen GIANT BABY EYE. i scroll down and there's a giant baby nose. and i scroll down further and there's the giant gaping baby mouth.

january 22, 2000
2:34 pm
it's officially a good movie, as of last night's midnight edit. it's always amazing how many changes a rough cut can go through. but i'm finally happy that all will turn out just fine and quite good. it looks like our final running time will be at right around 10 minutes, give or take. there's still plenty of editing to work on, but only on the ending which has always been no trouble, and more minor tweaking...

january 17, 2000
6:36
all the time
------> raining
as rebecca continues the editing, rob and i spent the weekend with a DAT deck doing a bit of sound work, which is now almost done and ready to go into the studio. we threw a homemade crashbox down the stairs about a dozen times and i even managed to create the most horrible sound i have ever heard come out of my guitar amp. this is going to be a strange film, and the most sound-intensive one yet. rob is now locked in his basement conjuring up voices for it. we're not sure what he's working on, but we hear lots of screams and howls. sometimes thunder and lightning goes off outside and then he emerges and asks for some pears. in the meantime, i am taking more major editorial whacks at the beast this week. will also watch what should be the very last roll of extra footage that i shot for the ending. i think we're around or just under 10 minutes now.

the new hyundai commercial features a car driving out onto the stage at a rock concert. it then accelerates into the moshing crowds and crowd surfs on top of them. a tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the screen reads, "drive only on roads. do not drive on people."

january 9, 2000
7:something
editing continues, and i am now confident that the film will not be a complete disaster. ha, ha. (director humor). there is still a lot of trimming and complete rearranging to do but i am finally beginning to feel the thing out and get a sense of what needs to do what. it's sort of like the old joke of the artist who sculpts dinosaurs. he's asked, how do you make them look so realistic? and he says, i just chisel off any part of the rock that doesn't look like a dinosaur. so right now i'm cutting everything out that doesn't look like a movie.

i think i'm going to take a photograph of an abandoned xmas tree next to a dumpster and title it "january."