We’re in post-production on my new short scripted film, tentatively titled “AK” after one of the main characters.
On the set of “AK” in February 2016.
We’re cruising through post-production, in hopes that we can meet some rapidly-approaching film festival deadlines. The pressure is on, which is good. It keeps the fire under my chair lit.
Working on this movie has been an incredible experience.
On the set of “AK” in February 2016.
Fiction filmmaking is drastically different than making documentaries and, at the same time, it’s very similar. I love working on both because I learn so much from the process and the people with whom I work. I’m incredibly lucky.
We’re working on color correction, foley, and score at the moment.
If you’re unfamiliar with these processes, they can be really interesting.
Color correction means tweaking what we captured on camera in all of the different shots, and giving it a consistent look that adds to the story. (Among other things, of course; that was an oversimplification.)
I’m not a colorist. Let me be perfectly clear about that. My color theory class in college was a looooong time ago, and I don’t think I did very well in it. But that’s why you do this film stuff as a team.
While thinking about this movie, I felt like it was a bit of a super hero movie.
So I looked at a lot of visual references, some of which I’ve already blogged about. Most of them are dark. Here are some stills that I captured this week to help us talk about color for the film.
Production stills as color references for “AK”
We concluded that the green / yellow tint in a lot of those shots doesn’t make sense for this movie. Jessica Jones, which was released after we shot AK, has been a great reference. I really enjoyed the show and was so thankful Netflix put out something that features a strong, complex female character. But I digress.
We’re simultaneously working on the sounds for the film: foley and music.
We’re not doing traditional foley where you go make the sounds for it. We recorded as many on set as we could, so we could move more efficiently. It’s putt the sounds we recorded in the right space, and adding sounds that are missing.
There’s such an art to sound mixing. To me, it feels really tedious to edit sound but trying it has given me ample amounts of respect for the people who get it right.
Are you sensing a theme yet? I stink at a lot of the craft side of filmmaking. I’ll be the first to give you the litany of my own weaknesses, which is why I’m always on the look out for smart, passionate, dedicated, and fun people to work with who can elevate the story. They challenge me to be better every step of the way, and I never cease to be amazed by them.
If you want to learn more about foley, you should check out The Secret World of Foley. It’s about 12 minutes long and it’ll give you so much respect for audio, too! I’ll embed it here for you.
The Secret World of Foley from Short of the Week on Vimeo.
We’ve got a lot of work left to do but stay tuned.
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