I met my meaningless goal. At the end of the month, I decided to shoot for completing 100 hours of movie work during June. My total turned out to be 102 hours. Go me! (*pant pant*)
The "Stage 4" version of the movie that I put online with my last post is a very rough cut. Now I've entered the "editing" stage proper. I'm going over every shot in the film: making sure that the pacing is right, trimming and lengthening shots, replacing shots that break continuity, inserting shots where I need more transition, resizing the actors to fit the compositions I want, eliminating digital "sizzle" from the lavaman process.
This is the part where I need to get all the footage of my actors essentially right. There'll be an opportunity to go back and tweak a bit after the cave and critters are composited in, but I really can't afford to leave messes behind me at this point. Only 16 days left!!
I've begun contemplating that I may need an extension to get this thing done. I did that with "Madness From The Sea"... But y'know, I'd kind of like to have a life again. ...So I guess I burn the candle at three ends for awhile, try to really make this happen on time. Well, as much as possible.
Saw Harry Potter 3 (Prisoner of Azkaban) on Thursday with G & Leopoldo. I was pretty pleased. The Hippogriff ride just about brought tears to my eyes. In my imagination, I wanted to be holding Ray Harryhausen's hand, saying "Look at that! Isn't it amazing!" Harryhausen's Pegasus from Clash of the Titans was a masterpiece. And this surpassed it. It's weird, but I feel like the living legend should feel pride for what the next generation has done here.
I surprised myself by starting a slightly antagonistic (why?) debate about the use of symbols in the flick. There are three glaring ones: the big clock, the crows, and Harry's reflection. It makes me want to write some little impromptu taxonomy of symbol usage. In this case, the symbols seemed to simply echo the main story elements of the film. Other ways of using symbols:
(1) A meta story not necessarily related to the literal story [e.g. Moby Dick as god].
(2) Parallelism with a known story [How many movies where the central character is a christ figure can you name? How about a "christ figures" movie party!! Got a week?].
(3) Poetic metaphor to emphasize the character's situation [e.g. focusing on a caged bird, then turning the camera toward an unhappy housewife].
(4) Multiple characters representing different facets of the protagonist's psyche [e.g. the record store co-workers in High Fidelity].
(5) Foreshadowing, using light or well-known elements from folklore/superstition [e.g. a shadow falling over a character's face soon before they die, or seeing a murder of crows (an omen of bad luck)].
(6) Referencing more esoteric mythologies to further / deepen the story [e.g. How the band-aid on the back of the guy's neck in Pulp Fiction is supposed to signify that his soul has been sold. What was that from? Egyptian mythology?]
...Then there's this whole realm of symbolism, where the director is playing with their own ideas, and we really don't have much hope of guessing what's up unless we know about their personal philosophy. Sort of like how artist's statements often talk about stuff you never would have guessed at. Like, "this bowl of oranges and apples is about gender fluidity." ...That's cool -- you just don't have a hope though, unless you're in know.
Hm.
Oops -- my next test clip is done rendering. Back to work! ;-)
The "Stage 4" version of the movie that I put online with my last post is a very rough cut. Now I've entered the "editing" stage proper. I'm going over every shot in the film: making sure that the pacing is right, trimming and lengthening shots, replacing shots that break continuity, inserting shots where I need more transition, resizing the actors to fit the compositions I want, eliminating digital "sizzle" from the lavaman process.
This is the part where I need to get all the footage of my actors essentially right. There'll be an opportunity to go back and tweak a bit after the cave and critters are composited in, but I really can't afford to leave messes behind me at this point. Only 16 days left!!
I've begun contemplating that I may need an extension to get this thing done. I did that with "Madness From The Sea"... But y'know, I'd kind of like to have a life again. ...So I guess I burn the candle at three ends for awhile, try to really make this happen on time. Well, as much as possible.
Saw Harry Potter 3 (Prisoner of Azkaban) on Thursday with G & Leopoldo. I was pretty pleased. The Hippogriff ride just about brought tears to my eyes. In my imagination, I wanted to be holding Ray Harryhausen's hand, saying "Look at that! Isn't it amazing!" Harryhausen's Pegasus from Clash of the Titans was a masterpiece. And this surpassed it. It's weird, but I feel like the living legend should feel pride for what the next generation has done here.
I surprised myself by starting a slightly antagonistic (why?) debate about the use of symbols in the flick. There are three glaring ones: the big clock, the crows, and Harry's reflection. It makes me want to write some little impromptu taxonomy of symbol usage. In this case, the symbols seemed to simply echo the main story elements of the film. Other ways of using symbols:
(1) A meta story not necessarily related to the literal story [e.g. Moby Dick as god].
(2) Parallelism with a known story [How many movies where the central character is a christ figure can you name? How about a "christ figures" movie party!! Got a week?].
(3) Poetic metaphor to emphasize the character's situation [e.g. focusing on a caged bird, then turning the camera toward an unhappy housewife].
(4) Multiple characters representing different facets of the protagonist's psyche [e.g. the record store co-workers in High Fidelity].
(5) Foreshadowing, using light or well-known elements from folklore/superstition [e.g. a shadow falling over a character's face soon before they die, or seeing a murder of crows (an omen of bad luck)].
(6) Referencing more esoteric mythologies to further / deepen the story [e.g. How the band-aid on the back of the guy's neck in Pulp Fiction is supposed to signify that his soul has been sold. What was that from? Egyptian mythology?]
...Then there's this whole realm of symbolism, where the director is playing with their own ideas, and we really don't have much hope of guessing what's up unless we know about their personal philosophy. Sort of like how artist's statements often talk about stuff you never would have guessed at. Like, "this bowl of oranges and apples is about gender fluidity." ...That's cool -- you just don't have a hope though, unless you're in know.
Hm.
Oops -- my next test clip is done rendering. Back to work! ;-)
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