Important Announcement–New URL

I started this blog quite a while ago, more or less on a whim — to try and ‘live blog’ my way through the making of a movie that was then called “Way of the Dolphin”.   In April of 2009 we changed the name of the movie to “Beneath the Blue” — so, it makes sense that we should change the blogsite too.  And that’s what we’ve done.  Going forward we will be at  http:beneaththeblue.wordpress.com.  Click on the link or copy/paste into your browser and — see you there!

A Christmas Eve Message..

Last night our family began gathering, as we do every year,  at the home of my 83 year old mom in Niceville, Florida.  My four kids have arrived — Patrick and Michelle from California,  Pilar from Texas, and Kaitlyn from Florida. My wife and best friend Rena is here; my sister Valerie; my cousin Curt and his wife Jenn and their kids; my Uncle Arther and Aunt Caroline (92 and 89 years old).  We’re all here now.

As everyone started arriving last night I had a “moment” — more than one, actually — in which I really felt, overwhelmingly,  the blessings in my life — blessings that so clearly outweigh all the stress and tension that dominate on so many other days during the year.  It was a wonderful feeling and I want to hold on to it and draw strength from it in what will certainly be another challenging year in 2010.

I hope that each of you who follow this blog and have been following the progress of our movie are able to enjoy this special time of year with the people whom you love and who make life meaningful for you.  I thank you for your goodwill, and your many moments of kindness and kinship which you’ve shared with me throughout the year.  May you be blessed, as I have been, with a family that gives you strength and hope for the future, as well as a reason to enjoy and appreciate today.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Michael

PS ….here we are (well, everyone except the photographer, me!).  Blessings to you all!!

RANDOM (GUSHING) THOUGHTS ON AVATAR

When’s the last time you came out of a movie and just wanted to get in line and see it again right then?  When’s the last time you wanted to shout to the people in line waiting to get in –it’s INCREDIBLY AWESOME, PEOPLE?  That’s how strongly I felt when I walked out of the theater tonight.  This was the most blissful cinematic experience I’ve ever had.  So my question is – why?  What is it about this film that has turned me in to a blithering maniac muttering words of  adoration?  It’s worth pondering because this has taken me to someplace very special.

I’m not going to do more than simple service to a description of the story.  By now everyone knows the basic outline:  it’s 2051 and on a planet called Pandora, humans are extracting the valuable mineral “unobtainium”, but in their way are the Na’vi,  a 10 foot race of blue-skinned, catlike forest warriors of extraordinary beauty, simplicity, and oneness with their world –a world which itself, we eventually learn, is interconnected in a way that makes earthly notions of ecology seem rather tame and limited.  They’re the ‘noble savage’ taken to a new level. The natives are living in a spectacular forest and ground zero in that forest is a special tree that is spiritually the center of their universe –and under this tree is where the greatest source of unobtainium exists.  The human mission:  If at all possible, negotiate with the natives and convince them to leave.  If they won’t go – use other means. To learn more about their ways, a parapalegic marine and a couple of scientists inhabit an “avatar” – a kind of cloned up version of themselves made to “be” a native – a creature which they control with their minds from a semi-conscious state. The idea is to gain the trust of “the People” by appearing as one of them.   Well clearly there’s a danger that any level headed hero might “go native” when put on the ground amidst this intriguing culture — especially when he finds himself being taught by the most wondrously beautiful ten foot blue female anyone is likely to ever encounter, and so the “mission: is compromised.  Will he become the leader of “the People” as they fight back against the “sky people” (humanfolks).  You get the drift.  A cracking good sci-fi story — a genre movie, basically, executed to a level never attempted or achieved before.

What does this movie do for me?

First of all — flash back to 1976.  I had grown up reading all the great fantasy and sci-fi writers of the fifties and sixties–Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Andersen – and Star Wars was coming out with great fanfare.  I went to the Mann Chinese Theater in LA on opening day to see it.   Was I excited?  Yes.   And how did I come out of the theater?  Deeply disappointed.  The critics were all out there saying that sci-fi had arrived.  Not for me.  Star Wars struck my sci-fi minded imagination as small, kind of mindless piece of entertainment that didn’t come close to capturing what good sci-fi was all about.  There were no serious or even useful ideas being put out there; the special effects didn’t come close to capturing what my mind had imagined reading all those books.   No.  And 2001 didn’t do it for me although I had great respect for that effort.  Nor did Close Encounters.  Starship Troopers was a huge disappointment.  Earlier this year there was District 9 – now that was a great appetizer for the main course I experienced tonight.  But what a main course.

As I was watching Avatar tonight …. here are all the associations it triggered, exploding in my mind one after another:

•    Primal dreams of flight – we all have them … from the first moments there was a sense of that, of the feeling of effortless flight hurtling above canopied forests filled with misty clouds, the stuff of dreams.  And then there comes a point when the characters are riding on the backs of the ‘ikran’ — pterodactyl like creatures amazingly imagined down to the smallest detail — amazing.
•    Edgar Rice Burroughs.  I said I grew up readng Asimov, Heinlein, et al — but who I really devoured more than any other writer of interplanetary fiction is Edgar Rice Burroughs. More than anyone else, Burroughs evoked vivid (some and detailed images strange lands and stranger creatures–planets with a breathtaking visual aura, with fully developed histories, – but always with the vivid descriptions woven within the fabric of a hero tale that touched archetype n a way that no other writer, before or since, has been able to do.  If you aren’t familiar with Burroughs John Carter of Mars, by this time next year you will be (if the long delayed production of Burroughs martian epic finally makes it to the screen as scheduled).  None addicts are more familiar with Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, and if you haven’t read the actual book Tarzan of the Apes, you don’t know about the magic I’m talking about.  The magic of the forest, the creatures, a hero-child of mysterious beginnings who made himself one with another world.  The Tarzan of the books didn’t swing on vines like Johnny Weismuller—he ran through the terraces of the canopied rainforest, a part of that forest, as a home there as you or I would be on, say – 7th Avenue in New York.  (That last bit is a bit of an homage to Burroughs – one that doesn’t do his prose justice).  But more than Tarzan there was Burroughs incredible Martian series,  stories of a dying planet he called Barsoom where an atmosphere factory was all that kept the people alive; where telepathy was how riders controlled six legged “thoats”; where a dying Ulysses Paxton, his legs maimed and lying in a World War 1 trench  reached out and was transported to  the new planet and a new life (avatar like?)….And then there was the Burroughs series that completely resonates with Avatar – the Venus series where socieities lived among great gigantic mist enshrouded trees, where bird-men fought with humans for supremacy.  And always there was the archetypal hero, a man who was always the man that a young adolescent boy would want to be, smart and fast, brave and strong, of noble heart and ideals — and singleminded in the love for whatever exotic and “incomprable” princess or warrior Burroughs would throw in his path.  All of that – Cameron has to have read this novels because he drew on that knowledge throughout this movie.  I always felt that Burroughs was hugely underappreciated in literary circles, (much in the way that Cameron tends to be dismissed as a technical innovator but not a great film-maker in certain film critic circles) — and indeed if you read Burroughs life story you’ll see how true that is that he was dissed regularly – he couldn’t even get Tarzan—a huge hit as a pulp serial—published as a book until he formed Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and did it himself.  Yet at last count it was the book which, other than the bible, has been translated into more languages than any other.   When I read Burroughs my mind and my heart were filled with wondrous things—wondrous things that stirred me in a primal way that might have been a bit adolescent, but which nevertheless transported me.  And tonight, with Avatar, Cameron brought it alive, the same feelings – the same yearnings and longings and sense of wonder.  Only instead of it being only brightly imagined between the synapses of my brain, there it was – in incredibly vivid, glorious (and restrained and tasteful, believe it or not) 3D.  And by the way — just for reference, here is an illustration of Burroughs’ Barsoom which, if you’ve seen Avatar — will look familiar.

•    The other things that came to mind (they won’t get the ink that I just gave Burroughs because he was, I think, seminal to what Cameron has accomplished) – as they say on the elimination shows, ‘in no particular order’, Robert Duvall in Apocalypse now, the stories of Robert Heinlein, the stories of Isaac Asimov, an incredible novel by Peter Mathiessen “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” (a disappointing movie, but a novel to treasure forever), Last of the Mohicans (both the novel and the film), Apocalypto, the New World, Dances With Wolves.
•    There will be those who don’t “get it”.  Not too many, I hope.  But the film aesthetes will find fault with some less than scintillating dialogue—not much, just a little—and there will be those who perhaps lament that characters were didn’t have as much arc as “good movies” require.  But what I’m wondering is – will these same people who only think of movies in a certain narrow framework of what is expected of characters to make it a serious piece – will they grasp the utter suppleness of imagination that is blazed into every frame of this movie.
•    It’s a film with some ideas, too – it’s something that those longsuffering sci-fi fans like myself always knew, that good sci-fi tends to have an element of social criticism in it—that the format lends itself to an examination of human foibles.  How wonderful when, at the end of the movie (oops, slight spoiler here, skip to the next paragraph if you’re worried about spoilers), someone says:  “And the aliens were sent back to their dying planet” and the aliens are us.  Is it a totally unique and original story? No. Is any story? Well, yes — there are some that seem to break new ground.  But part of what makes the experience of enjoyng story as enjoyable as it is — is our recognition of patterns that are familiar enough for us to recognize them, yet fresh in some way.   I would argue that there is so much fresh in the imaginative, technically and aesthetically excellent way that the story is presented, that Cameron can be given a slight bit of slack if the story feels –to the literary and film elite, anyway–not completely original or unique.
•    But I think the most important thing that Cameron has accomplished is an astonishing act of imagination and creation — the details that have been brought to life are just extraordinary.  When you see it, you feel like you’re there.  That’s the magic – that’s what Burroughs did.  I could draw you a map of Barsoom and tell you the history of the planet; I could name all the creatures, in the language of the Mangani (the great apes), in Tarzan’s forest.  You left the books feeling like you’d been there, like you’d felt the forest leaves under your feet, the dry ochre sea bottoms of Barsoom, the mist enshrouded rainforests of  Venus.  This is that same kind of immersive experience — you feel like you’ve been there and you don’t want to leave – and after you leave, you want to go back.

In fact I am going to go back tonight and watch it a second time.  10:10 showing.  IMAX 3d this time.  Can’t wait.

By the way — here are some images from Avatar that are different from the stills you see all the time on the web.  I picked these out from the full trailer……

And here’s the link to the full theatrical trailer…enjoy — and go see it in 3D!

Avatar Theatrical Trailer

Paul Wesley’s Rising Stardom….

This isn’t too terribly serious of a post, but ….. check out the links below to articles about the BTB’s Paul Wesley being spoted as one of the stars attending last night’s Laker game. The fact is, Vampire Diaries is a huge hit and Paul’s role as one of the leads in that show has has gotten real traction in a career that’s going places. Congrats to him — this is all obviously good for us, although its difficult to know just how strong the impact of his rising stardom will be.

MTV:  Paul Wesley Spotted Courtside at Laker Game

http://www.examiner.com/x-21681-Anaheim-Celebrity-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m12d7-Los-Angeles-Lakers-defeat-Suns-while-celebs-like-Antonio-Banderas-and-Mark-Harmon-watch–photos

BTB Nabs Three Awards at Melbourne Film Festival

Pleased to report that in its first film festival appearence at the Melbourne Independent Filmmakers Festival in Melbourne, Florida, Beneath the Blue won the MIFF’s “Independent Spirit Award” plus two other individual awards — Best Cinematography (Lila Javan) and Filmmaker of Distinction (Michael D. Sellers).

It was quite a whirlwind of a week-end and many thanks to the Melbourne Festival organizers Terry Cronin, Robin Krasny, Rob Kurrus and many other volunteers.  Also a special thanks to all of our BTB investors and producers who came.

Also congrats to the other film-makers.

Here are a few pics — and there are many more pics at the MIFF Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-FL/Melbourne-Independent-Filmmakers-Festival/160862150377#/pages/Melbourne-FL/Melbourne-Independent-Filmmakers-Festival/160862150377?v=photos

First Screening!

We’ve had our first screening and I have to say it was nerve-wracking for me, especially because the HD Master was fresh from the lab and we’d had no time to pre-screen it so I was living in fear of a technical glitch but thankfully nothing like that happened — it screened beautifully, lots of buzz and congratulations from the buyers who were there along with various others. Now I must also tell you that when the film-maker is present, people are always polite and enthusiastic so we have to factor that in. I did manage to sprinkle some “spies” into the audience who engaged viewers in discussion afterward when I wasn’t around and the enthusiasm still seemed to be genuine.

Meanwhile in the booth at AFM we are having steady meetings and getting into negotiations for some new territories. The market overall is not a great one — the number of buyers is down over last year — and last year was down over the previous year. But the good news is that David Suarez, our head of sales, mounted a massive phone call campaign using 8 unpaid interns to call all our buyers and set up meetings so we’ve been having steady meetings from 9:30 in the morning until 7:30 or even 8 at night. David has been unable to take a lunch break –we’ve been getting him a sandwich around 4 or five PM. I’m taking sales meetings too for the first time in a few years and am getting back into the “sales and marketing” mode.

More soon…..

We Have a Movie!

Well, I am pleased to report that today (yesterday, technically), at 5:14PM, we officially delivered the baby — Beneath the Blue came forth into the world as a complete (if not “completed”– more about that later) movie. I have not slept more than two hours in any of the last four days …….nor has Mark Linthicum, who is a true hero you will meet at the premiere……It’s been a non-stop push to the finish but we made it and what we have looks more promising than anything I’ve been associated with thus far.

The crazy part of this is that while I’ve been in the mad push to deliver the baby, the rest of our “lean team” at Quantum has been pushing just as hard to get ready for American Film Market, which starts tomorrow (6 hours from now, to be exact — technically today).

And it’s crazy indeed.

As I was delivering the hard drives to the lab for creation of the HDCAM master that will be the source for the screening, I got a phone call from Freddie Naff, our production designer on Karla and Eye of the Dolphin, whom we had engaged to create a mega-cool but ultimately low-cost look for our suite at AFM. I have been pushing really hard to upgrade everything even though we are downsized. I made sure all our trailers are HD; that we have two ultra sleek HD TV’s in the room to show the trailers on; that our overall “look” is slicker than anything we have done previously. Freddie came up with the following design (never mind the actual posters — this is just a design template …. believe me, Beneath the Blue gets primary placement)…….

Pretty cool, IMHO….

Anyway, so as I was delivering the film on hard drives to the duplication house, completely sleep-deprived of course after the big push — the first problem was that when the dup house put the project file up on the computer, some final last-hour changes that Mark and I had made were not there. There was a fade-out of the music on the end credits that was no longer there; and an effets shot that we had put in at the last minute. So there was a sudden crisis about the hard drive and what was on it, and whether it represented the final final thing we had done.

And just in the middle of this, while I’m making multiple conference calls trying to get all the right people talking to each other about the problem with the master, suddenly I get a call from Freddie who is near hysterical at the beginning and then truly breaks down in tears. Turns out he was on his way to AFM with our entire cool wall display roped onto the roof of his car, when he stopped off at IKEA to buy some last minute things — and then came out to find that whatever was on the roof of his car (our entire AFM office, basically) was gone. I’m not kidding. You can’t make this up.

So … the good news was that all of the stuff either came from IKEA, or a printer who works 24/7, or an art supply house …. and so I ended up going to Ikea and buying replacement stuff for all the stuff from there, jammed it into my car, while Freddie and the other members of our little family fanned out to get the rest. The bottom line is that now, as of 1:43am, it looks like we will be fully where we were supposed to be, but instead of being there by 9am tomorrow, it will be 12 noon before we are there. In the meantime, we have an entertaining story to tell about our office being stolen from an Ikea parking lot.
Anyway, that’s the report as of 1:44am.

AFM in 6 hours.

First screening of Beneath the Blue in 30 hours.

Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement and support. They really help. I apologize if it seems like an unseemly scramble but this is how it is.

By the way, there was a World Series game 5 tonight, right? Yanks were up 3-1. What happened?

Next Day – Nov 1 (actually Nov 2 12:44am)

Disaster strikes.

I kid you not. I haven’t slept more than four hours a day in the last ten days. We worked our way through the whole weekend. Halloween? Not. College football? Not. USC got absolutely hammered by Oregon and I only heard about it the next day……Is there a World Series going on? I know it’s the Phillies and the Yankees but that’s it. And I’m a sports addict.

Today we had a miscommunication. Mark Linthicum, my “Mr. Everything” in post, is leaving for a vacation on Tuesday at 9pm from LAX. I somehow thought he was available to help us finish the mix and visuals for the Nov 5 screening through Monday but it turns out no, he’s not. He’s got another client who needs him and he’s been trying to “signal” that to me without beating me over the head wth it. Problem is, we got to 5pm on Sunday when he said, in essence, I’m dont at 8pm tonight. I freaked because we have another day’s worth of work to do. The good news is he’s provided, over the last week, someone who can help. But still…Mark is THE man…. David Bartlett is great but we’ve never worked together and now all of a sudden it’s going to be David in charge of the mix.

Meanwhile, because of our beleagured status, I’m more hands on than ever …. the opening credit sequence? Me. The end titles? Me. The dolphin sounds throughout? Me. It’s 12:48am Monday morning. I have no chance of sleeping. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. I am blessed to be given the opportunity to make a movie that I care about. I can show you hundreds, thousands, who only dream of that opportunity. But I’m “runnin’ on empty” here to some degree.

Meanwhile our whole sales/marketing team is gearing up for AFM and there are a million issues there that I’m responsible for as well. I won’t even start.

But we’ll get it done.

This has been a six minute post. Back to work.

October 31 — 11:40PM

Well, it’s Saturday night, Halloween — we’re still here at 11:40 and looks like another 2-3 hours before we can break, then we have to start up at 8am tomorrow and even then it looks like this will spill over onto Monday before we finish. Our actual deadline for delivering to AFM for the buyer screening is end of the day Monday. By then I will be a limp dishrag for sure, as will Mark Linthicum and David Bartlett.

We have been jamming on three levels since 8am this morning.

1) David Bartlett has been doing atmospheres and laying in sound effects. (Atmospheres being an overall ambient character — often very detailed — for each major environment. Of particular concern is the undersea lab environment and he’s spent a lot of time on that. Also the SURTASS Low Frequency Active Sonar sound…. this is a tricky one because we want to make it realistic but there are limits to what you can do in a theater without blowing out the speakers or having things distort. So we are pushing the envelope on that. Also all of the environments– underwater, beach, the exterior of the dolphin research center. Understand that when we record live, we mike for the voices so there is an attempt to minimize the environmental sounds in order to get clean dialogue. But that means that for presentation — never mind final final cut — we have to recreate and re-imagine a lot. So David’s been doing that.

2) Mark has been working on visuals, completing the last of the special effects shots and checking the color timing and a dozen other things about he visuals.

3) My job has been to sit across from Mark on another computer/editing console where I’ve been finalizing the dolphin sounds throughout the film, pulling from a library of thousands of real sounds — plus creating and utilizing the artificial “whistle language” which Hawk uses to engender human-dolphin communication. I had done this in rough draft before — now trying to make it as real and close to final as possible. My other two jobs have been to do the opening title sequence and the closing titles and I haven’t done them yet. Bogged down on the dolphin stuff but I’m getting there.

Additionally, Mark and I and David viewed the film this afternoon and took notes and I came up with the following list of “fixes” which we have to accomplish between today and tomorrow. They won’t make much sense reading them in the abstract — but give a sense of the process by which we are whittling away and getting down to a bottom line.

The first column defines what kind of fix — SFX (Special Effects, Color Timing, Sound, etc).
The Second column indicates who called for it — “Both” means Mark and I both want it. “ML” means it’s something Mark wants done. And “MS” means it’s something I want done.
The third column is Priority — A+, A, B, C. We will get the A+’s and A’s done for sure, and some of the B’s. C’s are for another cut another day.

TYPE WHO PR
THINGS THAT WILL LOOK LIKE MISTAKES IF WE DON’ T FIX
SFX BOTH A Up ahead in that Naval base (need the island)…..
SFX BOTH A need it again ….”you’re in restricted naval waters…
SFX BOTH A Island establishing shot after the speech
SFX BOTH A Island morning of final confrontation — chase etc
SFX BOTH A another missing islandn AS RASCA IS ON THE WAY……..
SFX BOTH A Two more island shots in the chase
EDIT BOTH A we use the same shot atthe beginning of the movie and the beginning of the demonstration scene. We need t o swap out that shot.
SFX BOTH A second dolphin in experiment 7….
SFX MS A Can see 40ft sign in the BG behind raca at the bottom…….also can see lots of freckles/different skin tone on the girl…wonder if we can fix that easily?
FRAME BOTH A+ Remove the trainer’s hand….
SFX BOTH A+ temp shot graphic” … need to work some of the new footage into this.
SFX MS A shot of beach right after hospital — is this the same one we use later at the end? same two people swimming…..(yes, confirmed…..need another one, or take the two swimmers out in the foreground from one of the shots)….
SFX MS B Anchor chain when Craig goes in the water…..
FRAME MS A Boom in the shot—-over craig and alyssa…..
SFX MS A Review ferry in last scene — may have to be taken out of one shot.
SFX MS A Rosca Rosca Rosca….spelling…..
SFX BOTH A Fuckin’ fin shot…….

SFX
SFX B A Make the slowmo better and smoother on the dolphins — afterefects…..
SFX ML A stabilize and de-noise three dolphings jumping
SFX MS A Photo effect of Craig’s photos needs improvement
SFX MS A On the second split scren POV of the platform (Rasca’s POV) maybe we can do a digital zoom to make it feel like motion?
SFX MS A Platform has to be taken out.
SFX BOTH A Rasca hears pinger — capacity turned down.
SFX MS A CAN WE DO NOISE REDUCTION ON THE SHOT OF GWEN AND DRIVER COMING OUT BETWEEN THE JETTIES
SFX BOTH A Shot of the jetskis from platform look fake …. jetskis too saturated or something…….
SFX MS A What happened to the zoom on the first shot……
SFX BOTH A Same shot seen before — remove two people from water
SFX MS A+ Cut from alyssa after “another group of dead dolphins” has a wild frame in there I think………
SFX MS B experiment — color of the donut doesn’t look white enough ….
SFX MS B Not sure about the choie of Hawk’s picture on the “dialogue computer”…..
SFX MS B Wow the snout on that dolphin is a mess. Maybe we should try to clean it up (for Veronica’s sake?)
SFX MS B Roof is kidn of hot white—helluva bright moon
SFX MS B That first shot of the mood could use a cloud or something other than pure black all around it.
SFX MS B On the shots of the ship, I feel like the moon should be in the left side f the frame, not right…..not sure why — has to do with the first shot of the scene having it that way….it’s like w’ere crossing the line………
SFX ML B DOLPHIN IN FIRT UW SHOT… can probably wait until future….
SFX MS B Rasca scars really visible…….
SFX MS C can see paul’s tatoo when ie’s trying to save alyssa…….
CT MS A blue water on dolphin shot from eod — looks green……..
CT ML A Color correct the lab when she walks to the screen to get hawk
CT MS A fish fry “you’re not messing with me — color timing is uneven…….
CT MS A color timing note — one of the shots whern they are coming into the pen is much greener than others. need to look at that.
CT MS A when Alyssa and Rasca swim, add blue to the water if possib le
CT MS A Check the water match …UW shot is blue/green, then above water shot where we see the flashlight the water is brown …then at the end when we are on Hawk on the surface it’s a bit b blue. Need to color time – smooth it out
CT MS A When Rasca goes under the boat after reunion, why so red….
CT ML A Sonice fx shot graphic …..color time the water…..
CT BOTH A Bring blacks down on shot of Hwk and Daniel coming out to see Blaine…..
CT MS A Flippin fin needs to be more blue, less green….(eod shot)
CT ML B Too much color in opening 20 minutes………..
CT MS B There is a shot just before the first above water shat of the boat that is so dark — can’t tell what it is
SOUND MS A DUVEY…….on phone. sounds funny b ecaue her name is funny — can we lose this.
SOUND MS B can i feed her some fish — may be hard to understand……….
SOUND MS A music at the fishfry second half …. need something radically different.
SOUND MS A research center tomorrow — kita’s line (sound gliche)…….
SOUND MS A pull down the sound of the glove coming off….
SOUND MS A James Harers is here to see him — dialogue glitch.
SOUND MS A source music at beach restaurant Gwen/Craig?.
SOUND MS B The dolphin they called Rasca should be “call Rasca”…remove “d” from “called”..
SOUND MS C for a little “while” nto “waal”
SOUND MS B “hate to see your career end like that” — sound glitch? Check.
SOUND BOTH A Hear some director voice
SOUND MS A I thnk you’re insane some verbal blitch….
SOUND MS A Hawk’s Okay this is as far as we cna go — ready” doesn’t sound right…maybe we lose it?
FRAME MS A Stop your vessle…punch in a bit. Double is VERY obviousl…….
EDIT ML dissolve to alyssa and dolphin perhaps shold be a fade out and fade in. something about the transition from the title sequence dolphins (abstract, somewhere out there) to Alyssa and our dolphin, is not quite right.
EDIT SJ B alyssa’s jiggly butt on boat…….
EDIT MS A lose shot of external speaker
EDIT MS B Check continuity on baby on line “to them I’m not a good guy”
EDIT MS B frist shot of water when kids see rasca….may see a little bit of bubbles from a rasca jump……
EDIT ML A bar transition bothers mark
EDIT BOTH A we use the same shot atthe beginning of the movie and the beginning of the demonstration scene. We need t o swap out that shot.
EDIT MS B Maybe trim from the head of Officer Michael Zombie departure
EDIT MS A Yeah, the whole date is too long…….people are going to get impatient. Need to get to the kiss quicker….
EDIT MS A Important: Not sure about Rasca’s last shot leaving the rescue …. did we get any new shots that could help? Maybe a speed run w edidn’t use? This is the worst transition in the movie …. bet we have new material that could help.
EDIT MS B More shots of Gwen trying to get Rasca to cooperate……
EDIT MS A tamika’s speech may need dialogue lift….i’m not sure about one line — need to listen to it and decide. afraid it might be over the top…..i think shen she’s said ‘the’ve crossed a ine and we can’t allow it to stand…..we fight this together, as a family”…….I think a piece of that , probably “crossed a line and we can’t allow it to stand” may need to go.
EDIT BOTH A Same shot ttwicefrom the side of the boat — before “thermocline” line…..
EDIT MS A Lose the shot of the driver looking like a dope…just go to his hand…
EDIT BOTH A Flare…….cut out one shot?
ADR MS C made it to two minutes should be “made it to 100 feet”…..fix in ADR

And that’s where are as of what is now 11:57PM on October 31st.

Back to work. This is exhausting but exhilirating too.

Apologies and a Quick Summary

Thanks for all the comments and encouragement. There have also been a few expressions of concern because it’s Friday and I’ve only gotten the ‘live blog’ up through Monday. Folks, it’s turning out to be even more intense than filming and I’m just not getting it done (the blogging). So here is a brief summary. I do want to go back and give more details but don’t want to leave those hanging who are getting nervous:

26 October – Monday – Final Filming
Weather cooperated better than expected. We got the essentials without too many dramas. Team in Bahamas is finished. Thanks a TON to Paul Mockler, Siobhan Antoni, Sarah Hamilton, Veronica Cuccurullo, and Mark Linthicum.

27 October – Tuesday – Travel Back
Mark Linthicum and the camera and housing and footage all arrived back without incident. Mark and I viewed/reviewed the footage. Meanwhile Nathan Pena and I kept working on the color timing, (which had been going on all weekend), and David Bartlett continues with sound. Also working with 3D digital artist Caleb Campbell on the 3d shot of Navy sonar in action. Struggling with that a bit. It may not be ready for the Nov 2 deadline for this cut. We can live without it if we have to.

28 October – Wednesday – Editing and Insert/computer screen shooting
We’re editing in the new material. Got the biggest headache of all completely solved — so that’s a big relief. The big scene at the end is in good shape now. We are also shooting inserts of documents and computer screens. There are a ton of these and it’s been a lot of prep to get the screens ready. The good news is, we can shoot, export, edit and see how it looks, then shoot again all in the same space and time due to the digital aspects. This is great in terms of being able to fine tune. We’re up to 16 hour days now.

29 October – Thursday – Editing and insert/computer screen shooting
Finally got all the shots done and everything edited and a final “locked picture” for the AFM cut. Done. 2am. Now we’ve got a mad scramble to finish the things that you finish after you lock the picture – sound, music, opening and end credits. But at least it’s locked and I don’t have think about making those decisions anymore and it looks great. This last bit of work has REALLY helped.

30 October – Friday — Finishing
Another long day. I’m chasing dolphin sounds — trying to get more good ones for the final mix. Have some interns helping on that. Listening to final music, making tweaks with the composer. Mark is working on effects shots and continuing to polish the visuals now that the picture is locked. David is working on sound effects, background sounds, and the navy sonar sound. I’ve got to deal with the opening titles and make sure there are no contractual booboos even though this is not the final cut, and make it all play nicely. And the end scroll, which is also subject to change but needs to be there. Then tonight we are going to view and try to spot any big problem areas that we may have missed.

Two days to go.