735 – Filmmaking, music, and other paths to an early grave

Something I’ve been toying with for a few years mentally is the idea of a mobile production office. On top of this mental toying, was my idea that I may have to go around the country to promote my movie Crashing Down if I don’t get a good enough offer to pick up. While the shooting has been slo(add several ohs here)w, it will be finished eventually, and I’ll have to sell it. I don’t want to settle on a crappy, one-sided deal just to get it sold. I know others have gone around and 4walled etc to get their films to be worth more over-all, and I think that may be necessary, especially now that so many indie outlets have closed. A bus made up for living/working could facilitate such a project.

So anyway, I bought an old flatnose Bluebird All-American school bus to convert. It was an awesome deal that I couldn’t pass up even if the timing was in the middle of production instead of afterward.

Eventually, it should end up looking something like the bus that Jake VonSlatt converted, except with office space. This bus is HUGE, so office space will not be a problem.

Did I mention this bus is huge?

Driving it back from Arkansas was a hell-of-a-thing. I’ve driven the big rigs before (people that know me will be saying “dude, is there any job you haven’t done?” it was only a brief training job), and this bus, though not as big, was just as hard to get around corners. The first corner I took put me in everyone else’s lane. I could see their little faces with “0″ shaped mouths and upraised hands. But after a couple of corners, I got the hang of it and couldn’t continue to have multi-lane fun with an excuse.

It’s parked and ready for… something. I guess I’ve gotta get out there and pull the seats. Good thing others have already done this so I can see the ‘right’ way to do it.

I’ve used a lot of different software when it comes to audio. I’ve been in the “audio business” for over 25 years and have seen my share of hardware and software. Today, I tried something that I really didn’t have very high hopes for, a program called Reaper. The reason for even trying it in the first place is how most software programs out there are suffering from some serious bloat. Reaper was a 4 meg download.
I was a pro-tools guy for awhile (still using the hardware), but got tired of the constant crap with that dongle. It sticks out WAY too far and sucks to use it with a laptop!

Then I tried Ableton. Not too bad. It takes some getting used to, but I like it for the most part. Especially when I just want to throw down some ideas and see where they go. But when I tried to do my soundtrack/foley stuff, it just wasn’t cutting it.

Sonar, again, not a bad program. I did an entire album with it once. But some things that SHOULD be simple to do are just too cumbersome when you’re hitting it hard and trying to line up foley and dialog.

I haven’t tried Samplitude, but I’ve heard good things. In fact, checking out Samplitude is what led me around to Reaper. Something about this little program gave me the impression it was just some dude in a garage someplace (not that this is a bad thing, I’m just some dude in a garage someplace). The price was right so I gave it a whirl today.

So far, this program kicks some serious ass for what I need it for. I imported my Cineform 2k output of a scene. I was going to just use a proxy, but it took it and played, so why not use the real thing?
Then I imported all the tracks of foley I had in a directory. Boom! I had all the tracks in a line just-like-that.
Editing was smooth and quick. Overlapping blended the files like I remember from the old days of editing in Vegas — something about the smoothness  and ease of it.
The interface did everything I expected when I would move and click. Unlike Ableton et al. When I use the scrollwheel, it zooms, if I hit S, it splits etc…
There wasn’t anything in my way. It was just me and the audio files.

Man, freakin’ refreshing this is! It kinda reminds me of a program I used to use a LOOOONG time ago called SAW. I’ll always have fond memories of SAW. I believe it may still be around actually.

I found some surround sound plugins specially designed for Reaper that I plan to try pretty soon. I still have to get 2 more speakers and a sub first. My hardware has 10 outs so supporting it won’t be a problem.

If you’re a *real musician that can plug in and record and not *require virtual instruments, then I’d give this program a go. If you’re a pseudo musician that plays only VSTi stuff, then I’d give this program a go.

Surround sound plug-ins: http://acousmodules.free.fr

Reaper: http://www.reaper.fm/

In summary, this program is bad ass…

Photo by cloneofsnake

We’re shooting Crashing Down in 4k, but finishing in 2k. Some of you already know why this is badass, but let me elaborate for the ones that don’t. The obvious reason is that you’re getting more resolution. It does make a different. Once the footage has been downrezzed to 2k from 4k, you can see the apparent sharpness go up, and the noise go down. But, that’s only one small reason why I’m doing it.

Picture this; You’ve shot the scene, crammed all the coverage the schedule would allow, and get back to edit only to discover a spot that won’t cut together. Hey! You’ve got 4k! Just recompose shots by enlarging or shrinking the 4k in the 2k bounds until it works.

Here’s my current workflow. By the way, if someone with more experience knows why I shouldn’t be doing it this way (image degradation perhaps?), or has a better way, let’s hear it.

• I bring in the 4k footage and edit on a 4k timeline (can you believe this? I can edit in 4k and it plays back!). There are parts I can tell I want to recompose, so I make a note of it but don’t do it yet. Once I have all the good stuff lined out, I copy and past this into a 2k sequence.
• Now I re-edit, make it tighter, and recompose shots so that they look better. In some cases, I can get what appears to be more coverage by just leaving some of the setups as 4k in the crop, say a master for example, while using the 53.3% reduced version elsewhere.
• Once this is locked down, I copy the sequence for backup, then right click and hit “replace with After Effect composition.” After Effects opens with all the cuts in a composition spread out on separate layers. You could also just open AFX and copy/paste the footage into a comp, but my way makes the comp settings ready (length etc) so I don’t have to do it manually.
• I’m done with Premiere at this point. You’re apparently suppose to be able to play this comp in Premiere, but my machine chokes on this. Leaving the program to hog resources seems like a waste, so I close it and move my attention over to AFX for coloring.

— Quick note about coloring and AFX. I use adjustment layers and don’t apply the coloring tools directly to the footage. Why? Well, what if I want to tweak some edits? The way I have it, I can just copy/paste from Premiere again (after deleting the footage from the AFX comp) and realign any missed adjustment layers.

There’s a step in this process that I didn’t mention. The audio. We’re shooting with external audio that has a tether going to the Red One. When we first started, the Red needed an upgrade on the board so we had a hum in the audio. I had to go in and replace all the red audio with the external audio (that’s what it was for after all). Larry has since sent off and fixed his rig, so now I don’t have to do that unless the external audio is better for some reason. I haven’t tested the quality difference yet, but when I do, the workflow for audio might change. We’ll see how it goes.

STILLS PULLED FROM THE POST COLORED 2K FOOTAGE: