Thursday, January 24, 2008

I'll Take Recreating the Jeopardy Stage for 50, Alex...

For the past four months while visualizing Jeopardy, I always had it stuck in my head that the final shot of the movie would have to be done entirely green screened. After watching Jeopardy, studying the set and visualizing that last shot, I realize that maybe green screening may not be the direction to take. The shot itself, less than twenty seconds long would and moves from a Close Up to a Medium Close Up. With in that range only about 50% of the actual podium will show, leaving the back ground covered by it and Henry himself to an extent.





Doing some tests with different gels, glass, fiberglass, I am thinking just literally dressing a "set" or making a similar to show the background would be the cheaper and easier route to go. To really think about it: If we green screened the shot, we would still have to build the podium. And then I would spend countless hours in Illustrator, Shake, Photoshop, AE, Swift, building and recreating the hanging frames you see in the picture below. And even then, it may take me four months to get it right if I get all the textures and looks right. The simpler approach: Build the podium out of wood-- Use metallic paint and texture to cover the wood and give it a plastic/metal feel. Buy a metal flat for the LCD monitor-- Keep the camera static, CG the lights on top of the podium and blue LCD monitor. Construct some makeshift metal or wood frames and put gels, colored fiberglass, and the same metallic textured paint in them. Hang on those from the ceiling in front of a light blue background add some filters and post production touches to the footage to make it look like TV and BADA BING! Henry is on the Jeopardy set.


Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The NC Incident is Complete Seven Months to the Day

This is the final hours of my wedding weekend wrapped up into ten minutes ending in an emotional hair raising montage of time with friends and family through the years. Cutting this was one of my favorite moments in the editing bay of 2007. I captured about five hours of archived footage to use in that small four minute montage.(The Clip is ten minutes, the montage is about four of the ten.) I could have captured another ten hours. Like I've always said, my kids are going to have a great time going through my 600 to 700 some tapes I've captured over the years. If I would have had time and resources I would have done it myself for this clip. I just simply didn't have time to go through every tape of every friend and family member and pick their best moment I've captured of them. What lays out in the final is almost just as good.

The NC Incident, (Mandi and Garrick's wedding,) is being packaged and completed this Sunday. The third and final installment of the three part epic wedding trilogy is behind me. From the tens of twenty song and clip alterations, to the month long grind fest of getting my ceremony to at least what I could call a viewable stage, to half assing the final credits to say I was done.... IT IS OVER, seven months to the day. I ran a test DVD of it Saturday and it only needed one adjustment.... (THE WHOLE THING!!!) -- Kidding. This DVD is packed with stuff to keep you entertained for a good two and half hours. On top of the actual hour and a half movie, there is a commentary track that explains what you don't see, five full ridiculous karaoke performances from the reception. Alternate sequences, trailers, deleted clips, poster and picture gallery's and trailers from the past two wedding movies.

If you attended my wedding you will be receiving a copy. If you didn't make it, I may not have your address, (Jazz excluded,)so if you are interested in seeing it, drop me your address through email, (Don't post your address on a blog comment,) and I'll send you a copy.

SPOILER ALERT: This clip is the end of the film. If you want the 'build' of the movie before you watch this clip. Don't watch it now. Wait for the DVD.

To see other information, exclusive web clips, and other stuff CLICK HERE. Sunday the complete package of media, clips and other useless information will be available there.


Wednesday, January 16, 2008

So What Did the Jewish Pedophile Say?




The title of this entry and the little teaser poster above was a joke that was told Thursday night at the Tap Room the night everybody arrived. After it was told orignally, it was repeated and laughed about at least 20 more times throughout the weekend. It became almost an ongoing joke throughout the weekend.

During the six month post production period of this epic wedding video another ongoing joke arised: "Garrick, try and be subjective and selective." If you are a professional cameraman and editor, I employ you not to try and cut your own wedding video. It is not healthy and in all honesty, you may find that because in fact you may not be able to be subjective as to what to leave in and what you leave out you may end up with a huge mess as I did... I think. I had nine hours of footage to jumble through and believe me, I wanted to keep 75% of it. The longer it took me to edit the thing, the more I second guessed everything I had edited. This same situation happened to me when I cut 'The Jersey Bootleg.' Of course in that situation, there were 21 hours and there was, (no exaggerating,) 18 hours of stuff we could've kept. It's tough, because you were there and remember how it all went down. Sometimes, the camera doesn't capture it like that and as an editor, you have to try and tell the story without using every pause in conversation and reaction unraveling in front of you.

The NC Incident, was the same way, and because it of course was my own wedding video, I wanted it to be perfect. I'm a nit picking bastard anyway when it comes to the real footage I am given. This was no exception. From Color Correcting and Sound Editing every snip on the time, (2123 of them,) to re-rendering and positioning all the text twice, (once to change it, once to change it back to the original way,) I methodically made an absolute mess of it all. Now, nobody has seen this video yet, because I am still working on the perfectly laid END CREDITS, DVD MENUS and DVD SLEEVE, so maybe just to me I feel this way because on top of the CC and Sound Edits, I reworked every Sequence at least four times as well. The only two sequences that were approved by me the first cut through were the: 'Opening' and 'Ceremony' sequences. (The Ceremony was not reworked because, well there wasn't really anything else I could do with it. If you keep up with this than you that story. If not CLICK HERE upon finishing this.)

I said the other night, this hour and a half finale to my 3 Wedding Video trilogy, will be either a master piece or a f*#%ing Snooze Fest. By February, 'The NC Incident' will hit the proverbial 'shelves' for my little part of the world to see. The outcome will be determined then...

For now, I've provided a glimpse of the variations this S.O.B has gone through in the past 6 months. The two sequences below were the two I had the most trouble with. From the music to use, to the pace, to the amount of footage added to subtracted, they were reworked four times. The clips on top were the first cuts abandoned after the month long ceremony edit debacle and two month following hiatus. The clip below it, is the fourth run and will have to be final cut, done three weeks ago on a belly full of tequila a couple hours of sleep.

Let me know what you think.



FRIDAY - REHEARSAL DINNER

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Edit 4






BACK AT THE HOTEL

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Edit 4

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