Editing Where We Started: The Trailer

BK Garceau, a trailer editor in LA and a former student of mine, is working on the trailer for Where We Started. He has been trying to cull it down to a two minute preview that tells the story without revealing too much. Though it's not yet complete, I thought I'd share what the trailer for the movie looks like in post-it note form on BK's door:



The trailer edit itself should be done pretty soon, but then we still have to finish sound work and color correction on the film so that the look of the footage in the trailer will match what the final look of the film turns out to be. So I'm not sure precisely when it will be released for public consumption - but I will tell you that watching the trailer made me excited about this film all over again.

Editing Where We Started: Music

It's been a long time since I've blogged - had a busy semester as we've been trying to complete the picture cut of the movie. But as we move toward completion of that (and it's nearly done), I've been working with composer Mike Hogan on the score. Today, I spent the afternoon listening to his compositions and working with him on changes. It's terrific working with him - he's both flexible and precise. Nitpicky when he needs to be. We get along creatively because we're both similar - open to the ideas of others but also sure of what we want and what we like.

Anyway, here's a shot of Mike from today in his home office/studio.

Slacker 2011 (Dallas)

This summer, I was asked to participate in the Dallas VideoFest's celebration of the 20th anniversary of Richard Linklater's Slacker by directing a remake of one of the segments.

This is my take on "Been to the Moon," starring Thomas Ward and Wes Cunningham, camera work by Brian Elliott, sound and post finishing by Andru Anderson, editing and color by Grant Hall.

Slacker 2011 (Dallas) from Chris Hansen on Vimeo.

Editing Where We Started: Screen Captures

Last night, at the request of DP Taylor Rudd, I made some screencaps of the film. Since the rough cut is in, he wanted to see some frames. This morning, I thought I might share some of these terrific images with everyone else. These are taken right from my screen - you can even see the Quicktime window surrounding the images.

Editing Where We Started: Reviewing Rough Cuts

So editor Simon Tondeur sent me the first rough cut of Where We Started a week ago. I was both excited and anxious. Excited for obvious reasons - this is my film! But I was nervous because I had to re-engage with what I had done (about which I've felt pretty good) and whether or not it was working.

In other words, I had to leave my positive memories of the shoot behind and focus on what we actually got and whether or not it was working.

I closed my office door and watched the film all the way through with few interruptions, which to my mind was an important part of the process. You can look at an individual scene to see if it works, but employing that method makes it hard to determine if the film as a whole is doing what you want it to do.

And I came to the end of the film and thought that were some good scenes, but as a whole it wasn't coming together yet.

Simon asked me later that night to articulate what my favorite scenes were and what my least favorite scenes were.

As I wrote out those thoughts to him, it occurred to me that what was lacking in some scenes was the inclusion of more shots that had both actors in the frame (as opposed to lots of close-ups).

That sounds like a trivial thing, but in a film that deals quite a bit with the intimacy between two people, I realized that not seeing them occupy the same space in the same frame might be a part of the problem.

Simon knows that as well but was struggling with continuity issues. That is, the actions of the actors in the wider shots didn't often match their actions in the closer shots, so it was hard to cut between them (because there is a mismatch that takes viewers out of the 'moment'). Nevertheless, he dug back in to make those changes and some others as well.

I watched most of the second rough cut today (I couldn't finish because I ran out of time at the end of the day after numerous interruptions). And I have to say that the cut seemed to really work, so far, with the changes that were made. I started to sense this connection between these two characters like I hadn't felt in the first cut.

So that's a long-winded way of saying that I really think this movie is coming together.

Editing Where We Started: Update from the Editor

Postproduction on Where We Started was interrupted recently because our editor, Simon Tondeur, was in the middle of a move from apartment to home. He emailed the following photo to me tonight with the tagline "Finally, back up and running..."



That's his editing set-up in his new home office. I'm happy for him to have his own space for editing now, and I'm also pleased that editing can continue!

And that's footage from Where We Started up on his Final Cut Pro system. I'm looking forward (with fear and trembling?) to seeing the first cut.

Publication News: American Messiah screenplay

Big news: Bad Lit Press has published the screenplay from my first film, The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah, for Kindle. Now you can read the script from the hilarious film! Read the announcement here: http://www.badlit.com/?p=18158

And then go buy the script for your Kindle (or your Kindle app on your smartphone or computer!): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EM2Q1U