Well I'm into post now... I got my film transferred to Beta tapes and brought those to Dow Jones where I used to work (and still freelance at should they need me) and watched it all. It looks amazing. I was very impressed.
A friend of mine transferred all our sound tapes (which were taped on DAT tapes) to Beta and I've been spending time syncing the sound to video but the sound has been terrible in places... plus our sound guy taped over a lot of our takes! I'm sitting there syncing stuff up and suddenly, where take three should be, take one from the next scene begins! Either he didn't realize that DAT tapes roll back a little after you switch from recording mode to playback mode and back again, or the DAT machine we used was really screwed up but we got a few problems in sound. Plus it sounds like shit in certain places as I was already saying but I had our sound guy come listen to the stuff and he said it doesn't sound anything like what he recorded and that I should re-transfer the tapes again. He's probably right about it being the transfer though because my friend, when he transfered the tapes, didn't listen to every take and so he never set the correct levels for the whole tape. So we should get better sound on our second transfer.
So I have to go back in there today (Sunday) and start the second transfer. We started cutting a trailer which I think is going to be real cool. We're using a Sony 500 (I think that's what they called them back in college) where you just make linear cuts - no non-linear avid system right now... I want to see what I can do with the free equipment while it's still available to me... if Dow Jones sells it all then I gotta start lookin' elsewhere.
Well the last few days of filming were interesting... crew members had to leave before we were done filming because we took a little longer to finish then we told anybody. This meant we lost our gaffer, production manager, sound man, production designer and several other people around five days before we were done filming!!! Everything was sort of OK except the sound guy leaving. He told us at the last minute that he had a paying gig to go to and left us with nobody twenty-four hours before we needed someone! Luckily we put everyone to work and came up with a great sound dude at the last minute (he still had to leave before our last day of shooting and we were forced to use our extremely-talented boom guy as soundperson. Marty, the boom guy, was also used as a stunt-double for our lead actor after he hurt his ankle and couldn't run very well because the lead actor is huge and Marty was the only person available that was close to his height.
But we got the film shot. Now I have to tidy up all the contracts to see what we owe everyone. I still need to finish adding all the receipts up. I have to constantly pay credit card bills because they're starting to roll in already. Plus pay a new installment of the workers compensation insurance that SAG made me purchase (I think it's illegal to film without it but I would've anyway probably). Any I'm tired as hell and don't want to do any of it. I'd actually like to get some of the footage from the film onto this webpage but I don't know if I'm going to have the time for that either. I'm going to try though because I want this page to get a little more professional and grow into something big and important for any young filmmakers out there... (plus get me famous at the same time!).
But the film's really been a great experience for me... from start until now... The stuff looks amazing and combined with the script is good enough to bring this project to theaters everywhere but it's still a crap shoot to see if distribs will bite... I'll see though... I've already gotten calls from October Films, Brimstone Entertainment, some other foreign distrib whose name I forget at the moment, and letters from such companies as Buena Vista. So I gotta edit some shit up fast and see what happens... cross yer fingers kiddies...bye.