End o' May

All right, well, here we are.

Basically I would like to accomplish in the next five weeks the same amount of editing that I accomplished in the last five months.

Hmmmm...

Five weeks from now is the end of June, at which time I am hoping to pass on the rough cut to someone more skilled, who may be able to clean up the sound, etc. etc. blah blah blah - I'm sure I've said that 100 times.  IF I am _not_ done by then (but  how could I not get done in five weeks what took me five months theretofore??), I do have some room to still get at least the rough cut done in time for the end of July, when I hope to have some kind of reunion and screening.  I need to look up what was our last day of shooting, because that might be a good anniversary date for a reunion -- and I think it was like the 7th of August, which would give me an additional week.  Ahem.

Alas, when I floated this reunion idea to the crew, both of our California people -- and they are not incidental (Marissa AND Larry) -- said they don't have the funds for a summer trip east this year.  SUCK!  Understandable.  I am excited, though, that most of us will be there!!  It will be so neat!  I have not yet been able to track down Greg Dancer, our DP, but, admittedly, I have not tried all avenues yet.  I expect to find him and hope that he will join us. 

More Good News:

A) I found Cynthia Conti!  Yay!  Hi, Cynthia!  Cynthia was involved from the beginning, helping with planning and doing just about anything she was asked, including second camera and sound recording.  She was one of our crew who had actually had some background in film production, so she was invaluable -- not least because her friends made up probably a third of our crew or more; that is, on any given day, there was a friend of Cynthia's there, doing something well needed.  Plus, it was a friend of Cynthia's that supplied the "piano room" location.  So we're happy to get her back into the fold.

B) I have enlisted Katelyn Whitehead, a former student of mine from UMN, to be the "Montage of Humanity" director & editor.  This is a montage of visions that Marissa has as her ESP is increasing in accessibility. I have yet to really know how long it should be, or exactly how it will fit into the final film, precisely, but with Katelyn's formidable smarts and creative instincts, it is sure to be NEAT, regardless.  Hi Katelyn! 

More mixed news:

So - One of the "little" scenes we never shot (I think there are three) was of Marissa waking up at dawn and looking at the clock, seeing her ponytail extension hanging there.  This was supposed to be a little bridge between the night before (first dinner) and the next morning when she and Larry run into each other on the beach.  The audience got to see that her long hair is fake, so that when she is short-haired on the beach, they don't think she cut all her hair off -- only to be confused when, a few hours later at meeting for worship, she has long hair again.  Hm. 

Well, I was in communication last week with Christine/Marissa, and she agreed to try to film herself in bed, waking up and looking off -- then I would shoot a shot of a ponytail (yet to be purchased) and intercut them.  Christine then very promptly did this (yay!) but unfortunately, though her camera claimed it was 16x9, it is _fake_ 16x9 -- 620x480 or something -- i.e., it's 16x9 including the black pillar-box bars on the sides!  Duh.  Plus, it doesn't seem to play at the right speed, though I might be able to fix this.  The issue is that she doesn't have or know anyone with an actual video camera (oh, how times have changed in ten years!), so she had to use her still cam.  Poop.  But I think I will keep the weird footage in there, anyway, because I think it will be better to have the scene than not have the scene, and it's only like two 15-second shots around the 5-second shot of the pony-tail or so.  So it's Really Cool!! that we now have this scene - new footage!! - but a bit of a bummer that it won't match.  The thing is, it's not like we're expecting a theatrical release anyway, so this is just one more *lesson* for us all (or me?) on our journey of learning about RIDICULOUS ICE CREAM.

Now -
Today I will clean up scene 30 (skipped 28 & 29 because I had some old 30 that was already done), and then go back to 28.  I am >>resisting<< the urge to re-cut the parts of 30 and 28 that I did YEARS AGO.  "Rough cut, rough cut, rough cut rough cut" I keep telling myself.  Right?????

I wish someone were actually reading this blog (besides Diane!  Who posted a comment last time!  Yayy!!!).  But oh well, whaddaya do?  As I head into the next five weeks, I think I will try to write more often, keeping all of you theoretical readers apprised of how ridiculous or not it is of me to try to get so much done in that amount of time.  If you ARE there, it would really help me to know it.  But I know you're not because I see how many pageviews I've had.

Sigh.

ONWARD!

Love,
Rachel