Sunday, July 24, 2005
It’s been a long summer trying to get Stomp! Shout! Scream! completed. With picture locked, animation and the Hi-Def conform done, the sound mix is the next big step. All the audio post production clichés apply here. “Audio is more than half of the video.” “No matter how good the visuals, you’ll loose an audience if they can’t hear the dialog.” Something I learned succinctly when I started doing short films was that if a film has good professional sound, people will excuse a whole lot of visual, story, and other flaws. Juan at Soapbox Studios has been hard at work and gave the film a great complement when we first got started. He said that the location sound and post production audio was so good that he really doesn’t have much to do, just clean up the dialog and stay out of the way of a good film. I’ve realized that until I have a real deadline-- like a festival screening—there isn’t a whole lot of pressure to finish the audio. So we’ll probably keep tweaking it until the first festival acceptance letter comes in. Hopefully that will happen soon. I’d really hoped to have a cast & crew, family & friends viewing party this summer, but that’ll just have to wait until after a festival premiere.
On the festival front, submissions are going out every week. I’m doing lots of internet research, looking for festivals with good reputations that have shown films like Stomp! Shout! Scream! in the past. In addition to Toronto, Austin, and Sidewalk, I’ve submitted to some big festivals (St. Louis, Hamptons, Hollywood Horror Sci-Fi and Fantasy), some local ones (Savannah, Asheville), and some that just look like great fun (Coney Island, Rehoboth Beach, Portland Underground, Shriekfest in LA, F4 in Seattle, Rebelfest in Toronto, and Toofy in Boulder). If anyone reading this knows anyone at one of these festivals, put in a good work for me. Thanks.
Jul 24, 2005