FEATURE: Monsterfest finalist - "The JONES'" Feature!

We're ALL interested Marlon. We're the virtual cheering team, just over your shoulder at all times exclaiming,"Yay,Yay,Yay ... Now get 'er done! :-)"

-T

Marlon Ladd said:
Glad somebody's interested out there. . So the movie is really close to being done. I just finished the intro to the film, which I thought would take about a week to do. It only took me two days. That was great, because I had to go and pull files from the short, which was 2 years ago and 6-8 external hard drives later. Also, one of the last things I was needing were some landscape shots and I've got those done. Just have to plug one in and that's done. So, this week I'll be doing voiceovers for the one scene we reshot, which won't take long at all. After that, the credits and it's ready to send to my composer. I'm hoping to have that done by the weekend. While he has it I'll be finishing the color correcting, so when he sends it back to me it'll be totally finished.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, peeps!! I'm rendering right now, so guess this is a good time for an update. I had been having really crazy problems with some of the comic book effect freeze frame stuff with fcp. It has been crashing on me left and right. I got smarter and figured out a way to finally make it work though (after 4 hours). So, that's one more thing that's done. I honestly didn't think I would have the cc done before sending it off to my composer, but now I think I will. All the delays I've had in finishing the movie while working on paying projects has paid off. It's given me more experience doing things like experimenting with cc. So, I'm happy to announce that I've decided on a cc for the film that (IMO) looks fantastic and won't take forever to render. Will post pics this week. Okay, done rendering, now back to work.
 
Marlon Ladd said:
Thanks, peeps!! I'm rendering right now, so guess this is a good time for an update. I had been having really crazy problems with some of the comic book effect freeze frame stuff with fcp. It has been crashing on me left and right. I got smarter and figured out a way to finally make it work though (after 4 hours). So, that's one more thing that's done. I honestly didn't think I would have the cc done before sending it off to my composer, but now I think I will. All the delays I've had in finishing the movie while working on paying projects has paid off. It's given me more experience doing things like experimenting with cc. So, I'm happy to announce that I've decided on a cc for the film that (IMO) looks fantastic and won't take forever to render. Will post pics this week. Okay, done rendering, now back to work.
Click to expand...

Cool. Ready to see the new pics and the CC.

Keep it moving forward!

-Martin
 
Three Billion Seconds said:
Sounds like your onto something solid. Your actors from the trailer seam to be very comfortable with the one another and you can’t get better then that.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Everything seems to be on par for this one to do really well. I'm pleased and impressed with how it looks and I'm sure everyone else will love it (fingers crossed).
 
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that my BTJ sequence is so large that my MacBook pro can no longer pull it up. Good news is that I finally got my programs loaded on my new iMac and it's so much faster. I've still only got 4 gigs of RAM and I'm going to update that immediately. The cc ing is almost done and I'm really impressed with it along with some of the shots we got in the film. Being able to look at it on the iMac really helps to see its potential. Alot of the shots are simply amazing. I really can't see how we could have done any better with any camera on some of these.

I may finish with all the cc today. I still have an fx shot to do, a few edits on the ending and the credits.

There are also a few distributors waiting to see a rough cut right now. May be something or nothing. Also, still waiting for my composer to get back to me. He's in Philly right now working and I don't know how that affects our timeline right now.
 
Make sure not to buy apple RAM. Go to crucial.com (in case you weren't aware of it). It's like $60 or something to get another 4GB instead of $400 through Apple.

Very excited to see this!
 
Yep, you're right on. That's exactly where I was headed. They're who I bought my RAM from years ago. I didn't know Apple was charging so much though. Wth??
 
Advice from others: do not show distributors a rough anything unless you have names in your picture, but even then, you shouldn't. They cannot fill in the blanks, is what I've been told multiple times.

Wait until you've got it in the best shape possible to put it out there.

Get 'em!
 
I'd really never thought of showing anybody a rough, but it seems as if several distributors really want to check the film out asap. When I say rough, I just mean without the musical score. Everything else would be a lock and finished, but I definitely hear what you guys are saying and I'll have to re-think it for sure.
 
if "several distributors" all want to check it out, then that's the kind of situation that you want to be in. Don't let ANY of them see it until it's ready. Then let 'em see it, in front of a paying audience. Get it into a good festival somewhere (ideally in Park City) and send invitations to each and every one of them.

Sending them a "screener" of an unfinished film is a pretty good way to guarantee that they will pass on it. Sure, one in a hundred might be so amazing that they watch it, but ... a screener, that they watch for 10 minutes, that has problems, then their phone rings, then someone comes in with a delivery, they put it on pause and -- that's the end of your chance with that distributor.

On the other hand, get six of them under the same roof all watching in a real movie theater with (ostensibly) no distractions, and a paying audience who (hopefully) are loving it... that's a whole different scenario. Especially if they know that there are other distributors there.
 
^ this.
yeah dont do it.
they wanna do that to make it easier to pass on it and have leverage on buying it because its not finished.
if you go for a feature, show it when its complete.
dont let them play you out of position
they are on the hook sonny!
sock it to them mega-director-dude!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top