Anyway, the reason I can’t seem to shake the line is because lately I’ve been putting a lot of faith in that kindness of strangers and so far it’s been going really well… Which comes as a bit of a surprise to a crusty cynical curmugeon like myself. I didn’t spend nearly half a decade by myself animating Minushi because I have a lot of faith in other people, know what I mean?

But lo and behold the universe has yet a new curve ball to send my way (just to mess with my head, I’m sure) in the form of kindness. The kindness that seems to be eagerly bestrowed upon the independent filmmaker by those he calls on for support.

Seriously, I have yet to be disappointed by anyone I’ve gone to with hat in hands, be it to ask for locations, time, talent, back-muscles - what can I say? I’m not sure why I’m surprised; I’d love to help me out. I guess I just didn’t expect such positivity from people sight unseen. It’s led me to question the nature of this kindness… I know, I know, why look a gift-horse in the mouth? Crusty cynical curmugeon, remember?

But wait now, what I’ve come up with isn’t so bad: I think people just generally want to be a part of “the movies” - even little independent ones. And not literally in the movie… I think people just like movies (duh!) and just want to see them succeed.

So - I don’t know - I guess what I’m saying is: Just ask. It’s become my motto anyway. Need help with your project? Just ask.

Cue music!

“You can always depend on the kindness of strangers…
To pluck up your spirits, and shield you from dangers…
Now here’s a tip from Blanche you won’t regret…
A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met…
You haven’t met…
STREETCAR!”

I went in thinking, well, this’ll be easy enough; who ever sucks least is our guy or gal.

Yikes. Was I wrong. Facing the decision of choosing who is going to embody the characters you’ve begun creating is nothing short of heartbreaking! And worst of all every thought on the subject falls into a hackneyed cliche of “you’re all beautiful” or “you’re great, just not great for this part.”

Anyway, that’s the way things go. It seems like when you try to find that embodiment of your characters in live humans it’s always going to lead to a reshaping of the character and in the end you just try to make that reshaping as low impact as possible. So if I’ve got anything to say to aspiring actors (and frankly anyone in a creative profession that requires some kind of audition) it is that it’s not the peg it’s the hole. And I’m not just talking about being on this side of the casting process; I’ve been on the other side myself in various situations: whether it’s trying to sell a script, pitch a concept or even audition to play a role. Bringing all you can is all you can do, the rest is out of your hands and really has nothing to with the quality of your performance.

Sometimes you’re just going to be 5.11 when the script called for 5.10.

So in the other news, shooting has already begun on Refrain! Not with our yet to be finalized cast, but some stuff I could get away with starting on this past weekend. All very exciting.

T

I’ve always maintained that the entire 19 chapters of Minushi would eventually be released online and I expect to fulfill that promise four weeks from now.

It feels really good to be wrapping up this project. It also feels pretty good to see that releasing the chapters online doesn’t seem to be hurting DVD sales. I’m glad to see that there are viewers out there who can appreciate the enhancement to the viewing experience that the feature length version of Minushi has to offer.

At another time I would probably have posted 500 words on just what a miserable affair it’s been getting the very image and sound intensive Flash files exported properly of online delivery… But I’m in happy place today…

T

Music is a huge source of inspiration for me as well as being one of life’s little mysteries since I, myself, have the musical dexterity of lobster. So with that, music is very much at the core of Refrain and as such, my partner (Vidya) and I made sure to get a head-start on the soundtrack. It’s completely backward way of working for me, but I’ll tell you; it’s great. In the deepest, darkest hours of self-doubt about going balls-out and producing another independent feature film, it’s nothing short of adrenalizing to put the demo soundtrack to your movie on the speakers to remind you of what you’re working toward.

So this week, I’m happy to bring you all a little taste.

Now I hate MySpace just as much as everybody else who’s too-cool-to-be-on-myspace but apparently they still host music well, so I’ve taken my self-righteousness and sucked it up.

You can hear a pre-production track from the movie at myspace.com/hearrefrain.

And check out the Refrain film page in its infancy at myspace.com/watch_refrain.

Link to us, friend us, post us, do whatever it is MySpacers do. I’m giving this a try.

More on casting next week.

T

The search begins.

The experiments continue…

Despite its no-budgetedness the production wasn’t for want of talent or expertise. I learned a lot about shooting live-action and was able to refresh myself on photography and lighting basics long since recessed in my mind since college. And all that simply volunteering as a grip/gaffer. There are no small parts, gang. I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that a captain should know as much about the role of each of his crewmen as the crewmen himself and with my own project setting sail soon, I’m feeling all the more equipped with that knowledge after this experience.

I have no idea where the nautical metaphore is coming from but it ends now.

I have to admit that in the midst of things like laying down dolly track for a tracking shot by a car in a dark garage decorated to fake an exterior, night, driving scene I had pangs of self-doubt about what I was going to be able to accomplish on my own project with even more limited means… After all, these filmmakers knew what they were doing and I’m just some idiot who makes cartoons. But by the end of shoot I felt renewed zeal for my own project. After toiling for consecutive 12 hour days I realized that I don’t have to feel doubt; I can feel unity. I can feel like I’m not the only person out there with ridiculous aspirations fueled by nothing more than words on a page!

It’s going to be alright.

Fuck picture quality.

Alright… Not really, really but, y’know, a little bit. Fuck it a little bit. More like who-gives-a-fuck? it.

Listen, I’m just tired. I’ve been researching video editing software and the peripherals inherent therein and it’s just terribly tedious. I so don’t care about 4:4:4 vs 4:3:3 or 4:2:2 or whatever! And I have like 20-10 vision and can paint a colour wheel by smell. Picture quality is such a scam - with the notable exception perhaps of nature documentaries…

Darren Aronofsky’s Pi was black and white with like 6 shades of grey and it was captivating; Blair Witch was total crap and it scared me silly (shut up, you loved it); and lets not forget a hundred classics and even more movies we all watched on cruddy old TVs before HD. All I’m saying is, talent trumps technology and I am so through trying to optimize every freaking pixel of screen real estate. There are ten times more codecs out there then there are colours in the entire Prismacolor and Faber-Castell pencil collections combined and - seriously - we’re going through all of this to make Transformers look good? The king isn’t wearing any clothes!

I’m done with it. The Great Big Emptiness or Refrain (like it?) or whatever the hell I’m going to call this thing is going to look like crap. I’ve decided. And you’re going to like it, damn it!

Sound quality on the other hand…

See I’m illustrating storyboard frames and then lining them up in Final Cut Express to give me a real-time playback of the movie I plan on shooting. The reason I decided I needed a real-time playback version of a storyboard instead of a binder of static images is because of the music.

See The Great Big Emptiness (I am so going to change that title) has a large musical component. Not Sound of Music “musical” but musical in the sense that music will be playing a more prominent role in the movie than simply being relegated to the score. Music will actually be performed by the performers… Which raised a lot of questions in my mind about recording, editing and timing. So I decided that a playback storyboard would be helpful in figuring out a lot of that stuff before shooting. Since we (Vidya Lutchman - musician and the movie’s lead actress) need to write music that will be specific to scenes before we’ve actually shot the scenes - music in fact that will have to be performed before the camera as well as carry over other scenes like a score would - the more we know about how those scenes are going to flow the better.

Confused?

Yeah, my head hurts. But I just have to trust in whaterver moment of clarity Past-Tyler was experiencing when he send me on this errand. It’s good to have plan. I can’t stress that enough. A plan is like creating a reflex in your mind; so later when you’re in the middle of chaos you don’t have to think, you can just react.

T

Anyway as I announced only a couple weeks ago - or in the parlance of our times, a couple posts ago - the new project is called The Great Big Emptines, for now. For now because - full disclosure - I’m not completely sold on the name myself. It’s a title that sums up the theme of the movie, which is an important trait in a title if you ask me but I’m not sure it has that memorable a quality. A trait that may be even more important as far as marketing is concerned. Something like Snakes on a Plane for example covers both those bases with shameless efficiency. Or take Deep Impact which is just on the tasteful side of a pun but also fills in the criteria very effectively both reflecting the physical catastrophy facing the characters as well as the emotional “impact” it is having on their lives.

One thing that tends to bother me in a title is when it’s appearence in the dialogue of the film immediately pulls me out of whatever tentative suspension of disbelief said narrative may have on me. Take for example, Gone Baby Gone. Great film, but the moment the words themselves - “She’s gone, baby. Gone.” - were spoken, then the actor speaking them may as well have turned his head, looked directly into the lens and winked. It pulls me out of the moment faster than a 555 number… And I’m a little concerned that the words “Great Big Emptiness” do appear in a line of dialogue in my new project… Albeit not so overtly.

And then there’s the out of left field titles. The out of left Cloverfield titles… Y’see what I did there? Yeah. I tend to gravitate toward that style of naming but then, I tend to gravitate to things that make my work less successful rather than more so for some reason… (See (again) a title like Minushi).

Titles… I ruminate on them for months; often coming up with nothing to better the initial placeholder I use to name the Word files.

But who needs a title until you’re ready to market the thing, right? Maybe, but things change when you want to create an open concept production to get you, the public, interested from the get-go…

So the The Great Big Emptiness… Will it stick? I’ll keep you posted. Until then I’ll continue to create the real-time storyboard I’ve been working on. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to post some of it here soon. More on that later too.

Until then!

*To be fair (to myself), I like the name “Minushi” it holds a lot of significance for me (and maybe for you too if you’ve received your copy of the DVD set) but from a marketing perspective it wasn’t the wisest choice of names…