It’s been a long road, but the 5.1 audio mix is almost complete. Agonizing over mixing each and every voice, sound and musical cue from a general mix standpoint and then into the 5.1 format is a big job and I’m so excited it’s nearly completed. Some bits of the movie are harder to mix than others and seeing the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is a huge relief.
That’s the thing about independent film: you have no release date, so you could work on it forever, so the possibilities are infinite, but there are only so many hours a day for me to work on the movie (sometimes none) – so time is a finite resource…. I guess it would be a finite resource even if I had nothing to do each and every day but work on the movie, which is not the case.
So anyway, the audio mix is almost done. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I’m working on a new cut of the movie. That specifically means I added a new scene and I recut the original first scene of the movie, which took about thirty seconds out of that opening, a segment we were referring to as Katie Weigl, Hand Model. And that part is still in the movie, but the pace is much faster and, in some cases, in a slightly different order. I also made other changes as I came across them – for example, there were these two shots in the movie I hated and I finally realized I could change them. It was a simple fix, but it took me a while to realize this – once I did, the actual work was easy. I’ve found that to be the case in almost all instances – thinking up the change is hard, making the actual edit is an almost instant fix. This is particularly the case in scenes with a lot of moving parts – a fight, for example, is a lot harder to cut than people sitting and talking at a kitchen table.
I don’t want to say exactly when I’ll be done, but I’m finally on the home stretch. Here’s what I have left:
- I’d say I have about ten to fifteen more minutes of the movie to mix into a 5.1 audio format.
- Then, I’ll review each scene individually and give it a final “locked” seal of approval.
- Finally, I’ll watch the entire movie, hopefully with some people that have never seen it and get some feedback. There’s something about having folks in the room that gives me fresh eyes and helps me find mistakes.
After all of that is done, we’re going to enter a few more film festivals and investigate the streaming market. Subscribe to the movie on Facebook or join the email updates to stay informed!
Will Reading 