Editing Begins

Wow. How to describe the feeling? A simple UPS delivery arrives from LA containing our 1 Terabyte hard drive, the same drive that we had sent to Cinelicious two weeks ago. We open the box, plug in the drive, and there it is: seven beautiful hours of digitized Beneath Contempt film footage-- a sterling HD transfer-- safely in our hands and looking...fantastic!

First things first...cut together a quick trailer to give everyone a taste of the look of our film. Second things second...log and synchronize all the audio files...bleh. Now here we are, three days before Thanksgiving and six days after giving thanks to the gods of film processing and ground shipping.

Let the editing begin.

Post Production Begins!

Since the end of principal photography, we've transitioned to the most nerve-wracking phase of the whole project: processing our 40 rolls of super 16mm film and transferring the images to digital format. At the start of this phase we have to part with our 17,000 feet of exposed film--and send it traveling 3,000 miles to our processing house in Los Angeles, FotoKem.

After a nervous week of waiting, the package made it OK.

FotoKem did the processing without any problem.

The next step: move the film negative across town to LA-based post production house Cinelicious, who handles the transfer to HD (Apple ProRes 422 1920X1080). We saw bits of the footage online via their "Colorcast" video service as it was corrected for color and exposure. Everything we saw looked terrific.

Once the digital transfer is done we will have a back-up copy of all footage and we can finally put the single-point-of-failure phase behind us.

Last Day of Principle Photography: The Farm

That's a wrap!

Abby and Mike join hardy crew stalwarts Erin, Shant, Kaz,

Ben and Greg for day 21 of a shoot that lasted from August

to October.

Getting some mouse sound

A distinguished actor joins the shoot as "Farm Boss"

Who's been looking through an eyepiece for three months?

After a long shoot, the "thousand mile stare"

Rock stars

Abby spends a quiet moment before filming her scene...

...when suddenly this farm feline jumps up with her

just as the camera rolls, creating a wonderful spontaneous

shot. Great serendipity on the last day!

Last discussion about shot selection

8 hours of 16mm are in the can...

The Support Group

Melanie attends her regular support group meeting

...at the church

Melanie makes coffee

Directing the discussion

Jodi

Gina

Jane

Film fun

Sliiiightly boring

Who doesn't belong and why?

How do you stand it?

As your mother, I naturally thought I'd have a

MUCH bigger part...

Friends at the Playground

Happy director

Now, in this scene you two are friends...

Happy actress

Nice setting

Julia

How are we doing so far?

Someone tell the actor he's on the

wrong side of the camera, please.

Waiting for "Action!"

Happy actress 2

You guys are naturals

Girls trying on motorcycle helmuts, Take One!

Dynamic Duo

The young actress's assistant

Erin gets the picture

What does this do?

Julia glam shot

Bar Encounter

Two parents discuss their feelings about Seany's return

Bartender father

Anger

Heartbreak

Smile break

Figuring out the scene

A scarf for Carly

Sober direction

The Convenience Store

Seany stops at a convenience store

Nights are getting colder

That's Mr. Convenience to you, bub

Door stop

Got an ID for that, buddy?

Oh, they do have scientific journals here...

Hand held.

Quick huddle

Making arrangements

"Quiet everybody, we're going up for a take"

Counter culture