So the rough cut is done, and I’ve been going through it making notes about how to improve it and fix things. There are a lot of things that still need to be done – illustrations for animated sequences, the score, etc etc – but it is way closer and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel…but I just made a disturbing realization; a lot of the voice over doesn’t work.
The main character, January, hears a voice in his head. That is a BIG plot point. It could be argued that is what the movie is about. I would make that argument in fact. Once again though I have found something I didn’t do right during production and it’s biting me on the backend. That whole “we’ll fix it in post” thing is a load of crap. It’s way better to get it right during production and not have to worry about fixing problems in post. Each phase should be free to be creative and not have to catch up the slack of the previous stage, I think…but I couldn’t know what I didn’t know. So I have learned a lot of lessons in this process by making mistakes that I will do my best not to repeat on future projects.
This lesson I actually learned months ago. I learned it during production but it was too late really…and I didn’t forsee this particular problem. The lesson is “Always have a script supervisor.” It is really important to have someone who’s job it is to keep their ears open but their eyes on the script. The Director is getting pulled in so many directions and has so many things to constantly be keeping in mind it is really hard to give the script as much attention as it needs. You want to see that your actors are giving good performances and that the story is being told. Knowing I was editing the film as well I was also thinking about how I’d edit it, but I learned a lot of lessons when I actually got to that stage and saw what I had done…but that is a lesson for another post on another day.
The problem here was because the Voice in January’s head was going to be recorded later and added in post no one was taking into adequate consideration that part of the story and where it would fall in the story. The actors where paying attention to their part and doing their best for the scene, but no one was there to remind them about the invisible and inaudible (at that point) Voice that was going to be interacting with them in the final scene.
Also what worked well on the page didn’t really turn out to work so well with what we actually shot. So what I think I’m going to do is go through the film as it is now and rewrite the Voice in January’s head and record it right to the film. This way it will get across that part of the story as concisely as possible and it will fit way better than what I’ve got now…which most of you will never see (thank goodness)
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