In-World War

Editing the pick-up scenes

Just a quick update to let you know what's been going on since our sneak peek at WonderCon.

I've been doing assembly edits of the scenes we shot during the pick-ups and 2nd units. We shot a ton of additional footage during this period -- not so much because the film is bad (a common reason for multiple pick-ups) but because it's such an ambitious project and we just didn't have time to get everything we wanted during principal photography.

Anyway, I'm working my way through the new scenes and then going to go through the entire revised assembly tightening it up and adding the remaining inserts we picked up. It will be a long process, but very much a fine-tooth-comb approach. Soon after that, I'll toss it back to the editor and she'll refine the edit, add the music and we'll have a rough cut (at last).

Here are a quick sampling of the pick-up scenes recently assembly edited:

- Bathtub reshoot
- NYC Walk and Talk between Tix and Mary (a new scene)
- NYC Mosque reshoot
- NYC Restaurant reshoot
- NYC Taxi
- Griefers ball doorwoman
- NYC vendors

What happens in each scene? What does this all mean?

You gotta wait to see the film itself....So back to editing it now....

Why all the pick-ups, 2nd unit and reshooting?

We're doing a ton of pick-ups and 2nd unit work: three days in NYC, four days in the Bay Area, plus all those random inserts -- not counting the eight or so days of 2nd unit work in Europe right after principal photog in Fall of 2009.

Many people are asking: Why are we doing so much shooting after principal photography?

There are three main reasons for all this additional work:

• The script was too ambitious for our 17 day principal shoot. We got a ton done, but had to pop a number of crucial scenes from the schedule. These were either scenes we couldn't get (due to logistics) or they weren't as crucial to the story (i.e. if we didn't shoot them, we could still tell the story, even if less-powerfully so). Now that we have the time, we want to shoot as many of these as we can.
• Due to our ultra-low budget, we weren't sure during principal photography if we would be able to go on location for the scenes set in NYC, Ireland and France. Thanks to good luck mainly, we were able to make most of these shoots happen (many frequent flyer tickets and "kindness of strangers" moments later). That meant we essentially reshot a bunch of footage we shot during principal. But thank god -- Oakland just doesn't pass as fake NYC or France. You can't beat the production value provided by these authentic locations. Nothing says Dublin. Ireland like Dublin, Ireland.
• Lastly, there's some stuff we just needed to shoot to make the film work. That might be reshooting a scene or single shot (mainly due to poor, hurried directorial choices during principal photog) or adding a shot or even a whole new scene to help tell the story better. Once we had a revised assembly edit, it really gave us the roadmap for what we needed. These fill in the crucial gaps in the overall story and the storytelling of a given scene.

This additional post-principal photography shooting is not cheap. Day for day it's considerably more expensive than principal, despite a much smaller cast and crew. But the footage is looking amazing and really adds layers of depth to the film, both visually and for the story.

(Which is a great opportunity to remind you that donations to the project are still desperately needed and are tax-deductible. Please give something to support our team this holiday season!).

If you're going to sacrifice this much blood, sweat and tears on something, it's worth the extra effort to make it as strong as possible.

Pick-up shooting has begun for In-World War

Now that we have a revised assembly edit of the film, we're in the process of filling in the gaps and reshooting scenes that need it. We have at least four weekends of pick-up and 2nd unit shoots ahead of us, in the Bay Area, NYC and perhaps Los Angeles (since a few actors are based in LA it might be easier to just go to them).

This past weekend we spent an evening shooting important b-roll for two scenes, at the Oakland docks and at a huge Burning Man-style party. The footage will go a long way toward establishing the backdrop to these scenes and generally giving the audience an opportunity to "look around" at the world of In-World War.

This type of additional shooting is what every film goes through when they see the early cuts and our few weekends of shooting is pretty meager given the overall ambition of the film. After all, we've shot in three different countries (actually four if you count the virtual Baghdad scenes) with a cast of hundreds including both main cast and extras. A few additional weekends of pick-up work is not bad.

However, this means we're heading back in production and though we're extremely tight-fisted, fiscally creative and ultra-low budget (i.e. cheapskate) filmmakers, we still need your financial support to complete this additional filming. We need to rent cameras, lenses, buy food for the crew and more.

If you've thought about donating to the project and getting your name in the credits, now is the time to do it: donate today to support our crazy grassroots indie sci-fi epic.

Progress on many fronts for the film

Just a quick update on some of the things that are going on. The project is such a huge undertaking, we have large sub-projects moving forward along parallel tracks at the same time.

Editing
Sharon is revising her assembly edit based on my feedback. Wes (our great asst. editor) is working on the Iraq scene. I'm looking at shots to pull out as selects for a number of montages.

Music
This is one of the biggest pieces on my plate right now. I'm gathering together some of the music I already have preliminary clearance to include in the film. Also, I reached out to a very music-savvy pal, Heidi (who also DJs on the best local college radio station), and she's helping gather music from local acts and bands who might be open to contributing a track (despite our lack of money).

Our goal is to get Sharon music by the end of the month, so for the edit after this one, we can start hearing some music. That will be huge.

For more about how to get music in your indie film, check out the recent blog post on my indie filmmaking blog, DIY Filmmaking Sucks, Royalty-free music for indie films.

Special effects
Now that we've recovered from the shock of realizing that In-World War has about 100 FX shots, we're starting the design and concept process. Graeme, our amazing FX guru in London, has just sent over the very first FX comp. It includes a number of different visual approaches to the NPC blur -- perhaps the defining effect in the film. Very exciting to see this start to take shape.

Outreach to the audience
A former student of mine, the extremely talented Ben (recently accepted into the graduate program at the Columbia Film School) has been working on a top secret sci-fi web project. If you dig hard enough, you can probably figure it out. It should be something that both sci-fi fans and sci-fi filmmakers will be into. We're pretty excited about it. Stay tuned.

(Yes, we're being coy.)

The future
On top of all that, I've started work on my next screenplay. Never a dull moment.

Feedback on assembly edit

I just sent our editor Sharon my 25 pages of notes on the assembly edit of In-World War.

Next step is to collect music for possible use while she's working on the next cut.

That cut gets shown to a small cadre, including our DP Donavan Sell and Exec Prod Benjamin Morgan. Their feedback helps drive the next edit and together we also make decisions about pick-ups for this summer.

The momentum feels great.

Editing the film

We're nearly done with the assembly edit and excited to see the first full cut of the film soon. Sorry to say this edit will never been seen publicly. We have too much work to do yet.

I recently compared this point in editing to cooking a three-hour meal. When you're only twenty minutes in to cooking a meal that takes three hours to make, there's no point in asking how it tastes. It's just too raw with most of the tasty ingredients still missing. But otherwise, everything is coming together nicely.

If you're curious to know more about the phases of editing (including the difference between assembly edit, rough cut and fine cut), check out today's post on my DIY Filmmaking Sucks blog.

One other thing.

If you've been following the project for a while, you've probably wondered why it's taking so long. So we wanted to address that, to give you an idea of what we've been working on.

Why did it take so long to start editing?
Principal photography on In-World War was in July 2009. Second unit was shot in late September and mid-January. As of this writing, it's mid-April. Why the delay to get into editing?

First and foremost, most of us have day jobs. There are only so many hours in the day sadly.

Second, we had multiple hard-drive failures resulting in lost weeks waiting for delivery of new hard-drives, backing up, checking data, etc. Since we're cheapskates, we didn't ship anything overnight, so we often had to wait up to two weeks for shipments to come via ground from the East Coast. Those delays cost us months, literally.

Third, we shot with four different cameras (five if you count the in-world "camera" used to capture some animated 2nd unit footage) and it took quite some time (hundreds of hours) to untangle the resulting data file confusion and transfer it all so we could edit in Final Cut Pro. Even then, the complexity of the shoot has resulted in a few data snafus that stopped the clock while we worked things out. Luckily we have some smart people helping us sort all this out (looking at you guys Dave and Alex).

Lastly, there have been a few other priorities that took over our time and energy, most significantly a big grant application for the film and the successful WonderCon indie sci-fi panel (and io9 after-party) that we organized. Again, only so many hours in the day.

Currently though, things are moving forward well. But fellow filmmakers be warned: getting into editing may not be as simple as firing up Final Cut Pro the day after production ends.

Want to help us get done quicker? Feel free to help us out with a donation. Every dollar helps us get closer to the finish line.

Editing is truckin' along.

Sharon Franklin, our amazing editor, is hard at work, churning out rough assembly edits of multiple scenes each day. Sharon also edited our previous film, Quality of Life.

With today's batch of edits, she sent this note: "The film is totally clicking for me now. I keep laughing out loud as I edit some of these scenes."

It's always good when the editor likes the movie.

Design a logo for In-World War

Do you have mad design skillz? Are you a typographical ninja? Or just looking to do something to support the film that really leaves your mark on the project?

The film needs a logo, both for our website and other uses. This community film project is built nearly entirely upon volunteers and people stepping up to help, so we want to invite you to join the IWW team.

We're using the indie film crowdsourcing site WreckAMovie.com to coordinate our community work during post-production (and will be using it more for other tasks, including FX).

Contribute a logo concept today (more details and examples here).

First edited scenes

Our editing process is finally taking off. Thanks to Wes for coming onboard as assistant editor, he's now setting up the files and creating the assembly edit for IWW's editor, Sharon.

Today I got to see the first scenes he's put together as rough assembly edits (the first two scenes of the film, plus one of the NYC apartment scenes). We'll be doing a lot more work on these edits, but it's a crucial milestone: our first edited scenes are here at last!

FX help needed. Make history.

In-World War was written to be cheap. Or at least, that was the original goal.

No space ships. No alien invasions. No fighting robo-dinosaurs with bio-chemical laser cannons.

The special effects would be kept to a minimum and focus on what we could do with trick-photography and perhaps get some simple CGI from FX students who were looking to build their own reels and resumes.

However, as we moved through production, I became concerned that the film wouldn't "read" as sci-fi, that it wouldn't have enough FX and would seem simply like just another ultra-low budget drama.

I thought I was fine with that (In-World War will never be a traditional sci-fi blockbuster -- it's far too quirky and smart), but my inner sci-fi geek wanted more.

So along the way, our ambitions grew.

Bit-by-bit I found ways of adding small (and sometimes large) FX shots. Always to add to the story and build a richer world, but also because each new FX concept was -- well -- cool.

Fast forward to today: I stayed up late last night finishing the first preliminary FX shot list -- a scene-by-scene inventory of the special effects that we need.

Somehow, we ended up with about 100 FX shots in this simple little DIY sci-fi film.

So we need some help. Your help.

If you or someone you know does FX (concept work, modeling, lighting, producing, whatever), get in touch: brant [at] studiolomismo [dot] com

I'll be upfront: we can't pay you in cash. We can promise a copy of the film and the opportunity to be part of something that's bigger than any of us (hundreds have already contributed as cast, crew or donors).

If you're looking to join a ragtag band of indie film rebels and help hoist the sail on this unlikely DIY sci-fi epic, then let's talk. 

We're making film history here: who's in?