June 9 update Beach Town

Extras: boys on the beach, on location for Beach Town.
In the background: Emily Purington and Beach Town crew
(photo by Karin Rathert)

I'm at the point in the edit where I'm working on the film as a whole, instead of as a series of scenes.

Pacing is the order of the day. Without pacing, what've you got? I think I've established that: it's just a series of scenes.

Of course, this process also surfaces new ideas for ways to make the film better at the scene-level as well.

The view of the forest makes some trees stand out.

Here's an example: The screenplay calls for a short, single shot at the end of a scene where a bunch of the characters are hanging out after a show, at night. The scene was originally going to be in a bar, but the logistics and scheduling involved for getting everyone into the particular place I wanted all at once, at 10 at night, were not ideal. (Improbable at best.)  So early on, I went out and found this weird little spot by the public dock near the location where we were already shooting that evening.

It was pretty dark in this little spot, but there was something undefinable about it that I kind of liked and I figured it'd make a contrast to the overall sunny palette of Beach Town.

Anyway, the little shot we're talking about acts as sort of an end-cap to a fairly long scene; the last in a series of similarly-paced shots. Watching this scene the other day in context of the whole film, I realized that it was playing differently than I'd intended. And that maybe this new vibe was better.

And that maybe, there were some more things I could do, to make it even better.

So I started digging around in my files for ideas and almost immediately stumbled on an MP3 by this band "Quakers on Probation" that Graig Markel had turned me on to a while ago. I loved this song when I first heard it -- LOVED it -- but I couldn't find anywhere that it'd work in the film. Just in case, I tried sticking it under our little end-cap scene.

All of a sudden it clarified this new impression I was getting of the scene. It went from a slightly wistful, remote feeling, to a very specific wistful party feeling. Which was a million times better.

(A huge thank-you to Daniel Craig of Quakers on Probation for permission to use their song in the film.)

But wait, there's more! Watching the end-cap again I remembered a film clip I had in a different scene that might make the perfect companion shot for this new approach. And by coincidence, I'd actually been thinking of removing that clip from the other scene anyway, but wasn't quite sure so I'd just left it there for the time being.

I put that clip in front of our end-cap-with-new-music, and lo and behold, it worked perfectly, and the new effect is that the scene "opens up" the little world they live in very nicely.

Then I just had to trim and move the beginning, and end, of each clip and the clips around them, and the music, to get it exactly right.

And maybe get rid of the ambient sound track that'd been there.

Or maybe not.

Whew! Well -- I know that's some pretty exciting stuff to lay on you on a Monday morning. But this editing machine will not rest!

And, as they say in sculpture -- it'll be done when it's done.