Beach Town labor day update

(photo by E. Hammen, and not Beach-Town related)

If you want to find all sorts of little, tiny changes that need to be made in a film, a good way is to watch it "one last time". But boy oh boy, did I get a ton of work done this week.

This penultimate pass, which I'll be finishing tonight, addresses all the post-test changes that I already made -- makes them nice n' graceful -- and addresses how those changes affected the scenes around them, and the film as a whole.

For example,  I added a little bit of music to a scene that previously had none. The scene before it had music, differently motivated, so the transition between scenes needed to be timed differently (music dictates the beats rather than the ebb and flow of ambient sound in this case) . Then the cut to the next scene needed to be re-timed for the same reason, and also accounting for the change of feeling that the music gave the previous scene. And the ambient sound below the next scene changed a bit because it didn't have to compete as much with the ambient from the previous scene anymore.

It might sound boring and more of the same, but since I'm so far along in the process is pretty groovy and all about unearthing interesting new things and perfecting existing things.  Affirmation and proclamation. The one-hair brush instead of the big flat wall-painting brush. And the drum of spackle has been officially retired.

I've still gotta look at it as a whole again, but it's really gelling!

I also worked with David Thomas last week for some more mixes, both to new music and for a few tweaks to some existing tracks. David finished those over the weekend (!) and those'll be going into this cut as well.

Man, the music and thank-you credits on this movie are gonna be extensive. I don't want to mention any names, but perhaps, on this crazy little DIY film... perhaps a certain someone was collaborating? 

Oh yes he was!

Lastly, but not leastly -- Happy trails, Riley!

When is a lock not a lock? When a door's ajar. Beach Town movie update

I'm getting closer to picture lock. Not quite there yet, but close!

Here's where we're actually at: 

Completed -- audio levels pass. Also made a few more cuts in the process.

Completed -- spotting for possible new music bits. Also made a few more cuts in the process.

Completed -- ambient sound. I think! But just in case, here's a little joke: Q: How much ambient sound does one picture need? A: more.

Added -- a few new music bits. One of the songs I was able to pull from my massive outtakes file. And, by beautiful chance, I also got the new record from the mighty rock n' roll band Horns of Ormus via USPS, and a couple of their tracks happen to work very well in the other spots! (Thank you HOO! Uh...we'll talk!)

But I still might need one more music cue...

Might is the key word here.

There's this one scene... People have said as much...

But I'll tell ya, so far I've hated what music cues do to this scene, and to the rest of the sequence around it! I've been going back n' forth on this one ever since the test screenings, and I spent most of the day yesterday just addressing this one issue. Man, I tried a hundred things. I couldn't even find temporary, unattainable music that'd work. Rolling Stones, you will not be getting a call from me. And I went to bed having not figured it out.

However, it's been said that your subconscious works on problems while you sleep, and when I woke up at 3 am to listen to a big rattly train going by outside the window, I think I may have come upon the solution.

Social hour
Besides working tirelessly to finish the film, I've been out and about, and over the weekend I caught the riotous 14/48 festival, which featured a short play by Beach Town set dresser Jennifer Dice and a performance (in a different play in the fest) by Steven Stern. They're also doing another original play at SPT this weekend "The Spear Carriers". Check it out.
I also saw Sarah Winsor while I was downtown waiting for my car to get fixed. It was great to catch up; she has a big show coming up this fall at the Annex Theater that sounds exciting.

Here's that good old Beach Town trailer again.


Beach Town trailer from Erik Hammen on Vimeo.

Beach Town official trailer

Happy August everyone! If you're just tuning in, I'm still working on getting the film ship-shape after our test-reviews, but in the meantime --

A public trailer is ready!  I hope you dig it -- please share with anyone and everyone.


Beach Town trailer from Erik Hammen on Vimeo.

Trailer tomorrow!

I'm still working on the film, but tomorrow I'll put up the official public trailer for Beach Town.

Beach Town!

Beach Town

I changed the name of the film -- the old title seemed to imply that our Rock and Roll Beach Movie of the Mind was one of those "mondo" films.
This new page redirects from the old site, please adjust your Favorites to point to this page.
More to come very soon!

Update... of the mind

1922 color film test, with Mae Murray

While I let the film's new title marinate, I've been working hard to finish a pass at a new cut that addresses the test audience comments. I'm going to try to squeeze in some more work on the trailer as well.

It's worth spending time to properly process test audience comments. What happens is you hear from person A, person B, and person C. And while A and B love everything except for one little bit that really bothered them, person C thinks that one bit is the best part of the film.

All very smart people, just different aesthetics. How does this film fit into that? And what's person D going to say that's going to affect what A,B, and C said?

That said, person Z, who I talked to last week in real life, had just one major comment and a suggestion, and that suggestion actually addressed a major element across the film that I'd been stumped on. Digging into the film now, the changes I've made based on this new suggestion have been coming out great.

I watched a few other films over the week, specifically to see how they used their score music. I haven't done that in a while, it's always very interesting.

I'm also thinking a lot about color in this go-round, hence today's picture, which is not from our film, but of lovely Mae Murray, in an early color film test (1922!).  A long time ago I thought it might be cool to shoot a beach movie in black n' white, but calmer heads prevailed and instead we have glorious Kodak color. Everyone knows that B&W is great -- hell I've made as many film that way as in color -- but sometimes you wanna use charcoal, and other times you need oil paint. Whatever's best for the project. Right? Right!

Sightings: Anna and I saw Kenna Kettrick at the theater over the weekend, and just a few hours ago I ran into Riley Neldam out on the street, working on commercial shoot. It was great to see them both!

Test audience results (mostly), title change, trailer

I am coming out of my cave to report!

A big huge thank-you (once again) to Gordon Modin, of Gordon Modin Video Production for his help in finalizing the test audience preview DVD and review-only streaming content.

Gordon is a great guy who knows everything and has helped me with my last three films.

That leads to a second huge thank-you to my anonymous test audience for their candid, thoughtful, and thought-provoking comments!

Not much of which I can talk about right now (though I am very, very happy with the overall reactions) but one of the things that came from this was....

Trailer
I am putting together a trailer for the film, and as soon as it's done (and the new title is finalized) I'll post it on YouTube and Vimeo for all to see and share. It's gonna be awesome.