Nearing the Finish Line, Which is the Starting Line
I fell behind on the blog this week because we are working to get our assets together for Park City. Everything is lining up really well and the mounting interest has been exciting. It’s shaping up to be a great premiere on the 19th!
Most recent news first: My good friend and designer Matt Hanemann just sent me the poster artwork at 2AM. I love it! Matt’s a great collaborator and captured the mixture of grit and romanticism that is South Philadelphia, and the balance of character and environment we worked to build in The New Year Parade.
On Monday I will go to Shooters Post and Transfer in Philly to do our output to Digi-Beta. It’s a little tight, since we fly out Monday, but I wanted the weekend to watch it a few times. The staff at Shooters have been great and worked with us all week to test different pulldown cadences and file formats so that Monday will go smoothly.
In the final hours before picture lock I managed to work in some footage I’ve been wrestling with a long time: the implosion of Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia. The implosion took place while we were still in the casting process, but I had managed to gain some high quality footage from a local videographer. Because of what it meant to the city and where it fell in the year, it always seemed like the perfect end of Act I, but I could never find the right lead in. This week it finally all clicked into place through a mix of the existing footage and a DVD of implosion coverage from South Philadelphia String Band member Harry Dougherty, who had family that lived next door to the stadium. He had shot amazing home video from their roof and I once had dreams of acquiring hours of camcorder footage of the event to build a South Philly Greek Chorus like the invasion of Prague in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. But that was a whole other film in itself. However, I’m thrilled with how it turned out! It’s a great punctuation point to the family breakdown.
We decided to push our professional mix until after Slamdance. We’re working on an incredible original score using a local composer and members of the Mummer’s community, but with the Parade this month the musicians were unavailable. So, we’ll play in Park City with the temp track, which everyone seems to love, and then will concentrate on the score and mix next month.
I have to say, I’m really proud of this film and the work all of the actors and crew did. The ending has a subtle emotional power that is far beyond what I could have written because of all the collaboration involved, and the time we took to do it. Three years is not an ideal shooting schedule, but in a way I’d recommend it. Thanks to the long term commitment of everyone involved, the project matured to a whole other level and that’s been really gratifying.
We fly out on Wednesday!! I hope to see you in Park City!
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Comments
Hi Tom,
Good luck in Park City. I’ll do my best to make it to one of the screenings. (While she’s on the Slamdance jury, I’m on the Sundance. So my schedule is a bit out of my control.) Anyway, been following your progress on the blog and just wanted to wish you well for an enjoyable experience.
Michelle
Tom -
Great to hear everything is going smoothly! I’m f#$ing excited for you man! Wish I could be there…but I’ll live it vicariously through these blogs you are posting