Touch Short Film - Production Process Diary

This constitutes my journal entries for the production of my Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Short film "Touch"

From the period of March 5th till july 22nd, 2004, my great adventure of making my first vca production ensued. Herewith is the diary of the process with as much of the gory detail as possible. david moore 27th july 2004

5th march 2004
I went to the pitching session, really unclear if I wanted to do the story that I pitched at my VCA interview but after pitching my concept for ‘Touch’ at the joint class pitching session, and finding a positive response to it, I decided in the total absence of a better idea to do it. My hesitation was that I didn’t find doing this story that different from what I have done before, that being a very internal story, needless to say this was the direction I decided on at this stage.
weekend of 13th & 14th march I wrote the first draft over the weekend.

Thursday 18th march
Dropped off a draft in Hugh’s pigeon hole.

weekend of 20th & 21st march
Suddenly got another idea and wrote a treatment for a short film called “Tina Ballerina” over the weekend, ran the idea by my wife via phone and she hated it, but gave it too some producing students, and Simon told me he liked it, thinking about what I want to do before my first script tutorial on friday.

Friday 26th march
Had my first script Tutorial with Hugh at 2.15pm, we discussed both projects and Hugh hadn’t received the “Tina” treatment, so I talked him through it, though I think I had gone off it at this stage. We talked about why my character was the way he was and who he was and whether the scenes prior to the hairdressing incident indicated who he was. We also talked about placing the stakes higher for the character to understand more of the internal struggle and would there of been an event that specifically launched the character’s condition. From the script writing perspective, Hugh pointed that I needed to remove the internal references or make them been seen visually, we finished with Hugh pointing out that there was a good films of a previous
students work I could watch called “Still Life”, that could give me inspiration of what I was trying to achieve.

Friday 2nd april
Came in today to watch the example film Hugh mentioned, (“Still Life”) and found it extremely
powerful without the use of any words only strong images and music. Also watched a few other works from this tape including Jo Kennedy’s film, all where quite inspiring and helpful.

Friday 23rd april
After a internal struggle about the things Hugh suggested on my meeting with him, I wrote another draft (second draft)where I started with an internal struggle of a naked child in a dark space. I was very hesitant about writing this as I didn’t really want to go that direction and even after writing the draft I wasn’t happy with it at all, it felt cliche and a direction that I had been down before that felt very uncomfortable with and that it was not working for me for me at all, so I decided to sit on it before giving to anyone to read.

Weekend of 24th & 25th april
Spent the weekend driving around looking for a location, being preferably a old hairdressing, come barbers shop, 70s in style. Because of my unfamiliarity with Melbourne, its taking its time, but finally on Sunday, when driving through the suburb Northcote, I noticed an old hairdressing salon on High Street, which I quickly pulled over have a look and feel instantly in love with. It was vacant and had hideous 70s wallpaper, as required by script, several
varieties in fact, chequered lino and cork board on the walls, FANTASTIC! There was no indication of an owners details and the other shops next door to it where also closed, indicating that some form of new development was proceeding. I went to the pub on the corner immediately down from the shop and made enquiries, and the barman told me that they did own it and it was waiting for redevelopment and I would need to contact the manager, whom I got the details from.

Tuesday 27th april
After a conversation with a friend at easter whist in Sydney, I decided to take a slightly different tack on the draft, because I was so unhappy with the second draft I wrote another draft today. Its better without the child stuff, but still very unsure about it, the main difference is that the main character changed sexes, as I think this pushes the stakes of what I am trying to achieve. I tried ringing the manager of the pub but was told she wasn’t available to speak to, I didn’t leave a message as I thinks it far easier to knock someone back over the phone then it
is when you are standing in front of them, I plan to visit them on friday.

Thursday 29th april
Because of his preparation for going to China, Hugh told me he may be too busy to have a script tutorial tomorrow, but he was trying to organise Ben (Hackworth) to do it instead. Due to being incredibly frustrated with my current draft, I asked if Chris would see me, just in case Ben was not able to do it, Chris kindly acquiesced, in the meantime I had my first production meeting with my 1st Ad Jo and my Production Manager Juerg , where we discussed the fact that I had found a location, but hadn’t been able to get onto owner, but I suggested we go and have a look at it, we also asked Dustin, my DOP to come and see the location as well to see what he thought. After talking through issues of crew and Juerg giving me his assurances that he would find a crew in a town that neither of us knew anyone, we drove to the High Street location, Jo loved the location straight away, Dustin had some hesitation, but wasn’t
really clear why, something about the size, but I pointed out to him that all these shops are pretty small, we all agreed that sound could be a real issue, being on a busy street. We then went to the pub and the manager was there and she told me that they where in the process of buying the property, but didn’t actually own it yet, but she would speak to the owner of the pub and see if she could get the contact details of the hairdressing salon. In the meantime, I decided it would be wise to continue my looking, in the event that this one didn’t come off. I went through the actors books from the front office today and found a picture of an actor I someone I really like the look of, his name was Paul, I rang his agent and sent off a script via email to them.

Friday 30th april
Hugh managed to get onto Ben and he had some very interesting things to say, he found
the draft very gay, which distressed me a little, because I was really concerned that this was not a direction I wanted to go, he wrote lots of notes for me and was very actively involved with suggestions. We looked at the dialogue and then talked about actors and I said that I would love someone like Tony Martin to play the hairdresser, he also suggested some other actors names for me to follow up, as well as citing a few feature film examples such as ‘The Hairdressers Husband’, interesting meeting, if not depressing! I met with Chris later that day and my whole story took a u-turn at this point with a simple question, “Who’s story is it”. I relayed to Chris that concept was based on my fathers true life story about being in an isolation home for children with TB for 6 years, so therefore he suggested I consider this before writing anymore and that I go back to square one and remove all the dialogue and write in prose. Later that evening I met with Jeremy from my class and we talked over dinner and it became clearer to me that less dialogue would work better, likewise Dustin, gave me a page of written notes, coming to the same conclusion.

Sunday 2nd May
Wrote another draft today, taking into account Ben, Jeremy's, Dustin’s and Chris’s comments, I much prefer the film with hardly any dialogue, the most interesting idea I have explored with is it becoming a reverie piece with the introduction of an opera piece playing in the background on an ancient tape recorder, Chris loves the idea.

Monday 3rd May
Handed in the 4th draft for script assessment today as required by the ‘red bible’.

Tuesday 4th May
Thinking about what piece of music I want to use in the film, I particularly like one piece from Donzielli’s Opera ‘Lucia Di Lammermore’ known commonly as the ‘Mad Scene’. Did some research on what classical music shops are around in Melbourne to do some further research. Went to HMV’s classical music section and listened to quite a few tracks on suggested albums, but didn’t find anything and left empty handed. Went home to find the CD I asked my wife to post me had arrived and listened to them late into the night, but still felt the best one was the mad scene, which incidently had also been used in Luc Bessons ‘The Fifth Element’

Wednesday 5th May
Today spoke to a make up artist who sounds good and comes recommended by a professional production manager I know, she is going to get back to me. Discovered a CD shops in Hardware Lane called Discquorio that specialise in Classics, will go their tomorrow.

Thursday 6th May
Spent 2 hours at the CD store and didn’t find an out of copyright version of the tune I wanted, but I heard the Dame Joan Sullivan version which I really liked so I bought that particular recording.

Friday 7th May
Had a meeting with Chris this morning and he agreed the new script is much better and I am very pleased with the direction it is now going, we did add one more scene, which complicates things a little, a hospital scene, which I know will not be easy to get. I then met with Jo to discuss the script and the schedule today as well, as I still have no actors or location lined up, there seemed little we could do, but we have booked studio 3 for auditions next
thursday. I rang the pub again today and the manager told me that the owner didn’t have time to give me the hairdressers details, otherwords they were not interested, tomorrow I will obviously start looking again for another location. Good new is that the actor Paul, that I sent the script off to has responded to say he would love to come in for a reading next week and he really loved the script.

Saturday 4th MAY
Today I had a lunch meeting with an actor that I had met through another friend, both of whom had just finished performing on the rock musical ‘We will rock you”. Damien and I met in St Kilda and he read the script and really liked it and agreed to come to auditions on thursday night. I really like the look of Damien, he is 30 something and obviously talented and interested. I spoke to Richard from class today, as he told me he would give me a list of names of actors that he knew that might be interested in the roles, I rang each of them in the evening and they all seemed to interested in coming to auditions on Thursday, so I now have 6 actors to have a look at, 3 for Alex and 3 for Tony. I drove to countless different hairdressing salons over the course of the rest of the and the next, several threw me out for suggesting only small amounts of money, one got very aggressive with me and another wouldn’t talk to me until he cut my hair and he still said no and charged me $15 for the privilege. I really need to find the owners details for the shop I like.

Monday 10th MAY
Had a production manager meeting with Juerg today, he had contacted many people who had their name down in the books from the front desk, but with little success, he will follow up the owners name and details by going to the shops next door and ringing them to see if they now who owns it. I also got him to ring some
hospitals as well.

Tuesday 11th MAY
Came in and faxed and emailed scripts to people today, still no commitment from people to crew yet. Juerg has come through with the owners name and phone number so I will ring tomorrow, fingers crossed, getting desperate on all front. I have also contacted someone from AMCOS who is assisting me with my copyright enquiries concerning the music.

Wednesday 12th MAY
Rang the owner today, a Mr Frank Sagaria, who is a solicitor he immediately said no, but I pleaded with him to at least read a proposal letter, he agreed (I think to just get me off the phone) and supplied me a fax number. I dashed into Uni to write a proposal letter, basically pleading with him, that we are professionals, not just kids and very serious about this and gave a letter of currency, which he intimated on the phone we wouldn’t be covered for,but
I advised him it wouldn’t be a problem, I faxed the letter off and back to driving round again. Juerg has rung up and found out it was Darebin Council we need permission from and is following that up and Jo advised me about the child permit that I would need to obtain for my little boy, who is the son of one of the teacher I work with, his name is Aidan, I have organised to go and meet him on Friday. The makeup artist is still not sure whether she can do it or not, but if she can she has organised a professional hairdresser to come along to supervise the haircutting.

Thursday 13th May
Today is auditions, starting at 5.30pm, we couldn’t get a camera from school so Dustin has let
me use his. Juerg and Lorene are their to support me. I have organised it so that I have one Alex auditioning against one Tony hopeful. Only 4 of them turned up, but I am very happy with Damien and Paul.

Friday 14th May
Have told both actors they have been successful and rang all the other to thank them for their interest and time. I met little Aidan today, he is beautiful and perfect for the part and is very excited to do it. I spoke to Decca music, who’s representative in Australia is Universal Music and sent off a request to Licensing department for the Dame Joan Sullivan version, also I approached EMI who represent Maria Callis who’s version is 50 years old, to see if its still in copyright and how much it may cost. Also have rung ARIA several times, but they have not responded yet.

Saturday 15th May
Doing the storyboard this weekend and then the shotlist. I always like to get the ideas out of my head visually before committing them to writing. I have also written a comprehensive to do list, still with no other crew on board, other then my vca counterparts. A week out and no crew, god help me! I spoke to Channel 7 props department about finding the barbers chair and they rang back to say they had one and where very happy to hire it to me, I organise to go and visit them on tuesday afternoon. Spent the weekend finishing my storyboard.

Monday 17th MAY
The big news is that I have a location, the owner, who turned out to be Tony, Frank’s father is happy for us to use the premises for a couple of hundred dollars, but we have to organise the electricity ourselves, so that’s fine, I organise to meet Tony that afternoon to get in and check the electricity circuits are adequate. After finishing work today I met with Juerg and we organised the insurance letters for the council, to organise the electricity to be connected and talked about the fact that we had been unsuccessful in getting a hospital and talked through the possibility of hiring Studio 2 to use, we followed that up and found it was available that day so we booked it and tried to see if we could get paint to paint the floor white, I saw David Price about this and he told me we would either have to buy some or get Hugh to organise it for me then showed me an example of another students film to confirm the look I was after, which it was. I visited Hugh and he put in a requisition order for me, but Tracey told me it may not got through before hand as its a cash only order, I left that with her. Juerg has been talking to the council and the police obtaining the relevant permissions and he has finally managed to get some crew members, thank god! We set a food budget and when we want a production meeting before hand, so we decided on Friday night, then we went to met Tony and look at the electricity available at location, and then found a local greek cafe/restaurant and Juerg and I wrangled a deal to feed everyone for 2 days at $7.00 per head, very convenient located 5
minutes walk down the road. I LOVE THE LOCATION!

Tuesday 18th May
This morning we had a 1st Ad workshop with Pete , who will be working on my shoot as a professional mentor, after this I met with Jo and Pete to talk about the film, I showed Pete my shot list and he told me it was a schedule and I was doing my 1st’s job for her, so I had to go home and put it in shot list order to ensure I didn’t miss any shots, which I hadn’t but because I have always done this job myself, I had just combined the two. I then met with Hugh to go through the requisition of equipment for the shoot, which I took to the store to book in. Just before I left I went to see Libby at Pete’s suggestion, about the crew roles not filled and getting some foundation students to help, she was on the case. Juerg and I then went to channel 7 to see the barbers chair and while their we hired heaps of other furniture for the location, they were fantastic, spending over an hour with us and I left thinking I will watch channel 7 for the rest of my life, they even recommended a professional Props man, who I rang and spoke to and sent the script to. Juerg organised a friend from his church to transport the equipment and props for us at a nominal price, he’s doing a fantastic job.

Wednesday 19th May
I had to do a makeup class at work today, which I couldn’t believe (nor get out of) and afterwards I met with Karen Hodgkins, my continuity mentor, with whom I had a long chat with the other night, she was fantastic and very supportive, giving me my timings (at 4 minutes) which is what I thought it was going to be as well. Today I found out that I received an honours award for my course at Sydney Uni, which is a nice boon. I then went to organised actors contracts and location contracts. Tonight is the crewing night, where I went along and pitched my next film and had over 40 people came up to me and say they would love to be involved, I also met my elusive makeup artist who confirmed she would definitely be on the shot, as well as the hairdresser. I still have no set dresser and the professional I spoke to yesterday won’t return calls, sigh!

Thursday 20th May
Lindy has found me a foundation student to help with props, but he doesn’t have a car, at this point, with only 4 days to go I don’t see I have a choice, so I ring him, Adrian is very nice and is a graphic designer so I immediately fill him in on what I need and he says he will make his way around and find stuff and report back to me. I have to fax off the permit for little Aidan so I got his mother to fill in the forms and fax them in apologising for the lateness, the man rang me back almost immediately and asked me a lot of questions about the story and what the child could be subjected to, then gave his approval. I visited the props and wardrobe department today and found the hospital shirts and bed I needed as well as the hairdressers jacket. I make a time with Adrian to met tomorrow and start dressing the location, the power people promise the power will be on by tomorrow. I spend some time going through the equipment with Siobhan and packing it into the cage for pickup tomorrow before heading home.
DISASTER! Damien has just rung me and told me that a commercial he was working on his been pushed forward to cover one of the days of the shoot, he is incredibly apologetic and basically asks me what he should do, of course I tell him to take the money (apparently it was $8000 for 2 days work, I wouldn’t of hesitated) so I have only a couple of days to find someone. I went and picked up Dustin, who is my DOP and he comes over to my place and we go through the shot list and look at examples of film that I like and talk about visual style and get very clear on the look of the film, Dustin thinks we should actually go through the shot list step by step, so I organise to pick him up saturday morning and go to the location to do this. I remembered that I met a young actor on the crewing night by the name of Adam, I text him at 11 o’clock at night and he rings me straight away and agrees to come in for a audition the next day. Jo now been working on the shot list for a couple of days now and tells me I have to many shots so need to whittle it down, great another thing to do. Amidst all of this I do remember to ring my mother to wish her happy birthday!

Friday 21st May
I come into VCA and look at the actors list again and manage to find one more actor to come in for an audition later that day. Paul had agreed to come in for an rehearsal, but I rang and explained the situation and he was there for both actors to read against, it was great to do as the location was almost fully dressed and looked fantastic and gave the actors an immediate feel for how it was going to be physically. Before the meeting though I picked up Adrian and we went to Chapel Street Bizarre and bought lots of old photos and postcards to dress the set, and then went to Channel 7 to met Gerry (Juerg's friend with the van) to collect the props and we then arrived at the location and madly dressed for the next couple of hours. The power wasn’t on still and it turned out they had come and been, because they needed access to the premises. I rang Juerg how got onto them immediately and they maintain that they had told us we should of been there, but of course they never said that, so they wanted to charge us $170 for another visit, I told Juerg to just say get them here and I would fight it with them later. The location started to take shape, but Adrian and I decided it needed more stuff and some of the channel 7 stuff that was essential wasn’t there so I sent Adrian in my car back to collect it and more stuff, while I was auditioning a couple of people. Both actors where good, but physically I really like the difference between Adam and Paul so decided to mull it over and get back to them tomorrow. We then continued to dress the location whilst the power guy finally turned up. Everyone arrived for a production meeting at 7pm and they all seems fine, except for one young guy who is gaffer and he announces that he can only be there for half a day on the first day, after the meeting Dustin expressed a concern about the non-committal attitude of this guy, who I must admit, I noticed myself, so I tell Juerg that I don’t want anyone on the set who is not going to be there for the entire shoot, and oddly enough I am now worried that I have too much crew, especially since Juerg has procured a PA for himself, when one of my oldest friends is coming down from Sydney especially to help in this role. The guy goes without a fuss, and Juerg loses his extra PA. Adrian promises to pick up some more props and make the isolation ward sign over the course of the weekend which I give him some money to do, he’s been very helpful. When I got home I called Tim and talked to him about the film for about 45mins, he was very supportative.

Saturday 22nd May
I picked up Dustin at 9am and we spent three hours at the location, going through all the shots, changing some of them and putting some in different location, he started to get excited about the film a bit more now! I then drive to the airport to pickup my friend Stephanie who has come from Sydney to PA and unit manage and then we drove to see Juerg and spend a three hours there going through details.

Sunday 23rd May
I went to Juerg's to email the new shotlist to Jo (again) and then went and saw Adam and spent a couple of hours talking through the character with him at his place and getting him to sign relevant paper work signed. After then I then went to Jo’s place and spent the next 3 hours going through the changes with her and changing the schedule and redoing the call sheets. I then met my dear friend Jim, who was my college lecturer in photography, who had also specially flown from Sydney to do the film and we talked about the film and what I wanted in stills and the end title still over dinner, following this I drove back to Juerg's to drops off the contracts that I had so that he could have then all together for presentation for our stock from Hugh the next day, its close the midnight when I get home.

Monday 24th May
I had to work today, but I met Juerg and Dustin at 4pm to go through the equipment and load the van. Juerg handed in all the paper work without an issue and we had a requisition for the stock with no issues presented. We now had all crew in place, our paper work was complete and accurate and we ready for the shot, the only small detail was that I hadn’t got the rehearsal I wanted on friday, so I had organised the new actor, Adam and Paul to meet me at 7pm and rehearsed for a couple of hours, the entire film, which was great, seeing it was only to be shot the next day, I was able to walk through the whole film and give them they call sheets to boot, and it was all fresh in our minds.

Tuesday 25th MAY - day one
Got up at 6.30am to get on set on time, Stephanie was staying with me and we picked up Dustin, went to the location, found a couple of hitches, in respect to some equipment not having the correct plate to fit so we lost a couple of hours, but made them up by the end of the day, but was glad we lost the dolly shots and finished on time, everyone was incredibly supportative. We went back to VCA and watched the rushes, the sound was awesome and the film looked great, no technical issues. Went home and actually slept soundly, first time ever on a film shoot that I’ve directed. Good day, but actually a blur really, can’t remember anymore to tell.

Wednesday 26th MAY - day two
Started at VCA in Studio 2, shooting the hospital scene, turned out to be an interesting morning. Firstly the mattress that the props department supplied, with the old fashioned hospital bed didn’t fit the frame, so we had to prop it up on a box, but then the major drama of the morning was the arrival of our little actor Aidan, who was so excited that ultimately he became overwhelmed and the minute, he set foot of set, started screaming he didn’t want to do it, we unfortunately had nothing else to do before hand so the crew started ringing other boys they knew to see if we could find a replacement when it became obvious Aidan wasn’t going to do it. I considered the possibility of not having him in it all, but realised this wasn’t going to work because the whole crux of the film was based on the memory evoked by the appearance of the child. All of a sudden Aidan was on the bed, doing exactly what I asked to do and was amazing, I later spoke to his mother Anna, who I work with and she told me that it was Aidan’s birthday the next day and she quietly took him aside to the bathroom and threaten him that if he didn’t do it he wouldn’t be having a birthday party the next day, which explained why he was good as gold. The art of blackmale is obviously alive and well! We moved back to our location and everything went reasonably smoothly and we finished 10 minutes late, again we watched the rushes and was very happy with them. Aidan's parents came along and really enjoy watching it as well.

Thursday 26th MAY
Had to return props to channel 7 this morning. Juerg's friend came with his van and I met him at the premises and we loaded the van and took it back and I paid him for the work he done, then I had a crew meeting on Lorene film. I then went round to Tony Sagaria house to return the key and pay him, but he wasn’t home, so I will have to come back.

Friday 27th MAY
Visited the CD shop again today to see if they had the Maria Callas version of the music, they did, but the copyright was later than the version I found in the school library. I sent an email to emi asking for a quote request for using this piece of music.
Tuesday 1st june - Edit day 1
Today was my first in editing, I digitized reasonably quickly and had a rough cut that 6 minutes long by 10pm that night. Shan (from doco) came in the evening to offer his advice which was very useful. Film is looking good, got sick over the weekend with a cold, hope I will be alright to do all the films I have to do in the next 3 weeks.
Wednesday 2nd june -
Edit day 2
Second edit day. Coughing a lung up, not well at all, but editing going well. Marcel spent most of the day with me today and his advice and AVID training was invaluable, crawled home at 10pm again, not well.
Thursday 3rd june
Today was supposed to be my third edit day, but I was really to sick to get into to do it, spoke to Hugh, who agreed it was better to get better for the other films I have to do. Slept most of the day and ended up vegetating in front of Fox watching a doco on the history of septic
systems, rather telling on how I felt I thought, but really couldn’t muster the energy the change the channel,
sad but true!
friday 4th june
Had to meet Lorene at her location today, and went through shot by shot, all of film, which I am DOP on, I then had to go VCA for a
production meeting on Dustin’s shot that I am going to be continuity on, feeling better for taking a day off. I talked to Hugh and we organised for me to use one of Justin's edits days next week as a make up for my sick day, seeing Justin's shoot has been put back due to his knee operation.
Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th june
Did sound recording on Wills film. Doing sound was an interesting experience, certainly wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, even a bit boring I thought, as you can’t watch anything but the levels, and being a
visual person I wanted to watch the performances, but ultimately Will thought I did a good job (or so he said).
Tuesday 8th &
Wednesday 9th june
I worked on Dustin's film as continuity. Was a good experience, prefer continuity, but had to train myself to really observe all actions carefully, which I surprised myself occasionally when I realised I didn’t know which hand he had picked something up with, so I really watched like a hawk after that little shock.
thursday 10th june
- Edit day 3
Today was my final edit day, I showed Hugh and he seemed happy with it, made too small suggestions and approved it, just have the credits to finish. The film came in at 4 minutes exactly which is what I thought it would be and what Karen (continuity) had timed it at, so I am quite satisfied with this. Credits took a while to do as I had previously photoshopped a series of stills that I specifically got Jim to take for the end titles, and I had the titles fade up and down. Good experience learning editing a bit more fully on an Avid.
Saturday 12th june
Spent the whole day working on the schedule of Juerg's film, which I am first Ad. Big Job, it took 12 hours straight to do, but once I had logically worked out how to schedule around shooting half the day outside and half inside, it was ok.
sunday 13th &
MONDAY 14th june
Working on Lorene shoot as DOP. Was a very hectic film, with 14 actors and 15 crew in a not very big restaurant, but I got it down, and she came and gave me a big hug and kiss at the end, so I can only assume she was happy, though she did say so. Tim was great support and told me I did a really good job and also taught me a lot about operating a camera, and how to follow people and never to lock the camera off, but to gently
follow, it was an exhausting
experience, but a great one.
Tuesday 15th june
First day off in a while was nice, but had a production meeting that I chaired for Juerg's shoot, it all seemed a organised. I checked my emails and found that emi gave me a quote for $3000 for world music rights, but Universal for the Dame Joan piece was only $1000, but was told by them it still may not be approved, so I gave them the go ahead to get this approval.
Thursday 17th & Friday 18th june
Was First Ad on Juerg's shoot, 2 longs days, but good ones. We had a lot of laughs and got the film done and Juerg was happy, really enjoyed being a First and thought I did a reasonable job, though Juerg was a very hard task master.
Thursday 22nd june
Flew home to Lismore for mid-year break. Great to see the family after 9 weeks, just there in time to stop my son be suspended from school for the second time in a month. He has calmed down now.
Wednesday 30th june
Discovered that I had permission granted for the music I wanted to use but found the quote had doubled. When I asked why it turned out they had sent through another quote which I hadn’t seen, while I was sick and they had altered it from the original quote saying that for the world and Australia it was $1000 each. I am quite put out by this as I have come home and I don’t even have the resources of VCA, so I have sent them an email telling them that I will have to see what I an come up with and
I have been exploring up in this region (Far North Coast/Queensland) to see if I can find someone who can sing this piece, but because its quite difficult apparently to sing, I will have to see
what happens.
Friday 1st JuLY
Have contacted a local opera singer in Lismore to see if she is available to sing the aria I require, oddly enough, I discovered that my wife used her to sing for a short film she made 15 years ago. I left a message.
monday 5th JuLY
The local opera singer, who’s name is Valerie, got back to me today and told me that it was too high for her, and gave me the name of an opera group in Brisbane (Operatif) to email.
Tuesday 6th JuLY
Operatif sent an email saying they couldn’t help. Damn it! I spoke to Richard (Vette) and he suggested the Queensland Conservatorium of Music professionally hire out their students so I had a discussion with their talent co-ordinator and sent her an email with my request and she forwarded to all the
students, who are on holidays at the moment, but I will see what happens.
Wednesday 7th JuLY
One of the student from Queensland Con rang me today and she can sing the piece for me, she is going to see if she can organise the musicians for me and a studio. Fantastic! Her name is Leslie Martin and she promises to get back to me early next week once she finds the composer and the guy to play flute.
Monday 12th JuLY
Rang Leslie today, she is definitely doing it! We discussed budget and timing, it looks like it will be this sunday, which means I will have to travel to Brisbane for the day, but that’s cool. She is having some problems tracking down a flute player, but she has a composer sorted.
thursday 15th JULY
Staying in Brisbane at the moment, visiting friends and tonight I will go to the AFC launch of this years funding.
I also heard from Leslie today and I dropped over a video of the fine cut for her to view, but she works for the Queensland Government so I couldn’t get past security and had to leave it at the front desk.
sunday 18th JuLY
Today I travelled to Brisbane to do the recording. The composer, Shaun, rang me yesterday to discuss how he noticed the timings where imperative, from the video, so he has put the beats into his pro tools, but unfortunately he doesn’t have an audio visual card on his PC so we can not capture an image, but Shaun assures me that he will match the beats. The Flautist’s name was Tim and he was a fre-lancer and played beautifully, it really surprised me how little flute was actually in the piece, as it seemed like a lot more, but he was there for less then an hour and Shaun had it all mixed in before Tim left. Shaun agreed with me that it was a good call to get the real flute playing as the keyboard does not simulate it very realistically and as it turned out the flute (along with Leslie’s voice)
transformed the fake music simulating the orchestra. Leslie’s singing took a couple of hours, it was fascinating watching her go through the motions of
evoking the mood
and








movement
to produce the notes, and she was very critical of herself, in the playbacks taking notes and commenting on how flat she was in parts, that, too be honest, I thought sounded fine. Its fantastic we are
re-recording the piece as I was able to ask Leslie to sing the part where he get his ear cut, more dramatically and I also got Shaun to put a lead up in the music, to build
suspense, where there was none previously, this works really well. I also get Leslie to lengthen the piece, as i alway thought the Dame Joan piece finished too early. I mention another idea to Shaun about how great it would be for a guillotine sound to also build up the tension, and he runs off without a word and returns a few minutes later with a butchers knife and a knife sharpener. By running the knife down the sharper it creates the perfect effect, but I tell Shaun not to put it in the track as it would be obviously be better to do in the mix, he agrees, but he does put some reverb on it and a wet effect that makes it longer and eerier, great. Leslie, as it turns out, is a professional opera singer, originally from Sydney before moving to the Queensland Con to study singing, Leslie knew Shaun as he was currently conducting an orchestra that they (Leslie and he) where about to tour with for the Queensland Opera. So I listened to the piece we had just recorded constantly for the 3 hour drive home and decided I was thrilled with it. Before Leslie left I asked her what the translation of the piece was in english. “O Gusto, Dolce Suono” means the sweet sound of his voice. I am very happy and feel like I have really accomplished something to have found the perfect people to sing exactly the music I want in a town I really don’t know at all.
tuesday 20th JuLY
Shaun (the composer) rang today to say that he had actually discovered the music was out by 18 seconds to the cutting scene so he was sending a new recording via overnight express where he has fixed it.
Wednesday 21st JuLY
The CD arrived today, I noticed that its a bit faster, but otherwise sounds the same.
thursday 22nd JuLY
Very sad today, going back to Melbourne. My wife has been crying off and on for several days now, its funny how different men and women are. She mourns before I leave and I mourn after I leave. One bright glimpse is the online edit is tomorrow, Janis rang me to check I was coming back, which I confirmed, but requested if I could push my edit back to the afternoon so I could put the new music to the offline and check it does actually match. He said he would see what he could do.
friday 23rd JuLY
Went straight to uni and found that the offline room I was in was being used so we took off a video copy of the last cut and digitized it in another suite. I then loaded on the new music, too my delight, it fits perfectly. I am very excited. My online didn’t commence till 3pm as Liam's went a little late, Declan was lovely and we really enjoyed working together. I always professional relationships where you spark off each other with ideas, so the grade looks fantastic, we desatuarated it a little and put up the browns and oranges, to give a slightly old feeling. We fixed the credits, which took ages, because of the system font clash from coming from mac to PC. Declan told me he thought it was a lovely film with loads of subtext.
Monday 26th JuLY
Very excited, LAST DAY! I met Peter Frost who is doing the mix and again we got on very well and we worked to make the front of the film diagestic by making the Opera music obviously sound like its coming from a tape machine. I ask Peter for his advice of the best way to introduce the music as non-diagestic, I knew that I wanted this to happen, after Adam says the one line in the film “Don’t touch me”. Peter suggested a slow fade, which worked really nicely, it took some time to clean up the atmos in the background, but he found no major problems which is good, and we had fun when we put in the cutting sound which worked really well. We slowed it down even more and then overlapped it with the normal version, which still gave the creepy zing sound, and I asked him to pan it across the speakers that worked really well. It all went fantastically and I finished with Peter about 3pm and went up to present my finished film to Janis.
THE END





wednesday 26th MAY
- day two
Started at VCA in Studio 2, shooting the hospital scene, turned out to be an interesting morning. Firstly the mattress that the props department supplied, with the old fashioned hospital bed didn’t fit the frame, so we had to prop it up on a box, but then the major drama of the morning was the arrival of our little actor Aidan, who was so excited that ultimately he became overwhelmed and the minute, he set foot of set, started screaming he didn’t want to do it, we unfortunately had nothing else to do before hand so the crew started ringing other boys they knew to see if we could find a replacement when it became obvious Aidan wasn’t going to do it. I considered the possibility of not having him in it all, but realised this wasn’t going to work because the whole crux of the film was based on the memory evoked by the appearance of the child. All of a sudden Aidan was on the bed, doing exactly what I asked to do and was amazing, I later spoke to his mother Anna, who I work with and she told me that it was Aidan’s birthday the next day and she quietly took him aside to the bathroom and threaten him that if he didn’t do it he wouldn’t be having a birthday party the next day, which explained why he was good as gold. The art of blackmale is obviously alive and well! We moved back to our location and everything went reasonably smoothly and we finished 10 minutes late, again we watched the rushes and was very happy with them. Aidan's parents came along and really enjoy watching it as well.

Thursday 26th May
Had to return props to channel 7 this morning. Juerg's friend came with his van and I met him at the premises and we loaded the van and took it back and I paid him for the work he done, then I had a crew meeting on Lorene film. I then went round to Tony house to return the key and pay him, but he wasn’t home, so I will have to come back.

Friday 27th May
Visited the CD shop again today to see if they had the Maria Callas version of the music, they did, but the copyright was later than the version I found in the school library. I sent an email to emi asking for a quote request for using this piece of music.

Tuesday 1st June - Edit day 1
Today was my first in editing, I digitized reasonably quickly and had a rough cut that 6 minutes long by 10pm that night. Shan (from doco) came in the evening to offer his advice which was very useful. Film is looking good, got sick over the weekend with a cold, hope I will be alright to do all the films I have to do in the next 3 weeks.

Wednesday 2nd June - Edit day 2
Second edit day. Coughing a lung up, not well at all, but editing going well. Marcel spent most of the day with me today and his advice and AVID training was invaluable, crawled home at 10pm again, not well.

Thursday 3rd june
Today was supposed to be my third edit day, but I was really to sick to get into to do it, spoke to Hugh, who agreed it was better to get better for the other films I have to do. Slept most of the day and ended up vegetating in front of Fox watching a doco on the history of septic
systems, rather telling on how I felt I thought, but really couldn’t muster the energy the change the channel, sad but true!

Friday 4th june
Had to meet Lorene at her location today, and went through shot by shot, all of film, which I am DOP on, I then had to go VCA for a production meeting on Dustin’s shot that I am going to be continuity on, feeling better for taking a day off. I talked to Hugh and we organised for me to use one of Justin's edits days next week as a make up for my sick day, seeing Justin's shoot has been put back due to his knee operation.

Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th june
Did sound recording on Wills film. Doing sound was an interesting experience, certainly wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, even a bit boring I thought, as you can’t watch anything but the levels, and being a visual person I wanted to watch the performances, but ultimately Will thought I did a good job (or so he said).

Tuesday 8th & Wednesday 9th june
I worked on Dustin's film as continuity. Was a good experience, prefer continuity, but had to train myself to really observe all actions carefully, which I surprised myself occasionally when I realised I didn’t know which hand he had picked something up with, so I really watched like a hawk after that little shock.

Thursday 10th June - Edit day 3
Today was my final edit day, I showed Hugh and he seemed happy with it, made too small suggestions and approved it, just have the credits to finish. The film came in at 4 minutes exactly which is what I thought it would be and what Karen (continuity) had timed it at, so I am quite satisfied with this. Credits took a while to do as I had previously photoshopped a series of stills that I specifically got Jim to take for the end titles, and I had the titles fade up and down. Good experience learning editing a bit more fully on an Avid.

Saturday 12th June
Spent the whole day working on the schedule of Juerg's film, which I am first Ad. Big Job, it took 12 hours straight to do, but once I had logically worked out how to schedule around shooting half the day outside and half inside, it was ok.

Sunday 13th & Monday 14th June
Working on Lorene shoot as DOP. Was a very hectic film, with 14 actors and 15 crew in a not very big restaurant, but I got it down, and she came and gave me a big hug and kiss at the end, so I can only assume she was happy, though she did say so. Tim was great support and told me I did a really good job and also taught me a lot about operating a camera, and how to follow people and never to lock the camera off, but to gently follow, it was an exhausting experience, but a great one.

Tuesday 15th June
First day off in a while was nice, but had a production meeting that I chaired for Juerg's shoot, it all seemed a organised. I checked my emails and found that emi gave me a quote for $3000 for world music rights, but Universal for the Dame Joan piece was only $1000, but was told by them it still may not be approved, so I gave them the go ahead to get this approval.

Thursday 17th & Friday 18th June
Was First Ad on Juerg's shoot, 2 longs days, but good ones. We had a lot of laughs and got the film done and Juerg was happy, really enjoyed being a First and thought I did a reasonable job, though Juerg was a very hard task master.

Thursday 22nd June
Flew home to Lismore for mid-year break. Great to see the family after 9 weeks, just there in time to stop my son be suspended from school for the second time in a month. He has calmed down now.

Wednesday 30th June
Discovered that I had permission granted for the music I wanted to use but found the quote had doubled. When I asked why it turned out they had sent through another quote which I hadn’t seen, while I was sick and they had altered it from the original quote saying that for the world and Australia it was $1000 each. I am quite put out by this as I have come home and I don’t even have the resources of VCA, so I have sent them an email telling them that I will have to see what I an come up with and I have been exploring up in this region (Far North Coast/Queensland) to see if I can find someone who can sing this piece, but because its quite difficult apparently to sing, I will have to see what happens.

Friday 1st July
Have contacted a local opera singer in Lismore to see if she is available to sing the aria I require, oddly enough, I discovered that my wife used her to sing for a short film she made 15 years ago. I left a message.

Monday 5th July
The local opera singer, who’s name is Valerie, got back to me today and told me that it was too high for her, and gave me the name of an opera group in Brisbane (Operatif) to email.

Tuesday 6th July
Opera sent an email saying they couldn’t help. Damn it! I spoke to Richard (Vette) and he suggested the Queensland Conservatorium of Music professionally hire out their students so I had a discussion with their talent co-ordinator and sent her an email with my request and she forwarded to all the students, who are on holidays at the moment, but I will see what happens.

Wednesday 7th July
One of the student from Queensland Con rang me today and she can sing the piece for me, she is going to see if she can organise the musicians for me and a studio. Fantastic! Her name is Leslie Martin and she promises to get back to me early next week once she finds the composer and the guy to play flute.

Monday 12th July
Rang Leslie today, she is definitely doing it! We discussed budget and timing, it looks like it will be this sunday, which means I will have to travel to Brisbane for the day, but that’s cool. She is having some problems tracking down a flute player, but she has a composer sorted.

Thursday 15th July
Staying in Brisbane at the moment, visiting friends and tonight I will go to the AFC launch of this years funding. I also heard from Leslie today and I dropped over a video of the fine cut for her to view, but she works for the Queensland Government so I couldn’t get past security and had to leave it at the front desk.

Sunday 18th JuLY
Today I travelled to Brisbane to do the recording. The composer, Shaun, rang me yesterday to discuss how he noticed the timings where imperative, from the video, so he has put the beats into his pro tools, but unfortunately he doesn’t have an audio visual card on his PC so we can not capture an image, but Shaun assures me that he will match the beats. The Flautist’s name was Tim and he was a fre-lancer and played beautifully, it really surprised me how little flute was actually in the piece, as it seemed like a lot more, but he was there for less then an hour and Shaun had it all mixed in before Tim left. Shaun agreed with me that it was a good call to get the real flute playing as the keyboard does not simulate it very realistically and as it turned out the flute (along with Leslie’s voice) transformed the fake music simulating the orchestra. Leslie’s singing took a couple of hours, it was fascinating watching her go through the motions of evoking the mood and movement to produce the notes, and she was very critical of herself, in the playbacks taking notes and commenting on how flat she was in parts, that, too be honest, I thought sounded fine. Its fantastic we are re-recording the piece as I was able to ask Leslie to sing the part where he get his ear cut, more dramatically and I also got Shaun to put a lead up in the music, to build suspense, where there was none previously, this works really well. I also get Leslie to lengthen the piece, as i alway thought the Dame Joan piece finished too early. I mention another idea to Shaun about how great it would be for a guillotine sound to also build up the tension, and he runs off without a word and returns a few minutes later with a butchers knife and a knife sharpener. By running the knife down the sharper it creates the perfect effect, but I tell Shaun not to put it in the track as it would be obviously be better to do in the mix, he agrees, but he does put some reverb on it and a wet effect that makes it longer and eerier, great. Leslie, as it turns out, is a professional opera singer, originally from Sydney before moving to the Queensland Con to study singing, Leslie knew Shaun as he was currently conducting an orchestra that they (Leslie and he) where about to tour with for the Queensland Opera. So I listened to the piece we had just recorded constantly for the 3 hour drive home and decided I was thrilled with it. Before Leslie left I asked her what the translation of the piece was in english. “O Gusto, Dolce Suono” means the sweet sound of his voice. I am very happy and feel like I have really accomplished something to have found the perfect people to sing exactly the music I want in a town I really don’t know at all.

Tuesday 20th July
Shaun (the composer) rang today to say that he had actually discovered the music was out by 18 seconds to the cutting scene so he was sending a new recording via overnight express where he has fixed it.

Wednesday 21st July
The CD arrived today, I noticed that its a bit faster, but otherwise sounds the same.

Thursday 22nd July
Very sad today, going back to Melbourne. My wife has been crying off and on for several days now, its funny how different men and women are. She mourns before I leave and I mourn after I leave. One bright glimpse is the online edit is tomorrow, Janis rang me to check I was coming back, which I confirmed, but requested if I could push my edit back to the afternoon so I could put the new music to the offline and check it does actually match. He said he would see what he could do.

Friday 23rd July
Went straight to uni and found that the offline room I was in was being used so we took off a video copy of the last cut and digitized it in another suite. I then loaded on the new music, too my delight, it fits perfectly. I am very excited. My online didn’t commence till 3pm as Liam's went a little late, Declan was lovely and we really enjoyed working together. I always professional relationships where you spark off each other with ideas, so the grade looks fantastic, we desatuarated it a little and put up the browns and oranges, to give a slightly old feeling. We fixed the credits, which took ages, because of the system font clash from coming from mac to PC. Declan told me he thought it was a lovely film with loads of subtext.

Monday 26th July
Very excited, LAST DAY! I met Peter who is doing the mix and again we got on very well and we worked to make the front of the film diagestic by making the Opera music obviously sound like its coming from a tape machine. I ask Peter for his advice of the best way to introduce the music as non-diagestic, I knew that I wanted this to happen, after Adam says the one line in the film “Don’t touch me”. Peter suggested a slow fade, which worked really nicely, it took some time to clean up the atmos in the background, but he found no major problems which is good, and we had fun when we put in the cutting sound which worked really well. We slowed it down even more and then overlapped it with the normal version, which still gave the creepy zing sound, and I asked him to pan it across the speakers that worked really well. It all went fantastically and I finished with Peter about 3pm and went up to present my finished film to Janis.

THE END
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