I really liked this. It was quite clever, and all the framing was effective without being overly flashy. The CG, as said before, was a really nice touch.
Thanks. I wish I could take more credit for the "originality" of it. After seeing IRON MAN with the HUD (Head's Up Display) inside the helmet, and then the tutorial on how to do that on
www.videocopilot.net, the graphics became much easier. I had a rudimentary idea of a virtual screen with the monotone colors, IE like the 2 tone GREEN style of old computers from the late 1980's. Then these things came along and changed the idea of the look I went for. My original intent was for the screens to be a lot busier and with a lot more going on, moving around, etc. In the end I went for simple.
How long did the whole process take, from conception (or at least, the begininng of the writing) to the completed product?
This is a complex answer to what should be a simple answer, but it never is for me. This can also be viewed as a text director's commentary.
I have had an idea for this basic story for over a year. I had no payoff for the graphics. Originally I wanted a 3rd party "collection agency" guy to be there when he hasn't paid off his "debt". That was not goingt o equal the graphics. So I sat on this concept for a year until a conversation with George Caleodis, the actor in the piece. He's from the Second City (teaches improv in Hollywood right now), and also the Improv Olympic where he directs live shows for them. He mentioned something about sex and had an idea, but all I fixated on was sex and then I had a breakthrough with the ** SPOILER ALERT** orgasm calendars.
I shot my other movie,
REFRACTORY on a Sunday, and I had over 3 months to prep for that shoot. George was flying in from California and I had 3 days to prep for
RELATIONSHIP CARD, which was shot 4 days later. I wrote it, cast it (I had never worked with Amanda before), and we had to light it, shoot it, and clean up and be out of the location inside of 4 hours. This was a rush job. I had no idea what the graphics were going to look like or even where to have them place their hands, or eyelines, etc. There was no prep and I paid for it later. I would NOT shoot this without George and there was an extremely limited window of time with him.
I was so rushed, I completely missed shooting coverage of Amanda during the first 3rd of the piece. I tried in the edit to cover this up with "reaction" shots from later in the piece immediately after she spoke, but without seeing her say
SOME of the lines, it was just a rocky, bumpy edit. I knew I'd have to pickup those shots later. The basic picture edit sans any effects took about 3-4 hours.
Then the idea of the graphics was a bear. Just getting the right "look" down took me weeks and weeks (approx 2 months). Having too many options, and then having several of them good all conspired to make me wishy-washy on which one to use. TJ Cooley designed the elements, but I animated them in After Effects. The first shot of the screen turning on was a crane shot and it wasn't 100% steady, so I had to motion track it all in 3D space. That was not that bad, but I still had to commit to colors, screen sizes, types, etc. and I had to make them match where the actors put their hands.
I also went back and nearly 3 months later, I did pickup shots with Amanda to get her re-shot. She had just gotten back from Hawaii and was about 4 shades darker from a tan. She forgot her tank top and her hair was 4 inches longer. No one can tell which shots of her were shot 3 months later. I love it. She acted against me and all the shots we did had dialogue between her and George and it seamlessly cuts in. IT took about 30 minutes to cut in the new footage into the edit.
Once I settled on the look, it was about 2 weeks after hours and on weekends from my day-job as an editor to finish the first draft of the effects. Looking at them on a 42" LCD screen in full 1080P, I realized every single FX shot had to be re-done because there is no cheating in HD. You could read every single word, so I had to write out my own 12 page terms of service agreement and re-type every little word in every single box on screen.
Now I have already done a re-edit for about an hour this past weekend tightening up the piece, losing some dialogue, removing some gaps and spaces, and re-arranging some jokes, etc.
So total time - from writing, over a year, from the shoot, 4 months.
