The Soundtrack

Ironically a post about music comes along as my stepdaughter is glued to Glee in the other room. That's not the reason I'm writing this. I'm writing this because part of the score has come through from I Phoenix, and it's fucking awesome.


When I wrote the script for Little Things I wrote two scenes that are entirely visual and were backed by music. In the script the tracks I chose were by Elbow and Radiohead. I have on numerous occasions mentioned that this film has no budget. Published music is not only expensive to procure the rights for but nigh on impossible to find the person who has the rights. So I needed some tunes that I could use instead. So I started to look for an alternative. 


Way back in August you may recall that I mentioned that the music for Little Things was being provided by a great band called The Crow Hearts. My "Sound" guy Arun Parmar doesn't do movie sound as his main thing. Arun is a sound engineer who's primary area of expertise is recording music. The Crow Hearts are a band that Arun recorded. I know a couple of the guys through him and I love their tunes so I asked if I could use their tracks and they were kind enough to agree. 


But it wasn't sitting right... 


I tried cutting their tracks into the rough cuts a couple of times, but they weren't quite working. Nothing wrong with the tracks, quite the opposite. they're great tunes, I have them on my ipod and play them all the time, I love them. Just not in Little Things. 


Enter my brother, Peter. More specifically enter, my brothers mates who are in an Irish band; I Phoenix. Irish as in from Ireland, not as in diddley-aye-no-nay-never-paddy-fuckin-whackery Based on the conversation he had with them they could compose music in the style of my choosing to suit the scenes. Got to be honest, I was sceptical. Style of my choosing? Seriously? Okay we'll see.


I sent the guys a cut of Little Things before Christmas. Delays were caused by Arctic weather conditions back in Ireland and Kevin's gastroenteritis. (I've had gastroenteritis, the worst thing I remember is the horrific realisation that I was likely to survive) but finally the tracks came through today. Fuck me they're good. But they're not only good, they're right. 


I cut the tracks into the film and I am so happy with the results, I am a hair's breadth away from Little Things being totally finished. Just need people to see it now.


Please check out I Phoenix's free download at http://iphoenix.bandcamp.com but don't expect it to be what the music in Little Things sounds like, because the guys wrote music in the style that I requested. Oh me of little faith.

And I'm Spent...

Final edit of Little Things is done.

Spent the day in front of the computer. 

Some parts are not as good as I'd have liked, some are better than I could have hoped for. 

Just waiting on my score now and the film will be done, then maybe you can all have a look.

Bolloxed now.

Rough as a Bears Arse

Those of you that follow me on Facebook and Twitter, which is probably most of you, will know that this weekend I finished the first rough cut of Little Things. There are some bits of tidying up to do and the sound needs an overhaul, but as a rough cut, I'm really proud of the result.

As it stands, the cut is very close to the script. That'll be the result of me being the writer, director and editor. I've had this film made in my head for a long time, writing and storyboarding it were a method of showing other people what the film in my head was. Shooting it, was just collecting the elements of the film together and editing it was just trimming out the bits that weren't needed. So now I have a close representation of the film I've been imagining for about a year and a half. Advantage of this is that "Little Things" will eventually be exactly the film that I wanted to make.

Disadvantage of this is that if "Little Things " is shite, then it's entirely my fault. Scary thought.

Next steps. Firstly, music. As it stands at the moment, the music in the rough cut are Radiohead and Elbow songs. These convey the moods nicely, but I would never get clearance to use them in a public performance in a million years. I've handed a copy to my brother in Dublin who is showing the rough cut to the guys from I Phoenix who are composing the music. While my brother is pestering one audio artist I will be pestering another. I'll be cajoling some time from Arun my sound engineer mate to give the audio a clean up.

I'm also trying to get some people who are involved in the film industry to have a look at the film. Not as self promotion, I just need someone to have a look at the film objectively who can give me some advice about where I can trim fat.

While all this is going on I'm now going to bribe my cast and crew. If you are a member of the cast or crew and would like to see a rough cut, then I would be happy to show it to you....on condition that I procure from you one guest blog post.

I shall continue to stare at my empty inbox....

Channelling Kev'

it took ages to set up all the bottles to film Chris's real -world game of Pac-Man

I'm Back!!

Apologies to you all for my absence of late, that has been largely down to any time in front of a computer being dedicated to editing Little Things. That and it's a difficult time of year, those of you that either know Rach and I personally or read my other blog will understand why. 

I've suffered some setbacks. I was using our old family PC to edit the flick. When the footage was fine, there was no issue, but where I needed to tweak lighting or colour or sound, it fell on its arse. So a new tool was required for the job. Enter Mister Steve Jobs and the mighty iMac. The new machine was ordered a couple of weeks ago and whilst awaiting it's arrival I called a temporary hiatus on editing. So in the meantime I started listening to Kevin Smith's podcasts in the hope that I would become more well informed about the process of producing indie movies on a limited budget. I'm not. I am more will informed about sucking dick.

The editing hiatus has proved to be a sensible decision as now that the iMac is here, no amount of jiggling about with things has allowed me to get the existing edit files to work with the new machine, possibly due to the questionable origin of the editing software. In the absence of an alternative solution, I shouted at the screen a lot. Then I had a decision to make.

Option 1 - go back to the old computer. Well that would defeat the object of getting the new computer and more crucially might cause my wife to murder me.

Optioin 2 - I trawl the internet for solutions to the problem. Well I'm not techie enough to even know what I'm fucking looking for so that could take forever

Option 3 - Start over. Unappealing as that may have sounded, it would probably be less time consuming, that and I could un-fuck some of my early editing mistakes

So I started over. And you'll be happy to hear that because I know a little more about what I'm doing I have now nearly caught up with where I was before my upgrade. 

I have set myself a pretty tight deadline. Early submissions for the Edinburgh Film Festival ends on the 4th of December. I want to get an edit done, in enough time that I can show it to someone who knows more than me and tell me if Little Things is good enough for it to be worth my while entering. So with only a couple of weeks to edit the flick this is probably the last you'll hear from me for a little while. So in order to keep things going I am putting out a request for guest posts. Cast and crew, I know most of you read this so, please, your two cents would be appreciated. Even if you were one of the guys who was only there for part of one of the days, I'm sure the rest of the interweb that read this would love to hear from you.

I will sit and stare at my inbox awaiting responses.

PS - Peter. Not you.

Naming

Hey All

I am pleased to announce the cast for Little Things

Chris Jones - Leonard
Richie Nolan - Weaver
Lisa Solari - Lisa

Also I have now officially got a name for my production company (assuming everything is ok with Companies House.

Introducing BROC GLIC PRODUCTIONS LIMITED

I've even got a logo:

Look closely, the badger's stripe is a strip of film.
The things I spend my time on!

Mark out