Postproduction Log February & March, 2008
I have been working on the film on a nightly basis, since my efforts at finishing off the RDGs trailer were proving fruitless. I am pleased to report much progress on the film. I decided to avoid the endless quest for original music by using preexisting classical music which I should be able to get the rights to.

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
Cut down the first meeting in Mickey's, fixed Jane's momentary eye dart, think I have a complete cut of that scene. Worked on music for the studio, Charlie's voice-over. Rewrote Charlie's first narration (much shorter now)- will soon have to tackle rewriting the 2nd one as well, but first must get the newspaper stills.

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
Placed music throughout the remainder of the bridge chase, and spent a long time getting it to segue well from the earlier piece. Both sections worked well separately, but back to back there was a noticeable change in feeling. Think I fixed it.

Thursday, March 13th, 2008
Started footstep foley in the garage scene; more mixing in the first Mickey's meeting; adjusted filters on dubs in the cop's car scene to sound more believable. Soon will have to tackle soaping the source files.

Friday, March 14th, 2008
Worked on ambient, foley, and sound effects for the Garage. Decided to give the cops' car a distinctive sound after discovering a great sound file of a 1964 Cadillac with a rickety engine. This nicely solves the problem of what sound attracts the attention of Gosha and Charlie in the garage. Music added to Ambush, more fiddling with the first Mickey's meeting.

Saturday, March 15th, 2008
Solved the problem of why Nastya doesn't clobber Jane immediately below the bridge by moving the shot of her picking up the bottle to later in the scene. Tightened and smoothed the music and dialogue. Fixed a reflection in the final Mickey's scene. Added some sound effects (mostly phone noises)

Tuesday & Wednesday, March 18th & 19th
Have been trying to figure out the music at Hofstader's death. It's been a lot of time invested for so far no actual return, but perhaps I'm closer. Also added the missing names to the poster. Time to unveil it!

Tuesday, March 25rd
After a few days of sparse work, making pecks at the music in certain scenes, started the audio soaping. Soaped Charlie & Jane's dialogue in the final scene. It's a start.

Wednesday, March 26th
Finished soaping the Triple Handoff. Not such a huge accomplishment, as it's the shortest of the four sequence files in the project. I've had some trouble getting the audio program to run and save correctly, though, and now that that is solved, I should be able to tackle the soaping on the rest of the dialogue in the film full-bore. Also, am prepared to purchase a digital audio recorder for recording foley.

Friday, March 28th
Received the Zoom G4 digital audio recorder in the mail. So quick!


Saturday, March 29th
Recorded the microfilm machine sfx at the Osaka Nakanoshima Library.

Monday, March 31st
Soaped microfilm sfx and began editing them into the scene.

Tuesday, April 1st
Received the first of the newspaper stills for editing into the opening narration.

Wednesday, April 2nd
Finished editing the microfilm sfx. Recorded and soaped the plastic bag sfx.

Thursday, April 3rd
Edited the plastic bag foley, recorded and added the coin clink, worked on other sfx for the triple handoff, and patched further traffic out of the background.

Friday, April 4th
More foley on Triple Handoff. Footsteps, clothing. Almost done with it, although I haven't found a good bodyfall for Hofstader yet.

Saturday, April 5th
Spent an hour removing a moth from the triple handoff. Then quickly added footstep foley on Charlie entering, and put in a scratch mix for the car. It might do, with a few extra sfx to cover transitions and add punctuation.

Tuesday, April 8th
Worked on Burke's shouting in the garage after being shot, music transition in beginning of garage chase, foley for bag in garage. Took another moth out, this one from the post-Ambush bridge phone call. Will be tackling sound in the garage in the coming days- need to find a car or something like it to record foley with, though.

Sunday, April 13th
Mixed voice dubs in Garage, added foley for Nastya's footsteps on approach, holsters, doors, camera sfx and plastic bag in the Cop's Car. Slight adjustments to the video mix at the end of the Library.

Monday, April 14th
Garage- Foley (gunshots), music on Hofstader approaching car & Nastya to scene, ADR mixing.

Monday, April 21st
After a week's diversion while Dr. Moist visited, am back at work. Recorded and added foley for the bottle scrape, Jane's notebook, kicking/handling guns, camera handling, & patting down Gosha.

Tuesday, April 22nd
Filmed some water in Kisaichi to put behind the titles.

Wednesday, April 23rd
Spent the whole evening creating a 6-second title I could be happy with, using the water footage shot yesterday. Also experimented with outputting in various hi-er def formats, hoping to figure out how to avoid the low-rezziness of the RDGs' final output.

Thursday, April 24th
Put some water behind the first NOTB credit. Fiddled a bit with the title fade-in and transparency. Work in the Garage- footsteps, gun foley, Charlie dubbing; in the cops' car on their dubbing; fixed the music clicks in the alley.

Friday, April 25th
Made the voices work in the alley; leather seat squeaking foley in the Garage (may need more work later); telephone sound effects throughout the pay phone scene (soaped & synched); some tweaking on the mix of Burke's footsteps approaching Mickey's; Charlie's dubs in the Garage; some work on cops' car (night) dialogue.

Sunday, April 27th
Soaped most of Jane's ambush dialogue.

Tuesday, April 29th
Soaped some of Nastya's ambush dialogue

Wednesday, April 30th
Soaped the rest of Nastya's ambush dialgoue

Thursday, May 1st - Tuesday, May 6th
Mickey's meeting with Gosha & Jane- recorded cigarette box foley, though think I will have to do some more- synched up some ADR, and soaped some of the original audio.

Wednesday, May 7th
Spent several hours online tracking down articles to use in the opening narration montage.

Thursday, May 8th
More article searches, and started photoshopping Franklin's mug shot image.

Saturday, May 10th
Rewriting the narrations.

Friday, May 16th
Adjusted some of the ADR in Mickey's at night (both scenes), and added footsteps to the garage chase (beginning) for the first time.

Monday, May 19th
Garage sfx- footsteps and car; Burke ADR, Gosha ADR, music on picture-taking and starting to run.

Wednesday, May 21st
Added some footstep foley to Burke and Hof in the Garage.

Thursday, May 22nd
Added some car sfx to the garage.

Saturday, May 24th
More footstep & car sfx mixing.

Sunday, May 25th
Recorded Nastya sighing, panting, & 'yes'.

Monday, May 26th
Soaped & synched Nastya dubs recorded yesterday.

Wednesday, May 28th
Taking a break from the interminable garage scene, worked on music cues in the Studio, and slightly remixed some of the dialogue from source recordings. The frame of my headphones is broken, so for the moment I have to wear them strapped to my head with a red woolen scarf.

Friday, May 30th
More Studio music work.

Saturday, May 31st
More studio music work. Bought a new pair of headphones. Got the most durable-looking ones I could afford, as I'm sick of my headphones always breaking in the same place from fatigue. These ones are by Koss and they are mostly metal. But they're really uncomfortable! I was having to take them off every 20 minutes or so. At least they come with a lifetime warranty so THEY'LL ALWAYS BE WITH ME.

Friday, June 6th
Almost completed the Studio music, putting music over Charlie's entrance, uncovering the table, finding the coins, and also Franklin's death. Some soaping of sound effects, including the window entrance, and brought in the ambient sound for the establishing studio pan from the 'Beginning' project file. Gravelly footsteps added to Charlie's first walking past there.

Saturday, June 7th
Recorded knocks on studio door on the garage door below my apartment. Replaced all the post-vault Studio footage audio with dubs, and finally the scene has come together. Still need foley and probably some ambiance, but with music and clean dialogue, it's suddenly great. Added drawer sf/x, and changed one shot in the Russian's car to cut around a slight discontinuity in Charlie's head position.

Sunday, June 8th
Recorded studio foley- sand digging and blowing, box sliding open, climbing around corner, footsteps on dockside, ladder, jacket thrown back, cloth pulled off, coins thrown into bag, bag swung aside, cupboard door rattled. Soaped all and synched up some.

Monday, June 9th
More studio foley- wall climb, redo jacket, gun out of jacket and into hand, coin handling, plaster pick up (probably have to redo later), polaroid pulled off, coins slide into palm. Soaped and synched all, along with the remainder of yesterday's.

Tuesday, June 10th
Soaped and synched 3 more dubs for Nastya, finishing the Studio dialogue. Just have to mix it all a bit better to smooth it out. Added footsteps until Charlie's inside, compressed the intro ambiance to a single file, soaped the panel lift. Looks like soaping will work for the panel movement, but I'll have to sweeten the footsteps across and around it, probably by recording my own.

Wednesday, June 11th
Tedious work on Studio foley. Footsteps on Charlie inside, most of which still don't sound right. Footsteps on the panel, the soaped ones of originals of which sound great, the CD ones not so much, yet. Went out to try to record panel footstep foley, but it was too noisy. Looks like I might not need to, since the soaping/double-soaping seems to be working to make the original recordings usable.

Thursday, June 12th
More foley work on the interminable Studio scene. Mostly panel and footsteps. Trimmed here and there, and started adjusting levels throughout the sequence. Made an important discovery- that's it's possible to incrementally double-soap files and, at least in some cases, get better-than-expected results. Will this rescue the Cass Gilbert scene? Time will tell. Like, about 24 hours.

Friday, June 13th
Just more mixing for levels.

Sunday, June 15th
Spent all day on Skype with Uriah, remotely directing the re-recording of the rewritten narration. It will take a day or two yet to receive all the files he recorded, but even so, it's an amazing example of what technology and the internet enable one to do nowadays.

Monday, June 16th
Integrated the first narration. It sounds pretty good. Have high hopes for the rest.

Tuesday, June 17th
Adjusting some levels, 1st narration.

Wednesday, June 18th
Cut together the audio for the second narration, and burned a DVD for the rough cut test screening.

Saturday, June 21st
Held the first test screening, with my visiting family as the audience. The reaction was not as uniformly positive as I had hoped. I have some concrete things I have to do to improve what I can, while other criticisms I will just have to live with. It was eye-opening to me, though, to see what worked and what didn't.

Wednesday, July 2nd
Rewatched the film, taking notes and making a list of things that need changing, adding, or improving. Added music to the Cops' Car day & Airport Day. With the list, now, I have my work cut out for me, but it unfortunately includes rewriting and rerecording the first two narrations.

Thursday, July 3rd
Am hampered by a recurring error message that says I'm out of memory. Perhaps it's the growing size of this project file, although I doubt it. Regardless, I'm going to try to upgrade the memory to 1GB. Despite that problem, I: added music to the Russians' car leaving bridge; lengthened slightly the intro to the Car conversation; adjusted music volume during cops car day; lengthened fade-in to coin shop. Also, ripped the AIFFs from the CD of 'Ma Vlast' that was brought to me from home, and listened to the first two movements; so far, no skips or glitches.

Friday, July 4th
Worked a bit more on the music as the Russians talk at and then leave the bridge. Also, the airport night.

Saturday, July 5th
Recut the introduction to the night Mickey's meeting. Worked on getting the music to work for the Airport night, but it still doesn't end well. Might have to scrap what I've got and find another section to use.

Monday, July 6th
Backed up movie footage to new hard drive, to keep off-site.

Tuesday, July 7th
Yet more tinkering with the music for the Russians leave the bridge, Airport night, and Airport day. I think I've got the solution now, just got to mix it a bit more. Am left with just odds and ends of music at this point, as I'm trying not to reuse cues that have featured prominently elsewhere in the film. Changed an edit in the escape, to include an extra shot of the leading tracking car chase shot, tried a police radio as ambiance in the cops' car day- it did not work.

Wednesday, July 8th
Music is now working in the airport night, airport day (I think) and the edits made to the bridge drive-off yesterday look good. Adjusted the timing of the transition into the 3x handoff. Fixed a foley synch issue at the airport night; simplified/shortened the subtitles at the airport night.

Monday, July 14th
Made an acceptable and watchable, though by no means perfect, effects shot of Hofstader shooting Gosha. It might be good enough to keep, maybe with a little more twiddling.

Tuesday, July 15th
Adjusted the above Hofstader shooting scene, adding another shot when Charlie runs. Took on the Tarbox phone conversation, have it working alright in terms of cuts and performance, but now I have to rewrite half the conversation and rerecord it.

Wednesday, July 16th
Rewrote, rerecorded, and synched up the new Tarbox dialogue. I can't tell if it works or is stupid. It's at least more interesting to listen to, and meshes well with Charlie's reaction expressions, than what was in there previously. And it sounds less obviously like me. I think.

Monday, July 21st
Replaced Charlie dialogue with dubs in Tarbox conv, added ambiance and some sound effects. It's probably the best solution, though the dubs sound a little too close. It would be an easy sequence to redub remotely, though.

Tuesday, July 22nd
Slightly lengthened Misha's arrival at the triple handoff, in response to comments from the test screeners. Shortened and repaced the subtitles in the studio.

Saturday, July 26th
Recorded scuffling foley for the garage in Osaka with several friends.

Sunday, July 27th
Downloaded the files from Saturday, but didn't do much with them.

Monday, July 28th
Again, made a few halfhearted pecks at synching up the foley from Sunday.

Tuesday, July 29th
In one push, finally synched up the scuffle foley, and also added most of the footsteps that were missing from the main garage scene. Also, slightly lengthened (by about 10 frames) the bit right before Charlie runs off. The timing there seems just about right now.

Wednesday, July 30th
Mixed further the scuffle foley and footsteps, recorded foley for Hofstader's gloves out of pocket, breathing, and the Leukemia card sequence and coin removals, soaped and synched them all. Made a patch to a shot in the Garage escape to make Charlie step back from Hofstader charging the elevator door.

Thursday, July 31st
Put music over the end of the Ambush phone call. Fixed the gap in the elevator scene and substituted a different, in some ways more dynamic take for the 2-shot. Started work on finishing the car sf/x in the garage escape. Tomorrow's the first day of August. My goal is to be finished with the film by August 16th, the 5-year anniversary of the first day of filming.

Sunday, August 3rd
Pushed to get the footstep foley done in the remainder of the garage/escape. Started on the car sf/x from the same scene.

Monday, August 4th
Continued with the car sf/x, but didn't get very much done.

Tuesday, August 5th
Started on Ambush escape footstep foley.

Friday, August 8th
Rewrote opening narration and tweaked 2nd narration

Saturday, August 9th
Worked on narration slides.

Sunday, August 10th
Narration slides, including creating composite of coin shop image

Monday, August 11th
Worked on narration slides- formatting, placing.

Tuesday, August 12th
More narration slide work, including creating Burke & Hostader ID cards

Wednesday, August 13th
Finished Ambush escape foley

Tuesday, August 19th
Mixed reverb on Ambush escape foley; recut music and pacing on opening library sequence; retimed title fade in to match music; experimented with cutout transparency on slides, to make them appear as 3D objects; recorded foley for objects on table in Charlie's apartment

Wednesday, August 20th
Uploaded foley sfx recorded yesterday; soaped and synched them.

Thursday, August 21st
Added footstep foley to Jane approaching bridge, Gosha and Charlie in Diner, Charlie and Jane leaving stairway; filtered bass on diner handoff dialogue; slight timing adjustment to make music segue better in Ambush; eased audio transition into Cass Gilbert Park scene.

Friday, August 22nd
Finally finished the car sf/x from the garage escape- an albatross around my neck for some time now. It needs a bit more mixing to bring out the footsteps, but the hard part is done. The last major piece, now, will be the narration, which is waiting on Uriah's internet. Also, added reverb to diner dubs, and slightly tightened the cut into the cops' car after the alley press.

Monday, August 25th
Finished footsteps & door sfx in studio, added phone effect to diner & ambush conversations, ambiance behind ambush rescue run, recorded foley for post-bridge chase sounds, and franklin's voice approaching the studio.

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