I finally locked picture a few weeks ago. I could have continued to edit for months (or even years), but I eventually reached a point where I realized that the changes I was making was simply making the film minutely different, not better. So I did one final pass and then handed it off to my sound designer, Jon.
The past few weeks have proven just as busy though. Jon has been working furiously, along with my composer, David, and Marco, my DP and colorist. I’ve been giving feedback on their work as they go along. I was also recently in Orlando for ADR (automated dialogue replacement). Because of the background noise of most of our exterior locations (e.g. Stetson University’s insanely loud A/C next door to our house exterior), some of our dialogue wasn’t usable. So we had to bring the actors into a studio and re-record their lines. I was amazed at how smoothly it went! I had a little bit of ADR experience with one of my short films and I remember it being a long, complicated, and often frustrating task. This time, however, it was great fun! All of the actors nailed it and Jon was a joy to work with. We were able to complete all of the ADR in a mere two days!
The stress is on now, though. I’ve arranged a Cast & Crew Screening for the end of the month and I’m a little concerned about how close that is. There’s still much to be done…
