Breaking the Silence

The Leviathan is finally headed your way ...

I apologize to faithful followers of Nightscape for my prolonged inactivity on this blog. These last months have been a test of patience for me, too, while I've struggled to coordinate the work necessary to finish the picture. I'll leave the trevails of post-production to another post (or several). The news that counts is this: I'm proud to announce the world premiere of Nightscape at the Montreal Comiccon Horrorfest. Nightscape was one of 15 films selected by the festival as part of its initial feature film lineup. The festival, which runs from September 14^th through the 16^th in Montreal, Quebec, will showcase a total of 30 features from around the globe.

(A curious aside: As it happens, one of the guests of honor at the Montreal Comiccon is Gunnar Hansen, famous for playing the cannibal Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Early in Nightscape's production, I signed a pay or play agreement with Mr. Hansen's management team for him to cameo. Unfortunately, the film's final budget precluded us from becoming a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) signatory, so Mr. Hansen was compelled to drop out. Much to my relief, he did so gracefully and without holding me to the entirety of the financial penalty he could've demanded. I hope to thank him for his generosity in person.)

 I’m pleased to bring Nightscape to a large, enthusiastic genre audience at the Montreal Comiccon Horrorfest. After nearly two years of work, I’m anxious to know how it plays. It’s not a paint-by-numbers horror film. It’s a smart supernatural thriller that relies more on character and atmosphere than gimmicky jump scares.

 There's still much to be done before we master the film. We're still shy a few digital effects shots. And we continue to refine the sound mix and color. But it's safe to anticipate a master by the end of the month. At the same time, I'm prepping the release of an original tie-in novel, an action-driving iOS game, the film's spaghetti western/retro-80s soundtrack, and an original radio play/podcast. Yes, these next few months will see a veritable onslaught of Nightscape swag!

Now that the silence has been broken with a big huzzah, you can expect regular (well, at least weekly) posts on the film's festival run as well as my other Nightscape-related ventures. Thanks for sticking with me. Here's where it gets good...

Art of the Title

In the script stage, I tentatively planned on integrating Nightscape’s main titles into an early street race scene. When it came time to shoot that scene, however, we were unduly rushed. It entailed some complicated staging, made more time-sensitive by the short summer night (the sky grew noticeably lighter about 4am), so we couldn’t frame the opening shots to accommodate titles and ensure we had the right coverage for it. So much for my original idea. That left me with either moving all of the credits to the end of the picture à la Star Wars, or alternately, developing a standalone title sequence. After some deliberation, I opted for the latter.

My first-rate cinematographer, Patrick Neary, and I toyed with the notion of creating a title sequence ourselves. Our first thought was to capture scads of wrecking yard footage and then re-work it in post, combining errant car parts with organic elements. Then I arrived at the notion of creating a motion-graphic version of this idea. I imagined it as a classic Saul Bass sequence with a horrific twist. This notion called for someone with significant graphic software skills, so I opted to hire out the creation of the titles. Title design is its own unique art form and I wanted to make sure we started the film with something shockingly different to announce the film’s creepy aesthetics.

Using the oh-so-informative Web site, Art of the Title, I made a list of potential title designers and contacted my number one choice: Kurt Volk, a graphic designer for Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios. He found the title concept intriguing and wanted to work on it, but ever-escalating demands on his time precluded his involvement. He was, however, kind enough to recommend Ian Albinson, none other than the founder of Art of the Title. Fortunately for me, Ian was available and interested. Shortly after he accepted the gig, he proposed going back to the original live-action title concept, showing a series of techno-mechanical images tied to the film’s bête noir, the phantom car.

Since then, Kurt’s worked up about eight iterations of the title sequence and is near to finishing after about three months of work off and on. He and his collaborators have done an amazing job. The 90-second sequence features hand-designed titles (created by Jon Contino) over strangely affecting images with recognizably automotive origins. He gave the sequence an exceptional dynamism by not only putting the titles in motion, but also making them transparent as they approach the viewer, providing glimpses of the next image in the sequence before its fully revealed. As noted previously, the capper was the music. My composer, John Askew, surprised me with a fantastic main title theme. (To be clear, I wasn’t surprised the score was fantastic, but that John created a score at all. I’d long planned to use a pre-existing song from an obscure mid-70s band for the sequence. But when securing the rights to the tune became problematic, John offered his own take.)

Now, all that remains is a few finishing special effects touches and the sequence will be complete and ready for output. Another element put to bed on the way to a final master…

Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle

For the past several weeks I’ve been spending one or two days at the newkrackle audiblefx recording studio, home of my sound designer, Jason Edwards (no relation). Jason and I have been coaching the cast through ADR sessions in order to improve the sound mix. That’s ADR as in Automated Dialogue Recording, or alternately, Additional Dialogue Recording, otherwise known as ‘dubbing.’ ADR is the preferred industry term, presumably because dubbing makes it sound as though the filmmaker was forced to record new dialogue to mask on-set mistakes.

While that does occur, the main purpose of ADR is to give the sound designer maximum flexibility in treating the various sound elements. In the usual course of production, bits of dialogue come across as distorted or unplayable. Sometimes it’s due to the noise accompanying an on-set action that can’t be pantomimed. Sometimes it’s because the actor moved in a way that resulted in an off-mic line delivery or generated an unwanted fabric swish. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you’ve gathered that there’s a fair amount of car mayhem in the film. As you might expect, there are several in-car conversations. Given that we couldn’t afford a process trailer for more than a couple of days, we recorded most of these conversations with the car in motion, engine running. This amounted to recording guide tracks for the inevitable ADR work, as the engine noise nearly drowned out the dialogue. (As an amusing aside, I was typically curled up in the back of the El Camino just out of camera range, clutching the sound recording equipment. I often had to keep as low a profile as possible, so I usually couldn’t see anything; I just listened for solid performances.)

Joshua St. James gives a scream during his Nightscape ADR session

It’s been nearly five months since the end of principal photography and none of my leads have ever done ADR before. It can be a serious challenge to any actor—even recognized veterans—because you not only have to recreate your performance, but do so in sync with what’s on-screen. That’s the epitome of the old saw about putting the genie back in the bottle. Luckily for us, our leads have done amazingly well. Emily Galash was the first to enter the ADR booth. She faced the daunting task of re-recording about 80% of her dialogue, mostly because of environmental issues like wind and unavoidable noises tied to on-screen action. She was typically fearless and knocked out her dialogue like a seasoned voice actor in short order. She compared her experience to playing Guitar Hero,  matching dialogue to action in a remembered rhythm. Joshua St. James and Jorge Madrid have been equally adept at ADR work, quickly getting back into character and in some cases, even improving on their original performances.

I’m indebted to Jason and his assistant, Lou, for their infallible attention to detail. They’ve done an exceptional job of identifying all of the necessary ADR elements, even going so far as to record single words because of slight distortion—discrepancies that would likely go unnoticed by the average filmgoer. For them, it’s a matter of professional pride. And that’s what makes for a winning film. It takes all of the little things done right to make for a satisfying whole.