Progress report: February 16, 2009

I just spent the last two weeks in Chicago - with my editing setup in tow - and I have no idea how the productivity compares to my usual post routine at MPC Minnesota headquarters. I brought Guitar Hero to Illinois, so I suppose all procrastination due to playing Rock Band in MN remained intact; it always seems harmless enough to play a few songs when exporting a QT, but then the guilt kicks in an hour later, long after said export is finished and after my Mac's auto-sleep function kicks in.

Regardless, my halfheartedly-scrawled post-production schedule shows me ahead of schedule - as have all Transmissions schedules ever penned. Specifically, I'm about to reach a fine cut of Transmission 9 today, and then I'll burn the whole deal to a DVD and watch it front to back. All told, I cut about sixteen minutes, stemming mostly from trimming heads and tails and chopping out some bits of the few overlong dialogue scenes.

That said, this "fine cut" has a near-final sound mix in spots, and other than a few shots I want to add (during a brief reshoot that, depending on laziness, could take anywhere from ten minutes to three hours to accomplish), the fine cut's TRT will be the final TRT plus or minus, say, two minutes. I'm already in the zone of around 90 minutes, and I want to see if the pacing is all right and hits a good sweet spot. Because, hell, I watched The Beatles: Help! the other day, and despite its short runtime of 90 minutes, it seemed to drag on forever. (Retrospect made me realize it was because it gave no indication of ending - or even really starting - so my brain couldn't sniff out the pace.)

So now it's all home stretch: a bit of sound design, some color correction, and, oh yeah, a picture lock. The release of March 14 was plucked out of the air, and it's good to see that I feel confident to have everything done by then.