Trouble On A Plane - Screening

Last night was the long awaited UCLA screening of Trouble On A Plane. All the short films done by my fellow students and friends were screened at the Bridges Theater, the campus' official movie theater. I had delivered the final version of the film two weeks before the screening and got a call a few days later, telling me the DVD didn't work on any of their players. So I burned a new one and told them to let me know as soon as possible if this one played properly. I received an email a few hours later that it worked but that I should bring a back-up DVD, just in case. Apparently, my film was the only one having issues with the UCLA DVD players ... Great!

All the students were given about 15 tickets each, to invite cast and crew, and if any tickets left, friends and family. Because I had people coming that I had never met in person before (John Longen, the composer being one of them), I needed to come up with an idea in order for them to pick up their tickets before the screening. Mark had the fun idea to dress up in pilot uniform, while Christina, one of the actresses, would come in her stewardess uniform from the film. It worked brilliantly.
I also sticked mini version of the posters on all the tickets.

The Bridges Theater is beautiful. It has velvet red curtains hiding the screen before the films are screened and the theater can hold more than 300 people.

I was a little nervous. No, I take that back. I was VERY nervous. My movie was the 8th one to screen and I had nightmarish visions of the DVD not working. But when the blue-background of my credits appeared on the screen, I was not only relieved but so impressed by the quality of the projection. Damn, it looked sooooo good! And thank God that I decided on the non-color corrected version of the film! The film really doesn't need it when its projected on the big screen.

Afterwards, we were all rewarded with our certificate and were asked for an official group picture. The reception that followed was a lot of fun as well. Afterwards, we all went for dinner at a Japanese BBQ, which was out of this world!

Trouble On A Plane - Final Screening copy delivered

Today was the last day to deliver the final screening copy of 'Trouble On A Plane' to UCLA. This will be the version that will be screened on the huge screen at the Bridges Theater on campus, on Sunday, October 19th. I spent the last few days going back and forth with the color correction. As I had said before, the color corrected version of the film looked great on my TV screen but was super grainy on the bigger screen in class. After talking to Marq Lee, I found out that it wasn't a grain issue, but a noise one, which is typical when a film is very dark and you try to brighten it up. Marq and I got together Sunday morning and tested out both versions on his new projector. Both looked good, but you could tell that the non color corrected version was slightly sharper than the other one. So I took the decision to deliver the film as is. No color correction, except for the close-up shots of James, which were standing out from the rest because they were so bright. In other words, those were the only shots I really had an issue with.

Now it's time for the festival submissions, which is freakin' overwhelming. It is scary the number of festivals that are out there. Which ones to choose, which ones should I send my movie to? If they were all free, I would send it to all of them. Unfortunately, most American festivals require submission fees which can be to $70 (yep, Sundance charges $70 just to send in your film). Most European festivals, however, are free, which is great. But you still need to burn DVDs, buy big envelopes, there's mailing costs involved, ... There are, however, cheap alternatives. I just discovered a film festival submission website which lets you upload up to three short films for free. They work together with several good festivals around the world, who, when you submit your movie to them, can view your film directly on that website! Result, no more DVDs, mailing costs and no more paperwork to be printed out! Welcome to the 21st century!

Trouble On A Plane - Test audience

Before sending out a screener to several festivals (including Slamdance), I decided to show the film in its current form and latest color correction, to some friends. I didn't tell them in advance that I was having issues with the grainy aspect of the film and just let them enjoy the film.
As expected (sorry if that sounds arrogant), they loved the film. After each screening, most of them said the same, that the credits were already so good and so intriguing, that you couldn't wait to find out more. The credits, the music and the colors were already setting the tone for the rest of the movie.
As for the grain, they said they didn't notice it at all. They all said that they were so sucked in by the story, that they didn't even notice the grain. As a matter of fact, all said that the film had a very warm feel and felt like they were watching a feature.

Of course, the film was viewed on a TV screen, which is way smaller and way more forgiving when it comes to grainy shots. However, I am now convinced that this copy of the film is good enough for festival submission. The colors look vibrant, the sound is good and the music fits perfectly. But most important of all, the story is appealing and the acting is superb. What more can you wish for?

This weekend I watched one of my favorite movies again, 8 Femmes (8 Women), but this time I watched it with the commentary track, in which you can hear director Francois Ozon talk about the process of making the film. What was fascinating is that he had his doubts about the pacing of the movie. 8 Femmes was made as a specific genre. A murder mystery, done in a 50ies style. While the main attraction was the fact that the film had 8 of the most famous actresses in France in it, Ozon was worried that the story would feel boring. But he was quickly reassured when kids would come up to him and tell him how much they loved the movie because of its story. Those kids didn't care about who was in the film. They had never heard of Catherine Deneuve or Daniele Darieux. To them, all what mattered was the story.

Okay, I'm off. Dropping off 'Trouble On a Plane' to Slamdance. It will be its first official festival submission. See you in Colorado in January! Or is Slamdance in Utah?!?

Trouble On A Plane - Grain on a Plane

After Milan and I met and did some color correction on the film, I looked at the result once I was back at home. While the colors looked stunning, the film had become very grainy. The day after, I spent hours trying to find a way to make it look less grainy. The result worked. I burned the DVD and watched it on my big TV screen and the film looked amazing. It was ready to be shown in our last class, in which all our short films would be shown.

Making fun of the fact that my movie was done before the class even started, the teacher decided that mine would be the first one shown. The credits looked great, the music sounded fantastic, but the film ... looked super grainy! I was mortified. Afterwards, the teacher asked ".. what kind of cool film-grain filter I used". I told him I didn't, that it was the result of the color correction.

However, what is very interesting, is the fact the people that hadn't seen the movie before the color correction, all told me how much they loved the colors and how much it looked like film. They said they didn't even notice the grain. While it reassured me for a minute, I realize I have to redo the color correction, make it look less brighter in order to bring down the grain. If it looked grainy on a medium size screen, when it will be shown on a gigantic movie theater screen next month, it will be all grain and no color.

But the response was good and the best comment came from the teacher himself: "Great movie, Hitchcock would be proud!"
Lets hope so!

Trouble On A Plane - Officially Boarding in October

Yesterday, UCLA announced the official date of the screening of all the shorts that were produced in the summer quarter, including of course, TROUBLE ON A PLANE.

The date is Sunday, October 19th '08. The screening starts at 2PM and should least until about 6PM. It will be held at the Bridges Theater, in Melnitz Hall, which is right on campus (next to Parking Lot 3).

Note that this will be an 'Invitation Only' event and right now, I don't even know how many tickets they're giving me.

Hey, maybe I should have a contest!!!! :)

Trouble On A Plane - Plane About to Land

After getting the first few images of the credits, and not being very excited about them, I decided to create them myself ... in PowerPoint! I dropped the whole idea of having story elements in them. This idea came from Hitchcock's 'Thorn Curtain', in which he basically revealed parts of the movie within the credits. Call it a teaser if you want. The idea for 'Trouble On A Plane' was to have elements of the story like a cocktail glass, a bottle of poison, a briefcase, airplanes, ... All in cut-out form, in a very Saul Bass style. But looking back at Saul Bass designs for the numerous intro credits he created, I realized they all had one thing in common: simplicity! I also realized that if we added all those elements, the intro credits were going to become too comedic. Okay, Trouble On A Plane is a spoof, but the spoof is in the story, not the overall look of the film.
After Marq Lee saw my PowerPoint, he told me this would be easily recreated in After Effects. So easy that within a few hours after he saw my presentation, he had already recreated it! At the same time, my composer John send me the whole score. I had now all the elements to finish the movie. And I did!!!!

Next week I'm meeting Milan to go over color correction, as well as sound levels. By the end of next week, Trouble On A Plane should be ready to be send all over the world!

Click HERE for a sneak peek of the credits and the music that comes with it.

Trouble On A Plane - First Rough Cut of the Music

My composer John Longen, sent me a link on Wednesday to a page on his website where he had uploaded the movie with the first rough cut of his score. After only listening to five seconds of it I was totally sold! THIS was exactly what I was looking for! It sounded like pure Hitchcock!!! To think the guy only got to see the movie on Sunday and that by Wednesday he already had a rough cut of the music! Amazing. What's even more incredible is that he has never done music for a film before. Now that's talent!

The day after, we watched my first cut in class ... Horrible! Apparently, I crossed the (camera) line several times. Only the teacher noticed, the rest of the class couldn't care less. While the experience was a bit annoying, it did help me out here and there. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind having my film being criticized, but here it was really talking for the sake of talking! But like I said, some of the comments turned out to be helpful. One of the shots people loved was Hollie's CU, which has beautiful light surrounding her. Her second angle, which is a slightly higher one, had to be redone on the second day. While looking at the footage at the end of day one, I realized that the character of Dr Edwards wasn't sitting in the chair behind her. So on the second day we reshot that angle, with Milan standing in for the doctor. But edited together, both angles looked different in terms of light. They didn't match. When I told the teacher that the original, unused footage for that higher angle looked the same in terms of light but that I couldn't use it because of the whole empty seat behind her, he told me to try it anyway, saying that we might not even notice that the doctor isn't there. And he was right! The film looks so much better with that footage and now everything matches.
While the replaced footage looked better, the sound wasn't. So I tried something and was astonished by the result. I got rid of the sound of the newly inserted footage and used the sound of the footage that had been edited in before. Hollie's performance was so good that he dialogue from the old footage was completely in sync with the images of the new footage. Unbelievable! Now that's talent as well!!!