So I spent the weekend re-shooting some scenes I thought could've been better, some new scenes that I absolutely needed so that the movie would make sense, a new gag that I absolutely love in all its anarchaity and some extra shots for the skateboard-car chase scene.
I also did the rest of the effects work. During one of the scenes the movie suddenly changes to a bootlegged off-line copy of the movie, so I added in a timecode, then burnt the scene to DVD, recorded the playback of the DVD onto a VCR, recorded the playback of the VCR onto my camera through a direct line-in, recorded the playback of the camera back onto the VCR (for another generation loss in quality), recorded the playback of VCR playing back the playback of the camera back into the camera and transferred it all onto the computer.
A lot of fuss for a one-minute shot, I know, but it makes me happy. At another point in the movie the footage turns to VCD mpeg quality for about ten minutes, although in my opinion the quality is a lot worse.
With all these re-shot and new scenes, I re-cut the movie again, this time also fixing any tiny mistakes along the way (and there were quite a number of them) and by last night 3am I cut the movie all the way to the beginning of the third act: 1 hour and 13 minutes so far, and it all makes sense in a linear form. The previous cuts all had huge chunks missing. Now I've got another 20 or 30 more minutes to add and the first proper, watchable cut of the movie will be done.
And, so far, I'm happy with it.
Everything's coming into place, the shots and scenes are making more sense, the sound's a bit better (with the simple addition of 2:1 compression... although, for some reason, I think I'm gonna have to tweak the sound of the UK footage a bit more, seems a bit muddy. A mackie mid or high boost should do the trick), everything's looking pretty cool. The new gag/Animal House homage I shot with Izuan (who's character name in the credits will probably be 'Emo Boy') is frickin' hillarious (and, dare I say it, extremely cathartic), the new scene to establish VCD's and Peter Brown's character work a treat and the action sequence has been helped considerably by the new shots (which were a lot more dangerous to shoot but absolutely necesarry).
However, I'm quite sure I would have actually finished editing by now if it wasn't for my new-old distraction: a Playstation.
(No, not a PS2, an old-school Playstation, the chunky one.)
Whilst we were doing the off-line copy effect at Tony's house I noticed, there in the corner, was a dusty old Playstation. I'd been tempted to buy a second hand one for ages (since the PS3 is coming out I might as well save up and wait for that as opposed to saving up and buying a PS2) and Tony doesn't play it anymore, so he passed it over. Next pay-cheque, I pay him.
And over the weekend I was reminded how fucking addictive video games can be.
I scourged my house for all my old PS1 games (I used to have one, then sold it during troubled times) and found all my favourites, including Tekken 3, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, GTA2 and my personal favourites: Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 to 4 (already finished THPS2 with Chad Muska over the weekend and now I'm using Eric Koston). I also went out to buy some PS1 games since they're going for such dirt cheap prices: RM$10 for 3. I didn't realize the Spiderman 2 game was so addictive (not the movie one, the comic book one. And how do you defeat Shocker, for fucks sake?!).
But back to the plot: I should be done with a proper watchable cut of the movie within the next 2 or 3 days, then FedEx it to Seattle and hope for the best (as well as have a private cast and crew screening with pizza). Tonight, I've got an r n' b video to shoot in a warehouse. Will probably continue editing the movie after that (shoot ends at 11pm... aaargh...).
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