The Final Touch

It's official. I have driven my editor, Marc Alcorn, to the edge of madness with my last second tinkering on the film. Ah...but the young lad has learned a valuable lesson in the process. Marc is among the most talented editors I have ever worked with...maybe the best...but I have taught him something new...and it's that Patience is Genius.

Marc is a stickler to details and deadlines...and our final cut of the film was due in to the Sarasota Film Festival days ago...a fact that troubles Marc to no end. But I've been working closely with our Executive Producer, Wendy Williams, (who is on location in Vancouver on a huge $200 million dollar film she's steering to completion) and with our Colorist, Courtney Penna, to make certain that the visual tone and vibrancy of Beautiful Noise matches what I've had in mind all these months. And we've accomplished that feat. But tonight, just when Marc thought he was going to be able to button things up and ship the film off to be transferred to HD Cam for the film festival screenings, I threw in one simple 5 second scene that to me is absolutely crucial. The single line that Kimbers' character 'Candy' delivers to Jay's character 'Noah' during the climactic 3rd Act sets up the entire ending of the film. It was 2:00 am when I informed Marc that something was missing in that particular sequence...so you can imagine the look on his face after he'd been slaving away double-checking every frame all day long. If looks could kill...After a few anxious moments discussing the situation he went back to an early edit of the film we did months ago and showed me everything that had been cut from what we affectionately call "Candy's explosion" scene. And there, amid the footage that had been left behind, I found the one line I needed that sets up the punch line of the scene. Now we have the movie I've always envisioned firmly in hand.

I know a lot of capable editors who would have thrown up their hands and walked away weeks ago due to my endless search for different scenes or small portions of scenes that I thought could help the Storytelling aspects of our movie. I have been relentless to seek and use every angle, every shot, every syllable possible to create just the right moment in every frame of Beautiful Noise. I know exactly what I want to convey and I'm not going to compromise on that vision. No matter what. So yeah...it takes a patient person to hang in with me for 4 months of post production while I reshaped what we shot into the best film I could possibly present.

Marc hung in there with me tonight and his patience paid off...as he instantly recognized we had indeed uncovered a gem of a scene I wrote that had been totally forgotten. His patience with me is greatly appreciated because, in the end, when all is said and done...we produced a film we're both extremely proud of. So Marc will render the new scene tomorrow and Courtney will spend 20 seconds color correcting it...then our Mission is complete.

The Countdown to our World Premiere at the Sarasota Film Festival this Saturday night continues. It's going to be an amazing week...

ST