Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Completed Scene 32 for RRR! this afternoon. Yesterday I posted that I had only three scenes left to edit, when in fact I had four. I hadn't separated Scene 32 from the main Drag Race footage of Scene 31. Dahhh...no wonder there scene numbers skipped over one number. Anyway this was an easy cut- but had messy audio. I asked Ron Foreman to swing by the studio next week so we could do some ADR and replace his lines. The mic placement at the time wasn't good for his dialog and because we shot this scene just a few yards from a Drag Strip during races, splicing the audio is very difficult, especially with different cars at different places on the strip on different actors takes and words.

Rat Rod Rockers! Shirts

Made a quick new one color Rat Rod Rockers!  design shirt for the films Premiere on November, 13th. These will be white ink on black shirts front side print only. Later we will add double sided printing and additional colors. Rat Bastards Car Club gal Marcia Foreman is looking into a short run for us. She does excellent silk screen work.

The Munsters 1/25 Scale Munster Coach & Dragula

Just bought an AMT reissue of The Munsters 1/25 Scale Munster Coach & Dragula at a local hobby store ($49.99 which is hella lot more than I have seen it listed online). Couldn't resist though. Saw it on the counter and had to have it. The kits come in a really bitchin' tin box with the two model cars separated by a cardboard divider and a nice little movie photo booklet. Man I swear there is more cool stuff now from my childhood than when I was a kid!

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Finished supplemental Scene 44B today. This ties most of the second half of Rat Rod Rockers! together. I used an ambient mix of Miss Paula Flava's incredible lush vocals run through multiple delays to give the scene a moody bluesy feel. Three scenes left to complete the first cut!

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Completed the action packed Scene 44 this morning. However after viewing the sequences in the timeline, I decided to add a Scene 44B which will be a vignette of the girls (characters Danielle and Stephanie Milldue) from an outside POV of their house, running around and waiting. I will cut 44B up to smooth some of the jumps in time in the film. One step forward one step back.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Finished the rough of Scene 49. Had to get creative with a day for night shot that just wasn't working at the end of the scene. Went with a bouncing negative/positive with ugly distorted sounds for a sound bed. Sometime getting uber creative can fix a crap take. But that's the exception...

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Completed Scene 47- except for picking which of three versions I will use of the Rat Rod Gangs cars driving off. This will depend on how I cut Scene 48 against the segment.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Completed Scene 46 this afternoon and mated it to Scene 45. 46 was just a matter of picking the best take. Still another one down!

Rat Rod Rockers! Presale DVD Cards

We will have these cards available for sale at showings of Rat Rod Rockers! which entitle the purchaser to a first run signed and numbered DVD copy of Rat Rod Rockers! mailed to their door. These DVDs will  be available March 2011 and card holders will get them before they are available to the public through regular distribution. The cards themselves only act as a receipt with a cataloged purchase number being assigned to each sale and purchasers information.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing The Home Straight

Just completed the first rough of Scene 62. Should have a final version later today. Only a handful of scenes left to cut.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Hot Rod Heidi as Ruby Milldue

Completed Scene 40 and jumped into finishing related Scene 62. This one should go quickly.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Jumped onto Scenes 40 and 62 last Tuesday. Both have related sequences and both will sew large sections of Rat Rod Rockers! together. Didn't get too much editing time in the last few days, because of errands and work, but now I'm back on it hardcore.

I also did some press e-mails for the Rat Rod Rockers! Premiere this morning.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Completed Scene 61 (all parts today). This was a whopper and should have been listed as 4 different scenes, but when I was penning the screenplay each section was only a descriptive paragraph with just a little dialog and mostly action. I am very happy with how it turned out. Still need to tighten it up and add some additional music flourishes.  This completes a block of Scenes 51-61. Scene 62 is the last scene left to complete the whole end section of the film.

I also purchased a Big Fish Audio producer CD called Gypsy Cafe with Gypsy and Italian sounding mandolin and music riffs to help with the creation of Ivan Molotov's Theme (he is a Russian Mob Boss, but the Gypsy sounds can possibly work for a Russian Mob style track). I wish I could find some Balalaika sample CDs, but I guess Russian Gangster tracks are not the rage right now.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Finished up the "D" section of Scene 61 last night. This one was extremely time consuming to begin with, then after a small editing break through, I completed it is a few hours. Ya never know with this editing stuff. I also did another back up of all my movie and sound files for RRR! I learned my lesson when my hard drive crashed a few years ago while editing Hot Rod Girls Save The World. Cost $500 and a week to retrieve the files.  Double ouch!
Started editing the "E" (last) section of Scene 61 this morning. Already got the ending and sequence set. After 61 I move on to 62 and then the whole ending of the film is rough cut (Scenes 51-63). The most difficult scenes left are the ones where the girls are trapped by the Rat Rod Gang in their house. This is a series of four scenes that work in tandem. Of course I still need to edit the drag race scenes and a woods chase scene- so I have some serious work left to do on this bad boy. Today is one month until we Premiere! Also as I was backing up files last night, I wrote a possible end credit twang punk tune called Down Time.

Doorstep Car Crash

Went outside this morning to talk to the office people at our apartments and right in front of our buildings were all these people, tow trucks, firemen and police. As I walked over to see what was going on, I was bit shocked to see a car laying on its side in the middle of the road. I asked a bystander what happened and she said the driver, an older gal, lost control of her car and hit a parked car. She was not seriously injured, only a (possibly) broken wrist. Tuesday morning excitement- I had to snap a few pics.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Logging extra editing time in the next few weeks. One month until we Premiere with 10 scenes to go (plus audio)!

Vintage & Historic Drag Racers

 Got this book from Amazon called Vintage & Historic Drag Racers by Robert Genat. It is out of print, but one of the many used book vendors on Amazon had a good quality inexpensive copy. Excellent little book, but with a few glaring errors. Under several  very nice pictures of Don "The Snake" Prudhomme's 1974 Plymouth Barracuda Funny Car- the caption calls his car a "Dodge Challenger." However the text correctly calls the car a Barracuda. Must have slipped past the editors. This book also has way too many Chevy's in it. I mean come on- 16 Cars and 2 are Chevy's? WTF !?! I could understand one 409 car from 1962 but even that is too much given you only have 16 entries. Mopar ruled the drag strips from 1964-1974 (technically until today since all dragster and funny car engines are based on the mighty 426 HEMI). Even Ford has more drag racing heritage than GM. No Ramchargers, no Dick Landy, no Sox & Martin. Still some nice pics of the cars it does have.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Decided to officially break the massive Scene 61 into A-B-C-D-E parts. I had completed part A and put it in the films main "Completed" timeline, but as I was working on B, C, D and E, it just got too difficult to keep all the little bits and pieces organized. I keep all the snippets and push them past a marker on each scenes timeline, in case I want to try another snippet in a sequence. With Scene 61 I was close to 1.5 hours of tiny little clips on the scene's timeline. Too much.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing Countdown!

So I have just a few days more than a month until we Premiere Rat Rod Rockers! in Everett, WA. It has been slow going on the films ending sequences. This is one scene in multiple sections that includes the climactic ending and a foot chase. I decided to lay in much of the "tension" music as I edit, to keep from having to come back and revamp the scenes audio tracks. Much of the "tension" musicbed is visually related. For instance when a bad guy comes on the screen a certain sound will be added into the soundtrack, or if something drastic happens a "shocker" sound will be thrown in the mix.  I learned how to do this during the soundtrack composition for the "Stranger In The House" Scenes of Hot Rod Girls Save The World.

Becky Lee On Spy 105.3 FM

Becky Lee who plays Veronika Lakester in Rat Rod Rockers! did a radio interview on The Spy 105.3 FM in Oklahoma City today on DJ Juke Joint Jenn's Rockabilly show. She talked about the film, her involvement with The Pin-Up Angels and her recent feature article in Bachelor Pad Magazine. I actually listen via internet radio. Very cool.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Today I finished the first two thirds of the climactic ending sequence for the film. This includes foot chases and gun play. The sequence is listed as one scene in the script and only takes a few paragraphs, but covers alot of territory visually and action wise. That's the funny thing about a script or screenplay, you can write "helicopter lands on roof of car and blows up." Not much on paper, but hella hard to film. And no I don't have any helicopters in Rat Rod Rockers! Maybe in The Legend Of D.B. Petty...now wouldn't that be cool?!?

Rat Rod Rockers! Postcards

This Morning: Made up some quick postcards for Rat Rod Rockers! These are to give out at the films premiere next November, as well as with promotional movie trailer DVDs. We do this to try and create a little buzz for this badass little film.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing and Beating Up A Pumpkin

Began extensive work on the ending sequences of Rat Rod Rockers! last Sunday. Got all excited as I added new sounds and music to the climactic build-up. Today I filmed one last bit of me holding a book as a stand in for a close-up (hands holding the book) of lead actor Aeon Black. I created the book mock-up covers using Photoshop and my printer. Later I ran to the Value Village Thrift store to grab a purple Polo Shirt like the one Aeon wore in the scene. They actually had an almost identical shirt- score! Did the quick shot and then set up the camera with shotgun microphone on a stand to record some foley for Rat Rod Rockers! of me beating a pumpkin (i.e. human head surrogate) with a  fire extinguisher, slapping a table and then hitting myself in the back and arms with a wooden stick. All in the name of art...

2011 Dodge Charger

Saw the first press release pics from Dodge for the restyled 2011 Charger.  Very nice- even as a 4-door! Love the new "Coke Bottle" side sculpting and '68-'70 Charger inspired rear end tail light area (with that old school telephone receiver shape also seen on the 1970-1972 Plymouth Roadrunners). The front looks a bit more aggressive with a Mitsubishi Lancer (did you know Dodge had a Lancer back in the early 1960s?) looking headlight treatment. Supposedly the new design is also more aerodynamic than the previous version. Overall- very nice changes to what is becoming an iconic return of one of Dodge's most popular nameplates.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Finally completed the Car Chase sequence for Rat Rod Rockers! Some things came up mid-week that kept me from spending alot of time at the editing desk. Next, I am moving on to the climax and ending sequences. I only have 5.5 weeks left until the premiere so I want that to be as a priority. There are a few filler scenes that are not necessary to screen the film, though I would like a completed cut by November 13th.