Post Production

The shooting of this film, let alone casting and rehearsing, had its fits and starts to such an extent that I felt self-concious (if I spelled that wrong I'm unaware of it) chronicalling it all as it happened. I didn't want to curse anything.

Jay Ould (Porno the Clown) played Abe the homeless guy, formerly written as Gabriel the Archangel posing as a camera man or producer or or whatever I happened to type as a placeholder for a character that was heavy with backstory and exposition and now actually as a homeless man had some actual genuine anger issues to provide a foil for J.C.

AuBrey Friesner played Jesus Christ. Jay knew him through Burning Man.

Kirsten Harvey played Penny Hennessay the hooker. The character had in earlier drafts been a TV journalist, because that was handy for throwing questions at Jesus, but something always bothered me about it as a script idea for that reason. Again, the character should be someone coming from a lowly place, although I refused to write down to the character just because of her presumed social caste. Also, despite being described in the final script as dressed in skimpy clothes, she ended up using a big fur coat (which I will say was faux. to put people at ease and I'm pretty sure that is correct although it reads well on camera) because in February when we shot it was pretty cold. Jay knew her from the local comedy and performing community, a Ryerson Acting student on the rise.

We almost cast Kirsten for an earlier shoot, but then she had to back out because a friend had fallen ill and between that and the crunch of school the time wasn't right. But in the interim of asking other actresses I cane around to the big rewrite and enough time apparently passed before there was again another window to possibly shoot.

I did one partial shoot when AuBey and Kirsten were available but Jay wasn't, and I put on a producer hat to make the most of it and shoot - according to the storyboards - whatever shots Jay's character Abe wasn't in. We got some usable stuff, but in general I think that producer pragmatism approach leaves out the element of energy that the full cast dynamic has. Even if Jay is crusty or impatient with interjections moving the shoot along, ultimately he is first contact with with other two and has about him a way of putting people at ease in general. I as a director may or may not have that quality in the same degree. Maybe because I don't have the gift of gab and I might be focused on this process of directing that I have done before many times but which I don't do often enough.

At one point in the middle of a take Kirsten slipped coming down. There was more mud on the hill than it appeared. Oddly my camera didn't get the fall, only the line leading up to it and the recovery. Maybe my thumb twitched on the button in reflex. I then fell on my way up the slope. Went to the library washroom at lunch to wipe off whatever mud I could.

The last stuff shot in the day, after lunch, oddly has the most relaxed and appropriate tone, especially for AuBrey as Jesus. Jay loved the first cut, but for a few shots that were too fast (easily corrected) but it was obvious on Jay's TV that I had a spot on the lens that was not so dramatic in the viewfinder or in my editing software. Much of the middle of the short had this piece of dirt or snow or dust or whatever giving us a plain as the nose on your face blemish, or "dot-nose" to use a term from the guys on The Sarah Silverman Program. I don't know if it can be gotten rid of. I'm an idiot. I would put the cap on the lens between moves but I didn't dust off the lens until AuBrey noticed it in a los close-up and wiped it off with Jesus' cloak. We don't have Industrial Light and Magic to go through it frame by frame and replace the spec with background.

I've made a smaller version, cut from 11 minutes to 6:22 without credits, trimming the opening and eliminating the middle segment. Hard to lose. But that is mainly because a ten minute short wouldn't survive on Funny or Die without big names. Also because now I could give some sort of version to Jay's animator friend filmmaker Chris Minz who has agreed to add some things to the ending which was shot as a great leap of faith that effects would fill it in. We have cold sweats about compression going from different formats, but that might be solved and it'll be a kick any way to see those shots completed.

Just found out about that now. It's Palm Sunday today. Next weekend is Easter.

We shot the movie at a park across Yonge Street from Blessed Sacrament church, south of Lawrence subway station on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday and I did my first big edit the weekend after Ash Wednsday. So Post Production has pretty much been Lent. My Mom had e-mailed me when I told her about the shoot and sent her a photo that she had given up bread for Lent. I had missed Ash Wednesday. I must have dragged my ass from work and through the subway without noticing one person with tell-tale ash forgotten on their forehead. I had kind of wanted to do that this year, just to look crazy (or crazier) on the subway. But you know something, I decided to follow my mom's lead on this one issue and give up eating bread as well. Except for two occasions of faltering (a hamburger at one point and a visit to Red Lobster where they set down two biscuits and I didn't want them to go to waste) I've managed to keep off bread. ** Knock on wood ** and that might have something to do with losing ten pounds since my last doctor's appointment (my diabetes doctor; I still don't have a GP since - well that's another story), and it has been easier to walk let alone climb stairs without pain. It would be nice to go home skinny for Easter, and shock everyone in North Bay, but I'm afraid it won't be that dramatic. Ten pounds on my frame is hardly noticable unless people notice I can tie my shoes now without getting winded.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I had put out feelers about music, both to a friend from college I hardly hear from, Peter, and to Lorne who composed for Porno the Clown. Both are always busy. Haven't heard a music-specific reply from Lorne, and Peter said he was too busy (right before going onto Facebook and posting a status update that he was going to get an ipod to waste more time). For the time being the temp music is generic cleared stuff just in case.

Happy Palm Sunday and Holy Week leading to Easter.

-- William