Concerning Our Movie

My body has still not forgiven me for the beating it took yesterday. Little sleep. Lots of tension. Deadlines to keep. It’s taken me this long, until this late at night, to get to write about our movie, “External Monologue.”

First, if you missed the setup, this is part of Cinemasports, based in San Fransisco. They sponsor the it all… though there’s really no prize and, so far, no acknowledgment of our entry.

Production, as such, went smoothly. Production zealots will notice we eschewed lighting and well placed microphones during taping. The huge amount of voiceover work in the film was done in a professional studio

The script was actually very clever. I play a guy who is hearing voices – voices guiding me through my life. It is only at the very last moment that you realize the voices aren’t really in my head.

As I said, production went smoothly. It was post-production that was the bear. Marrying voiceover work with sound on tape and linking them both to action is not easily accomplished. We get an “A” for effort, but not execution.

As we worked up toward deadline, the clock on my oven picked up its pace. Minutes were 40 seconds long, then 30, then 20. We started sending a movie file seconds before the deadline. Then trouble struck. We resent it. And, with time to work during the resends, sent it again.

Finally, we had a finished product. It was after the real deadline, but we were having so many transmission problems at this point that it made little difference. I sent the polished file.

Everyone shook hands and talked about how satisfied we were with what had happened. We wished we had hit the deadline squarely, but we learned so much. There would be new techniques and internal guidelines when we did it again… and we would.

They went home.

It was then I discovered the file I was sending to San Francisco only contained the last 45 seconds of a three minute movie!

Somehow, during editing, someone had stuck a pointer at this spot. We were stuck because all I had was this version and an older, very rough unfinished version. That’s what I resent to ‘Cinemasports Central’.

Before you click the link you should know this isn’t rated “G.” There is a little salty language toward the end, and some of the imagery is a little dark. Still, I think we’d all like to know what you think.

And now ladies and gentlemen – External Monologue.

6 thoughts on “Concerning Our Movie”

  1. Considering the time constraints you had to work with and the problems you had, I think you put out a decent effort. Rick Allison’s voiceover work really made a difference.

  2. Does your film clip require Linux be installed? When I clicked on your hot link, got a file with an RPM extension. A Google search led me to believe it is a Linux file, which I cannot open.

  3. Every time I try to “re-create” a car accident for a homespun art film, I always wind up destroying light and bumpers. How’d you pull that off? Impressive!!! Very clever.

  4. Cool piece..I liked the morning scene with him eating (“in and out”) and the car accident scene with him flipping out at everyone the best. Had a little trouble with my volume so I didn’t catch everything he was saying in his head… I still enjoyed it.

  5. Geoff, although your acting was top-knotch; Rick Allison’s voice acting was EXCELLENT! I’ve heard that voice before, and it’s really great!

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