Picture and Sound

In each phase of post production, I am just so grateful to work with such talented artisans so skilled in their craft.   This work often goes unappreciated by the casual viewer of a film, but the work is so important to creating the overall movie watching experience.   In the category of Visual Effects for example, sometimes the job is to make things in the frame not appear at all.  When we get to the Blu-Ray commentary, I want to point out some of those things, because it’s impossible to tell they were ever there.  Shout out to wizard Hernan Herrera for making the magic in well over 50 VFX shots.

We just completed the mix and the subtleties and tweaks make such a difference.  Being on the mix stage at Goldcrest NY feels like being on the bridge of a spaceship with each person manning their post facing the screen.  Props to the whole post sound team lead by Marlena Grzaslewicz, Michael Barry and Isaac Derfel.

Let there be color.  Coloring this movie was a sheer pleasure with Jack Lewars at Technicolor Postworks NY.  The images are as rich as I always imagined and hoped.  Without giving too much away, there is an epilogue scene that occurs in the fall 10 months after the main story.  When we dialed in the deep color of the autumn leaves and the orange October light, I almost wept with joy.  

I wrote about the orchestra and original score, but also the movie contains original songs that I’m proud to be a part of.  Music Supervisor Jay Levine is a song partner in crime, and we had a blast creating songs and working with talented artists such as Catey Shaw, Brix, Julian Soto, Lucy Woodward, and my old bandmates of Cuban Missile Crisis, Andy Kadison on guitar and Campbell Scott on drums.   

This is the phase of movie-making that most people understand the least.  There are lots of moving pieces that make the moving pictures and the sound.  Thanks to Post-Production Supervisor Brian Golding for keeping all those pieces on their tracks.  Unsung heros like Brian G and Peter Boychuk, project manager at Technicolor Postworks NY, are relied so heavily upon to make all the technical aspects align to form the final picture and sound.  

Lastly, a shout out to our friends at Adolescent, for creating new logos and animated company logos for Untravelled Worlds and DeCubellis FIlms.  Great work as always.   Putting on the finishing touches. 

Locking

I’ve spent a lot of time in an edit room, starting as a teenager.  My career started as an editor. I love editing.  The magic of creating meaning that Eisenstein discovered when splicing one image against another still surprises me.  Living in the Manhattan Nocturne edit room these months has been intense and thrilling in large part because editor Andy Keir is a Jedi Master.  He’s a craftsman to his core and a storyteller of untouchable integrity.    Everyday we cut and add and trim and sharpen and invert and reverse and whittle and build and imagine the film a little bit closer to what it will ultimately be.   Now on the morning of locking picture, and I’m savoring every second.  I’ll go to bed tonight complete with the 14 and a half million choices that I’ve made to this point and will wake up excited to start the next phase of post production.  I mean what’s more fun than music, visual effects, color and sound?!


That's A Wrap!

We wrapped photography on Manhattan Nocturne and I couldn't be happier.  Now that the dust is settling and editing has begun, comes a chance to breathe and say thanks again to outstanding cast and crew who put so much of themselves and hard work into this movie.  It all shows in the footage.   I started a folder called "Happy Director" of pictures from set.  The joy of shooting is best seen in my face than in words sometimes.  Here's just a few snapshots thanks to our wonderful stills photographer Paul Sarkis.

NOC LOG - MN START DATE


 

Lot’s of people have been checking in and asking what the time table is for our feature film Manhattan Nocturne.

The schedule is as follows:  We will be doing some small unit / 2 days of shooting in October.  We will also be doing some casting in October for Principle Photography which starts December 1.  

We are shooting union in NYC.  Made in NY proud.

It’s a very exciting time here as we are starting to get into the creative fun of planning the shoot.  Thanks for all the support and well wishes and stay tuned for updates!

NEW YEAR WISHES!

We are feeling very grateful as we look back on 2013 and even more excited as we look ahead to the coming year.  2013 was our best year yet, and the most creatively satisfying by far.

We really enjoyed working with a wide variety of awesome people in 2013.   With our new friends at Zero Point Zero Production we are working on a top-secret show of theirs developed for the Syfy Channel, and we also helped on their show The Tim Ferriss Experiment.  With our long time friends at Scratch we collaborated on another top-secret original show developed with Spike TV....ssshhhhh!  Brian directed some clips for the good people at Minus L Productions and Mindshare Entertainment.  We had some branded fun with Cher Lloyd and Ne-Yo for client Fruttare.  

We were honored to have our original content in four different festivals:  The Nantucket Film Festival and the Cape May Film Festival, ( short doc film SEA BRIGHT RISING) The New York Televison Festival  (FAMILY TREE - semi-finalist at both A&E and History Channel, and  CITIZENS a finalist in the NBC competition) and at The Big Apple Film Festival (THE WORST THING I'VE EVER DONE - a short noir film staring Campbell Scott and Kathleen McElfresh).  We're also excited to have developed an original reality show with J.E.T. Stables (RACING HORSES) that we are currently talking to networks about.  Stay tuned for updates on these.

Music creation was at an all time high with the release of the Cuban Missile Crisis EP through The Orchard on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and more, as well as great partnership with fellow writers/artists/producers Mike Sabath, Elza and Jay Levine.  

Our Feature film project Manhattan Nocturne took a big step forward thanks to our great team including our new friends at Paradigm and an amazing attached cast.  So looking forward to the realization of this film in 2014.

Winning a Telly Award for "CHRISTMAS IN SEABRIGHT" on VH1 was also a real treat this year.  But for us, the real reward of 2013 was working simultaneously in areas of Film, TV, Branded Entertainment and Music with such incredibly talented people!  

Here’s to all the creative possibilities that 2014 offers us all!   We'd love to hear what you have been up to!

Warmest wishes for the New Year, 

Brian and Diana

NYTVF

Today launches New York Television Festival week, and we are psyched to be attending as "Official Artists" (their words, not ours) representing our entries, Family Tree, a semi-finalist for both the History Channel and A&E Networks, and Citizens, a finalist in the NBC Drama Competition.   Today Diana was treated to talks with TV vanguard Evan Shapiro, the President of Pivot.TV and cult comedy hero Mitch Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development.  Takeaway from the Industry Sages: "You are what you cannot do." Hmmm...  Mull that over, and we'll be back soon with more NYTV updates. 

 

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