Hotcakes - “Three men. One diner. A finite drip of batter. An endless supply of trouble.”

While Marty waits for his ex-wife to arrive at their usual meeting place, he runs into two others like him who have different ideas about how to spend the night. Three ex-cons meet randomly and end up being responsible for each other’s futures — and, perhaps more importantly, aware of their influence.

So goes the story of our short film “Hotcakes”. The film itself is a great little project produced by Jo Custer and myself. One way or the other we were guaranteeing payment to cast and crew, even if that meant flipping burgers at 3AM to make ends meet. We decided to try a crowd-funding campaign through Kickstarter.com. There are options out there. Indiegogo is one of those and sets things up so you can keep whatever funds you raise even if you don’t reach your goal. Kickstarter only delivers the full amount pledged if the goal has been reached on time.

Some people say that getting something is better than nothing and would opt for Indiegogo. We felt that by going the all or nothing route, we would show to our potential backers that we have “skin in the game.” It would also make us push and work for the goal. We actually started the campaign AFTER principle photography was completed. Getting the word out was the most difficult part of the campaign. We (Jo Custer, Cassie Giveans, myself, and others) would post the link on Twitter and Facebook and ask for backers and sharing of the link. A lot of the time we got back nothing but the sound of crickets in the background.

The first few days of the campaign, we did get a few backers and our total pledged went to about 10% pledged. Every day we would post a link on Facebook and Twitter and wait to see the effect. Jo would post a new production still as we attained our next goal of a certain number of “likes” on the Facebook page. The worst part of the entire campaign seemed to me to be when we broke the $1000.00 mark. Pledges simply stopped. I don’t know the psychology of it but perhaps potential backers who were on the fence saw we were near halfway and felt that they didn’t need to help out just then. I don’t really know why, but it did raise the stress levels!

As we approached single digit days left, the push came. I personally asked and begged and cajoled everyone I knew to give at least a buck, one measly simoleon, a little greenback,  the smallest paper denomination of US currency. We needed to keep the momentum up. As the time approached the 48 hour mark, things started to happen. There are a few procrastinators out there I imagine, who waited until the last minute. Pledges started rolling in! I actually received a series of pledges from people I know through work who wanted to remain anonymous. That bump pushed us way up. As the clock ticked down, with mere hours remaining, I saw on my phone a Facebook message (or was it a tweet?) that made me stop short. (I was driving at the time… I know, my bad.) The total pledged had just EXCEEDED our goal! We made it with a few hours to spare!

Satisfied, and exhausted, I continued on my way to wherever it was that I was heading. The money was ours! It is going to be used to pay our talent, composer, colorist, promotional materials, and a Tetanus Shot after our DP stepped on a rusty nail.

I have been asked what I’ll get out of all this:

1. Financially – nothing yet. Let’s finish the film and get it out there first.
2. Emotionally – Everything! The campaign proved to me that there are still true patrons of the arts and Independent Cinema out there and that our work has merit.
3. Anything Else – More headaches and stress (in a good way) as we prepare for the next short to be shot in May. (More on that later.)

Now, will I do this again? I’d have to think long and hard about it depending on the project, but I’m leaning toward YES. We’ve built a base with this film and crowd-funding campaign. We can build upon that the next time. My advice to those who are thinking about this: It’s a risk, but a worthwhile one! Make sure you are realistic about your goals AND your budget. You can hope for the moon and stars, but shoot for something lower. Get the word out and keep it out there. One post on Twitter or Facebook won’t cut it. Press the digital flesh and get the word out. Enlist family and friends to help. It won’t magically happen. You need to work for it.

It’s not worth it if you don’t earn it! All good things…

Now it’s off to get the trailer complete, get picture lock and send it off for music and color. More on this later!

While I sit here watching the Saints play the 49ers in the divisional playoffs, I figured I could use the time to update y’all as well.

Last week I had a bit of an upset… it’s a bit of an understatement… I was about to have a heart attack! I KNOW you never update your system, make changes, or anything like that when you are in the middle of an edit. I am in the middle of editing both Hotcakes and Eric’s Illumination, two local indie shorts. My system was running a slower GPU (graphics processing unit), a BFG GTX 280. It was capable, but nowhere near what I needed. I also wanted to update the amount of RAM I was running, again to speed things up.

I thought about it, and figured that, as long as I am not making any changes to the hard drive or system settings, I would be OK. I opened the box, swapped out the old graphics card for an EVGA GTX 580 AND an EVGA GT 520.

(Game update: Saints just scored a touchdown! 24 – 23 against SF!)

OK, back to the update. I wanted the two graphics cards to run my three 22″ monitors. I like the idea of major screen real estate. Since the driver for the old card and the new cards was the same, everything worked great.

I then replaced the 6 sticks of 2GB RAM for 6 sticks of 4GB RAM, giving me a total of 24GB of RAM. Adobe Premiere and After Effects loved it! I figured I was golden at this point, but…

There’s always a but, isn’t there?

I was running a Core Temp gadget on my desktop and noticed that temps were hovering around 90C. Not good. They usually hovered around 40C. If I wasn’t careful, I could easily burn up the CPU, motherboard, computer, or the entire house!

Grrr…

Best Buy came to the rescue. The local store had a Corsair H60 water cooling unit in stock! (A great simple $69.00 buy.) Running back home, I installed the unit. I had to basically tear the machine apart to install the unit. After carefully and thoughtfully putting everything back in place, I pressed the ON button.

Nothing.

I restarted, and again, nothing.

I left things alone and went to dinner. Let things be for a while and go back with a fresh frame of reference. It was my anniversary and we had reservations. After being married for 29 years, I know my wife. We had reservations and there was nothing on this earth that would have prevented us from going! So, we had a great time.

When we returned, she let me play with the computer for a few minutes. Thinking about everything that had happened, I disconnected and reconnected each cable and made sure that the drives were connected to the correct ports.

With crossed fingers, I pressed the ON button and…

like butta… everything worked! I had crossed two of the SATA cables and the machine didn’t like that. Now that everything was operational again, I checked Core Temps again. They rose and fell with processing, but were now hovering or averaging around 39C! Life is good again!

Both Eric’s Illumination and Hotcakes are in the rough cut stage. They’re respective directors and producers are happy so far with the product, and, isn’t that the point?

(Game update: Saints just scored another touchdown! 32-29!!!)

OK, back to the update…

I realize that I am concentrating on the tech side of editing and not the esthetic side. I’ll cover that in a later update. Now, was I worried about losing things if the machine went tits up? Actually, not really. I had previously backed up my video RAID to a networked drive, my DROBO device. I had also installed a little program called GoodSync that watches my video folders and copies over, in the background, any changes I’ve made. If I lost anything, then it would be 5-10 minutes worth of work. That’s acceptable. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR WORK!

So for now, all is well with the world. I’ll post an update soon about my actually non-technical editing process so y’all can see what I do and, maybe, tell me where I’m wrong!

(Scheise… 49ers won.)

So maybe everything is not well with the world… at the game at least… but in film editing, everything is currently copacetic!

Now I’ll go cry into my beer!

OK, horse racing analogies aside, I have begun full fleged post-production mode with Hotcakes and Eric’s Illumination. We just wrapped production on Hotcakes, the new short by Jo Custer, this week and now the ball is in my court. Eric’s Illumination, by Tony Pallo and Destiny Abigail Judah, wrapped a few weeks ago, but I’m still gathering the elements needed to finish the edit. Both films are a challenge in different ways. One will require a helluva lot of CGI, ADR, and TLC to complete. The other will be more straight forward but with a nearer deadline and a director who deserves the best.

Each film will get the best I can deliver… and then some. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment, but I always do when starting a new project. I’ve discovered, at least with myself, that it’s the starting of a project, or phase of a project that is intimidating. It makes me want to just get in the car and drive to Florida… (Jo, that’s for you…) But once I begin, the edit usually flows and I only stop when my head crashes on the keyboard or my wife needs me to take care of the garbage. I’m domesticated, don’t you know…

OK, how do I start? It’s actually pretty easy, yet time consuming. Step One is to copy all of the footage to my “Video Raid”. It’s organized by shoot date and by camera. On Hotcakes we used a Canon 7D and 60D and recorded audio to a Zoom H4N digital recorder. The next step is to protect the footage by duplicating it on another drive for safety. I’m copying all of the original files over to a networked drive. I’ll also copy over the project files at the end of each edit. I’ve become a huge stickler about backing up my files. Too recently, I’ve been burned by taking digital files for granted and having them deleted. Not a good thing!

For Eric’s Illumination, I’ve started editing and have been manually syncing the audio and video files. It’s time consuming, but relatively easy… if you’ve used a slate. For Hotcakes, I’m not going that route. I’ve played with PluralEyes software when I was playing in the 48 Hour Film Project. We shot with a Canon T2i and recorded double-system sound with the Zoom H4n. There wasn’t time to conform audio and video by hand, so I downloaded the free 30-day trial and synced everything up. It went like a charm! I will use Pluraleyes again for Hotcakes. I’ll have to buy the full program, but for $149.00, it’s well worth the price. Check it out for yourself if you don;t believe me!

I’ll post more as the post-production progresses for both films!

SIDE NOTE: While working on Hotcakes, I’ve gotten some hands on time with both the 7D and the 60D. Granted, they’re not the Canon C300 Cinema EOS camera or anywhere near a RED camera, but they take some gorgeous pictures! I’m thinking about upgrading my T2i to another HDSLR but need to make a decision. Which one? I’ll post my thoughts here a little later on on my version of the pro’s and con’s of the T2i(550D) vs. the 60D vs. the 7D vs. the 5DMkII. Your comments are most welcome!

Hotcakes is a short film scheduled to go into production around Thanksgiving 2011! The story, written by Jules Alder, follows a trio of men very recently released from prison. The final script was completed just last night! Production will take place over a three night period near the end of November, details to follow, in St. Bernard Parish.

Hotcakes is a micro-budget production that will concentrate on story and not special effects. As they say, content is king! There will be a fundraiser held on location soon and a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds, again, details to follow. If you’d like to know more, read the original 5 page script, get to know the characters, go on over to Hotcakesmovie.com and look around. More information will be posted there as well.

If you’d like to help, donate, or attend the fundraiser, then simply give me a shout!