Bienvenidos to our final week of Post-Production. We have almost all our materials in: The documentation, stills from our project, legal notices, the post-production visual effects, credits, introductory sequence, sound, music and our final cut ready for our screening before December 14th. We have come so far since our first day!

We first chose our writers; Dawn Prato and Eliana Dell’Acqua:

We got Darren to be our Director:

Then we planned for our shoot and developed our production:

We found a Composer, Sean Dillon, to create original music for us:

We rehearsed with Darren and Choreographer Elsie Hutchinson:

We worked with our Composer Sean to create and record our music:

Prepared our budget:

Built our set:

Shot our footage:

finished the Production phase:

And went through extensive editing:

To get to where we are now:

But there’s still some slight tweaks to take care of so we’re not completely finished. But by the end of next week, you may be able to bring Dia De Los Muertos home to your screen!

Until then, Hasta Luego

Team La Catrina Producers

This is our second to last blog post of Compendium 8′s “We Now Pronounce You Dead & Wife”. We have had one of the shortest Post-Production phases in all of Compendium, and one of the first to have our film ready to be seen by the public on schedule.

We’ve had many things we needed to have completed by today to come this far. Us producers have been working with our editor, DOP, Director and Sound Design Team to perfect the sound and visuals of our short-film. We’ve done extensive colour correction, editing, sound mixing, adding foley (the sounds of clapping and the background noises), perfecting our song and other music and made sure that the flow of our short-film is flawless and rhythmically on cue.

We’ve checked our releases and checked them again. We’ve drafted our submissions for film festivals and we’re ready to begin our exhibition phase, applying to different film festivals across the country and the world.

We are so excited for you to see our product. We hope you all show up next week to see our final projects.

Until then, we wait, for the Day of the Dead, we celebrate.

Adios!

Only a couple more weeks and we producers will have guided “We Now Pronounce You Dead & Wife” through pre-production all the way to exhibition. We are so proud of what we were able to accomplish these past three months and we are astounded at our progress. There are so many people who have been on board since the earliest of days, and we are so thankful everyone on our team is so dedicated to an immaculate final product.

During pre-production, our team casted one of the biggest Compendiums yet in existence. We wrote a song to stage a musical, previously never produced at VFS (and certainly during Compendium). Our team set the record for number of shots in a day during our production stage, and we’re fast becoming one of the quickest Compendium’s to go from pre-production all the way to distribution.

There’s still lots of work to be done: Jillian has been working tirelessly editing our film to perfection, fine tuning every frame of picture, and provided us with a trailer to use for promotions. Likewise our sound team is hard at work, gathering foley for our sound effects, attending, recording and editing our ADR for the dialogue between our actors. Our Title Sequencer, Ian Berg, is working hard at delivering a light-hearted, touching introductory sequence. Most recently, our DOP came in for a meeting about colour correction this past week.

Just a few weeks more and we’ll have a final product for everyone. I hope you all watch our musical!

Until Dia De Los Muertos!

We have been continuously modifying our Musical Short-Film and hope to have our product finished before the beginning of Winter Break (for you non-VFS readers, that’s December 14). We still have things to do, like most of our Sound and Mixing Sessions, ADR, Foley and fine-tuning our trailer, but we’ve come so far.

Our Opening Sequence will be an animation, detailing the prologue for our musical story. We talked today with Ian Berg, a former Title Sequencer who created great sequences for past Compendiums. We’re so excited to have him work on our Opening Sequence.

We went through a discussion earlier in the day, to make sure that we’re on the same page, but after all was said and done, everyone was on the same page.

We’re so excited to be close to completing our project, and we should have everything done by mid-December. In the meantime we will be busy with ADR, Foley and other post-production sound mixing.

See you next week; until the Day of the Dead We Celebrate!

As our post-production efforts continue, we advance even closer and closer to the finished product!  Our deadline is the beginning of December, and as of now we can proudly say we are right on track.  Our editor, composer, sound-design team and digital effects artists are hard at work around the clock completing their deliverables and it’s been a pleasure to work with all of them; we have been so lucky to work with a truly awesome, dilligent, and devoted crew all around.  Thanks guys!

We just got a look at the digital make-up effects Leon and Matt are working on, and it blew all of the producers away.  It is going to add so much value to the picture. Now, after some polishing we just have to slot it into the locked picture.

The producer’s have started to gather up all of the props we will need to conduct the Foley sessions over the weekend.  Sound is a huge part of our production, so getting this on the move is our biggest concern right now. We have tons of confidence in Bill and Adam (our sound guys), and we think it’s going to be a lot of fun working with them, should be a great learning experience!

We’re truly closing in on having the final cut in our hands, we will keep you posted and we can’t wait to screen it for you all!

Visual effects and sound design are wrapping up while our trailer is being finalized. Colour correction is on the horizon, loose ends are being tied and festival plans are being drawn up. The future looks bright for “Cheers to Death.”

Compendium has been a life changing journey full of drama, work and laughter. The good times outweigh the bad and the project will not be easily forgotten! After pouring our hearts and souls into this project it’s exhilarating to think it’s going to be completed soon and finally on the big screen. Now our class is focusing on final projects and our hub event making the long hours of compendium seem like a lifetime ago. After all of the fiery hoops team 3 amigos has  jumped through to get here; we’ve emerged with a product we’re immensely proud of and true friendship created from the bumpy road of production.

Last stretch…. here we go!

Our visual effects shots are well underway, we are really excited to see how our digital make-up and 3D matte painting turn out, we know they are going to be really high quality from the basic work we’ve seen so far.

We’re closing in on the release date for our film, it’s just a little more than a month away now and we are right on track.  We will keep you posted on the date of the premiere!

Today we screened our Fine Cut with our editors and Director.

So far, we are very happy with our project and how far we’ve come. The majority of our film is visually beautiful, but we have some small tweaks to complete before we are completely finished.

Our editors have been working overtime, making sure all of the frames in our film are perfect, and that the sound and the picture are synced up to the frame. While working on a musical, Jillian and Jaselle have added work making sure that each frame in our film matches up exactly with the song. So far, we are almost there!

Now that we’re almost finished with our picture, we can now start working on the sound we need for the film (like footsteps, claps, and glasses being placed down, numerous other things).

We will be working up until December, our finished product is due in less than one month, so we’re on the final stretch. Each stage has been quite a ride and all the producers are excited to see the final product.

Come back next week where we’ll be one step closer to the end.

Until then!

Producer Team La Catrina

Annnnnd we are officially picture locked!

After many edits and hard work from our editor Ryan Jackson the film is ready for our sound team and vfx artist Jorge.

We are happy to welcome Juan, Karla and Jorge to the post team and with their little dose of magic “Cheers to Death” is that much closer to the screening. With the future in mind, the producers are working on the festival plan for the film and we are on our 2nd edit of the trailer. After a great spotting session with the sound team we can’t wait for the interlock meeting to push the film into mixing.  Final credits are being compiled and it’s an exciting thought the film will look even better with colour correction. All the pieces are coming together, ends are being tied and excitement is building for the big screening of Compendium 8.

Hope to see everyone there!

Hola,

Dia De Los Muertos happened on Friday November 2, did everyone celebrate? I know we certainly did.

We at Team La Catrina were working overtime preparing the music for our short-film. We have asked our good friend and master Composer Sean Dillon to help us on the final song.

With all the tracks already in, Sean went to work to alter the timing and aspects in our song, and re-recorded our singers to give it some more flavour.

Our Director Darren was there along with a member of the Producer Team. We were glad to be there and glad to help out. There is much left to do however, we must colour correct our film, and prepare the rest of our sound for our final sync in late November. Our Song, however, will be complete.

Stay tuned, there is still much more to do before we can show I Now Pronounce You Dead & Wife, but, rest assured, our excitement and fervor to show you our film is overwhelmingly motivating.

Until Next Week!

Team La Catrina