We have been busy little lurker bees round the Intersect hive since the last update. We have such sights to show you!
: : : VIDEO BELOW : : :
In October, we travelled to HUGE Studios in Salt Lake City to record the orchestral sections of our score. Peter McConnell, our composer, whose work includes the classic "Grim Fandango" as well as many of the Lucas Arts video game titles, has delivered a uniquely evocative and moving score. We were lucky to cross paths with and befriend Peter earlier in the year and luckier still to be able to listen to his work performed by a massively talented 40-piece orchestra.
Having watched loads of behind the scenes featurettes from my favorite films over the years, I'm quite familiar with the feeling of awe young filmmakers experience the first time they hear their score played back to them by a professional orchestra inside a large studio... I'm happy to report, I felt the very same awe. Living in a bubble of editing and working in dark rooms surrounded by empty root beer cans, mint chocolate wrappers, and my scruffy dog for months at a time just doesn't prepare you for being exposed to something like that. Suddenly, there's 40-50 new people working on your movie and you realize the fact that you can strum the guitar doesn't make you a musician. Humbling is the word.
Speaking of the guitar... through the end of October, between finishing off the edit and the color on the movie, Gus and I got together to record some tracks of incidental music and sound effects to make a few scenes a little extra moody. It was refreshing to dust off the old rig and scrape the plectrum a bit in anger.
November saw us at the comfy Saltmine Studio Oasis in Mesa, AZ. Our friends, the Tetra String Quartet, who also appear in the film, came out to record a few more pieces of Peter's score to complement the full orchestral sections. We even tracked a few pieces with Josh Bennett on bass clarinet to bring in a few of the Twilight Zone vibes.
Throughout a large portion on December, we were in Florida working with our longtime friend and co-conspirator, Thomas Amason. Thomas has worn number of hats on Intersect, including ADR recordist, foley recordist, re-recording mixer, sound designer, and sound supervisor. Everything sound related eventually ends up in Thomas' lap. For these few weeks, we mainly focused on the overall mix of dialogue, sound effects, foley, and music... but we did dabble in some new sound design and even worked on mixing the film in 5.1 space... something we plan to exploit in a very sci-fi way.
So it's January now. We're back home. The film is mixed, edited and colored... barring a few remaining fixes. The CG is in. The music is in. Abe Fucking Ruthless is in. We'll be busy the next couple weeks putting the finishing touches on credits, artwork, and a trailer.
What's next?
-Luke (D.P.)
