This Savage Art

I went to see Abel Ferrara hold court last night at the Apple Soho store to hear him speak about “how Final Cut Pro helped him get the upcoming Go Go Tales to the screen.” Sorry Apple but your little website blurb can’t contain this man. It’s the day after and I still don’t know if he ever used Final Cut Pro.

He was dressed to the nines in a tux ready to run off and see the opening night screening of The Darjeeling Limited at the New York Film Festival. I would have joined him but my measly Lincoln Center Film Society individual membership didn’t have enough pull to get me that ticket — I’m still waiting for my tickets to come in the mail. Still waiting…

The truth is it’s hard to convey what it’s like to be around the man. He’s a combination of, well, damn I can’t even come up with an amalgamation. Abel’s an original let’s put it that way. You could tell he was a little nervous talking about the technology. He spoke of how he cut this film by using two Avids [like I said, I thought this was an Apple event?] side by side and compared and contrasted the versions the closer they got to completion. That’s a new workflow to me. Interesting.

Once Abel felt a little loose by opening up questions to the audience he had his forum. It’s both heartbreaking and endearing to hear him speak about his films because you know so much has gone wrong with them in the past. Financing and distribution woes have taken their toll on his body of work and yet he perseveres like a stand-up comedian whose been batted around the club scene for too long.

He spoke of how all of his core group of collaborators all dropped off one by one in the last decade. I can imagine money had a lot to do with this and if you watch A Short Film About The Long Career of Abel Ferrara on the King of New York DVD you’ll see my point. The long rumored break-up of Ferrara with his number one guy and close friend, screenwriter Nicholas St. John, came down to this — “he had to get out, he couldn’t take the business anymore.”

As the alloted hour wound down Abel took a call on his cell phone, the man had somewhere to be — to see the new Anderson film but more importantly to hit up some of the philanthropist in the Lincoln Center audience for some cheech for his next project. All I know is we could have hung around and talked with him all night which he would have been more than happy to oblige. I still wanted to ask him about the recent news of the Bad Lieutenant remake/update/reimagining. Maybe next time.

Go Go Tales will be at the New York Film Festival October 5th and 7th.

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Joel and Ethan Coen at Apple Soho (with Barry Sonnenfeld)

Hear Oscar-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen talk about their filmmaking experiences, including how they used Final Cut Pro to edit their films Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, and the upcoming No Country for Old Men. 4:00 p.m.

Tribeca Film Festival – Mood Enhancer – Short Film Program

Try a new drug in Onion Underwater, and it’s raining cows and dogs in The Water and the Milk. Every day is a gold-medal game in Heart of Whistler, and the audio diary of an unrequited crush is captured in Lawrence. Two guys sink or swim in Tell it to the Fishes, while two other guys seek celebrity fame in Color Me Olsen. We close the program with I Am Bob, where a strange competition forces an abandoned rock star to sing for his supper.

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Last night I went to a seminar at Tekserve, New York’s nice Mac store as opposed to the megahip Apple store in Soho and of course the new glass monolith on Fifth Avenue. I love Apple products, I truly do. I don’t consider myself a cult member but I find them user friendly (for the most part), plug and play which is what it should be. I just can’t enter the Apple stores. It is everything that is wrong with buying their products. It has become the weigh station for all the flotsam who desperately need to check their MySpace account, e-mail or take a shit. It’s what Starbucks has become. Yeah, the coffee’s good but why is that guy in the corner masturbating into a napkin? Does that chick really need to set up her psychology practice right here near the India Arie CDs? What do you mean they’re raising their prices?

Okay, I’m back. So I went to Tekserve. I’m looking to get more into color grading but I’m at a crossroads right now. I have a decent system. It’s your basic offline configuration but it’s an HD world we live in so that only means one thing. If I want to take this post-production business to the next level I will have to at some point invest in a fully uncompressed HD system. Do I have about $20-$25K to do it right? Hell no! It would require a loan. I can see I’m not the only one thinking about an antiquated system. Right, the seminar. It was taught by Alexis Van Hurkman. He’s written some books. He’s worked on some films. Taught me a few things. Overall I came out with the thought that, yeah, the 3-Way Color Correction tool in Final Cut Pro is pretty powerful. Now it’s even better with the new 5.1.2 update. This is funny because there are rumblings out there that say the opposite. This issue might have a lot to do with what was improved with the new update. The old scopes only read 16 scanlines where the new and improved read everything. The time was right too. I’m starting a new project next week that is being shot on the HVX200/P2 jammee. HD native on my little system. Yes, it will present some issues like monitoring. I only have one Cinema Display. You need two for any serious color work to see detail along with soft focus issues.

Anyway, just some thoughts on “a” future. All this as I try to juggle working on a new screenplay that has been just circling around my head. That’s the tough part. I’ve said this before. It’s left brain, right brain. The editing stuff is very technical and all about tools that change overnight. Where screenwriting is about digging deep and finding new ways to tell a story. Blah blah blah. Why couldn’t I have just stuck with driving a cab. Maybe I’ll go get an application at the Apple store?

Oh yeah, did I mention we’re thinking about having kids?

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I’m fried. Been color correcting a friend‘s short film since about 7:30 this morning. Detailed work, hard on the eyes. I found a way to make it all a little bit easier though. If you are an editor using Final Cut Pro you might want to take notice. Take a look at this screen grab to see the window layout I customized for color correction. If you only have a Cinema Display or smaller to view your work this layout is a big improvement over the default layout – you get to see everything you need right in front of you. This with the help of a trusty broadcast monitor (a must have if you intend on doing any serious monitoring) and you are in business.

You do have your monitor calibrated correctly don’t you? If not download this pdf from the Synthetic Aperture site or this tutorial from V.U.

Also, check out these great color correction articles by Andrew Balis from Ken Stone’s always helpful, always amazing Final Cut Pro site:

Color Correction/Finishing in FCP 4

Using Match Hue in FCP 5

Now I need to rest my eyes.

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