Ghost Tours Official Trailer

You have all been so patient, I finally have a reward for you.

There are still finishing touches left to be done. I have drafts of the score from the composer, but we will be doing a live recording session so the music will get even better. Sound design is a work in progress. And I am still touching up the titles and transitions. It's so close to done I can taste it.

Fantastic news all around

Please join me in welcoming the newest member of the Ghost Tours team: composer Benn Cole, who will be doing a custom score for us.

Benn is currently part of the Film Scoring program at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA. If you want to learn more about Benn and listen some of his music cruise on over to his website Benn Cole Music.

Part of what makes this such an exciting announcement is that it means I'm at picture lock. The story is in place. There's still plenty of work to do, even on actual pictures, despite the name. There are two sets of images that are currently placeholder that I need to do some work on. But the story won't change and the timing won't change so it's safe for Benn to start work and it's safe for Dan the sound designer to start work.

They say sound is 70% of any film you see, so these two guys will be doing some very important stuff for me in the next few months.

Workshopping the current draft

I am very excited because I have a chance to play the current version for a group of people who know nothing about the story. I am working this summer at a place where everyone is involved in film or photography. It is obvious that the instructors and students in the workshops are creative, but in fact everyone is. The TAs and interns and staff all needed portfolios in order to get hired. So they have started doing artist lectures for the seasonal staff. Anyone who wants to share their work can get a block of time on Wednesday evenings. I expect it will be a very good group for providing critique.

Scene 2

In fact, my good news for this post is more than an image from scene 2. I reached a big milestone this past week. I have finished my first rough cut. It's Very Rough, but then that's the point. I heard someone say once that your first draft is always a success because its only requirement is to exist. Now I have about 6 weeks to get from rough cut to fine cut. That's achievable. I have my hunk of marble now and I just have to chip and polish until my David emerges. 

Scene 1

I have, in fact, been making progress on the editing. Not enough to give you a teaser. Honestly, that's not likely until the fall. But I am getting a good sense of what this film looks like and I love it so much I want to share.

I will periodically give you stills from the scenes I am working on. Sometimes with thoughts.

Post Production early update

I'll be honest, the early stages of post production are not exactly exciting. There is not much to tell you, and nothing at all to show you. It starts with making backups and then extra backups of everything. Then there is watching and listening to every individual piece of media to be able to tag it with scene and take numbers, and in the case of audio whose mic we're listening to. Then there is the process of merging all the disparate video and audio clips into single files. All of that is nothing but tedious. Happily it's all finished now. The next step is logging all the clips. Finding where every line gets said and which performances are my favorites. It's miles more interesting, but still won't give me much to show yet.

Stay tuned though. As I get to editing scenes I'll pull out stills to show you. The camera team gave us some fantastic images. And by the end of summer there should be a teaser/trailer to look at.