Week 8 post production...

Hello Friends,

Summer Coda is really smoking now. We're into our 4th draft edit and it's looking great! Starting to get a few expert opinions and we'll soon be playing for our distributors and potential sales agent, so very exciting indeed.

As I've mentioned before it's inevitable that Ricky will like the looonnngggeer version of the edit. What's also inevitable is that Ricky will need to bow to popular opinion -- I'm a tad too close to the production to be entirely objective. So test screenings are the key. But not to friends and fam unfortunately. Hardcore Aussie film haters me thinks. That's the audience I'd love to attract, but then again, that ain't ever gonna happen, so we'll turn to the demographics we think might like to see the film if properly marketed.

It's a delicate subject, but I'm not sure we market our Aussie pride and joy properly. I'm certainly rarely bowled over and hanging out to see a local pic. Maybe you're different? I do love when we have a good year though. I remember seeing The Proposition, Wolf Creek, Look Both Ways and Little Fish all in 2005. Now i didn't love them all, but what a year! Something for everyone and some real quality. I'm hoping 2010 can be the same, and wishin' and a prayin' Summer Coda will be a part of the quality list. I think it can be!

Been having a fab week making final selections on the music in Summer Coda (and hopefully for release on our soundtrack too!). Don't get to hear many Aussie film soundtracks these days, so really pushing for a CD release cause I think we have some super cool tracks. Love a good movie soundtrack. Big shout out to Julie Hodges at Mushroom Music who's been helping me with this for just the last FIVE YEARS! Better late than never.

So we're finally off to the U.S. on March 14th to complete the filming of the final scene in the movie. It feels funny to still be shooting, but it's actually a blessing as we've been able to tinker with the script and ending now that we've seen the film. Ace. It also means I can head to LA with an almost finished DVD, so we've set up sales agent meetings which is a bonus.

Heading to LA of course has other major bonuses: Disneyland and Universal Studios. I am a MASSIVE TOURIST when it comes to those places. Look out for Ricky in front of Hollywood Hills pics too! It's what the fans have been calling out for. Well, me and my Momma anyway.

Lots of love people,

Ricky xo

Week 7 post production...

Hello friends,

So that's where I've been spending my days, weeks, months! In the edit suite with Gaz.

It's getting tough now, really tough. Having to make major decisions on the flow and length. It's difficult because some scenes have to go, a necessary evil for the overall betterment of the film. Of course this is nothing new, you always have to cut things down and even great scenes don't make it sometimes, but that's what DVD Special Features are all about!

It sounds wanky, but the audience's journey through your story is the only thing that matters. So pace is unbelievably important. Of course as the writer / director I tend to HANG ON TIGHT to every little moment, which makes my relationship with Gaz somewhat tumultuous. HOWEVER, it's that good kind of tumultuous because it leads to better results.

We both have the same goal, we just come at it from different angles -- hopefully meeting in the middle. Soooo.... what's it gonna be?  90, 100, 110, 120, 130mins?? TIME WILL TELL. Oh god, that was a shockingly bad pun. As my lovely wife would say "Father humour" -- you know, those bad jokes your Dad once told you... or still does? You know when you start telling Dad jokes that you're almost ready to be a father yourself. It's all a part of no longer being cool to the younger generation. If you stayed cool what else would kids have to cringe about. It's Lion King again... The circle of life. I still got a little cool left in me though, just gotta keep telling myself.

Speaking of cool... check out the co-stars of SUMMER CODA below.

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

PS. Join our FB fan page for heaps more pics and news.

Week 5 post production...

Pic 1) This was one of my fav shoot days. Orange picking with the full cast during the day and then a spectacular sunset from a shed rooftop, just in time for a cracker romantic scene.

Pic 2) I usually get in trouble from publicity for posting cast pics, but if you can't really see them you can't really get in trouble right?

Hello friends,

Well it's been hot as a fire cracker in Melbourne town, and looking out the edit suite windows onto Port Melbourne beaches has been like a slap in the face. Hmmm, let me re-think that. Port Melbourne doesn't really have beaches does it? More like sand and water. I can never really get that excited about our bay, but hey, it's better than nothing. I'm just saying Ricky wont be swimming in it anytime soon. But I digress, BIG TIME, or BT as our "Behind The Scenes" Producer likes to say.

Any-ho, in the air conditioned loveliness of our editing abode we've begun fine-tuning scenes, adding music, and recutting sequences to explore different takes and performances. It's not until we watched the first rough cut that we were able to gain perspective on how the characters where working together, and now it's time to hone in on the smaller details.

I'm loving it, and now more than ever feel so freakin lucky to have cast such fine actors. It ain't hard to find a good take when you're watching Susie Porter or Jacki Weaver I can assure you. I think people are gonna be blown away by Rachael Taylor too. She's in almost every scene and man can she carry a movie. Gold.

I've been cutting a few draft trailers for Summer Coda too. I shouldn't say "cutting" actually, I should say fiddling as I'm a real "hunt and peck" final cut pretender when it comes to editing. But I get by. FIDDLING WITH A TRAILER IS HARD. Man, it is SO hard. The trailer is the single biggest way  to sell your film to the public and you've got 2 MINUTES and 30 SECONDS. Hard core. You can't show too much, but you musn't show too little. Gotta be cool and emotive, but not too cool or hammy.

Gotta sell an audience on coming to see your baby. Cause you gotta see the baby! But if the trailer sux, why would you want to see the baby? Like when your friends have had an ugly baby and you wonder what you're gonna say to them. Who are you going to tell them the baby looks like? Or are you going to go with the "Oh, he/she has soooo much character" OR "What an old soul". That's the movie review equivalent of "Wait for the DVD".  So your trailer, like your new born, must be pretty special otherwise people are going to feel awkward about going to see it. And we can't have that!

Well, I've managed to rabbit on for a whole page without actually saying anything. Is that a skill? I used to try it with book reports back at school. I'd be lazy and not finish the book, but pretend that I had, and then waffle on with analogies and points of view without ever really tackling the issues or the ending -- because I hadn't read it! Well, if it's a skill now it wasn't then, cause my marks were NOT flash. Lets pray that's not the case for the TRAILER!

Booking flights for U.S. shoot tomorrow. BT FUN.

Lots of love,

Ricky

Note from distributors: Ricky is not actually responsible for editing Summer Coda's trailer. A quality UK company is producing that for us. Ricky just likes to "Fiddle", as being the writer/director/producer he struggles with delegation.  As well as other things. ; )

Week 4 post production...

Pic #1 Back at the airport -- this time LEGALLY.

Pic #2 Airport Security weren't happy with the size of Greg's lens. I can understand why. Told him it was a compliment. They were worried about punters thinking it was a Bazooka I think.


Hello friends,

Just watched the first complete rough cut of Summer Coda! OMG! We have a film and with a bit of fine tuning I believe a great one! So very exciting to see all the scenes come together. Probably the most surreal and rewarding moment so far. Watching all the characters come to life, for the first time I forget I was watching multiple scenes and sequences and just sat back and enjoyed. BLISS.

Julie Hodges from Mushroom Music has been helping me with the Summer Coda soundtrack for 5 years!! Was so happy to finally be able to show her some scenes. Music is a MAJOR component of our film and she's gathering some absolute CRACKER tracks.

Speaking of music, just about to catch up with our composer Alies and watch the film with her too. Her hard work starts now. Our score is just so crucial. Alies like so many others has been listening to me (at nauseam) rabbit on about Summer Coda (and her doing the score) for YEARS. So happy to finally hand it over.

We've had to delay our final shoot in the U.S. till March, but it's been a blessing as I couldn't have hacked leaving the edit suite at this stage. It's the best part!

Big shout out to VIRGIN for getting us on the tarmac at Melbourne Airport to film some awesome planes landing LEGITAMATELY. I remember way back to "17 days till shoot!" when we were sneaking around a back airport paddock to film some planes landing, standing amongst cows! Now we roll in style. Thank-you Mr Branson.

Thinking back to October last year amazes me. I was so excited, but equally scared. 4 months later I'm watching the film. UNBELIEVABLE.

Right-E-O, I'd best get back to it.

Much Love,

Ricky : )

Week 2 post production...

...Ahhhh, the memories. These were the best fruit pickers a director could have ever dreamed for.

Hello friends,

Yep, I've been slack. Where's Week 1 post production? Well on top of being slack I've been too busy getting fat. After 8 weeks in the hell fire heat of Mildura, Christmas and New Years was a sight for sore eyes! Ooops, pardon the pun, Jo. (Jo, our EPK producer almost lost an eye to a flaming cigarette on NYE! Seriously).

Now we're back in the saddle. Organising a few last shooting days here in Melbs: Close up tarmac shots of Heidi's plane landing (Rachael Taylor), which our lovely major sponsor VIRGIN have kindly helped us with. Heidi in a Taxi through Melbourne CBD. Helicopter shots for Mildura and the great Murray River, and of course, the BIGGIE: Michael's (Alex Dimitriades') scenes in the CALIFORNIAN DESERT!

So we're off the States to shoot the last scenes of Summer Coda and I gotta tell you, I'm rather PUMPED about that one!

Meanwhile, our main man Gaz (our editor) has been CUTTY CUTTY CUTTY and it's been awesome hanging in the edit suite with him. Having done so much short form, reality and doco over the last 4 years it's so bloody refreshing to sink my teeth into a long form drama. We just don't make many films in this country, so it kinda feels like a privilege to be doing what we're doing.

Gaz has of course been working from the day after we started shooting. Much to do: First you gotta SYNC all the footage, day by day. That's 2 hours of footage a day, shot by shot. Then you gotta lay it all down on the timeline and start blocking out all the scenes. There's 157 scenes in Summer Coda. AND THEN you can finally start to take a look at your best takes and start piecing your pride-and-joy together. And that's when lazy Ricky hops into the edit suite! And then let the good times roll!

Quite surreal seeing all the footage in front of you. Such a lot of hard work, but so much fun as well. Beautiful seeing all the actors again. I had forgotten just how much we'd done.

Next week, while the cutty cutty continues we head to our friends at Soundfirm to do some ADR. Meaning we gotta replace some slightly noisy dialogue we recorded on the Highway at high speeds with the window down, with some crystal clear dialogue recorded in a studio.

Memo to self: Never EVER write 5 pages of meaningful dialogue to be performed in an old truck, on a bumpy road, with the windows down. This may lead to average sound. Instead, pull the truck over, and have one actor to say to the other: "Let's go do this meaningful dialogue scene over there -- on the bench, in the quiet park near the lake, where the film crew can stand in the shade".

Oh well, next time for sure! Truth is 99.9% of our sound is bloody brilliant (BIG SHOUT OUT to our awesome soundo Deano!) and replacing a few lines was bound to happen regardless, so it's a blessing -- cause I get to hang with our two lead actors again. Ace.

...I wonder if they'd like to try my new Jelly Shot recipe: Lime Jelly with Tequila in a little plastic shot cup of goodness. It's very refreshing and is going down a treat with Gaz in the edit suite. It could make this ADR business that much more pleasurable.

More soon champions,

Ricky xo : )

PS. Join us on facebook, tweet and our Summer Coda website mailing list. U know u want to. Just click those lovely coloured words and I promise to reveal another refreshing Jelly Shot recipe in my next bloggy.

Shoot Day 31

Hello friends,

Here's some fab pics from shoot and the inaugural "Carn Cup" wrap party. The cup consisted of about 15 special events: From pool volley ball, to "the unridable ride" to musical statues to "how low can you go Limbo". A massive success!!!!

 Pic #1. Greg and Steve shooting on a Saturday AGAIN for me. Love em.

Pic #2. These are the ladies of the Carn Cup. Fancy dress pool wrap party to die for. Flamingo had best seat in house. Poolside baby.

Pic #3. The prize table at the Carn Cup. May not seem like much, but look closer and you will discover some collectable gold! Critics say they were the best prizes ever awarded at a wrap party.

Pic #4. A closer look at the Carn Cup bounty.

Pic #5. The dress code was "Retro Pool Party". But anything stupid was allowed in.

Pic #6. Unit leader & MC Tony doing his best Bill Murray "The Life Aquatic" impersonation.

 Pic #7. DJ Wi-Fee and that girl from Wolf Creek dance up a storm!


We partied hard for 2 days and sent Mildura off in style, but now we're back in Melbourne for one last shoot day. Then we're off to Nevada after a short Christmas break. Yah!

Thank-you so much for all your happy kind thoughts and wishes. I'll keep the blog going right through post all the way to premiere!

Love you guys,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 30

Hello friends,

LAST DAY OF SHOOT IN MILDURA!!!!!

Can't believe it's coming to an end -- but it's really just the beginning for our little baby. So many beautiful contributors, so little time to thank -- although I'll be doin my darn best to thank everyone at our 3 separate wrap parties! The first is TONIGHT -- then we have a retro pool party tomorrow called "The Carn Cup" (Melrose HQ is actually a superb little serviced apartment complex called The Carn Court). AND THEN perhaps a few spritzers and wine coolers in Melbourne too on Monday night.

That's not to say the crew and I like a drink -- Actually, it is to say the crew and I like a drink, because we do!

The weather has tested us, but the crew's commitment and awesome performances have never wavered.

Today we say goodbye to Alex Dimitriades. We have a further shoot with him in Nevada, but that's not for a little while. He's been a standout and a professional. Writing this film when I was 23 I couldn't of imagined a better actor in the role. He's a champion. Thx Mate.

Much love to all and much more soon,

Ricky : )