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.