Week 14 Post Production

Pic #1 Ricky, Virginia (prod manager), Greg (DOP), Pacharo (plays Monty in Summer Coda), Nathan (plays Joey).

Hello Friends,

Summer Coda picture lock is upon us! Ahhhh! Time to make those final edit decisions. Time to weigh up which test audience results you want to agree with. Tricky, but exciting.

Once we lock pictures the sound boys take over. We spend as much time on sound as the picture edit, which is awesome cause it provides new pangs of excitement when you first hear a scene properly mixed with our original score. It's those elements that make test screenings (of unfinished films) so hard to gauge.

After sound comes the GRADE! Finally get to see all our pretty pictures in full resolution. In my petty world, watching Summer Coda in shitty low res has been like watching Godfather on YouTube! Well kinda. Well, no not really but you get the point. Either way, can not wait to sit down in a theatre and see our finished pictures with a 5.1 mix. Ace.

Had an awesome time in Hollywood -- as if there was ever any doubt! So cool to be living in a city that lives and breaths film. Oh, and it's way cheaper to see films there -- so there's a BIG bonus.

Which fool thought it was a good idea to start charging $18 a ticket to see a movie in Oz?

We wonder why it's hard to get peeps to go see Aussie flicks. I completely understand: I reckon a lot of folks that fork out $18 want a BIG experience, like Dragon or Robin Hood or even Avatarded. So how bout this for an idea: $1 from each ticket sale for box office smash hits goes towards subsidising the cost of an Australian film ticket? So you could go and see your Aussie films for $10. Even if it was 50 cents it would still work out, and who would mind paying $18.50 for a ticket to a block buster if it meant you could see any local flick for $10. Sure you'd make less profit from each Aussie ticket sale, but you'd sell soooooo many more tickets and develop a culture of supporting our local product.

I reckon that would be gold. Of course it'll never happen... until Ricky gets a few more runs on the board and then it's WHAM, SMACK, POW movie ticket revolution baby!

And if you don't like that, how bout just 50cents from each non-Aussie movie ticket goes into a fund to produce more local flicks. That's millions of dollars in the kitty. We MUST make more films -- and preferably from varied funding sources.

Anyway, enough dreaming. Onto more thirst quenching things: We took a tour through the vineyards where Sideways was shot. Just beautiful. About an hour out of Santa Barbara, near a place called Buellton. Turns out the winery where Sandra Oh worked is owned by an Aussie. He hooked us up with a reservation at the Hitching Post. Just awesome. And no, we didn't drink any f*cking Merlot! Pics below.

Much love,

Ricky : )

Pic #2 The road to Santa Barbara. Pretty. Those yellow bad boys are mustard flowers.

Pic #3 Little Aussie vineyard making delicious Zinfandel.

Pic #4 The cellar door where Sandra Oh worked. Check out the Aussie flag on the roof. Wall to wall indigenous art and a Sideways poster too.

Pic #5 The Hitching Post bar. Ohhhhhhhh, their own red wine is divine!

Pic #6 Ricky with mini bottle of '05 Highliner. stunning. the right size for drinking in the car on the way home! 

Week 12 Post Production

Pic #1 Filming in the desert is fun.

Pic #2 Rocks are cool.

Pic #4 Our motley U.S. crew.

Pic #5 Our cowboy DOP relaxing outside the church from KILL BILL.  


Hello Friends,

We FINALLY wrapped the principle photography of Summer Coda! And what a place to do it. Weather was perfect, locations spectacular, performances... well 2 out of 3 ain't bad! ; )

We put together a cracking local crew and headed out into the desert. Great to make new friends, and awesome to film in a country where we'd like to do A LOT more. Big shout out to TJ and our U.S. production arm at Dilated Pixels.

The coolest thing about shooting here is that everyone, and I mean everyone, knows a little something about film. You could be 3 hours out of the city in the middle of the desert and the person selling you a burrito will have acted in a movie way back, or her cousin is a producer, or she'll ask questions like "what are you shooting on?". You just don't get that in Oz, and I adore it! Surrounded by peeps that actually have an understanding of what we do for a living (or attempt to earn a living from anyway!). LOVE IT.

So now we just need to get this gold footage back to Gaz in the edit suite. Then we can finally insert our U.S. scenes and make the final few calls before picture lock. Hmmmm, PICTURE LOCK, there's two scary words. No turning back after that... We'd best get it right!

We've become increasingly confident with the edit, but it's always hard to know what an audience will respond to -- particularly in Australia. So the best we can do is concentrate on story and performance, and then market the hell out of this baby!

Can't wait to show y'all!

Now onto more important things... DISNEYLAND! and then tickets to a ROLLER DERBY! http://derbydolls.com/la/ (OMG).

Ricky xo

Pic #7 That's a wrap! Greg (DOP), Virginia (Prod Manager), Ricky (Slacker), Johnny (Producer)

Week 10 post production...

Hello friends,

Well, it turns out I'm not as powerful as I remember from my primary school days. Apparently posting pics of Rachael Taylor in a bath to coincide with the storyboards I posted last week is NOT a good publicity idea. I've been told this is for 3 reasons:

1. Not one pic of Rachael from Summer Coda has been released yet. These are the "hot items" of our long lead marketing campaign (snore).
2. Rachael in the bath MAY attract the wrong kind of dudes (ah, if they pay for a ticket they ain't wrong to Ricky).
3. No one reads my blog (hmmm, can't argue there).

So instead, here's something EVEN BETTER:

I think the little rubber duckies really cap it off nicely.

Believe it or not, the marketing of Summer Coda is something we take super seriously. We only get one crack at it. We had a super duper Unit Publicist in Tanja Nedel and now we have the all-conquering Chris Chamberlin (fresh from Samson & Delilah) taking on our release publicity. So crucial we get it right and the hero shots of Rachael and Alex Dimitriades are kinda like our ace-in-the-hole. People wanna see what they look like in the movie, they wanna see what chemistry is going on and we think we have something very special here.

Ricky enjoyed the Oscars this week, however I will say that if they really needed to politicise and drum up a David vs Goliath battle, they should have pitted Avatarded (thx Miss Lomas - LOVE that word) vs Up In The Air. I adored Up In The Air and believe it was kinda left behind when all that Hurt propaganda started building. For me, its story and screenplay was on a much higher level. Kinda reminded of when Crash won the oscar. But i know a lot of people loved that too, so i should just pipe down.

Anyway, the set looked fab and I'm a tragic Baldwin and Martin fan, so was still much fun and laughs to be had. Like the dancing -- that gets me every time!

Had awesome news this week: Looking very much like a Summer Coda soundtrack will be released! ACE, because we've been we've been working with Mushroom Records on the music in the film for a very long time and we reckon we've got some killer tracks! Love a good movie soundtrack and don't get many Aussie entries, so fingers crossed.

Heading to the U.S. on SUNDAY! WOOT!  Finally filming the closing scenes of the picture with Alex Dimitriades. I can highly recommend the months of pain and bags of cash it takes to get someone a work Visa. Thank God that's over!

...Did I mention I'm going to Disneyland? Expect photos. Expect MANY photos. Might even try to get Mickey in a bath with me for a pic. ...Vomit.

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

PS. Summer Coda twitters here. Ricky twitters here. Facebook is here.

Week 9 post production...

Hello friends,

Thought it might be cool to show some Summer Coda storyboards and then follow up next week with the actual shots from the film.


I'm a massive fan of pre-visualization. I don't dig just rocking up on the day and "feeling out" a scene. That's kinda lazy. When you storyboard you force yourself into closely examining what might work best for a scene. You can always improve those images on the day -- and often do, but you'll never walk away with a scene that wasn't AT LEAST as well composed as you'd originally imagined. It's a director and DP's homework, but man does it feel good to nail. 


I hear a lot of talk about letting the scene play out in front of you and then designing camera moves to suit, which is fine, but only to a point. Even that handheld / doco-feel (when it's done well) doesn't just evolve naturally. Intricate planning is required to pull off the photography of films like The Insider, Amores Perros, City of God, Eternal Sunshine, Constant Gardener, Children of Men. They are some of my absolute fav films . 

I think that's were most crappy handheld films go wrong -- thinking that you can just use handheld to create immediacy and forget about the planning -- cover things "organically". It's BS and annoys Ricky when he's watching shaky, funky-junky cam in the cinema, getting nauseas for no good reason.


Anyhoo, Ricky ain't here to preach and certainly doesn't have the runs to teach. Was just wanting to make the point that it doesn't cost anything to plan. You don't need a big budget to visualise every frame, and after the YEARS it's taken to get your baby up, it's not like you haven't had the time! You'd might as well create with craft. 


For me, it was growing up with Scorsese, Coen Bros, PTA and Wes Anderson flicks that really highlighted the importance of choice and composition.  Flicking through their DVDs frame by frame is all the film schooling you'll ever need. 

Here's a fav quote:  "...the language of film is our own interpretation of reality. You have to select what is important from the jumble of images we see in our everyday lives. You can speak without using words by the decisions you make about movement and composition."    THAT'S GOLD.


Being in the edit suite day after day is really hammering that message home. Many lines of dialogue that were necessary at script stage (to tell our story) become obsolete when we nail our visuals.  The cinema audience is REAL SMART too, don't need nearly as much exposition as we'd planned. If you can see it, really see it, you don't need to say it. Okay, that quote above might be a little flowery for some, but flowers are given to people for a reason. They're beautiful. 

Now isn't that pretty, more soon.


Ricky : )


P.S. Follow Ricky on TWITTER http://twitter.com/Ricky_Hollywood

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. ; )