Me and William Shatner in 2011 at Emerald City Comic Con
So, here I am editing the film together and loving the visuals beyond measure. Then I recorded some narration....and I realized that I hate the sound of my voice.
The narration is a necessity and, if I had a time machine and about $4K in change lying around, I would gladly have paid someone to do it.
"No," I assured myself, "You can do the narration. I mean, hell, you talk to yourself all the dang time anyway."
Part of my problem stems from being hearing-impaired. I no longer have stereophonic hearing and my "good" ear has significant loss. So, things just don't sound right when I listen to them through headphones.
My other - larger - problem is that I have the acting ability of a wet turnip. So, although I'm pretty clear in what I say, I don't feel the delivery inflects any emotion.
I'm still working on it and I seriously hope I'll get there.
However, if for some reason I am unsatisfied and it's the day before I'm supposed to have the rough cut finished, I'm going with a William Shatner delivery and echo effects...lots of echo effects.
Cheers,
-Rick
A still from the movie taken from a video grab (and that's all you get for now! lol)
19 minutes and 25 seconds of the final film...complete!
There's still a lot of work ahead but the most "difficult" scenes to edit are now behind me.
My obvious problem is cutting the audio (being that I'm completely deaf in my right ear and have significant hearing loss in my left). I have to strain to hear the "highs and lows" of each track in the clip. Still, no matter how long it takes me, I do it.
Now, as I look at roughly half the completed film (and truly some very, very beautiful scenes), I think I can feel that slight tug of a smile at the corner of my mouth.
One interesting thing has been working on special effects in post production. Now you might be tempted to say, "wtf, special FX in a sea turtle doc???"...but - trust me - these additions work wonderfully in the segments.
I would post more clips here but I'm going to make you wait for it. You don't have much longer to wait, though. I am on schedule to deliver the film by Aug. 25.
Cheers,
-Rick
"Checkers," a sub-adult green, was released at Juno Beach last Thursday afternoon. It was - like any release - heartwarming and inspiring to see the little turtle swim off, on his journey home.
When I got home I backed up video and took a look at what I had filmed. Some of it is certainly going in the doc! :)
The next morning, however, I awoke extremely ill. I made it through 9 hours of vertigo by sleeping a lot and not leaving the couch.
I get frustrated with Menieres. I had planned to do so much on Friday... and the only thing I did was waste a day. Saturday was a recovery day (as the vertigo attacks leave me pretty messed up for a day or two).
I'm a little behind where I want to be on the film right now.
Good news is I think the release dates for my "primary" turtles are quickly approaching! Their journey home will be the final parts of the filming portion of my doc.
Yesterday, I was forced to take a break. I had planned on cutting video from the interview and creating a new clip to put up on here.
In the morning I shot a gorgeous sunrise over a fairly calm ocean. I came home backed up that footage, cleared my CF cards and headed back out. It was a short drive to Round Island and I was out on the trail within moments of my arrival.
The wildlife at Round Island never fail to deliver. Usually there are resident manatees hanging out in the still, murky waters around the island.
There were no manatees to be seen. Most likely they've had to swim south for warmer waters as we've had a bit of a cold snap.
But the osprey were fishing like mad and the sky was just as blue as a saphire.
After getting some good stills of the osprey, I drove home, made a quick lunch and then suddenly was overcome with vertigo. My old pal, Meniere's Disease had decided to pay me a visit.
You see, I'm not only hearing-impaired and going completely deaf as a result of this fun disease, I'm also at its beck and call as far as unpredictable vertigo is concerned.
It was a severe and lengthy attack. Today, I am worn out but mostly recovered today. So, back to the film. :)
Cheers,
-Rick
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