“Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” - Orson Welles
(Source: mrsalabamaworley)
Sellers and Kubrick on the set of Dr. Strangelove
And finally, with post completed, we arrive at:
DELIVERY! We delivered the film to Amazon Studios at the delivery date, thereby completing an exhilarating, intense, and greatly rewarding experience.
Once again, thank you for everyone who donated their time, talent, money, resources and mind power to making this film happen on an impossible budget in an impossible amount of time. Somehow, with hope, creativity, talent, work and a whole lot of stubbornness and determination, we pooled our resources and made it happen!
I guess there’s only one thing left to say—
SEE YOU AT THE PREMIERE!!
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PHOTO: An ADR stage where actors can sync their lips to their performance on screen.
The next monumental task to complete within the weeks before delivery was Sound Design. Chip Johnson, our talented Sound Designer, had a huge task ahead of him.
We needed to accomplish two main areas of sound design:
1. FOLEY: Foley are the elements of the movie that were either not recorded satisfactorily on set, or need to be augmented. Things like footsteps are often accomplished with foley artists either performing the movements required (while wearing the appropriate footwear on the appropriate surface) and recording them, or using sound libraries to find pre-existing sounds that would fit.
2. ADR: ADR is when lines need to be changed or added to the picture, often in sync with the lips of the actor. Again, this is often needed when production sound is subpar, or last minute changes in the script are made. ADR requires a special stage where actors can watch themselves on screen, and replicate the energy and emotion of their performance. We needed to do this both in LA, and also Latvia. We didn’t have the budget or time to fly out to Latvia to do this, so we had help from Latvian friends who coordinated, recorded and delivered all the necessary ADR.
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PHOTO: Crew photo with projection of star Tina Casciani on the side of the Latvian presidential palace.
And that’s a wrap! Miraculously, we finished on schedule in 22 days of shooting abroad. We were extremely fortunate to find such an inspiring, talented group of people as our crew in Latvia. They worked tirelessly, twelve hour days, six days a week, in the cold and rain, and by the end we all felt like one big family. I’m sure I can speak for everyone when I say that it will be an experience that I will never forget.
So thank you again to all the Latvians, Bulgarians, Russians and others who helped make The Nevsky Prospect not only possible, but an amazing experience.
And, of course, our work on the film is not done yet. So back to LA we go, and on to post production.
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