2009 – Color and Music
Over the years, Steve had gotten familiar with the color program at his work. Now was the time to put his knowledge to the test. We needed to color adjust each shot of the movie. It is done for all films except perhaps for low budget films unable to afford it. The goal is to give the whole film a unified look. Also it can be used to enhance “muddy” appearing shots which we found in abundance. Watching the old dusty scenes shine with new vitality helped us through the many weekends of tedious work. Kudos to Steve for his fantastic work!
Here are a few before and after examples:
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After:
We also applied “letterboxing” (black bar on top and bottom) for a few reasons. A – we liked the aesthetic of the 16 X 9 screen size. B – a few scenes had us using a wide angle lens which sometimes led to black corners (catching the inside of the lens) as seen above. The letterbox conveniently cut that part of the image out.
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After:
Color correction enabled us to uniformly color the different shooting locations of Sully’s attack sequence.
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If you google “independent film composer” the second hit will be Tomas Hradcky’s site. Surely finding a composer couldn’t be that easy. So I spent a few months more rummaging through other composer sites, listening to samples. I soon came back around to Tomas Hradcky (http://www.tomashradcky.com/).
Each of his cues is a world unto itself. Some traverse familiar ground, but all carry his distinctive stamp. What I was looking for was music that traveled across melancholic and eerie landscapes. His music did just that while also hinting at exotic lands which had a strong appeal to me. The number of instruments he uses are many, varied, and interesting. Other composers I looked at/listened to had music that sounded more like connect the dots, clichéd, and derivative of famous composers. Tomas’s music was unique, had a lot of character- richly textured with nice melodies and interesting sounds. I had found my composer. Now I just had to cross my fingers and hope he’d be interested and that we could negotiate an agreeable contract.
Tomas asked to see the film first before we go further. I sent it off to Pittsburg where he and his wife Kel lived, and spent the next week or so tapping my fingers on the table. I was relieved when Tomas and Kel finally replied that they liked the film. After a price was agreed to and contract signed, Tomas went to work.
Every once in awhile I would receive an email from him with a cue attached. Each one was cause for celebration because nearly all went beyond my expectations. Here are some samples:
Cue: 1m1-partial – Film Intro
Cue: 1m9-partial – Patrick’s Intro
Cue: 2m1-partial – Patrick’s Theme
Cue: 3m6-partial – Eden’s Dream
Cue: 4m1-partial – Mayor In Trouble #1
Cue: 4m1-partial – Mayor In Trouble #2
Cue: 4m1-partial – Mayor In Trouble #3
