Just an Afterthought

I’ve been feeling guilty about my blogs being just an after thought the last few weeks. I’m in the middle of restoring my old films, working on the Wax Theatricks Live video, recording a new Wax album, and remixing and cleaning up the soundtrack to the video.

To be honest, the films have been the most fun. I’ve gotten a bunch of new audio forensic software to try and make out the words so I can redub the audio. I’m using the same software the FBI uses and I still can’t make out about 20% of it.

I’ve been finding bits and pieces of it in my old notebooks from the 70s. As I’m going through this stuff, I find about 75% of it is embarrassing and self-conscious. The rest is good enough to publish if I could find a market for this crazy sh#t. It would definitely take a little work on the part of the reader, but most of it’s pretty funny.

I took most of my films to a place in Soulard called TVPro to transfer to DVD. They’re cheap and professional.

It took a couple of weeks, but they finally finished it. They owner stayed late last Friday, so I could pick it up after work. Man was I excited! He handed me a huge reel and said he put the films all together on it. My first thought was, “I’ve never seen a Super 8 projector that could handle a reel that large.” Then I thought, “Oh well, at least I have the digital copy!”

Then he smiled, and looking very pleased with himself he said, “Some of your film was upside down, so I flipped it digitally.” I held back a scream because I could see he really thought he went the extra mile for me.

I spent a lot of time coming up with special effects for my films. Most of my astronomical $400.00 budget for my Cages film was renting a smoke machine and strobe lights.

I told the guy the film wasn’t upside down, it was backwards. I was very proud of the fact that I was able to figure out if you turn the camera upside down and shoot your footage, all you had to do was turn the developed film upside down, then flip the film so the sprocket holes were on the correct side. This would give you backwards motion. I figured this out in my head before I shot anything. It worked!

No matter how many times I explained it to him, he couldn’t get it. We finally came to the conclusion that I could re-reverse it digitally when I ripped the DVD to my computer.

There was one scene where I pluck flower petals out of the air, assemble it, and present the finished flower to my girlfriend Lora. Now all you see is me pulling the petals off while she has a surprised look on her face.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to correct all of this but ripping the DVD to my computer is taking forever. I started the process Saturday morning. Valerie and I went camping. When we got back it was only 49% done. It’s Monday morning now. I’m looking at it and it’s still only 76% done.

Speaking of Valerie, she hasn’t had a weekend away from my kids in months. The camping trip meant a lot to her. In spite of that, she could see I was getting antsy and wanted to get back to the studio. She let me cut the trip a little short so I could put in a couple of hours. I was able to finish a mix for Pleasure from Sadness for the video. It’s amazing how much sunnier life is when you accomplish something.