CCR

Not Happening In Palm Beach

Not Happening In Palm Beach by Cesar Larez

Ideas Change

With everything said and done I just want to write about a few ideas that didn't make the cut.

I wanted to add more color in the shots, but then when it came down to it I felt like it was going to be way too much of a resemblance to Wes Anderson work, and yes I wanted to resemble it but also make it my own, I didn't want to copy him completely. Also when the day came to shoot I couldn't find anything that would look good with the shot I was trying to achieve.

I wanted to add an already existing song, preferably one that my friend Coco already had that was longer. He gave me permission and everything but as soon as the idea came to us that we could write out own song, we stuck to it and started working.

The beach shots were originally shots at a backyard that had a pool. Instead of towels they were pool chairs. The scene went exactly the same but I decided to shoot at the beach because it set the setting for him and I wanted to contrast him and her, because her shots don't really set anything.

I originally wanted to work with another actor to play Camila but at the time she couldn't make it and I didn't want to waste time and Isa was available so we went with it. I wanted to work with someone that was blonde and could really pull off the mean act.

These are some ideas that changed but ultimately got me to this piece of work that I am very proud of, no regrets what so ever.

Roadblocks

I finally finished with what I call the visual editing, put all the videos in order and made the story that I wanted to make visually. Then when it came to the audio it got a bit crazy. I added the song and tried to synchronize it to the best of my new found abilities but Miguel had to step in and help me because I wasn't getting far with it. We both finally got it right and then moved on to the first piece of dialogue the film has. When Dani's mom walks into the room and says "Dani, we have to go". The audio we made wasn't working, there was a problem and we couldn't add that audio of Dani's mom actually talking. So after brainstorming what we could do, I decided to record Miguel's mom saying that and adding it to the film, synchronizing it as well. We did exactly that and it worked, so it's basically, you see Dani's mom but you hear Miguel's mom. We moved on to the next dialogue where Camila (Isa Garcia) interrupts Chris while he is playing. We had another inconvenience, we couldn't hear anything from this one so we decided to do the same thing, luckily Isa lived closed by, so we called her over and she came out recorded hr piece and the we added it. After that I wanted to intensify the beach sounds, add some waves crashing, louder wind, beach sounds. So we got some beach sounds off of a Copy right free Youtube, one of those 32 hour long videos for people that want to fall asleep to beach sounds, and we added it. After we played with the volumed for a bit and we were FINITO.

Editing

I've been watching videos and getting help from my friends that know how to edit. I have learned a new skilled and I'm thrilled to put it to action. I think the easiest part is going to be putting each video in the order I want them to be in, make each cut, and adding the cut aways. The toughest part is really going to be getting the sound edit right because I have voice overs that I need to add, a whole song that I have to synchronize perfectly with the movement of Coco's hands so it looks like he's playing the guitar at a that moment. I'm going to get some more help from Miguel since he knows how to edit well and he did this project last year
Wish me luck

coffee

This weekend I helped my friend Maria Morales shoot her short movie project. She wanted me to act in her piece and I helped her out. While I was there I took the opportunity to ask her for some advice and some tips because she did this same project last year. She gave me some advice, told me that I shouldn't focus too much on the whole story, but mainly on the intro that's its really the only thing that would be shot. Also to over shoot, which I did, so I avoid continuity errors. The most important thing is that she helped me and gave me like a tutoring on editing, since I have no idea how to edit. So I took notes and worked a little on iMovie, still not the best at this but practice makes perfect.