Quandary is officially stoked to announce… that we did it! We got our film from Heart of the Argos transferred! For the past few months we have been sitting around wracking out brains, twiddling our fingers, (and recovering from the shoot) trying to scrape together the funds to get our 6,000 feet of processed film negative transferred into a usable computer format. This process is called telecine, and is a very important step in the editing process. It all happened rather fast to tell you the truth. This past Monday I took the plunge and called up a company in LA called Fotokem, who does telecine. Between bouts of the usual “hold please” music and various receptionists, I was connected with our friendly sales rep, Ray. Before I knew it, I was talking with the scheduling department, and we were suddenly set for a supervised eight-hour telecine session that Thursday. “Eeep! We’re going to see the footage!” was the mantra for the rest of the week.
It was crazy. We drove down Wednesday, partied at Claremont College, got up at 5:00 am and drove to Fotokem. It was great, they really treat you right at these professional production houses (especially when you’re paying them). We walked in to the sleek entry hall, and when I gave my name to the receptionist she asked, “Oh, are you here for Austin Powers or Heart of the Argos?” Heheh.
For the rest of the day we hung out in Telecine Suite #3 with our colorist, Frank, as he transferred our glorious negatives. This was the first time that we were actually able to watch our film, and for most of the time I think I was watching with my mouth open. Spenser regained his cool first, and was soon asking Frank to tweak colors and adjust brightness and such. It is amazing how much control a veteran colorist like Frank has over raw film. Unlike digital, the film color and brightness is adjusted with light, and this keeps the image crisp and rich. Frank was an expert technician and knew what every button on his sci-fi looking control station did. (except one, but he said no one uses it anyway).
Basically, our Christmas wish has come true, and even now as I write this we are working on syncing sound files, cataloging clips, and getting ready to jump headfirst into editing next week. Thanks Santa.
In celebration of the transfer, Quandary will be releasing nine screen captures over the course of the next few weeks. Be sure to visit (and tell your friends!). There will be a new capture released every other day, only at www.HeartoftheArgos.com
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Until next time, happy holidays!
