Started work on the Lost Highways Doco promo site. Think I will build it in Flash. Which means I will have to get my head about Flash... Got an idea about using Dick's camera - the Nikon FE - as the interface for some of the goodies...

Broadly speaking, it will have this structure:
The Film Synopsis | Credits | News
Media Trailer | Slideshow | Gallery
History Inspiration | Making | Distribution
Contact Us | Links

I've been testing little ideas over the last month for use as shorter pieces in LH. I have around 5 short sections to do and tonight I just made sure that I had enough material to cover the gaps. Also started the final revisions to “Testy” but more on that in the next post.

Finished “Testy” tonight. It's changed quite a lot since I first started for a couple of reasons.

Firstly I started making “Testy” as a possible alternative opening credits piece, but the section I'm now using it in has dialogue and the original would have been too full on.

Secondly I really wanted a strong bass line in this track and my attempts to cut something using the samples I have (not many) wasn't working out so I basically laid the bass line that I liked and remade everything around it. Not as dub-like now as the delayed percussion was cutting through the dialogue too much. But it is a good compromise and sounds good to the vision I think.

Finished “Testy” tonight. It's changed quite a lot since I first started for a couple of reasons. Firstly I started making “Testy” as a possible alternative opening credits piece, but the section I'm now using it in has dialogue and the original would have been too full on.

Secondly I really wanted a strong bass line in this track and my attempts to cut something using the samples I have (not many) wasn't working out so I basically laid the bass line that I liked and remade everything around it. Not as dub-like now as the delayed percussion was cutting through the dialogue too much. But it is a good compromise and sounds good to the vision I think.

Just the short sections to go. Tonight I got off to a flying start by finishing a track called "Harmsway" It's an acoustic guitar and harmonica track that I was fooling around with at the start of these sessions.

The feel of the track is much closer to Simon’s original brief to me but I didn't have the equipment

and skills to pull off a lot of this type of music (I'm no ace guitarist, and my studio consists of all keyboard gear and 1 acoustic guitar). Oh and a harmonica as well! Which is what this track is.

A basic guitar riff and some harmonica over the top.

Tonight I re-recorded the harmonica and made it a little more interesting. I then double tracked it and added another harmonica part before adding a soft synth pad to the background. I did a little cutting to fit to picture and there you have it. One down!

My research & experiments using Flash Components to build the Promo site have been slow but fruitful. I will only bother talking about them when the site has finally taken shape... Am dropping the slideshow item.

Will brings in his Mac Zip drive, so I am able to get my hands on the opening & closing music for Lost. I convert to 48.000khz using iTunes and slap them into their spots. This only takes a minute or two with only a little tweaking of volume. Will fine tune it tomorrow and give Steve Baker a call. Guess I can now start thinking about editing a 1 min trailer...

Found some better VCD software which I am testing using the 20021015 mpeg.

“F.U.D.” was the name of tonight’s little effort. There is a short section in LH where Simon has edited a fast flip through of Dick's camera's manual. I've edited “F.U.D.” to fit this section. I basically loaded a shit load of drum samples into deck, cut them up into little sections and pasted them randomly onto the play-face. Then I just mixed it all together and cut it to length. Very late sixties Beatles I know.... Still it works though!

"Movement" is tonight’s little musical offering. It fits over the section of photos just after Dick talks about the GST and its effect on small businesses. It couldn't be simpler. Just piano on this one. A nice steady bass pattern with some strident chords over the top. I've left it hang over this section of pictures with no start or finish so that it can be faded in and out to suit the dialogue during the final mix of LH.

Interview Lost Highways 5 RS MASTER reviews prints 2002/3/24 16:15:30 MCU googie leafing through book mushroom mobil pegasus

The last piece to be finished is "Reflections". It covers the last series of photos before the end of LH and has a bit of a "that was a nice little trip" feel to it. It is the only cut that I didn't time to the picture and so it doesn't match perfectly with photo changes etc, but it has a nice feel about it and suits this section. It started off as a mistake pattern on my drum machine and I kind of played with it until I got "Reflections".

Ended the night by having the first complete run through of the masters in place with vision and have decided to add a couple of things to 3 of the cues. “Reflections” just needs to be edited a little and remixed. I'm going to try a little percussion sample with "Movement” just to see if it works, and I'm going to add a little piano to "Harmsway" just to round it out. It was nice to hear it all together!

Remixed "Testy"... Much better. Also got all the tracks ready to burn to CD.

Burnt CD of all mixes and will now send off to Simon. Meeting with Gerry Long this weekend to discuss foley.

Had to burn timecode into the doco. Using the Final Cut Pro filter, this was an overnight process and took 18 hours. (Add another 4 hours of false starts - setting it for NTSC's frame rate 29.777).

I then "printed to video" and dubbed it to the Sony Camera. A timecoded S-VHS tape was requested by Gerry but I don't have the hardware. So I bought a S-VHS cable and took that with me, figuring we could dub from the camera to Gerry's Deck.

Outputting and rendering delayed my departure from Melbourne by a couple of hours. I drive to Bendigo.