The Jon Stokes Blog

We have now entered one of the final steps of our movie, Color Timing (a.k.a. Color Grading, Color Correction).  For this phase, Chuck must alter and enhance the color of every frame of the movie, adjusting hue, saturation, and brightness to create the best possible visual quality for every scene.
Here is Chuck hard at work [...]

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Mitch Lindskoog and I put in another six hours yesterday perfecting the sound mix.  We still have work remaining on the sound edit.  But we are nearing completion.  It is extremely satisfying to hear the movie coming into focus.

(Mitch in his native environment - with The Last Hurrah playing in the background)
We knew we would [...]

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I created the web images this week, flexing my wimpy Photoshop muscles. I also rewrote all the actor and crew bios, and prepared all the material for the web site.
Faith, our web developer, is really together. I showed her my design for the web site and it sounds like she can make it [...]

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This is Carolyn, our set photographer. It so happens, she’s dating the editor, Jay. So we seem to have an unusually high number of editor photos.

I compiled all the set photography this weekend. This means sorting through roughly 800 photos from four different photographers, adding captions and credits of the best 100 for the [...]

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Getting permission to use a single song in the movie may require negotiating and signing six different contracts.  The Masters contract, the Synchronization rights, the composer’s contract, the label’s contract, the publisher’s contract, and the performer’s contract.
I generated 120 musician contracts in December, and I have signatures for 70% so far. People have asked [...]

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I got many, many things off the to-do list this week. Measurable progress. Minor physical and emotional exhaustion. Chuck says I’m pushing too hard and need to give myself some distance. So I forced myself to take the morning off.
I drove to Malibu, which is a different world from Silverlake. I [...]

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Had a really fun ADR session today with Randy Wayne. Randy is this guy:

Randy plays “Dogbowl,” a hyper character with ADD who is in constant motion. To add depth to the sound design, Jeff and I recorded a lot of extra dialog for Randy that we can pepper throughout the movie. So [...]

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We spent about six hours recording foley today. I love working with the sound team. There is nothing like five guys on four computers in one room working toward one goal. Foley is ridiculously fun.
To give a taste, we need to Foley the sound of a very inebriated character peeing in the shower.
Not [...]

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Every sound in a movie is built by a sound designer. Often, the only sound being recorded on set is the actor’s voices. And even then, the actors are often re-recorded in a carefully controlled studio during post-production.
The Last Hurrah was filmed at a house party with as many as 50 dancing, partying extras. [...]

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The wonderfully talented Dominic Mazzoni has signed on to be our composer for The Last Hurrah. And I am absolutely thrilled.
Jay (editor) and I went to college with Dominic and have always known him as a great jazz composer. After school Dominic got a second degree, worked at JPL as a geologist, [...]

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