ELLIPSIS: POST PRODUCTION
We were fortunate…
to have our editor/post-supervisor, Stephen Pfeil, on the team since the beginning. It has been such a huge help to have our editor involved in the storytelling process since the start as it has made the transition from production to post so smooth. After reviewing Stephen’s initial cuts of the short, we all agreed that the story would benefit from some additional photography. So at the end of March, we gathered with a reduced crew to film some brief shots that we felt clarified and enhanced a couple key moments in the film. The additional photography was a big success and the new shots fit seamlessly into the cut. Once we picture locked with Stephen, we were able to move onto to sound mixing, score, and visual effects.
Ellipsis was our first project to have an original score
and we were very fortunate to have Jonathan Parham as our composer. Aside from composing music, Jonathan is a sound mixer on set here in New Orleans, which is how he and Andre met. Over the course of a few sessions, we worked with Jonathan to focus and adapt his composition to fit our story. Working with Jonathan was a fantastic experience. We found a great working language that helped us get our ideas across and it was amazing to watch Jonathan interpret those ideas into music in real time. What we ended up with is a beautiful and subtle score that seamlessly accents and enhances the film.
Simultaneously,
our post sound team of Tyler Heath (not pictured) and Aidan Dykes were busy working away at mixing and recording sound effects. Aidan has created some incredible sound effects through his foley work. After our first mixing session, we discussed re-recording a few lines of dialogue that had some quality issues. So Aidan set up an ADR session at his studio and we brought one of our actors, Audrey LeCrone, in to do some re-recording. This was our first time doing ADR and it was honestly a blast. Aidan is a wizard at the controls and it was the first time we’d seen Ellipsis on any kind of big screen. We met about a week later to do the final mixing session with the final score and new ADR audio and it sounded phenomenal. We could not be happier with our post sound experience!
While all of this work was being done on the sound front…
Our VFX Supervisor, Shawn Lovette, was hard at work creating a digital frozen skin effect. One of the characters in Ellipsis has her hands frozen in ice. To create this effect, we decided to do a mix of practical and visual effects. On set, our makeup artist, Ashley Kent, created an ice effect using a combination of gel and solid makeup. Then Shawn enhanced the color and texture of this effect in post. This involved tracking the motion of her hands in each shot and applying a layered color effect. The design process takes a decent amount of time, but then the effect literally has to be tracked frame-by-frame to each shot. This is an incredibly fascinating and lengthy process. We even took a turn at tracking some of the shots to help Shawn expedite the process. Once Shawn’s work was complete, the final VFX shots were sent to Stephen to incorporate into the cut.
The final stage…
of our post process was color. For this, we were very lucky to work with colorist extraordinaire, Bradley Greer. Bradley’s body of work is impressive to say the least and we were fortunate enough to have a full coloring session with him. Andre and Erik, along with Stephen and DP, Bron Moyi, all met Bradley at his studio one fine Saturday afternoon and went over the look of each scene and each shot. Bradley was a marvel to watch. He was able to isolate and adjust portions of the frame and manipulate the light and color to astounding results. We spent six hours in the dark working over each shot and came away with something really special.