This process is often overlooked and misunderstood by filmmakers. A proper D.I. (digital intermediate) is crucial to the storytelling. When filmmakers famously skip this process (PT Anderson for example), it is for a highly motivated and personal reason that is in tune with the central theme of the project. One only needs to watch what a proper DI can do to understand how important it is to the process.

Local Hero Post has included before and after video clips from our film on their site under “Main” and “Color Correct.” Check it out.

Happy New Year!

2008 was completely filled with editing and the completion of post production on The Attic Door, in which we were fortunate enough to work with some really wonderful people. We now look to 2009 and cannot wait to embark on the film’s final journey, it’s exhibition. We cannot begin to express how fortunate we were to have made this film and how excited we are to share it with everyone, especially the people who have been following this film for a long time through our blogs, web series, and word of mouth. Stay tuned as we hope to be debuting the official theatrical poster within the next few weeks.

I found this great picture of Danny and I taken last January at Sundance and marvel at how much has changed since then.

I can’t believe Christmas is next week! On Monday Danny and I got together to do our annual The Attic Door Christmas cards (look for yours in the mail soon). We are so thankful to have such wonderful and loyal supporters of this film and many new friends of the film as well.

While filling out the hundereds of cards it was nice to think back on the wonderful people of Kanab, our stellar production crew and our wonderful post production team. Amother year and come and gone and we are so glad that you are in our lives. Please keep us updated on what you guys are working on, who you are dating or marrying, and all these other wonderful things that maybe going on in your lives.

And of course we will update you guys on the film’s progress and what is coming up for Danny, myself and Nightlight Pictures.

Merry Christmas And have a wonderful New Year!

Thanks to everyone who helped make our BEHIND THE ATTIC DOOR podcast series such a success. For those of you new to the blog, we have received several emails wondering where the film is now in it’s production process. The video podcast series is set during the principle photography of our film during the summer of 2007. Over the past year and a half, we’ve edited, score, color corrected, and added all the final elements to finish the film. Currently, we are applying to film festivals and awaiting a premiere screening.

We documented the post production process on our blog and also cut together a few podcast along the way. Please check them out:

PICTURE LOCK!!!!

Director Danny Daneau shares the experience of the final two month crunch to get through the editing of the film.

Read More

MUSIC SCORING LOCK!!!

Video from music scoring session on May 17th, 2008.

Read More.

Finished Film with A New Title

Finished Film with A New Title! from The Attic Door on Vimeo.

Read More.

Second Part in a Series. Read Part 1.

Danny was very clear early in the process that he felt it was important to make this a silent score. We kept removing elements and stripping down the cues until only what was needed remained. There are cues in this movie that have 15 seconds of rests in them. There is something very uneasy with music not coming in when you expect it to. We also had extreme dynamic ranges so that when the loud and scary moments happen in the film they seem even more powerful because of the contrasts to all the silence. Danny talked about having the music reflect the terrifying loneliness the characters are faced with. Scott Uhlfelder’s cinematography especially in the landscape scenes already reflects this and I tried to underline this by playing with open intervals, long rests, sliding strings and so on.

All the preparations that I did on beforehand allowed me to do the actual scoring very quickly. From the time I received the final cut until we had recorded the score, there had only been 4 weeks. But this would have been much harder if I hadn’t had the chance to let the movie and the ideas mature gradually over time. The fact that I had a fantastic team, including violist Hillary Thomas who recorded string effects for demo purposes, copyist Matt Novack, conductor Susie Bench, engineers Alex Levin and Paul Apelgren, and of course the fantastic musicians (Nancy Roth, viola, Armen Ksajikian, cello and Karl Vincent, contrabass) made this not only much smoother, but also possible. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Danny, who is an incredibly talented filmmaker, and his wonderful team. I hope to get a chance to do it again very soon!

Learn more about Kristin by visiting her website: www.kristindyrud.com

Part 1: The Beginning

Working on The Attic Door as a composer has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I was brought on board in the summer of 2007 when a mutual filmmaker friend brought Danny and me together. I was introduced to the story through communicating with Danny over email and reading the script. As the editing process started a few months later, I got the chance to watch different evolving versions of the film. After watching the first cut I spent a whole week, partially in a cold and quiet loft in Norway, which seemed to be a good environment to try to get underneath the skin of this movie. I focused solely on the film and its dramatic and emotional content without thinking of music at all. I felt it was crucial to understand the film 110 % to be able to come up with the right musical concept later. I had the luxury of time to do this and wanted to take full advantage of it. So I spent my time reflecting and doing research such as listening to a lot of contemporary music (Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Stephen Scott, John Cage) and watching movies with unusual scores (There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men).

Then I started working out ideas that I presented to Danny and our producer Erica. The first round of ideas demonstrated how we could maximize the instruments to create as full of a sound as possible, whereas the second round was focused on how to do as much as possible dramatically with as few musical elements as possible. We ended up steering away from a lot of the ideas that were created during this period, but one of the ideas that we stuck with was the decision to limit the sound to four instruments only and that we wanted to use these instruments in every possible way. The idea was to represent how Caroline and Darrell utilize the natural resources surrounding them in order to survive. Interesting and creative solutions happen when you set limitations for yourself, which is what we strove for. I chose the viola, cello, contrabass and piano because of their timbre and versatility. The idea of writing a string based score without having a single violin seemed attractive to me because it was something I had never done before. And I felt that the sound of the lower strings better represented the story of the film. The piano was also great because some of the non traditional effects such as fish line bowing, rubbing and hitting the strings inside the instrument created unique colors that well accompanied the dramatic content of the scary scenes (listen to the example below). My goal was to make as organic of a score as possible, so there are no effects other than what naturally comes from the instruments.

Learn more about Kristin by visiting her website: www.kristindyrud.com

Today is the last day of post-production on A Monster in the Attic! This news is very bittersweet for me, as Danny is currently at Local Hero doing the final layback while I am at work on Entourage. It feels weird to not be with Danny and the movie on its last day, but I am really excited about the film’s next step – a film festival run and distribution.

Last week we had the opportunity to screen the film with a full 5.1 mix in the screening facility at Would Work Sound with our engineer Evan Frankfort. It was awesome seeing and hearing the film for the first time on a big screen. While watching, I was also reflecting on how much we accomplished with this little film. Traveling with our cast and crew to a small town in Utah that is hours from an airport, we built an amazing structure, faced flooding and unbearable heat and shot a period film with only two child actors. Then the film returned to both Los Angeles and Florida and went through a nearly year-long editing and special effects period.

While watching a finished film, it is easy to forget all of the hard work that goes into making it. So again, I thank everyone who helped make this movie possible; I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished and I can’t wait to share it with you with full sound and surprising color correction.

Another thing I realized while watching the film at Would Work is that I am ready to begin this process all over again. Apparently doing two features back to back didn’t teach me a lesson . I hope to work with many people from the Monster Crew again soon.

Tomorrow, Danny heads back to Orlando and I am truly going to miss him. Hopefully we will begin development on a new film very soon and I’m sure we will blog about that too! I can’t wait for the long iChat sessions and revision after revision because if there’s one thing I have learned from this film is that I love this process.

These are not easy times for Independent film or Independent filmmakers, but I am optimistic for our futures.

Hey… Soooo.. This is awkward…Its nice seeing you again blog. I’m sorry I haven’t written or visited you lately. Its been a tough/crazy/rewarding couple of months for us. Danny made a trip to LA and met up with our composer Kristin Dyrud and our Sound Mixer Erik Schuiten. I have been working at a breakneck pace on Entourage which also is why I haven’t been able to blog. But enough excuses…..

On Saturday April 19th, we had a wonderful day of ADR with our cast and Erik in his studio at Endless Noise. After the session we went up to the Johnsons’ house in Valencia California. The Johnsons and Davenports had a wonderful BBQ prepared for us!
Our little reunion included Cory Johnson, Carmen Tabanyi, Natalie Sakai, Kristin Dyrud, Bryce Hudson, Eric Ernst, Danny, and of course Madison, Jake, Caryn, Gage, and Zach!!!!!

It was really wonderful seeing everyone again and being able to relax and have a great time after all of the hard work that has gone into post production. Kristin and Natalie had a chance to meet some of the wonderful people that worked with us during production which is rare for a post producer and a composer.Thank you so much to The Johnsons and The Davenports!!! Check out all of the fun pics!

I am proud to announce that the score for our film is complete! Our composer, Kristin Øhrn Dyrud, did such an amazing job creating a complex and wonderful soundtrack. I cannot tell you how proud I am. The following video was from our scoring session on May 17th, 2008 at Stewart Levin Productions.