LUNG II Update

As expected, post-production on LUNG II reached completion in less time than FLOWERS took. A little over three month's worth compared to FLOWERS' five months. The rough cut was done within the first 30 days, during which Phil shot additional material. I only had to shoot one insert, an easy cutaway shot to fix a minor gaffe in one scene. No 2nd Unit Director credit this time, thank you very much! Another week or two of fine-tuning, then the picture was locked. Editing went remarkably fast & smooth. On FLOWERS, Phil sent me lots of notes for revisions and changes throughout post-production but for LUNG II he was pretty much consistently happy with the segments that I submitted via Vimeo. This isn't to say that there won't be any deleted or alternate scenes on the supplemental features. We seemed to be of one mind, so to speak, with a cinematic rapport that got translated through his footage. Hard to describe how natural and fluid the process was. Like FLOWERS, this film's setting is far from the real world even though much of it takes place outdoors. Phil created some gruesomely fascinating images. Since horror is where my heart is, I felt right at home with the footage. There was so much of it! Individual takes would hold for a very long time and I hated to leave some of them unused and unseen. As I skimmed through the footage the solution became apparent: time-lapse. Skimming is something an editor always does when searching for a certain moment. Rapidly zipping through extensive shots simply by sliding the cursor over it. These fast-motion tricks gave some of those bizarre shots an added surreal quality that fit perfectly within the context of the nightmarish scenario. There were plenty of opportunities for other stylistic choices throughout the movie. It's so cool that horror films so easily lend themselves to all kinds of nifty visuals. And sound as well! It was near the end of FLOWERS' post-production when I discovered that Final Cut Pro X had a built-in sound effects library. 1300 audio clips right under my nose! D'oh! It got utilized a lot for LUNG II as well as some of the sounds I'd already created last year. Also, I recorded a bunch of new foley for specific LUNG II sound effects.

FLOWERS' music maestro, Mark Kueffner joined us again in early October. We simultaneously worked on creating the soundscape for LUNG II. Mark was pretty much given carte blanche immediately to compose however he felt was correct for the scenes. He kept nailing it every time! After Mark submitted the first few tracks, I decided to share the Sound Design credit with him because his music, his choices for certain instruments & atmospheric sounds were so spot-on that Phil & I agreed to bring his music more up-front this time! It's another fantastic score that really bolsters the movie. I've listened to this score with headphones and am really impressed with the rich depth and nuances. I'll say it again, we're incredibly lucky to have such a skilled and talented composer! The original soundtrack can be pre-ordered at amazon.

You can also pre-order the DVD from Phil's online store:

Like last year's original release of FLOWERS this will be another bare-bones disc with only the trailer as a supplement to the movie. It's already been authored and duplicated. Release date is February 16, 2016.

I think that date is the anniversary of FLOWERS' release last year. Rave reviews for FLOWERS continue to appear on the internet. I'm anxious to see what kind of response that LUNG II gets! What's next? Well, that depends. I've still got SINISTRE on the back burner. Nearly half of the new edit was done when I started LUNG II. There are other little projects waiting in the wings such as the supplements for a potential bigger release of LUNG II. A couple of featurettes have already been completed but there are more possiblities. Personally, I've been taking it easy since the holidays, catching up on movies, chipping away at the mountain of unwatched discs in the movie room. I think I've watched more movies in the past 3 weeks than in all of 2015!