SINISTRE remaster update

All the 1994 raw camera footage that was shot for SINISTRE has been converted and imported into FCPX. Man, that was a chore! Those little SVHS-C cassettes (26 of them!) have been in and out of various editing decks so many times that there are some unfortunate sections of tape mangling and other signs of deterioration. Not so many to make the project a lost cause but enough to be frustrating. Dropouts, comet-tails, bumps where it hadn't been stored properly, etc.. Also, I'm somehow, inexplicably, mysteriously missing TWO raw camera tapes! No idea of why.. No recollection of what happened to them. No memory of using them somewhere else or if they were destroyed for some reason. Just gone. However, I'll have to source the edit master for some shots anyway because of the previously mentioned flaws. All the sound effects and music masters were imported as well. I even found a behind-the-scenes tape that I shot in Clark Carter's home studio during his composition of the score.

His music played clean by itself in stereo sounds great! All the music & effects in the old masters had to be in mono due to the analog limitations. Such a shame that his score could never be heard in all it's glory. ..yet. :) I forgot that there were some mis-cues during the recording where Clark (who was performing parts of it live during recording) messed up and had to start over. That will give me some extra stuff to play with for sections that need to be replaced. There are some little pops and ticks in this tape's hifi audio because I originally recorded the masters on USED tapes! I was probably being a cheapskate doing that. I was given some old SVHS tapes from our cable company that were destined for the trash bin where they belonged. What an idiot I was! Back in the day, I didn't realize until later during playback that the audio wasn't perfect, but now with the magical FCPX, I can manipulate things and smooth out the bumps. I'm thinking that I'll also likely record some more foley. Analog was so damned limiting back then. Whatever shortcomings the video will have will hopefully be accompanied with better sound at least. I also have a couple of ideas for new shots to shoot. If I do that, it'll be on miniDV because I don't have the SVHS camera anymore. Hopefully it'll match the images close enough. Might have to transfer it to VHS and physically abuse the tape for that though.. ;) While I was at it, I also converted a bunch of stuff from the previous 1995 version including the old cheesy music by Larry Simmons. Not sure what I would do with it. Maybe create a separate audio track to select on a DVD. It's pretty rough listening though, compared to Clark's music. I have foggy memories of Larry performing on his keyboard live during recording while Dan Skinner and Paul Rousselot accompanied on drum machine & bass on another set of keys. Lots of missteps & slop but it all went into the old version like that. They weren't using computerized keyboards back then where everything got layered & saved ahead of recording time. I wonder whatever happened to Paul and Larry? Haven't seen or heard from them in almost two decades. SINISTRE will never look like a clean, pristine digital movie that we're used to seeing these days. The phrase "warts & all" comes to mind. There are noise filters and lots of other tools I can use to improve the image, so wish me luck! Here's a selection of what I have to work with:

My other editing gig will be Madison Strain's short film, "Bits n' Pieces." Mike Strain, Madison's dad, deliverd the raw footage hard drive last week. I was gonna put SINISTRE on hold to edit this but there's a little more footage needed for BnP yet. That'll come later this week, I'm told. Soon as I have everything, I'll proceed. 95% of it has already been scrutinized and imported. By "scrutinized" I mean that I viewed all the raw footage and chose the best takes to import for editing. They're ready to go and I've actually gotten a few shots on the timeline just to get it off the ground. So I've got two projects going at the same time. I'll try not to rush "Bits n' Pieces" in order to get back to SINISTRE, but it shouldn't take too long to complete. At the moment I'm glad to have all the footage and sounds imported. My desk was a shambles with all the SINISTRE tapes and the SVHS deck and converter gadgets everywhere. ..dang, I should have taken a picture of that cluttered chaos!