Anna Akatherine

I was really interested in seeing a lot of the films playing at Cucalorus - particularly ones like Princess Cyd, Mr. Roosevelt, Porcupine Lake , and Life as Zucchini . Unfortunately I found the process of attending them very difficult. While being significantly outside of the price range I have to spare every month, when I did indeed hand over the amount required to buy tickets on the first floor of Thalian - as soon as I made it to the second floor I was told that the theater was filled to its fire safety capacity and I wouldn’t be allowed in. I understand that fire codes must be respected and they’re doing their job to ensure the safety of everyone in the theater, but I have to admit it was disappointing to have to walk back downstairs and drive all the way home, having lost the gas to get there and back, and having to miss out on the plans I refused in order to go to the festival without actually getting to see the film. The first time this happened I just resolved to go the next d...

Editing was somewhat of a challenge concerning the audio - because the water was so loud in the background of each dialogue clip, when we cut between them, you can hear the water changing places. We did solve this though, for the most part, by cross-dissolving the audio at each cut and using a high-pass to block out some of the boat engine noises. We had to color it to carry the transition of colors through sunset, and the actor's skin came out a little green, so we color corrected that. The shot placement was fairly straightforwards since we had storyboarded so carefully - we just had to drop things into place and judge the pacing. Some of the cuts are difficult to judge the pacing for - I learned things like you should cut before the actor looks away, because when they look at something, it prepares the audience to see what they're looking at as the next shot, and when this doesn't happen, it becomes misleading.

The Master Shot scene went well I think - I got to the location at 1 pm and began setting up the equipment - everyone was on set by 4, and we started filming at 5 - before we were rehearsing and managing equipment. We filmed just around sunset, wrapping up right after. Everyone left by 8 pm. I brought water for the cast and crew but in retrospect next time we should bring a cooler to keep it cold, it was very hot. We had a last minute actor cancellation for the executioner so he had to learn his lines very quickly, but he ddi well under the circumstances. I'm very satisfied with the actress's performance. It was extremely difficult to do sound with the wind and the water being so loud, but I think we still managed to get some alright audio. It will just require a bit more care in post-production.