...which is to say, the day has come where I show the movie to the studio for the first time. We've worked our asses off the last few months getting it in shape and I'm happy with it. Depending on how well it goes tonight they will either:
A) Praise my work, and send me off to do the sound mix and color correct for final release.
B) Fire me and bring in a new editorial staff to save the movie.
C) Dump the project and cut their losses.
My guess is it will be something between (A) and (B)
Great to see people out at Michael Showalter's show in L.A. the other night.
He was promoting his new book Mr. Funnypants
So Ken Marino and I came by to promote OUR new book:
In other news...we're deep deep in the editing process on Wanderlust. Most of it is Ken Marino and I sitting in a room with editors David Moritz and Rob Nassau slogging through the footage, swapping out jokes, lines, improvs, tightening then loosening. I've been editing video on a regular basis since I was about 12 years old and I'm still totally amazed how a moment can go from not funny to funny after an adjustment of 3 frames (1/8 of a second). It's unbelievably time consuming but there's no substitute for going back through every single thing we shot, making sure we're exploiting all possibilities.
I really can't imagine how they did this before the advent of non-linear editing on a computer. I did my first student film Aisle Six in the traditional film process, editing on a flatbed machine, literally cutting each shot with a razor blade and splicing it together. Doing a feature this way, even with a great staff, would drive me insane. As it is, I'm going insane every day having to use the Avid editing software (one of the two industry standards) which I find to be woefully antiquated and non-intuitive compared to most modern Mac applications. I'm hoping that my next feature I will either be able to (A) edit on Final Cut Pro OR (B) they will have redesigned the Avid.
Meanwhile we're also deep in editing the next season of Childrens Hospital which debuts this summer and it's gonna be great. I hope you'll all check it out. Plus a DVD of the first two seasons packed with cool extras will be coming out May 24th!
AND - if you want to audition for my next project you can BUY yourself the privilege if you're the highest bidder and it goes to a very good cause. Info here
And finally - if you're interested in reading a pretty long interview with me, there's a nice one in the current issue of the (awesome) magazine The Believer.
The coolest part about it is seeing my face drawn in one of those cool etching illustrations.
Okay that's it for now - back to editing...if you have anything to say post a comment here on the blog I will try to respond!
Hello everyone - there's a BIG update coming soon but in the mean time wanted to let you all know that I'll be joining my friend Michael Showalter on stage tomorrow night (Sat 3/5) at the ECHO in Los Angeles for a fun show celebrating the release of his hysterical new book Mr. Funnypants.
1822 West Sunset Blvd
Just come by or you can order tickets here.
Happy new year everyone. I hope 2011 will be fruitful and blah blah.
Here's an interview I just did for Popgun Chao$.
