In the immortal words of Porkins: "Almost... there!"

It's taken a few more weeks (OK, fine, months) than I expected, but after many late nights reviewing every single frame of animation, I've officially locked picture on ARTICLES OF WAR. 

Now that I've finished my tweaks (I swear, on this movie, I've pretty much tweaked my tweaks), the film is now in the hands of brilliant sound designer Joe Pleiman. He's already assembled an amazing collection of of sound effects, but needs just a couple of short weeks to put in his finishing touches (including some new airplane ambience, which he recorded when he heard the unique tone of the air exchangers encased in the underground garage beneath the Main House at Skywalker Ranch... how cool is that?)

Next stop: The final mix, when we blend Ryan Shore's score, Joe's sound effects, and actor Clay Adam's performance into something that's gonna sound amazing. I can't wait. Post-production is by far my favorite part of moviemaking...

Skywalker Sound, here I come!

It's been too long since my last post-production update, but I just got some great news... 

I've wanted to visit Lucasfilm's Skywalker Ranch since I was a little kid checking out my public library's beat-up copy of "The Making Of Star Wars" for the millionth time, and I never thought I'd get the opportunity to actually bring one of my movies there. 

But thanks to the heroic efforts of my composer, Ryan Shore, I'm headed out to Northern California in just a few short weeks to record the score for ARTICLES OF WAR. Ryan's written an incredible score, and watching him conduct the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra at the Ranch's Technical Building (take a virtual tour here!) will be a dream come true. 

The whole post-production team is going to be spending the night at the Ranch at the Skywalker Inn, where each room is dedicated to a different film pioneer. I'm crossing my fingers that the Winsor McCay room is still available...

Mellart

Thanks to comics journalist Marcos Milone, who featured one of my background paintings from ARTICLES OF WAR on his Mellart blog. And now I'm blogging about his blog. All that's left is for somebody else to blog about my blog featuring his blog.

Trailer

If you're new to the site and looking for the trailer for ARTICLES OF WAR, it's located in the "Downloads" section of the site - there's always that pretty navigation bar up top, but let's face it, "navigation bars" are so late-90s, right?

OK, just 'cause it's 2007 and I'm all about saving a couple of seconds, here's some helpful shortcuts:

ARTICLES OF WAR trailer - Quicktime

ARTICLES OF WAR trailer - YouTube

(The director in me begs you to watch using Quicktime, but Oprah just devoted an entire show to YouTube, so I guess that's what the kids like these days...)

ADR session

This summer, I visited the famed New York recording facility Sound One, and watched the engineers in Studio K set up what looked like the world's most expensive microphone in front of Clay Adams. He's the talented actor I cast in the role of "Jim," the narrator of ARTICLES OF WAR. I had a blast directing Clay - he's a close friend who I've known for years, and it was a thrill to see ARTICLES OF WAR projected for the first time (we did a bunch of takes where Clay performed in front of the finished animation).

Sound One is a fun place for a filmmaker to work - the hallways are plastered with Scorsese posters (which always have the best voiceovers, something I took as a good omen). After I thanked the engineers for running such a smooth operation, they told me it was no problem. "When Marty's in town," they explained, "we're here the entire summer."

That's awesome.

Of course, I could only afford an afternoon, but it was worth it - Clay really delivered a great performance. I'll be returning to Sound One later this year to mix the film - next time, I gotta get a photo of the engineering booth... it's got more buttons than Sulu's station on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

She'll drink you under the table

I'm not much for autographs, but I confess I do have one - just one - hanging up on my wall. It's a signed picture of Karen Allen as "Marion Ravenwood" from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

And today, I learned she's in the new INDIANA JONES movie. Man, this is cool.

New feature!

I just added a brand new production feature on the site, "Don Allen's Nose Art," detailing the development of one of the key pieces of artwork in ARTICLES OF WAR - the nose art of the Dakota Zephyr, the B-24 featured in the film.

Although the Dakota Zephyr is a fictional plane, I based her nose art on "Ill Wind?," an actual design created in 1943 by Don Allen, a veteran from the 4th Fighter Group, 334th Fighter Squadron, 8th Air Force.

But hey, enough spoilers...

Don Allen's Nose Art