ARTICLES OF WAR goes to Skywalker Ranch

I just added a new production feature on the site, "Skywalker Ranch," detailing my recent trip to Lucasfilm's Skywalker Sound. It's all about how Ryan Shore wrote and conducted ARTICLES OF WAR's original orchestral score.

I've always wanted to work at Skywalker, and the place more than lived up to its reputation... a real dream-come-true type of situation.

But hey, enough spoilers, it's time to visit...

Skywalker Ranch

Final poster

Here's the final release poster for ARTICLES Of WAR! You can download a super hi-rez version in the 'Downloads' section of the site - here's a quick link:

ARTICLES OF WAR Press Kit Photos

Sir Mix-A-Lot

After months of preparation, I'm really excited to be mixing ARTICLES OF WAR tomorrow over at SoundOne, one of the best post-production houses on the East Coast. This will be my third visit to SoundOne - I recorded the movie's voiceover element in two sessions over the last year, but now we'll be occupying one of the mixing stages ("Studio D", I'm told). Finally hearing the movie in glorious surround sound is going to be surreal.

I'm teaming up with a great mixer, Martin Czembor, who's worked on a lot of really cool projects, from Alex Woo's acclaimed REX STEELE: NAZI SMASHER (has there ever been a better movie title?) to the great PBS documentary series CARRIER, which follows around the USS Nimitz on a 6 month tour-of-duty (it's rapidly filling up my home DVR).

This is the second-to-last step in finishing the movie - after Friday, all that will be left is transferring the digital picture to 35 millimeter film. 

Film festivals, here we come.

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...)