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The next day, I slept. I slept all day, only getting up to pee, drink some water, answer the door to collect our missing luggage sent by the airport (don't worry, Dr. Acula, the footage was safely stored on three different hard drives, two of which were FedEx'd home and the third on Cliff's laptop which he carried on the plane), then hop back into bed.

For a few days after that, I examined the footage, picking my selects and making notes. Windham Beacham called me and asked if I had found an editor. When I told him I was going to edit it myself, he told me that if I changed my mind, he would like to suggest someone, a young man named Mike Justice. Mike was a big horror movie fan (he loved Andy Milligan films, which almost set off a red flag in my head), and upon checking out some of his videos on YouTube, I could see he was very funny and knew how to cut comedy. He had also edited two gay indie features, Rob Williams' ROLE/PLAY and David Kittridge's PORNOGRAPHY: A THRILLER. Out of curiosity, I watched both films and thought the editing was quite good. He obviously knew how to cut dramatic dialogue scenes as well as suspense stuff. Mike also had the reputation of being a very fast cutter. For the first time, I began mulling over the idea of letting someone else cut the movie.

I ran the idea past Dennis Ashe, my executive producer, who felt that it would be a good idea to have someone else cut the film so I could go back to work. I had taken a month off and my finances were running low, so I needed to start making money again. I called Mike and discussed the project with him, and he was very excited to do it. He really wanted to cut horror, but he had never gotten a chance. This would be the opportunity he was looking for. He had an editing system at home, but mine was better, so it was decided that he would come to my house every Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 to edit. Windham vouched for his integrity, so I gave him a key and his own security code, and told him that I would check his work every evening. It became apparent that Mike knew what he was doing, and I let him run, leaving him notes and sometimes making changes myself, usually in the form of removing an unnecessary shot or shifting a dissolve sooner or later.

As the film began to near a picture lock, I began scouting for composers to do the music. Originally, I wanted to hire my pal Rossano Galente, who had conducted orchestras for some Hollywood pictures, but he was slated to work on the soundtrack for THE THING prequel, and was unavailable. This was probably for the best, I thought, because I wanted the movie to have a rock and roll score, and Rossano, by his own admission, was not very good at that kind of music. So, one morning, I was contacted by a composer on Facebook who said he had been following my progress on the film via Facebook updates, and he was interested in scoring the film. He had just scored another horror movie and suggested I check out its trailer and his website for other music samples. The music was a hard-driving rock score, and I thought it sounded great. I asked him if he would mind reading the script and doing a 3-minute sample piece to give me some idea of what he could do with it. He agreed...and yes, there is a reason I'm not saying his name.

Within a few days, the music came back and it was quite good. I could imagine it playing over the end credits of the movie. So I told him he was hired and sent him the first cut of the film with timecode.

Now, in the meantime, Mike had taken the film quite far. It wasn't quite finished, still needing some sound effects and some color correction, but he wanted to leave Los Angeles and move home to Portland, where he said he could finish the movie. I drove him to Burbank airport and hugged him goodbye. He told me he would cut a teaser trailer and have it to me within a couple of weeks. I sent him the sample piece of music the composer had done for me, as well as some library music I had licensed the rights to, and he cut the trailer that I posted on this thread some time ago. I put the trailer on the Blakk Flamingo Pictures website, the BITE MARKS Facebook fan page (if you're not a friend, join now!) and finally, on YouTube. At this point, we are just about to hit 4500 views of the teaser. Compliments were pouring in on Facebook and I was getting email after email from people saying they couldn't wait to see the movie. Everything was great.

Then, the first piece of music came in.

To be continued...

DOCTOR 13

i had received the first piece of actual music scored for the film from the composer in an email, and I sync'd it up with the picture, then hit "Play" on both. My nerves were tingling as I anticipated seeing a scene with some music scored. A week before, I had spent about three hours on the phone with the composer, who lived in Brooklyn, going through the film together, deciding where the music should start and stop and what kind of sound it should have. I sent him links to various pieces of other films whose score I liked found on YouTube, including the Costello/Wolf Man hotel room scene from ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, "Come to Me" from FRIGHT NIGHT and "The Shades of Sennett" from THE PINK PANTHER. smile slowly melted off my face as I listened. It was good music, just not right for the scene. In fact, it was totally wrong for the scene. I wondered if I had made a mistake.

I called him on the phone and tried to explain in better detail what I wanted. He didn't seem to understand the concept of suspense music or how music should compliment what's on the screen. He tried again and sent me a few more new pieces, but I found myself sitting at the computer listening to them with the video and just yelling "No! No! No!" After a few more phone calls and emails, he finally sent me a piece of music that worked. "That's good!" I phoned him. "Now, just keep the other pieces in the same tone." But it was really hit and miss. Little motions and movements that should have been musically complimented were ignored. It seemed as though he was composing the music without watching the movie. I pushed and tugged at his ability, trying to get the right sound, the right feel. He was getting there, but very slowly, and the music never knocked me out of my chair.

In the meantime, the main titles were bothering me. The editor and I had decided to just start off the film with "Blakk Flamingo Pictures presents" and "BITE MARKS" and then save all the other credits for the end of the movie. But this didn't sit right with me. I wanted something fun and exciting that would list all the main credits, be fairly unique and also set the tone of the film. After a few days of mulling this over, I was tooling around on YouTube looking for more music samples for the composer when I at random decided to listen to the score of the original NIGHT OF THE DEMONS main title sequence. As I watched the animated opening (the best part of the movie), a bell went off in skull: we would do an animated opening sequence! But how much would it cost? How difficult would it be and how time consuming? I went to the BITE MARKS Facebook fan page and left a post asking if anyone had animation experience or knew someone who did, to please contact me.

Within a few hours, my friend from San Francisco Mike Stabile told me about a young man here in L.A. who could do really good computer animation. He had animated the opening credits for an internet show called "The Tim & Roma Show". I checked his work out and was pleased to see that the credits were a parody of the old "Batman" TV show. They looked pretty good, so Mike put me in touch with him. We met at Denny's and I showed him my storyboards for the sequence. He was very excited and we worked out a price. He said he had been unable to attend school that semester and could get started on it right away. I asked him to send me updates and samples every two days and he agreed. I told him that I would create a deal memo for him to sign and get it to him right away.

A deal memo! It struck me like a flyswatter on the back of the neck. While the composer and I had worked out terms, money and payment, we had not created a deal memo for him! I had my husband create two memos, one for Jovanni the animator and the other for the composer. They were attached to emails and sent off. The next day, there was an email in my mailbox from the composer. There was a problem. He wanted to register all his music for the film with ASCAP so he would get royalties, and he wanted to retain the copyright to the music. This didn't sound right to me, and I thought it was unacceptable. I talked to the executive producer Dennis about it, and he thought it was a bum deal. I relayed the info to the composer who was put out, insisting that every composer got royalties when the film played on television and they also retained the copyright to their work. He then said he discussed this with two other composers in New York who backed him up. I spoke with a couple of producers out there, and they said that while composers WERE entitled to royalties when their music was performed on television, for them to keep the copyright to their music was unheard of. "Does John Williams own the copyright to the STAR WARS theme?" one of them asked me, sarcastically.

The composer was informed that the executive producer was not going to budge on the issue, and the composer said it was a deal breaker. He had scored nearly three-fourths of the movie in four weeks, and although he knew if he quit he would not get paid a nickel, he decided that he would do just that. So now, I was out of a composer and had lost four weeks in having the film scored.

The only saving grace was that the bits of animation coming in from Jovanni was really stunning. The pieces were fun and looked great.   You can see a low-rez clip of the credits here:  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=175657062450242

So, the music that was coming in was simply awesome. I couldn't have been happier. The animated titles were finished (I had asked Jovanni to switch out the name of the new composer with that of the new, and to have the crows on the scarecrow's shoulders to steal his eyes when they flew off) and he brought the piece over to my house uncompressed on a jump drive. He did an amazing job.

The BITE MARKS: THE MOVIE fan page on Facebook was getting new fans every day, and the teaser trailer on YouTube was gaining views by the hundreds. We had received invitations from the Tel Aviv Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, FilmOut (a San Diego Gay & Lesbian fest) and Dead by Dawn: the International Film Festival of Scotland to submit BITE MARKS for their festivals. In fact, one of them wanted to go ahead and book it, just based on the teaser trailer!

Trouble was brewing from the old composer, who wanted money for his music which was playing in the teaser, so with great reluctance, I had to take it down and have the editor make a new one. As expected, the views for the new trailer were slow in coming, but a deal was worked out with the composer and the original teaser went back up.

But with the film half-scored, it was mid-morning about two weeks ago that I realized my iPhone's volume was turned off. I keep the phone by my bed, but the sounds of incoming mail, texts and Facebook alerts disturb my husband, so I turn the sound off before going to bed. This usually results in my forgetting to turn it back on when I wake up and missing a lot of phone calls. I turned the volume up and got a prompt that I had no access to my voicemails without a password. My husband had set the phone up for me, so I didn't know what my password was, and he quickly fixed it. I saw there were two calls from my composer Rossano, and two voice mails. Without listening to the messages, I called Rossano and got HIS voicemail. I cheerily told him that I had slept late and had the volume on my phone off, but it was now on and I was now awake, and he could call whenever he wished. Then I listened to his voice mail messages.

Message 1: He wanted to talk to me about a piece of music for a certain scene, but he felt that I needed to sit and watch the scene on my computer as he talked to me. So I was to call him back when I got the message.

I bit the inside of my cheek as I began listening to the second message. Rossano's voice was tense, and choked with tears.

Message 2: Rossano told me, while crying, that his boyfriend of eleven years had taken his own life the night before. Apparently he had discovered the body between the first and second messages. He was emotionally destroyed, of course, and said he'd call me later.

My mouth just dropped open, gasping, as I looked at my husband. We knew Rossano and his boyfriend. We'd gone out with them a couple of times to dinner, and they were both friends of ours. This was devastating news. Rossano called me back that night, still crying, to tell me that he had a friend staying with him, that he was crushed, and that he didn't know what to do about the music, as he was too upset to keep scoring. I told him not to worry about it, that he needed to take care of himself, first, and that we'd work something out later. And I meant it.

After I made sure he had someone to stay with him, I hung up the phone. I was worried for Rossano, but I also was worried about the music for my movie, and I felt bad about that. I knew that any thoughts about finishing the music were simply selfish, but I couldn't stop being concerned about it. I had given Rossano a Christmas Eve deadline for the score, but in actuality, there was another 9 days of work time before it had to be done. The editor was returning on January 3rd to finish the film, and we would need the music done by then. But any efforts on my part to push a grieving man to work wouldn't just be selfish, it would be downright despicable, so there was nothing I could do but wait. Wait and see what would unfold.

But the clock wouldn't be still, and it kept ticking...

To be continued...

DOCTOR 13

As a credit to his strength and dedication, Rossano continued sending me pieces of music for the film, and I have to say, they were awesome. I forwarded some to the editor up in Portland, and he replied, "This guy gets you." At this point in time, there are only seven minutes (not including changes) of scoring left in the film, and I've no doubt he will finish soon.

Bits & Pieces: reaction to the teaser trailer from here, YouTube and Facebook have been more than encouraging; they've been amazing. People email me every day salivating to see the movie. I can only hope it lives up to their expectations. We are also getting tentative sniffs from a few distributors, also simply based on the teaser trailer. They want to see it as soon as it's completed.

The opening credit sequence had to be tweaked, so the jump drive was sent back to Jovani Olivera so he can fix it and give it back to me.

Mike Justice, the editor, arrives back in town today to finish the movie. It's expected to be completed by the time he leaves Sunday night.

In the meantime, he completed a full version of the trailer, which you can watch below (caution: it might not be considered work-safe):



Mike just texted me as I was uploading the trailer to say that due to stupidity on his part, his flight will now be arriving at 11:30am at Burbank instead of 9:00am at LAX. This is nice because it means I don't have to sit in traffic for a couple of hours, but it also means we'll get a late start on the day today.

Now, due to the interest in the film, we've set up a special free screening here in Los Angeles. We'll be showing BITE MARKS on Friday, January 28th at midnight at the New Beverly Theater, 7165 W. Beverly Blvd., LA, CA 90036. I hope that everyone who's been following the film's progress will come out in further support. The screening is free, but you need to let me know you're coming and how many you're bringing by emailing your name and party number (for example, John Smith + 4) to RSVP@BITEMARKSTHEMOVIE.COM. It's a 200-seat theater, so help me fill it up!

To be continued...

DOCTOR 13

Well, the editor has returned to Portland. It was a dicey few last days, as our efforts to finish on time went smoothly...UNTIL--the export.

I've run into this before. The movie is cut, the sound is great, the color looks fantastic...now you just have to get it out of your computer. Because of the size of the file (it IS a feature film), exporting can take a long time. Mike wanted to try something different and before he left that night, set the computer to export the film directly to a blank dvd. This was begun at 6:00pm, and at midnight, was still going well. At 3:30am, I got up for my nightly trip to the bathroom, then stepped into my office to check on the progress only to find that an error had occurred and the process had been halted. Clicking on FILE > EXPORT > QUICKTIME, I began another export, but this one would go to my hard drive as a simple Quicktime movie file. I padded back to bed, my gut threatening to twist like a knotted sock.

When I arose hours later, I was delighted to find that the film had completed exporting. Clicking on the icon, the movie opened and began to play, but victory was not mine. Mere seconds into the flick, I realized that the sound was not in sync to the picture, and that there were flashes of green and "jitterings" of white. It was a mess, and I had no idea why. When Mike Justice arrived for work that morning, he was in the dark, too, and we tried exporting a tiny piece of the film, but the results were the same. We were at quite a loss. We had exported the movie before with no problems, why now? Mike sat down and immediately began to surf the web. "I don't mind having the same problem others have had," he said, "because that usually means someone's found a solution. But I hate being the one to discover a new problem, because then you have to find the answer yourself." Within minutes he'd discovered that, in fact, others had experienced the same snag, and luckily they had posted how to solve it. It was a codec problem. Just change the export settings to something other than their current ones, and we should be home-free.

Our original plan was to watch the film on a TV from a dvd and drink champagne to celebrate the movie's finish, but since that would take six to eight hours just to export it, we felt it was better to forego the booze and just watch the film on my computer as it played on Final Cut Pro's timeline. So we did, making final audio level checks, catching the occasional missing sound effect and smacking our foreheads at a couple of misspelled names in the end credits. Finally, we make it through the end, and congratulated each other on a job very well done. As Mike left, we started the film exporting again in a ProRes version to get the absolute best quality, and said goodbye for the night. He would return tomorrow, his last day in town, to watch the movie on TV with me and celebrate.

Fate had other plans. In the morning, I found that the file had exported perfectly, only it wouldn't go into DVD Studio Pro to be burned onto a disc. Texting Mike, he told me to take the file into Compressor, create new files, then pull them into DVD Studio Pro. The problem was that doing that would take another six hours, so there wasn't any need for Mike to come over for our champagne celebration, especially since he had to leave for the airport later that day. Not that either of us would have imbibed anyway. For lunch the previous day, my husband had brought us food from a local fast food place, and now both Mike and I were having digestive "issues". Neither of us could be more than fifteen minutes away from a bathroom at any given time. So even if the dvd was done and in our hands, we couldn't have drunk anything. So the bottle, through the troubling, still is bubbling, still is bubbling on the pallid shelf of Westinghouse just inside my 'frigerator door. Shall be opened--nevermore! Actually, I doubt that last bit.

So, all that remains now is for me to watch the dvd and make sure that everything is fine, then I can call the movie...completed!

To be continued...

DOCTOR 13

The Cast & Crew & Friends screening was last Friday, and it went well, though not without its problems. First, I had asked the New Beverly Cinema (where it played) if I could come in early in the week to test it and make sure it played okay, since I was going to run a copy burned on dvd from DVD Studio Pro. They agreed, and I went in on the Tuesday before and met the theater owner and his projectionist, who, once that night's final film had ended, set up their video projector and put the movie in. It was a thrill to see the film's opening on the big screen, and to his credit, the projectionist began playing with the digital device's controls, altering the blacks, color and volume. I went into the theater to check the focus and the movie looked great. Two female employees stepped inside with me and were immediately captivated by the film, watching it and making little comments about how we did that shot or how did we get Stephen Geoffreys, etc.

I had only meant to watch a little of the film, but the theater crew encouraged me to let it play, and I did, finally leaving after forty-five minutes of it had run. I was excited for Friday, although the owner warned me that Edgar Wright was appearing to introduce and hold a Q&A of the films THE WARRIORS and THE WANDERERS, and that we might be late getting into the theater. We were scheduled for a midnight show, and he said he'd try to rush things along so that we'd get in by 12:30 at the latest.

Over the course of the next three days, the question "Are you nervous?" was the most often-asked one I received. And while usually I'd put on a butch demeanor and answer "No, of course not," this time, I was definitely anxious and had no qualms about saying so. Everyone assured me the screening would be great, and so the hours ticked by, even as the tension in my neck and shoulder muscles grew.

By Friday afternoon, my upper body was so still I could barely move. It was silly, I know, but I couldn't help it. Finally, in an effort to relax, I filled up the tub with hot water, bubble bath and immersed myself. I have a mini-TV screen on the wall of my bathroom and three "Perry Mason" episodes later, I was quite relaxed. My husband Cliff came home from work, and after having dinner and taking a brief nap (the screening WAS at midnight, after all), we headed for the theater. One hundred and sixty people has responded to our invites that they were coming, so I was eagerly anticipating a large crowd and what it could teach me about the movie. While I hoped everyone enjoyed the film, and the cast and crew liked what they saw, I wanted one thing only from the screening: to see how the jokes played. Which ones would work? Which ones would fail?

Windham Beacham, the actor who played Cary, sent me a very sweet email explaining why he wasn't going to the show and how he hoped I wasn't disappointed in him. I wrote him back, explaining that I understood (he doesn't watch his own movies), but that I was disappointed (not in him) that he wasn't going to see the end result and experience the fun.

We were halfway to the theater when I got a text on my cell phone from the theater owner: "The Q&A has pushed the movies late. Your screening is delayed an hour. I don't know what to do. Sorry." Within three minutes of that text, I started getting texts and Facebook pm's from my guests, saying "Do you know the screening is going to be at 1:00am now?" I parked the car and walked toward Beverly Blvd., dreading the info I was going to have to give my guests. It was now 11:30. The film would not start for an hour and a half. We ran into some of Cliff's friends, who told us that it didn't matter, and they were going to go have a few drinks then come back. I told Cliff as we waved goodbye that we wouldn't see them again that night. In front of the New Beverly, a sign had been posted at the box office window relating the bad news, but I was thrilled to see the film title on the marquee, something I was told would not be able to happen.



As more and more of my guests arrived, I had to tell each of them that the movie was an hour late. Some just laughed and waved it off, others frowned with a look of panic in their eyes, hemming and hawing about whether they could stay or not. Some left to get some drinks at a nearby bar, others hung out and chatted as they waited to be let in to the theater. Once again, the owner was very gracious, letting in people who needed to use the restrooms, and about thirty minutes later, putting up another sign that everyone would be given a complimentary popcorn and small drink. I thought this was very considerate of him, but privately told my husband that now everyone would swarm the snack bar to get their treats and that would delay us even more! But it was important that everyone be kept happy.

At around 1:00, the owner came out and said that the movie would be over in ten minutes and asked that the crowd of people in front of the theater move away from the doors, so I herded everyone in a line to the right side of the theater. About one hundred had shown up, and thirty had left, leaving us with a healthy crowd of seventy people.



People began swarming out, and at 1:10, my group began entering the cinema. People leaving saw them and I heard buzzes of "Is there another screening?", "What's going on?" and the like. Sure enough, the line to the snack bar was huge, and I was planning on getting a drink myself, but it could wait. People filed in, staking out their places and got comfortable. A co-worker of Cliff's gave me a rose with a three foot stem and wished me good luck. I kept checking the snack bar line and when there were about eight people left, I decided to start the show. It was now 1:30am as I walked to the front of the theater and picked up a microphone left on the stage. It was live, so I welcomed the crowd, gave a few thanks and then announced the start of the film. I walked back to my selected seat, which was on the right hand side about three-quarters from the front so I could hear the audience, then sat down and felt Cliff grasp my hand.

The film started off well. The animated opening credits were a big hit, as was the music. For the next one hour and twenty-four minutes, I craned my ear, listening for responses to every single joke, every punchline and every jump scare. I was surprised that some of the lines I thought would get big laughs got none and some of the bits I thought were a bit cartoony sparked a huge response. Puzzling.

When the film ended, I got up and thanked everyone for coming out then walked into the lobby to say goodbye to people. Eventually I found myself standing next to the front door getting hugs, kisses and congratulation after congratulation as people exited. I wasn't sure how I ended up there or even why, then I realized that when my father, a minister, ended his sermon, he would stand next to the door and shake everyone's hand as they left. I was unconsciously imitating my father's habit! Mark Pavia, director of THE NIGHT FLIER, gave me a big hug and told me he was proud of me. Benjamin Lutz, who played Brewster the truck driver, hugged me, and I asked him if he was happy with how it turned out, and he just nodded against my neck. Brandon Story, the p.a., hugged me and whispered into my ear, "It's not perfect, but it's a lot of fun!" As he left, I thought, "I know it's not perfect, but WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT PERFECT!?!?"

At the end of the night, after everyone had left, the theater owner came up to me and said he felt so bad about the delay of the movie, that if I wanted to have another screening, this time on a Saturday afternoon, that he would let me do it for free. I thanked him for his hospitality, his professionalism and his graciousness. Outside, the executive producer gave me a box of 4x6 cards with the poster on them and told me how happy he was with the final product. One of his friends gushed about all the horror movie in-jokes and references he noticed, particularly a WAR OF THE WORLDS one.

Back in the car, Cliff told me he liked it, although there were a few "weird" moments. When I asked him to elaborate, he said he would later, he was too tired now. Once home, I literally jumped out of my clothes straight into bed. It was now 3:45 in the morning, and although I would wake up at 7:30, I slept very well for those few hours.

The next day, I kept puzzling over why some of the biggest jokes didn't seem to have a payoff with the crowd. Was it that they weren't funny, or could it be that the audience was too tired to laugh at a movie at 1:30 in the morning. A subsequent phone call to Benjamin Lutz provided another possibility: he was surprised when some of his friends told him that they didn't know it was a comedy; they thought it was supposed to be a serious horror film, and when the jokes happened, they weren't sure they were supposed to laugh. I was really no closer to knowing what worked than I was before.

Another screening? Hmmmm...

To be continued...

DOCTOR 13