In the beginning of 2005 Jarmo and Ruben began the work with a script for a new film. "I Skyggen av sannheten" (ISAS) project was finnished and had it's realease in November 2004, so it was not a surprise that they were planning to write something new after the experiences they got from "ISAS". The plot of the new film is not the most complicated, but more challenging than the previous film. This new film was going to include more action and the the category; "Gangdrama" came quite early in the process.
Casting – How to find actors
Some of the actors from the previous film was good candidates for this one too, but you can still find many new faces. In end of spring 2005, after finishing the script, the search for actors began. Jarmo made a list of the roles and added some candidates for each role. He had also some names of them who had signed a list for upcoming filmroles, after the first night of "ISAS". Even though we held the script a bit secret we allowed the lead roles read through it, and they came with many good improvements. We also posted some "missing actor" papers at the notice boards in the stores regarding roles that we not yet had filled up. And it was not in vain. After that the most part of the roles was filled up, we began to search for shooting dates.
Shooting – A bit of how it went
In the end of June we shot the first scene. In distinction to "ISAS", we used more lights to light up the shooting environment. The result was OK, even though we got much useless results. It's not so easy to get a cellgroup scene to be that exciting.
We got some problems with the sound (like in "ISAS"), so if we had shot this scene one more time, I know we could have done it better. The same month we shooted the first outdoor scene.The third scene was an indoor scene where we needed a mother and father role that we still missed. But few days before the shooting we got two calls (thanks to the papers at the notice boards), one for the mother-role and one for the father-role, and that was it. We now had the perfect «father and mother» for the film. We give thanks to God when such things happends when we need it.
Through the summer and the autumn we shot several scenes. We shot a drugdeal scene, where we still missed the dealers. But the day before shooting we got the perfect person to fit the dealer role.Few days later we shot a skatingscene with one of the top skateboarders in Norway. We thougt of shooting this scene in a skatepark, but it was a rainy day and it seemed that the rain never stopped. Instead we moved underground, to a parkinglot. That worked out really well, though the use of lights could have been better. But it suited to shoot this scene underground, we don't regret that. In the end of the shools autum vacation we shot the fightscene "of the ages"! I have to say that I'm satisfied with the result, though there was a slight alarm noise(not so very annoing in the movie) sounding from the store behind us.
It was unbelievable that no one stopped us that late on a Sunday, with so much noise and fuss that we made in the center of Hvittingfoss. The only thing we noticed was a policecar that slowly and carefully passed by without noticing anything special. And I can say that it's not often a police car drives through the center of Hvittingfoss! But that night they did. The last scenes before the snow came we shot two scenes at a school. The results was very good and a worthy closing for the shootings of 2005. Now we've got to wait until the snow has gone.Editing process – Putting the film togheter
In the Christmas vacation we sat aside time to edit as much as possible of the film. All three (Jarmo, Ruben and John) with the main responsibilities was gathered for a few days. Few weeks earlier John had bought a video editing software (Sony Vegas 6.0) from the US, and he looked forward to check it out. In the beginning everything seemed to go well with the program and the editing, though we noticed some lagg in the raw material. We transfered the film from the camera with an USB-cable to the computers harddirve, a big miss, because the result was one long clip and it took lots of time cutting the files.
Later we realized that a FireWire cable did the job much easier, but the way to realize that was not easy. After carefully editing 3-4 scenes, the quality began to annoy us. We realized that the sound was not perfectly synchronized and the lagg really was a lagg. 3-4 days seemed wasted. The new harddrive was the error, it didn't read or write fast enough. The problem was that the computer had too many harddrives, something that had resulted in wireconnecting- and adressing -failures. We solwed the problem by freeing some space from a working drive, and that was when we recognized that it was USB that made the synchronizing failure with the sound, while the harddrive was guilty in the lagg. After remembering the days we editited "ISAS" and how easy it was, we realized that we, back then, transfered the raw film with FireWire. And it was right! When we now tried to transfer with FireWire it went much easier, every clip was cutted automatically into clips - and we were "on the road again"!
The reason why the editing process has taken so long time, I think, is because that we are doing it much more carefully and accurate now than with "ISAS". "ISAS" was edited in two weekends, this one is not yet finnished and we have used over two weeks of time in total. Some other reasons can be that Vegas 6.0 is more complicated and professional that Pinnacle Studio 9. What we now had done, was that we had edited approximently 35 minutes of the film and some stuff was still unedited. We sat aside 2 days (4. and 26.) in February to edit the rest of the material.
Final touch – Adding effects and layers
In february we slowly began the tuning of the scenes, and we was nearly finished with scene 1 and 2. John, who has the responsibility of the editing improved this further, some weeks later. This process includes adding effects, improving the colors, get a balance between the contrast and the brightness in addition to fix the sound and addning music. Vegas 6.0 is well suited for this and includes many predefined layers, but still most of the layers has to be adjusted to fit each of the scenes, clip for clip, since each clip has different brightness and colors. It requires time, but the results are good! The trailer is corrected, but it is still a bit away from how the final product at last will be. The pictures show what differences it makes. In the final touches of the sound, includes removing of unnecessary bass and noise, increase the bass where it's hollow and highfrequent,
and decrease the volume where it's too high and then make the right volume to suit the music. Another important thing is to make the sound to stay the same between the clips, and at last, add extra sounds and effects where it's required.
DVD – Creating the DVD
John has began to try the DVD software that followed Vegas 6.0, it's called DVD Architect 3.0. It seems pretty good and advanced. We are going to make a little promo DVD with the trailer, and in the same time try subtitle- and menumaking with the program. This DVD we then can handle out to people who wants to advertise the movie a few weeks before viewing it.
Plot
Facts
Music
The Process