ErinLaing.com

The font.

When you think about your credits, you have to think about what you want to communicate to your audience. For Birthday Girl, I wanted to communicate a sense of timelessness and maturity.

One of the reasons why I love Woody Allen’s credits is because they never feel dated. I didn’t want to look back on my film in ten years and cringe at the sight of an outdated font. Nothing in the film suggests a time period, from the production design to the costumes, so I didn’t want the font to be any different.

Even though the film is about kids and takes place at a birthday party, I wanted to communicate a sense of maturity. It’s how I see my main character.

We spent a lot of time deciding on the proper font for the film. Before we even began filming, Matt was suggesting we use Adobe Caslon Pro for the credits, an elegant font used in French Vogue.

The font was a perfect combination of timelessness and sophistication.

The credits.

I wanted to keep the opening credits simple. It’s a 13 minute film and I thought anything other than the film’s title would have been excessive.

We tried placing the title over images, we tried a red title with a black background, but in the end, white on black was the most natural and least obtrusive.

End credits.

We ran into some problems after watching the first test print on 35 mm. We were using Caslon for the end credits as well, but didn’t realise that at a smaller size, the vertical lines in some letters, such as “N” or “R” virtually disappeared. The cast and crew names were illegible as the credits scrolled up.

I wanted to keep the font consistent with the rest of the film, so I insisted that we find another serif font that had the same qualities as Caslon. I think everyone thought I was crazy that I cared whether or not the cast and crew names were in Arial or Georgia, but it was so important to me that the film be consistent from beginning to end. Details!

At the last minute we stumbled upon Cheltenhm BdHd BT. It’s quite different from Caslon, but at a smaller size it was perfect. Thick, legible, elegant and timeless.

We had the film subtitled in French for Télé-Québec. They originally wanted a dubbed version of the film but my preference was to subtitle it. It’s more cost effective and less obtrusive.

The film is called Bonne fête ! in French. (One of the things I learned while subtitling the film is the use of a space between letters and punctuation marks.)

I didn’t realise that film translation is completely different from other forms of translation. Not only is the translator responsible for being faithful to the language, tone and sensibility of the film but they have to do it within the confines of a very precise formula. Film subtitling involves video/audio coordination, timing, choice of words so that the timing can be respected, all done with a strict number of characters per line (I think it’s between 35-40) and very few seconds that you are allowed per line (lines per second).

It just so happens that my aunt is a retired translator and did the subtitling for us. We worked through a couple of drafts to make sure that the subtleties in the humour came across and that it read they way kids speak.

She created a text document with corresponding time codes which was then given to Vision Globale. They in turn used a machine called the Symphonie to generate the subtitles. We used this machine so that we could create white subtitles with a drop shadow.

Everything worked out great in the end. I love being able to watch the film in another language.

Now I have to find out when it will air on Télé-Québec.

Now that the film is completely finished, I’ve made a more official trailer for the film.

I’ve also set up a Birthday Girl facebook group.

So if you’re on facebook, do join.

Enjoy!

Here’s a poster I made for the film.

We completed the final stage of post production last Friday evening.

Once we created the interpositive, the film was transferred to HD (High Definition tape - so that we could have an HD master). This HD master had to be colour timed as well - since all the DVD’s will be made from this master tape (or a Digibeta tape made from the HD master).

We did the timing on an incredible piece of hardware called the da Vinci. The film is 11 minutes (2 minutes of credits) and it took three and a half hours to time it. Using this machine you can drastically alter the look of your film. You can colour correct any portion of the frame, alter the size or composition of the frame as well.

Traditionally, I believe, the da Vinci machine is used when a digital intermediate has been made. This DI is colour corrected exactly as the cinematographer sees fit and then an interpositive is made from the DI. Whereas I used the machine to correct an already colour corrected print (interpositive to HD) most people use the machine to do the initial colour corrections (DI to interpositive).

Soon I’ll have a press section in the sidebar as well where you will be able to download the epk (electronic press kit), poster, one sheet etc.

I’m very pleased to announce that Birthday Girl is premiering at the Vancouver International Film Festival!

The Festival runs from the 27th of September to the 12th of October. If you happen to be in or around Vancouver, the film will be screening Monday October 8th at 9pm and Tuesday October 9th at 4pm. You can check out the program guide and other films at the festival here.

I’m really psyched about premiering the film at Vancouver. It’s a great city and an amazing festival. I’m also really looking forward to checking out some other films at the festival - including Persepolis - one of my favorite reads from last year. I will be blogging from the festival, so you’ll be hearing a lot more from me.

A recap of the last month:

• We did two more screenings to perfect the colour timing and had to redo the credits about three times (due to legibility issues).
• I approved the final print last week (sound, image and credits)
• Vision Globale is in the process of doing what’s called an interpositive.
• From there we’ll make a master HD (high definition) transfer of the film so that we can start to mass produce some DVDs.

It’s looking great and I’m really looking forward to screening it for everyone here in Montreal when I get back from Vancouver! Details to follow.

We finally screened the first test print of the film on 35mm at the Cinémathèque Québécoise and it looked amazing.

There are a lot of shots that still need to be fixed but for the first time I got a sense of what it will look like projected onto the big screen.

We screened the film without sound which was really interesting. It allows you to watch the film from a different perspective and see if the story comes through visually. Which it does.

We should be screening a second print early next week.

photo credit: Dorothea Lange, 1937

Everything was moving along very smoothly until we got the news that the colour timing machine we were going to use had a malfunction. We’re hoping the machine will be fixed within the next week or so.

Once the colour timing is done, the sound is burned onto a 35mm film stock which has the colour corrected image. This is the last step in post production.

We’ve already submitted the film (final edit with a temp soundtrack) to a couple of festivals. If we get in, we might have to send the film to Deluxe in Toronto to be colour corrected, as we’ll be pressed for time. We should hear back from a few of the festivals within the next two weeks.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

We had our first day of sound mixing today.

We averaged a minute of film per hour, which I think is pretty standard. We plan on finishing the first pass by tomorrow afternoon at which point we will screen the entire film and make changes if necessary.

We’re mixing at Vision Globale - in one of the biggest mixing studios in the city.

It’s my first time in a mixing studio and I have to say it’s quite remarkable. Sound editors and mixers have the capacity to hear sounds at such high and low frequencies one would think they were supernatural. I love watching them work, watching them create sounds and textures that make the film so much richer.

It’s very difficult every time you enter a new phase of post production. You get so used to the cut of the film after it’s been edited (from watching it over and over again) that you begin to think the film is perfect the way it is. You get accustomed to the temporary sound effects, the silence in certain scenes, the ambiance etc., that when you go into sound design/mixing, every additional noise or change feels wrong (even though a few viewings later you wonder how you ever watched the film without these sounds). It’s like starting from scratch. You have to put yourself in the position of never having seen your own film and you have to watch it like an objective viewer - otherwise you risk hurting the full potential of the project.