I finally got frustrated enough and sat down on my own and did it. It took me all of eight hours and I have an very nice poster. Since Insectula was very angular I made the poster almost all lines in a real 50’s B-movie flavor. I must say I don’t think anyone else’s would have been much better. Well that’s $200 - $500 I saved plus I can say I did it myself.

Sometimes I forget I'm also an artist.

One thing I do hate about low budget indie films is that they are usually claustrophobic. In an effort to keep the costs down the film is usually limited to under 10 locations. The viewer can sense this even if they aren’t conscious of it and it gives a real limiting sense of the film’s world. Sure there are big budget films that are limited to few locations but in general you don’t feel the sense of restriction from most. The indies love to do this because you can shoot the bulk of your material in fewer days.

I’m trying very hard to avoid this. I have so many locations it’s hard to keep track. If I do use a location more than once I try to light it different (light for the mood not the location) or shoot at night when I last shot at day etc. I don’t think we will get that boxed in feeling from Insectula!

The other thing that bothers me is using uninteresting locations. I see many indies using people's living rooms and newer style houses and it just reeks of cheapness…why wouldn’t you go out of your way and find some interesting location? Instead of making Kempler’s house dull and boring I decided he would live in something like a museum like the Addams Family. Likewise whenever I have a scene in the script I think of what would be the most interesting location possible, where would I dream of doing it?

Something that seems to be overlooked in film courses, books, reviews and just about anything that analyzes film is one of the most important aspects cinema...the last scene. I don’t think a lot people including many writers and directors understand how important it is. The last scene has more influence on how someone judges a film than most other aspects. It is the final thing a viewer sees before they make their initial judgment of the film as a whole. I believe this can make or break a film. Ask a lawyer how important the closing arguments are to a case.

The Rum Diaries is a recent example of a weak end - events wrapped up in text on a black screen. Interest that we have invested in characters and plots weakly concluded or worse, unresolved. Contrast this to a great ending like The Matrix. The Matrix’s last scene showed us with a punch that there is even more to the story and we are left with anticipation. The ending slams to a close and one can’t help but smile. Iron Man was another good ending.

It isn’t even what all was delivered, but more importantly how. As I think of the movies I like almost all had great endings that leave a nice taste in your mouth.

I have a really nice ending to Insectula! planned and even though on the script it doesn’t read that all that dramatic, I plan to deliver it with a punch. I’m excited to get to work on it as I think it’s real solid.

I had some very shaky footage that I had tried several plugins on to help stabilize. Some of these plugins were very expensive and I did eventually get satisfactory results. I decided to try it again after I upgraded to After Effects CS 5.5 as it includes a stabilizer called Warp Stabilizer. I am amazed. This is far ahead of the best stabilization tools out there...nothing comes close. The rolling shutter fix in it is perfect. This really frees me up to do more tracking shots and more handheld work. It makes shaky footage butter smooth like a steadicam. In my next shoot I plan to do alot of camera work to see how free I really am.

EDIT: After shooting more and further inspection it turns out I'm not that free. It's still a great stabilizer but it isn't quite the magical tool I first saw.

We would like to welcome H Thomas Altman as Insectula's newest cast member!

So far I have edited Insectula! in Sony Vegas. I knew I couldn't continue in that as I may need to hand off the editing tasks to others and virtually no one uses Vegas. I decided I was going to switch to Final Cut Pro which is an Apple program that is pretty standard. Because of this I was going to have to purchase a Mac too. Turns out though that Apple is slowly but surely dropping their pro programs...their latest iteration of FCP is a disaster in that it isn't backwards compatible and has numerous other issues including a dumbed down interface...gearing up for the eventual dropping of the "pro" moniker. Apple is also rumored to be stopping their Mac Pro line of computers (they haven't updated it in two years) leaving only the laptops, something the "pro's" wouldn't stand for. So this tells me FCP isn't the way to go.

The two other choices I have are Avid and Adobe Premiere. I'm settling on Premiere and just installed it as it's supposed to work very well with their After Effects program that is the basis for everything I do in Insectula. Here's hoping the switch isn't too painful.