Year-End

So I was sitting down to write a year-end blog and decided to check the website, just to see how long it’s been since I last blogged.

It’s been three months…to the day. It feels like I wrote the last blog, blinked, and here I am. But that’s how a lot of this process has been.

Thinking back, I probably haven’t told you much about the early days of AIR. Starting back in December 2001, Jieho and I spent two years writing the script. We wrote multiple drafts while Jieho was traveling back and forth to Korea, directing music videos, and I was here in L.A., writing studio projects that will probably never get made.

Then, the next two years were all about “packaging” the film…that means finding producers, actors, and financing. If it sounds easy, trust me, it’s not. Imagine two solid years of good news, bad news, worse news, awesome news, heartbreak, triumph, more heartbreak, over and over again. But as you know, it all worked out.

This year, our fifth, was actually making the movie. Six and a half weeks of production in Mexico City, and very timely blogs from me. Then, from March until now, post-production. And what a journey that has been.

Jieho and our amazing editor Robert Hoffman have practically lived in the editing room. John Paul, their dedicated assistant editor, lives next door. There were weeks where I was in there almost every day, helping Jieho fine-tune the film’s voice-over narration. There was several private screenings where the producers would watch the film and offer their suggestions. I think I was at all those screenings, and they were exhilarating. The movie Jieho and I had envisioned all those years ago was finally coming to life. A few weeks ago, Jieho and the producers locked picture. The editing was over.

Time to rest, right? Maybe for me. But for Jieho and Robert, the work was just beginning. They traveled daily, all over the city, overseeing the many facets of movie post-production you never think of. There was an army of professionals at work on our movie, creating special effects, looping dialogue, color-correcting the digital intermediate…what the heck does that even mean?

On top of that, Jieho was meeting regularly with Marcelo Zarvos, who was creating the original score for the film. I made sure I stopped in on the day when they were recording Marcelo’s beautiful music. I went to the Fox lot, which coincidentally was the first studio lot I ever set foot on in Los Angeles. Five years ago, it was to audition for a small role in a student film (I got the part). This time, it was to hear a forty-piece string orchestra play Marcelo’s haunting score…live.

I can’t really describe the feeling of that day. I walked into the studio and saw about a dozen monitors, all with a paused image of Sarah Michelle Gellar which I instantly knew was the moment leading up to one of the film’s most powerful sequences. Then, someone hit play, the action resumed on the monitors, and the orchestra played that first note, and it was just astonishing. Watching the sequence play out while hearing the music live…it was just about the coolest thing ever. Here’s a link to some pics and a small article about that day:

http://www.soundtrack.net/news/article/?id=871

After that, the momentum really picked up. Opening titles were created and the sound mix was finished, all of which led to…today.

Today, we watched the entire film, ON FILM, for the first time. And the difference is stunning. All those times watching it on a video monitor, and now seeing it blown up on the big screen...I just have to say that Walt Lloyd, our director of photography, is the best. The absolute best.

At this point, I have no idea what’s actually left to do…some little technical things here and there, I imagine. It’ll be sometime early next year before I actually get to see a final, yes-we’re-totally-done print of the film.

And that, my friends, will be OVER FIVE YEARS into this journey, for both Jieho and I. It’s not over, of course. There’s still the matter of when the film will be released into theatres. I can honestly tell you that I don’t know for sure when that will be. But when there’s news to share, I’ll be here…hopefully more often than once every three months.

But for now, there are holidays, and family, and maybe just a little time off. Thanks so much for reading our blogs and for all your kind messages. It means a lot that so many of you are excited about THE AIR I BREATHE. Keep talking things up on all the message boards, from imdb.com to smgfan.com and beyond.

Most importantly, have a great holiday season and we’ll see you in 2007!

Bob DeRosa AKA FLASH

12/19/06