Merry Mix-mas to All, and to All a Good Night!

......and this ball game is OVA!!!!

I hate to borrow a phrase from the other side of town, but I cannot help to contain the excitement of being DONE! Yeah baby!

Okay, before we get too deep into my unbridled joy/relief, let us step back briefly to yesterday, and what is probably the best Mix-mas ever.

So, like I said, I've been sound editing since the end of Thanksgiving break (roughly Dec 1) and have spent at least some time in the edit lab every day since then. There's just so much sound work that can be done.

Anyway, the sound mix is something that all "real" movies go through. There's a lot of technical things that go into it (most of which I don't understand), but long story short is that I spent a bunch of time editing the sound for my film at a computer screen wearing headphones. But the movie will not be watched like that: it will be watched in a theater. The sound mix essentially takes the sounds that I laid out and mixes them together, brings some sounds out, tones others down, and designs it to play in a large theater (which, in the case of this Sunday, will be USC's Norris Theater). It's fun because you really have think about how your film will play to a theater full of people.

Because the sound mix is such a technical process and the equipment used is so expensive (I mixed on a quarter-million dollar board) we essentially get our sound mixer assigned to us based on the time slot. It's kind of a frustrating process because, though none of the mixers are bad, some are good and some are really f*^# ingeniously talented. It's just the luck of the draw.

So I met with my mixer a day before the mix and it was clear to me based on the conversation we had that he was going to be a "good" guy, which was fine. I would have liked a magic man but what you gonna do?

Then, I get an e-mail from him yesterday morning saying that he will not be able to make it to my mix. Who did they get to fill in for him? Well, only Buddy, the chief audio engineer at USC, who has recorded with the likes of Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, and others.

CUBS F$#@! WIN!

Buddy was the magic man. I ran into my SA (Student Assistant, essentially a TA) before the mix and she said that Buddy was watching my film earlier and thought it was hilarious. In the mixing theater he did things to the sounds in my film that I would have never thought of but they ramped it way up. It was great because he really got what I was going for and the whole thing was such an amazing and unique experience. Up until yesterday I was feeling pretty good about the picture edit and a little nervous about the sound. Now, I may be more excited for the sound than anything else. When we finished, he was laughing and said "this thing is going to rock at Norris".

So yeah, anyway, I threw a Mix-mas party (Get it?) at my place last night to celebrate being done and the party was a damn blast. Eggnog, xmas lights, wii tennis, tons of beer, a late-night visit to the beach (don't worry, no one was dumb enough to go in), pizza, Jack Daniel's, and a 3 am drunken viewing of the Chhhk Chhk Boom films. The mess I woke up to this morning is reminiscent of a certain NYE celebration at a certain building's rooftop downtown.

But man oh man though does it feel good to be done. Now I get some time to get a few things taken care of and only 9 days separate me from returning to my big, beautiful, wacky-weathered, corruption filled home sweet home Chicago.

Ah yes: Blago. I mean, we all knew he was a crook right? I just can't believe he was so stupid to say all that when he knew he was under federal scrutiny.

"I've got this thing, it's f***ing golden!"

By the way, is it bad that I'm kind of happy about all this because I get to see more Chicago in the news? I mean, I'm so desperate to see my city that I'm watching CNN and stuff just to see their correspondents report from Daley Plaza or near the Aon Center. The WGN news at noon and nine (10am and 7pm here) just isn't enough anymore. I want my CHI!

So, yeah, the screening is at Norris tomorrow. I'll be there with the whole class plus most of the cast and crew and we'll watch the thing and drink and party some more and then I'll be done with my first year of film school.

THAT will certainly require a contemplative blog post.

But now, I've got a Mix-mas mess to mop up. We'll see how the screening goes....hopefully somebody laughs.

Merry Mix-mas everyone! See you soon....