John August

The Nines

Three from The Nines

Projects, The Nines, Video

In preparation for the [trailer competition](), I wanted to see how footage from the movie would hold up when subjected to the Flash compression of YouTube and the other video-sharing sites. So I uploaded three clips in various formats to experiment.

The results? Two clips look surprisingly great. The third looks like ass.

The difference isn’t in the format, or the file size, but the background. The ass-y clip has a forest of sun-dappled leaves in the background, and the compression algorithms freak out trying to handle the level of detail. That’s not unique to Flash; sun-dappling is pretty much the bete noir of video. Several resources recommended applying a soften filter to tamp down the background noise. While it reduced the overall file size, it didn’t end up helping the video quality much.

In the end, the h.264 format ended up working out best for me, but as always, [YMMV](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/your_mileage_may_vary).Conveniently, the iPhone and AppleTV both use this format, which makes it easy to carry clips (and trailers) with me.

The clips are from the DVD that goes out to television stations, for use in reviews and news stories. They show the three different looks in the movie.

* [A Medical Situation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5tJKiIe-dQ)
* [Kill Off the Hero](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLLAes11LHY)
* [A Videogame God](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAEIkzOwGY)

The Nines goes to Venice

Follow Up, News, Projects, Sundance, The Nines

A reader alluded to it in the comments of an earlier post, but today we can officially announce that The Nines was chosen to play the Venice Film Festival as part of Critics’ Week.

(At least, I assume we can announce it. We were sworn to double-super secrecy, which is presumably now over, since it was in [Variety](http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=Cannes2007&jump=story&id=1061&articleid=VR1117969003&cs=1) this morning.)

Critics’ Week runs the first week of September; our exact slot should be announced today or tomorrow. Coincidentally — but fortuitously — our U.S. premiere is August 31st, so it will be a busy couple of weeks of promotion.We’ll be launching in New York and Los Angeles, and maybe one other city. How quickly we expand to other cities depends on how well we perform in our first two weeks.

We’re the only U.S. feature in Critics’ Week this year, which traditionally aims for a wide spectrum of international releases. The other films in our category hail from Mexico, France, Kazakhstan, Russia, Italy, Belgium, and Taiwan.You can see the Italian film listing for The Nines (‘I Nove’) at the [SNCCI website](http://www.sncci.it/default.asp?content=%2F34%2F46%2F672%2F2222%2Farticolo%2Easp%3F). If any ambitious readers feel like translating, have at it. I just like the adjective “lynchiano” — “Lynch-ian.”)

How psyched am I to be going to Venice? Ohsovery. I didn’t travel to Cannes when [The Nines screened there](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/nines-at-cannes), but that was really just European market screenings for distributors. This is the international debut. I can’t wait to have awkward conversations about the meaning of the film in broken English while jetlagged. And mildly drunk on Italian wines chosen for their melodic names.

Briefly, since I know these will be the first questions raised in the comments section:

* The trailer is done, and should be up within the week.
* The trailer competition is happening, but had to be back-burnered while other stuff got finished.
* No, I don’t know when we’ll be playing in Omaha. Or if we’ll be playing in Omaha.
* Ditto for Argentina.
* I’ve seen the international one-sheet, but the U.S. poster is still in discussions.
* We’re rated R. Presumably for language.
* The official website is getting rebuilt on more-robust servers.
* The movie is unchanged from what premiered at Sundance.
* The movie will be on 35mm in some theatres, digital in others. I’ve seen both projected. They’re different, but equally valid. I’ve considered doing a post about this process, but it would be Geek Factor 8.
* I have no idea when the DVD would come out, but they’re already working on the special features.

Changes while directing

Directors, Projects, QandA, The Nines, Words on the page

questionmarkWhen you were directing The Nines, did you find that you wanted to change some of the action and dialogue because it didn’t come across in production the way you thought it would when you wrote it. And, if you changed things, was it because you were maybe hypercritical of your own work and saw problems where nobody else would or did you consider making changes just because you could (being the writer and everything)?

— Dennis Feeney

The action changed somewhat, based on the geography at hand. For instance, there’s a scene in Part Three where a family is coming back to a parked car. As scripted, there was a certain sequence for who would be where for what line of dialogue, but once you have real actors, real dolly movements and real reflections to contend with, that all changes. And that’s after storyboarding, during which some of those things were already decided.

In terms of dialogue, I didn’t find myself changing that many lines. We’d had the luxury of some rehearsal, so if there was a line that an actor really had a difficult time landing, I could change that ahead of time.

Once we started production, I really saw myself as a the director, not the writer. If something wasn’t working, my instinct was to look at changes in the performances or the camera movement rather than the words. Indeed, the few times I did go back in to writer-mode was when I saw unanticipated opportunities. During a confrontation between Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy, I added this line…

SARAH

He’s an actor. If no one’s watching him, he doesn’t really exist.

…which ends up being fairly important to the scene (and, ultimately, the movie). Yet I added it at six in the morning on the day of shooting, based largely on something I overheard the actors talking about between takes. That kind of serendipity is what made my dual roles rewarding.

Trailer competition update

Challenge, Follow Up, Projects, The Nines

beeThanks to [many readers](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/hive-mind-trailer#comments), I think there’s a pretty clear game plan emerging for how to do [The Nines Trailer Challenge](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/hive-mind-trailer). Several people have offered specific help, both advice and hosting. Bless you. Your email addresses have been duly noted for future follow-up.

Here are the questions I asked, and the answers I got.

1. What’s the best video format for sending out the trailer footage?
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For good quality, DV or Motion JPEG are platform-agnostic choices that will end up in solid web video. I’m meeting with the editor tomorrow to start figuring out just how big the files would end up being.

Some participants will want smaller files for an easier download experience. MPEG-4 is super-compressed, but can be up-rezzed acceptably. It will never look as good as the DV footage, but that’s a trade-off that some people will accept.

There are other possible formats, but at a certain point, the paradox of choice kicks in. Offering the footage in six flavors could actually make it less useful, increasing confusion and limiting torrent seeds.

2. One clip, or many?
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Almost everyone felt that separate clips in a .zipped file would make life simpler. Some readers suggested distributing project files for Final Cut or Avid. My gut is that a folder of clips is pretty much just waiting to be dropped into a bin, so there’s no great advantage in creating separate templates for FCP or Avid (or whatever editing system you chose to use).

We’ll also include portions of Alex Wurman’s musical score, perhaps as a separate download. Using the “official” music won’t be a requirement.

3. Should it be a competition? If there’s a competition, how long of a deadline?
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Across the board, yes on a competition. A week would be enough time; adding in a second weekend might be even better. At this point, the start of August is looking like a possibility, but the exact dates are TBD. The prize would be bragging rights, and inclusion on the DVD if we can clear rights issues.

4. What’s the best way to get the footage out there? Torrent? Download?
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A torrent is pretty much a must for the big (DV) file. With good initial seeding, a clear start date, and fair practices on everybody’s part (i.e. keep seeding), it should work out. But I’d still like more information and examples of people who’ve done this thing successfully.

In terms of traditional downloading, generous offers of bandwidth should help with getting the smaller files distributed — and possibly setting up the initial torrents.