The pandemic put a hard break on my productivity for @thetearsees. Well, not just the pandemic. While I was able to stay employed, I was forced to work from home while helping to raise our newborn. By the time things wind down it’s 9:00 PM, any progress I make is so small that it feels unworthy of report. Beyond the time constraints, the COVID requirements on production and general state of paranoia around here made filming much more expensive and unpleasant. It’s made filming even dangerous. Things have felt a little helpless regarding The Tear’s prospects.
Another short film I was helping produce had to increase it’s budget by $15K just to cover the COVID regulations. Here I am delivering some gear to set. They shoot The Mandalorian on these stages here. Those LED screens are pretty rad.
In any case, I found a way to move forward in some fashion.
Introducing... The Box.
With my wife, I’ve crafted a “prepared box” of sorts, wired with piezo acoustic pickups and various doohickies to make noises.
Springs, screws, guitar strings, a music box and a Kalimba make up the prepared box’s orchestra.
The purpose? To create a cheaper analog of the famous “Apprehension Engine” to begin creating the sonic scape for The Tear.
The various, “instruments” are passed through various effects to produce ominous soundscapes which will become part of the sound design of the film and world.
We started with a cheap, pine box from Amazon.
The various tools and chemicals that will make their way onto and into the box.
A more personal aspect to the project was giving my wife and I something to do to be creative together during the pandemic, so she instantly became in charge of an aesthetic I was not expecting to execute. She took control of this side of the project, sanding and staining and coating the box into a work of art rather than just a plain box, because believe me I would have been fine with just a plain pine box!
Love that SmallRig clamp. Perfect for the time-lapse we did for the video that’s currently in edit.
I managed to find pre-wired piezo pickups that have both a volume and tone knob. Unfortunately, the wiring was shoddy and the soldering fell apart, forcing us to do a rewire that while effective has to be redone. I crossed a wore somewhere and so the tone knob also controls the volume.
The box is undergoing a little repair work at the moment. Our Kalimba put too much upward force on the lid of our box, cracking it. Even with the reinforcement board we glued to the underside of the lid.
I’m hoping that the box will be repaired by tomorrow, which is the same time I plan on sharing the first sonic experiment for @thetearsees!
Phil
CHECK OUT THE TEAR!
The Tear is my cosmic horror short film and cinematic universe.
http://bit.ly/tearlinks
WHO DIS IS
If you want to know who I am and what Distant Signal is, check this out. It's sort of a manifesto. The TL;DR is that I've won an award for producing, make a lot of reality TV, live in LA and think that artist and media incentives are misaligned and serve large corporations and not independent artists.
DISTANT SIGNAL SOCIAL:
WEBSITE: https://www.thesignalisstrong.com
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/adistantsignal
LBRY: Direct LBRY App Link!
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/distant_signal/
MINDS: https://www.minds.com/DistantSignal
MISSION
In 2019 the goal is to produce the short horror film, Changelings, the world of that story and to build a community of filmmakers that are enthusiastic about filmmaking and crypto currency.
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PHIL ABATECOLA'S PERSONAL SITES:
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/abatecolasan/
WEBSITE: http://www.philabatecola.com
Wow mate, lots going on here!
The box looks like an incredible science experiment.
I guess that’s the point, to experiment and create other worldly sounds. I’m looking forward to hearing something.
Incredible about the extra £15k on the production... 😦
That’s staggering.
Also a new born?! Oh man, things must be non-stop. And will continue to be with a little one around. Congrats!
Hey there! It has definitely been a challenging year. It is definitely experimental! ;) i will be sharing a track today. It sounds very creepy. I think the work is paying off!
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