“Contingency” Update – 2012 January 22

I made some good progress on Contingency this week. It was slow going because of my back and arm pain. I’ve collected all the shots I need for the film. I still need to trim a couple shots, but the rest are ready.

I found some alternative clips that I think I may want to use. In particular I found some test footage I’d done to convert Weekend in Calgary from Super 8 to 16mm. I only have part of the film, but for the clip I want for Contingency it would be fine.

I am still concerned about the image quality of some of the shots. I don’t have anything that would be a direct replacement, and I’m not likely to get a chance to reshoot them in time for the festival. I have started to consider a recut of the film to eliminate those shots. I’ll need to redo the sound, or add some other images, which I’m reluctant to do. On the other hand, the theme of the film is how random events affect how something turns out, so changes at this stage would be appropriate.

I use an old 16mm movie viewer that I picked up years ago in my editing. Part way through the week the light stopped working. I don’t know if I can still get a replacement bulb. I tried to work around it, but then I noticed that the power cord looked like it might be broken. It was identical to a cord I have left over from an old computer, so I tried that. That fixed the problem.

Most of the equipment I use is getting quite old and nearly impossible to replace. Every time I use them, I worry that it may be the last time they’ll work. I had a similar experience when I did The Fence. Every time I went to take another shot, I worried if the fence would still be there. Someone removed it a few years after I finished the film. They built a condominium on the site. I had an unexpected reminder of that this week when the condominium was evacuated due to flooding.

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