STS: A Little Bit of Muscle

A Little Bit of Muscle is about just that:  a little muscle car taking on a big jump.  The movie marks the second short film by Stranger Things Studios.

                                      

Final Stats:

Hours on Set: 6
Hours of  Video Editing: 28
Hours of Sound Editing: 7
Cost: $35

Director’s Notes:

The idea was simple.  Record an RC car hitting a jump; kill the audio; and then replace it will the sound of a real muscle car. 

That’s where it stopped being simple.


PRE-PRODUCTION

Right from the start there were problems.  My nephew and I tested the car ahead of time to make sure it could make the jump.  It couldn’t.  Hell, it could barely make it up to the top of the ramp, much less fall off the end.  Fall, mind you, not jump.  Fall.

It took a while for it to hit me that the car didn’t have to make the jump.  It just had to look like it did.

FILMING

It was mid-June, and I really wanted to get filming done before I left for my Alaska trip.  There was only one day I could do it.  Enlisting my nephew Kris, and my then friend Chris (because that wasn’t confusing) we met up at Macalester College to build the set on one of the campus’s back roads.

Of course it rained.  Down-poured even, not to mention the tornado sirens.  On top of that, Chris got locked inside the science building. He showed up a half an hour early, so he got to watch as the janitors locked all the entrances.  Turned out to be a blessing.  Chris let us in, and we filmed the movie inside instead.

Oh, and then the “camera car” couldn’t turn to the right.  Instead, it continuously arced off to the left and slammed into the closest wall, over and over again.  I had to replace the car three times before I got one that went straight.  But for the night, we had to live without it.

After three hours of work the three of us were ready to kill each other.  But we had the footage.  All I could do was hope that the end result would make everyone feel like it was worth the pain.

While in Alaska I went through the footage.  That’s when I found out how crappy my crappy camera was.  It cut the final few seconds off of every clip. Half of the footage was unusable.  We had to shoot the scene all over again.

As soon as I got back home I grabbed who I could, which was my nephew and my wife, and we rebuilt the set inside Macalester College on a +100 degree day.  But hey, at least there wasn’t a Warhammer 4000 nerd-fest taking place in the lobby... wait… nope… there was.

Another three hours of work and the three of us were ready to kill each other again.  I walked away that day accepting that I needed to improve my directorial and managerial skills if I ever planned do another film.


ON TO EDITING

My main goal from the start was to experiment with audio.  Syncing the shots to music is as much of a blessing as it is a nightmare.  I find music helps me conceptualize the sequence of shots, but the splicing has to be perfect.  I mean down to the hundredth of a second!

However, music does helps mask imperfections in sound effects.  I’m sure the Harley engine and burnout MP3s would have sounded choppy, like it was cutting in and out, if I didn’t have the music to blend them together.

Overall, this film was a nightmare.  It took FOREVER.  I  learned that it isn’t how long your movie is, but how many camera angles you use that determines how much work you have before you. 

But for that very reason, I am very proud of the end result, and I am thankful to Kris, Chris, and Tonya for helping me out on this one.

I fully intended to stop after this film because of how frustrating it was, but I have had several people ask what my next movie is going to be, and several others asking if they can help with it.  That’s all the more I need to hear to want to keep at it.

~ Jonathan Strong

On a final note, when I screened A Little Bit of Muscle for my wife, all she did afterwards was look at me and say, very matter-of-factly, “You owe me a new car.”