Tundra 11: Sound & Vision

“Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon.”

Hello and welcome!

The 16 month Episode Two journey is nearing a close. Now just two weeks until release😬 (bites nails). One of these days EF is going to stroll into his own premiere tanned and rested like an A list movie star. Aww who am I kidding. I’m post-production. We never see the light of day before the movie! (sigh)

I’ll spare you the technical headache. Sufficed to say Episode Two will be on time. And the quality will be, just below EF’s ever rising standards. Fingers crossed! ~28 min runtime. Probably the same for Episode 3 (slated for July 4). Previously I called them, “Independence Day Parts 1 & 2.” They are separate episodes now. It’s just easier. And despite being thematically similar, the style and setting of the two are starkly different. Episode 2 is mostly dancing. Episode 3 is no dancing.

Okay some technical specs. If you care. Otherwise skip to conclusion.

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Vision🌈

Let me ask you something. Would you rather see 35% of the visible color spectrum? Or 75. Chat GPT was basically threatening me if I didn’t downgrade this project to Rec. 709 (35%). We fought like an old married couple about it. Until finally I said, you know what? You’re a machine and I don’t have to listen to you. And in the heat of that a-ha moment I swear it felt like the spoon bent. (… Vimeo automatically converts HDR to SDR for viewers who don’t have HDR screens! Psst, if you have an iphone 12 pro or later, you have a semi or full HDR screen already!).

The result? EF’s most expensive picture quality to date. 4K HDR Rec. 2100 HLG color space. Pulling from 4K UHD discs, primarily. Editing in ProRes 422 (Apple lossless editing files) which are 100x larger than H.264 / H.265 files. Blah Blah. Bottom line? Expect to notice a difference if you have an HDR screen. Only after the opening sequence, however. Vouzle-VOUS! will remain inferior picture quality. I’m not going back to fix it.

Sound🎧

Got deep into 5.1 sound mixing this, only to revert to stereo. Word of newly acquired wisdom, if you have one good reason not to do a 5.1 mix, don’t do it. I had three. But my stubborn ass tried anyway and wasted a lot of time. A) I don’t know what I’m doing. B) I don’t have the proper 5.1 monitoring equipment so I can’t even hear what I’m doing. And C) Stereo suits the episode better anyway because of the high emphasis on pre-mixed stereo music.

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That’s a wrap on Part 11/12 of this Tundra series. 12/12 coming next week. Then release of Episode 2 (February 3rd). Then we start a new 12-part, or maybe an abbreviated 6 or 8… Some odd number 😉 series which tracks progress for Episode 3, forthcoming July 4, 2026. First things first.

Experience Film❄️