Mostly Technical Info on the Making of 11:11

Since I like to start at the tale end of narratives, I'll discuss the sound design in 11:11 first, because in the end, it's the crucial element that makes the whole movie work.

Backwards imagery has universal appeal but reversing sound creates aural fatigue in the listener. Not only that, the presence of sound before an event takes the viewer right out of a story. It reverses that old standby, cause and effect, and belies the impossibility of a backwards universe. Getting the soundtrack to work was going to be the biggest challenge, that is, after successfully completing the script.

Since I took on film's own idioms when I decided to write, direct and edit 11:11, every part of the process had inherent difficulty so it was just another problem to be solved.

I made the decision early on that 11:11 should have a forwards score that included some backwards elements in the music. Eckart Seeber, the movie’s talented composer, did a great job with the score. In fact, if one listens to the totality of 11:11's soundtrack, it is, in some ways, a conventional sounding film—if you can get past the weird language. This treatment of sound is the movie’s biggest cheat. And probably the one element that made the movie bearable to listen to and believable as an alternate universe. In addition to the forwards music score, production sound effects were minimized to begin with, first by shooting in a controlled atmosphere. Then any production sound effects were stripped away and replaced with manipulated (foleyed) sound effects by my genius sound designer, Paul Ottosson. His biggest feat was taking backwards dialogue and minimizing the satanic slur that always accompanies the end of a word when it is reversed, a result of normal speech and breathing patterns.

I won’t bore you with too many post-production stories, but suffice it to say, I provided Paul Ottosson - a genius sound designer, with an OMF of the cut dialogue tracks. By the way, creating original backwards sound takes in the AVID and laying them off to DAT and then re-inputting them into the AVID for syncing was the most tedious part of the whole process. Obviously, since we shot the film backwards with reversing mags, no syncing happened in telecine. But we did get a frantic late night call from a telecine operator telling us all our film was running backwards. My response to him: “Great. That’s how it should be.” By the way, since I did my own assistant editing I want to single out Gretchen Hatz, our second assistant camera, who tail slated every single take religiously during the shoot.

Concerning the shooting of the film, it's true that we shot the film through the camera’s gate backwards. As the film editor and screenwriter of the film, it was important to me that every take loaded into the AVID appeared in the right order, reflecting the action in the screenplay.

To this end, I created a shooting script, which reflected how the actors really performed the screenplay, in real time, or forwards. We ended up shooting 28 scenes for 11:11, so page one of the shooting script starts with scene 28.

I ended up having to number the shooting script for the 1st AD, not to dimish her contribution or participation as Melissa Barnes is a great 1st AD in every way. Just that after talking with her for a bit, I realized the screenplay/shooting script relationship would be more efficiently mined from my head and that once she had a template for what we would really be shooting, as is generally the course, we would be all set. And we were. We planned all our shots and transitions. Our DP (Best Cinematography in a Short Film at the Boston International Film Festival in 2006) was (and is) amazing and brilliant so that made all the difference when it came to editing. It also made for a small shooting ratio. Also, I knew when the actors and crew had nailed the take backwards. Afshin Shahidi (DP) really got what I was doing, and we were able to collaborate seamlessly.The best cinematography award belongs to Afshin even though the festival felt that it belonged to the film and therefore to its chief architect. Thank you Afshin.

Regarding the actors. I de-emphasized the technical aspects of what we were doing as I wanted Mataji Booker (also Matagi) and Doug Bennett to stay focused on their craft , rather than worrying over whether what they were doing was working backwards. Mataji has some real 'acting chops' as my producer Harve Cook said after we wrapped. It bears mentioning that everyone is witnessing Mataji's first few days in front of a movie camera when they watch 11:11. And she does a great job. Mataji Booker has since evolved into a very talented singer song writer as well, so check her out on myspace.

Of course, Doug Bennett is a consummate professional, and Mataji’s background as a dancer really pays off visually. 'Great casting' -- as Bill Bob Thornton remarked -- a strong concept, and the technical expertise to pull it off from start to finish was the basic recipe.

Hats off to the cast and crew involved. I wish to meet again on the playground.