Obviously, one of the largest parts of the film would be the Woman's voice-over. This would seem to be a simple thing, but in reality, it was far, far from simple.

Below is just a small excerpt from my notes on the voice-over recordings and what takes I was interested in using. You can listen to any take below or any alternate take by clicking on "Good take:" or "Alt" - this will show you two different versions for each line in the poem. You'll need RealAudio Player to do this.

The real problem for me wasn't in the recording of the voice-over, or in the mixing of it - the real problem came when I started showing preview screenings of the film to a select group of people. Without fail, everyone seemed to love the film - but they all had hesitations about the voice-over. The further frustrating part was that no one could really say what they thought the problem was - these were some of the comments: 'She sounds too young,' 'She sounds too old,' 'She sounds like she's reading too much,' 'She sounds like she's acting too much,' ... You get the idea.

I had very definite ideas about what the voice-over should be, and all of my concepts and expectations came from King's poem. My general intrepretation was that the poem was a journal entry. So, hearing the poem as the Woman's thoughts, should feel a bit like it's being read - while at the same time - we should be able to feel the real emotions that she's going through.

I was torn. I spent a solid two weeks agonizing over what was wrong with the voice-over and how to fix it. I even toyed, on one suggestion, with the idea of cutting it altogether -- but then I finally came to understand...

Due to the very nature of the piece - the very fact that it is a poem - that leave it open to extraordinary intrepretation. Everyone went into the film with certain expectations and those expectations weren't always met because they were watching my intrepretation - not theirs. In the end, the decision was to leave the voice-over entirely intact just as it was in the final mix - and I'm very happy with the results. I think the lesson here, and the point I'm driving at, is that every filmmaker reaches a point where they can easily loose objectivity over their work. There comes a point when you've seen it and heard it far too many times.

In the end, I had to ignore my confusion and go back to my gut to solve the problem.

This is not to say that you shouldn't listen to outside voices when you're working on a project. I firmly believe in the preview screening process to get the audience's feedback. The confusing matter here was that no one agreed on what the problem was or what could be done. Interestingly enough - when the final mix was done - no one has any further reservations about the voice-over -- at least not that they've told me. :)

THE PROCESS

We originally recorded the voice-over just before our day of principal photography - and worked to get one solid take to use on the set so that Tonya could hear her words as she was performing for the camera. Eventually, that idea was nixed and we decided not to use the playback on the set.

After we shot the film, I went back in with Alek Vila, the sound designer, and did a mix of Tonya's takes (based on the notes sampled below) that Eric Tozzi and I used in editing.

Once the film was cut, I went back in with Alek Vila and we completely recut the voice-over to the edited picture. It was Alek's idea to basically ignore the first cut of the voice-over in an effort to be more true to the edited work. I was a little reluctant at first because Eric and I did some precise timings to specific moments in the voice-over - but I realized that recreating those moments, without regard to the original (and at times forgetting about them completely) made a more refined and truer complete voice-over performance for the film.

take 6 (lines 90-94)   |   take 10   |  take 9   |  take 6 (lines 98-100)

alt take 9   |  alt take 11   |  alt take 10

alternate versions of 'would you like some coffee my love?'  |   Listen to the final cut of this sequence.

back to production

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