Large and small Chartarum stickers, plus small QR Code stickers.

Chartarum QR Code

I’m a latecomer to the whole “smart phone” thing (I resisted as long as I could), but I knew we had to have QR code stickers (I’ve already tested them on my phone). I’m a fan of Moo for small-run jobs, and really like their sticker books – the small stickers are about 1″ square with rounded corners and come 90 to a book. Some folks attending a special showing of Chartarum in a few weeks will get the large sticker and, hopefully, a post card, plus whatever else I can think of.

As of this writing, I’ve now seen the movie five times. I seriously love it, and not just because of my involvement (and my love for the director). Actually, being this close to the production made it harder to watch, because I was remembering every bit of action that went into each scene. When you sit down to watch a movie for the first time – in a theater or one that you’ve purchased or rented – it doesn’t come with any “history.” But boy, what a difference it makes when you were there.

The first time I saw it, I sat with John in our home studio/computer room and we watched it on one of the monitors. Throughout the course of the weekend, as each cast member arrived for their ADR session, we all watched together, this time on the big screen in the living room:

Oshyn Gibson as Sally Barnes, coloring during the opening scene of Chartarum.

While I’m watching this scene, I’m enjoying it (Oshyn did a great job), but I’m also remembering making that t-shirt, or the bracelets, loving the zombie action figures that John made for me ages ago (and wondering where they ended up), loving this character that wears Cthulhu, Jr. t-shirts and plays with zombie toys, doing my single bit of camera work (coming up a little further into this scene), the grape pop that ended up on the floor…. I also know what comes next, which is something you all will have to wait just a little longer to find out.

Julie Hurford (Frances) re-records (loops) dialogue for Chartarum. Coffee is essential, but that much talking eventually requires water with lemon juice.

For those who don’t know, Automated Dialogue Recording (ADR) – aka “looping” – is total movie magic. It replaces dialogue that’s too quiet, too cluttered, too wimpy, or just plain bad with a new and improved version. As the fans of Chartarum know, all of our outdoor lines were rendered null by The Evil Crickets of Luther Who Never Shut Up (and who may deserve their own horror flick). To correct this cosmic wrong, I found myself in headphones and leaning towards a microphone while I tried to redo my lines while matching my on-screen lips.

Julie (Frances) and John (director, etc.) - with Maggie - during ADR.

We did some really fun stuff at the end: I had to make “fight noises” (Ugh, Engh, Urgh) – the kind of sounds you make when kicking bad guy butt – as well as snarky voice-over lines. AND I got to see the practically-done cut of the movie. Twice. I won’t spoil it – I just think everyone’s gonna love the film’s drama, cleverness, and humor. Good times.

We were thrilled to hear back from HiyaHiya North America that they were interested in being a sponsor for Chartarum. That was great news, but what really blew us away was when they asked if we could use their needles to kill a monster. Well, duh. (We probably wouldn’t have done so if they hadn’t asked, but if they were up for it, so were we!) As far as we know, this is the first cross-promotion of knitting needles and a monster movie and we’re very happy to be a part of it.

There may or may not have been multiple monsters slain with knitting needles, but here is a still image from the movie showing one confirmed kill managed with a set of US6 47″ Stainless Steel circulars* (as a garrote):

Mel Shaw (Sam) uses circular knitting needles from HiyaHiya NA to take out a drone (Ty Otto) in Chartarum.

Mel still has these needles; in fact, she says they’re in use right now (for their normally-intended purpose), on a long-term project.

*Circular needles consist of two short needle tips (in this case, stainless steel), connected by a flexible cable.

As mentioned earlier, we’ve started ADR (also known as looping), which is the process to replace recorded dialogue in a movie. (We were plagued with sound problems – including exuberant crickets – during filming.) Some of the cast was able to visit this weekend (more on that later), and they got a chance to mess around with the Theremin:

Roberto Warren (Eli) on the Theremin

Russ Van Ness (Milton) tries the Therem during a break from ADR.

Sally's drawing, by Oshyn Gibson.

We’ll be posting more in the coming days!