Portfolio: Film Production
"nil admirari" Production Notes

Website Design || Graphic Design || Image Restoration || Film Production

The talent for "nil admirari" was incredible. I called upon a friend I used to work with to play the roll of the disturbed guy in the movie. I thought Nick would be perfect for the roll, because in the original script, Cassie and I had this psycho who was disturbed by current world events and he went insane and talked to his happy friend (a yellow smilie face balloon). Having worked with Nick and seeing a crazy side of him I knew he would do a great job and was perfect for the roll.

Many changes happened when we got to our location. Nick had read through the script, liked it, but had an even better idea. Keeping with the theme of "disturbed guy talks to happy friend", Nick suggested something more deep and character driven. Since Nick spent the time to get into and understand his character, Cassie and I went with it to see what he had in mind.

When the camera turned on and I called "action!" I didn't know what to expect, just where he would be sitting and that his performance would be improvised. He started rambling off and carried on a story of a guy dealing with the recent suicide of a friend. He talked for about twenty-two minutes, sitting in the cold wet rainy weather with a camera in his face. He was amazing and quite a trooper.

For me, it is hard to believe when viewing "nil admirari" that there was so much laughing that happened seconds before "action!" was called. Nick is a funny guy and laughter just comes out when he is around. Seconds before the camera started rolling everyone was laughing hysterically. It's amazing how things can settle down when they need to be.

Cassie and I wanted this flick to be powerful and to sink any cheerful atmosphere of a room into the depths of despair. We accomplished that at a test screening in one of our classes at Johnson County Community College. It was the best reaction. Music helped with the feel of the flick. We chose Erik Satie's "Trois Gymnopedies" to help set the mood.

During post-production we ran into many complications. Sound was a problem for me then, and had been with previous student projects. Sometimes the music would go right over the voice and we didn't know what he was talking about. To avoid this issue, we mastered a copy to VHS without music. Plugged it back into the computer and added the music again - very makeshift. Luckily for us it worked. We were up until five o'clock in the morning on the day it was due. We went into class with two hours of sleep and presented it. It was a success and I went home to sleep before I had to go into work that night.

A couple years after the original "nil admirari" was produced and "finished", new software was aquired. I felt the need to return back to the film. I was never happy with the original and knew that with Cassie's help, we could make it better and finally master what we were looking for when we first shot it. The final product is finally available for the first time in widescreen and with some color correction.

All the hard work was definitely worthwhile with "nil admirari". I hope you all enjoyed it.

-Kristi Bobilya
(director/editor)