Picture Locked

Oh, we may tweak a frame here and there but after seven months we locked picture late Sunday night and what a relief it is. I'd have posted this information earlier but it took me four days to find my passsword into this blog.

I haven't posted here in 6 weeks for two reasons: I got bored with it almost immediately and we were in intense editing sessions and any time we weren't I wanted to do anything that had nothing to do with the film. Like watch TV.

I'm very happy with the film. It's the story I wanted to tell. The producers, editor, and my wife are happy with the film... Who knows what happens next. If nothing else happens I'll still be happy with it. It's hard to tell how good or bad something is when you're so close to it, but I can confidently report that the film isn't embarrassing. Other than that, it's up to the audience.

We did have a very encouraging test screening. My hopes weren't high going into it -- they were realistic -- but the film scored better than I expected, and in some cases much better. Thankfully the issues we ran into were easily fixed with some trims for pacing and the reworking of some scenes for clarity.

If you'd have told me seven months ago we'd have been editing for this long, I never would've believed it. I spent years structuring the script so it worked and never imagined that same structure wouldn't translate to film. Well, it didn't and finding a workable structure was harrowing at times and just plain hell at others.

But we got it. To tell a story in three time zones with flashbacks, two sets of cast, all book-ended by an abstract question and have your test audience follow it is a tribute to the smart people I'm blessed to work with who never stopped trying to make it better or challenge me.

More to come...