I know.

I just blogged yesterday, but it's worth noting that I watched the full first 40 minutes of the movie last night and not to sound conceded but I was really impressed.

I mean in the end it's about the total gestalt experience, and to watch about a third of the movie and have it feel like a real movie that actually is about something sincere and meaningful and see that coming out in it was really exhilarating. And this is just the rough cut. There's no music yet or anything. I still don't want to hype it up too much, but it's looking so far like the story I worked so hard on is actually coming to life on screen, which is as much as I could hope for.

It feels good. I'm also happy that so far it seems like a very unique kind of film and I don't mean that as an excuse for being bad. It really does feel like a movie (which I guess is weird to say), but it feels like just the kind of unique film that would appeal to me that I would pay to see. I know it seems obvious that it should be that since I made it, but I suppose this is just me realizing that I've actually made a real movie for the first time, and there's a good chance it'll actually be good.

Also, from a style point of view I feel like I'm really showing off something unique as well. There are some really bold choices that actually work really well. For instance, there's a 5 minute long conversation between Neil and Travis and it's just them sitting across from each other at a table silhouetted by the window behind them and it's basically the first real conversation they have with each other in six years and both Kemer and Steven do really nice jobs of delivering everything and it just works really well as one long shot. I had extra coverage of close-ups I could cut to, but they just really break the tension and weaken the power of the shot. It makes me think of a 5 minute single shot conversation I did in "making of" which really didn't work...but here' it's a really great shot/scene. I'm also glad to see that I really think I have my own visual style, which borrows a lot from other directors like Wes Anderson, but I don't think people will look at this and say I'm just copying him. It really feels like a mix of all the things I wanted it to be.

Back in Action

So my productivity has skyrocketed recently.

I believe it's a mixture of the season changing (so I'm visually not living in the same world as the movie anymore) and also getting a new workspace downtown at the brand new Cohabitat space...which is basically where you pay to have a dedicated workspace at a place with other creative people. It's a cool idea. Right now there aren't any other people, but I've been going over after work and have probably clocked in about 10 hours over there since moving in last Sunday.

I think I also just needed a longer than expected gestation period to disconnect myself from the production as much as possible so that I was coming at it with a fresh look. Which is great because I can feel it working. I've edited 15 minutes of the movie in the last 3 days, which is pretty good, but most importantly I'm really happy with what I'm seeing. Things that initially felt rushed in production actually work pretty well. It's like what I was saying after we wrapped but couldn't quite tell yet, which is that we've raised the bar so high with this project that even the stuff that felt like it might not be as good is much better than most things I've done before.

But most importantly it's really nice to just be seeing it all in sequence without as fresh of a memory of when we shot things. The stuff I've been working on flows nicely and I can see and feel the story, and it's really more than sum of the parts which is nice. All of these little chaotic moments cut into sequence and put in context and there's a pretty good movie there. So that's exciting.

And it's inspiring me to push through. I'm looking at having a full rough cut in a few weeks which I can send off to Hunter and Ben to cut the trailer and create the score respectively. Then it's just fine tuning from there, which I'm hoping will be much easier than the assembly.

But yeah, I know the adrenaline of the production period has kind of worn down and I haven't been updating the blog as much, but rest assured the wine is fermenting and will be ready to taste at the end of the summer.

Also, not to end on a sad note, but I figure this is relevant since it was an issue during the second leg of production. My grandmother died. We thought she was going to go during the second leg and I was really stressed out about that when shooting. But she held on for 3 more months so that's pretty incredible, I guess. It's also sort of interesting to have been to funeral and watch my dad over the last week while simultaneously editing the death scene/funeral in the movie and I think I got a lot of it right.

But overall, I'm just invigorated right now. I want to finish this movie and show it off and start doing more... I really feel like this is my career and I'm ready to keep building it.