Getting Out of Space

So if you're wondering, we didn't get into Sundance or Slamdance. In some respects, that's to be expected. If you're really realistic and practical with your expectations, it's to be expected.

I'm not very realistic or practical though...that's why this movie exists.

We still have a lot to go, 11 more fests to be precise, but I guess to me this was one of the most important checkpoints to reach despite whether we got in or not. It was a point of validation. You're not supposed to let much ride on festivals, but for me it's a way of knowing if I'm making a certain kind of product or not. Odds are I'll probably never make a "Sundance Film," but I'll probably still try.

But I guess what I'm trying to get at is that now I feel like in some ways I can move on. When you're making your own film, you never really know what it is. The longer you work on it, the less I think you know. The more you change because the more you re-evaluate. Too much time to second guess. Too much time too look too much into too many things. It'll be a long time before I'll be able to watch GOS with a clear understanding of it.

In my mind Sundance/Slamdance was a litmus test. "Does this thing I did compare in any way that kind of material? Do I really know what I'm doing?" The answer to that specific test is no. In the grand scheme of things does it or should it mean anything? Not really. Except that I have more work to do...which is ultimately the best thing it could mean.

What's weird is how much I realized, once it was done, how much time I had spent with it, and more importantly why. I did too much, expected too much, and tried to cover up too much. What I set out to do was completely absurd. But I'm damn glad I did it.

Does this mean the movie's bad? No. Everyone I've shown it to likes it. Hell, the festival programmers may have even liked it...but you have to absolutely love it to show it. I don't even absolutely love it. I think it's the best thing I could have possibly made at that time in those circumstances. And I'm glad we all made it. It's good. I know the people who made it will be proud of it. And they should be.

And the way things have gone for me, it's possible nothing I make will ever be "good enough" for whatever my artificial standards are. But that's what keeps me trying again. I've taken the test, gotten my grade, now I'm ready to go study for the next one and see if I can do better.

"....wait...but none of us have seen the damn movie yet."

I know. I haven't forgotten. I'm being as strategic as I can. I don't want to rush it. It will premiere somewhere. There are two more fests I hear from in February. If neither of those accept it, we will likely move ahead with a late Feb or March premiere in Shreveport. I know my deadlines are ever shifting, but if we want a shot at a festival premiere we must wait. Unfortunately, getting declined is sort of a double whammy because it also means we have to wait longer to show it. We may do a cast/crew screening sooner, but I'd really rather do it all with an audience. One big bang. In the meantime I'll do my best to keep putting out behind the scenes videos on the website.

And you know...make some new stuff.

Ding

It's done.


Now all I have to do is:
Design the final poster/box art
Finish building the website
Get the imdb page finalized
Get an HDCAM and Digibeta copy made for fests
Finish cutting the second trailer
Cut the making of...put more segments online
Compile the other special features for the dvd (commentary, deleted scenes, etc.)
Create a press kit
Get buttons made
Get t-shirts online
Get limited vinyls of the soundtrack made
Submit to the next 9 festivals on my list...wait to here from them
Get dvds/blu-rays produced
Organize the Shreveport premiere/screenings
Restructure Moviesauce, LLC
Rebuild the Moviesauce Website
Get updated releases from the talent

Finish writing my next project...then make it...so on and so forth.

Just...a....little....bit....more

I think I'm done now. With the movie. Watched my "I think I'm done cut" a few hours ago, made a full page list of tweaks and tweaked them. I have a single sound effect to do for the moviesauce logo at the beginning...but that doesn't really count as "the movie."

And there's one track I'm waiting on from Ben which is just a refined version of the title song. So once that's done, I just got to pop it in and we'll be ready for business.


In the meantime, we're waiting to hear from festivals...first notifications come in December and I'll basically be getting a steady stream every month through May for various fests....Then there's a few month break (where I may be screening) and then I'll be hearing from the fall festivals.

In total I'm looking at submitting to 13 fests. We ought to be able to get into several of them. But they're basically all spread out over the entire 2011 calendar...so with any luck we'll be screening it in various cities all year next year...with a Shreveport premiere happening as soon as we have our first festival screening and the world premiere status is gone.

My marketing efforts are also about to increase...with festivals come press kits and promo materials. which means money on printing cool stuff like postcards and one-sheets (with hopefully a new/official design coming) and buttons and t-shirts and maybe even vinyl soundtracks as I've been talking to Ben about doing.

Finishing the website is up there too. And as soon as we get into our first festival, I'll be releasing a new trailer too.


The only bad news is we may not have any DVDs to dish out until late 2011 because of festival policies.


But the counter good news is that with the movie completed, I'll be focusing all my creative energy on that new project. It's been evading me, but I think I'll be able to get down and dirty with it once GOS is off my conscience.

...Outer Space

Had an interesting revelation when looking up the trailer on youtube.

When you search for "Getting Outer Space trailer" the other results that come up are for "Plan 9 From Outer Space," "It Came From Outer Space," "Teenagers From Outer Space," "I Married a Monster From Outer Space," and "Killer Clowns From Outer Space."

This is just awesome. And that's not sarcastic.

As many of you know, our title has been around well before the movie. It was one of the first things I came up with when I first wrote the short film back in 2005/2006. It's a great title. That's why I kept it. The idea behind it has always been the slight play on words with the first part being "Getting Out" which can then be sort of thought as "Getting Out to Space," which is what your motivation is when building a spaceship. Also, more straightforward is just thinking of "outer space" as an idea/goal/mindset that is obtained. In some ways the title is laying out the plot and that "outer space" is the end goal of the movie...whatever that may represent. This story has existed in probably 30 different conceptual forms in my head over the years, but it's always at its core been about someone building a spaceship as an emotional escape (because doing it for real is absurd...which is also what i like about it). So whether the ship literally takes off and the person literally "gets out" or not, the idea and process of building it is a distraction and escape from real world problems. The ship is both literally and metaphorically a vessel to escape the world.

In this iteration of the story it's also a theme with the father and Neil both leaving/trying to leave their current lives for something else. Escapism is a major theme.

But that's all to say why it's always been essential for me to spell out "Outer Space" rather than refer to more common shorthand of just "Space". The suggestion of "Out" is core to the whole title.

And apparently spelling out "Outer Space" in a title kind of puts you in this category of kitschy space movies. Particularly old fashioned black and white ones. Since most of the actual space references in the movie are inspired by retro sci-fi, this is really actually an awesome thing. It's the sort of thing you'd expect was intentional, but it actually never crossed my mind until now. But now when you search for movies with "outer space" in the title, our movie will be lumped in with these genre films which are the foundation for our visual/cultural interpretation of "space."

It's very cool to me.

2nd Time Around

The Slamdance deadline is Friday. I worked about 10 hours on the movie today. Can't remember the last time I worked that much in one day.

All the ADR and Foley is done. Everything is mixed except I have to do a final pass-through of the last 20 minutes tomorrow.

Then the audio is done except for some final music tracks from Ben. But music is easy to ad now that all the dialogue and sound fx are mixed.

I still haven't done the model shot. But I'll probably do that next weekend. It should only take a few hours.

And I have to make a few small adjustments to the credits.

But we're probably 95% done. With the whole damn thing. Which is pretty huge for me. I'm getting really excited.

I also started assembling the "Making Of" documentary. I was worried we wouldn't have enough good stuff because we didn't have a dedicated documentarian, but going back through everything there's actually a ton of stuff that we grabbed between scenes and when doing big things like putting the ship together. I'm excited to go through the hours and hours of footage and grab little tid-bits of stuff. It'll be nice to go through it all again with different intentions, looking for different things. But I've been putting sequences online as I find them/cut them. So I'll probably end up putting all of the significant making of stuff online at some point and then just have it compiled in a nice hour long or so documentary for the DVD.

It's weird to be getting close to the end. I had found a way to deal with not being very productive on it and carrying on with things. I had been working n it so long that I had gotten used to always having something to do on it. Always knowing I'll eventually finish it. It's sort of a similar feeling as it was to finishing preproduction and the week or so leading up to shooting the movie. So much work and so much time and so much procrastination and then it was eventually there and it felt weird. That's where I'm at right now.

And it's storming outside. The filmmaking gods are celebrating.

Still Listening?

My goal: Final Cut by Sunday. All my audio work and everything done by then. Probably still have some music in the works after that, but I'll be done. I'm sure everyone else is thinking "that means 2 more months," and you might be right....For some reason the urgency of completing the film has faded.


The weird thing is I'm more excited about getting started on my new project than I am about releasing this one. Not to imply it's no good, but the closer I get to "completion" the more I feel like I've learned everything and am ready to move on.

But I have settled on a new project and am ready to start writing again. It's gonna be a fun one. Anyone have Bill Murray's number?

Retrospect

The other day I read through all of the posts.

It's interesting to be able to sort of look at yourself and read yourself like that...especially when in the specific context of this movie project.

My initial reaction is that I think to much. If I'm not working, I'm thinking about working, and thinking about why I'm not working. In fact that's the motivation behind most of my posts...including this one.

But I found it validating that while I don't seem to excel at working on my own or doing preproduction or post, the one period I seemed most excited about was production itself. That's ultimately my motivation to make movies from a job point of view. That really is the surreal and fun part. I don't write movies so that I have something to write or shoot them so that I can sit around and edit. I write and edit so that I can shoot movies. That's where it's at. Granted the art of crafting an original story is really the guts of it, production is the process of that art that is the most fulfilling.

It's interesting to me how a lot of the problems I had in preproduction are very similar to those I have now in post. Mainly too much free time, doing everything myself, and dreaming of shooting something. I'm totally ready to move on.

It makes you wonder about yourself though. When you have trouble doing what you want to do when you're doing it on your own. I think it might be that I don't feel I have to perform for myself. I know what I'm capable of and what I want. So I have trouble putting myself under my own pressure and my own deadlines. It's hard to be your own boss.