I have no idea how that happened. It was just August. At least according to this blog. I really can’t believe how much I’ve let all of our social media business just fly out the window. Call it exhaustion I guess.
Let me just say this: don’t make such a tiny, low-budget, small crew feature film unless you’re completely insane. Which we are, apparently. At least, that’s what we’d say to each other pretty much every day while shooting this film, and especially in the final days of shooting a couple weeks ago.
It’s hard to believe that we’re done filming in Door County. Yep, we finished September 16th in a draining/panicked couple of days. I had almost no voice (due to sickness/acting in 40 degree weather) and eventually had to resort to whispering to Chris what we needed in the shot (we were done with all dialogue at that point). Oy. Reading that, I sure wish it was more romantic than that. That we finished with champagne and a huge, amazing party. Next time, next time would be great.
To be honest, I’m still not sure if I can trust that we’re done with the Door County shoot. For the longest time, while filming our final bits (exteriors, cutaways, little scenes with just me walking around or driving), I would wake up with a kind of frenzied anxiety about every little thing we could have missed. A racing mind. Because if we missed something….(the cost of flying back, how fast the seasons change up there…)….ugh, impossible.
Most of the panic is gone now, and what’s taken over is sheer overwhelm at the task ahead. Chris tells me we have 2,400 minutes of footage right now. We’re making a movie that’s about 100 minutes. I’ve never edited a feature. Granted, I can’t wait to see it all come together, but holy yikes, I can’t do this, it’s too much, I think I’d rather just take a nap….
But having been back a couple weeks and resting up (I don’t know why, but there’s always a period right after finishing where we’re just completely beat and life seems to move in slow-mo as we catch up in our day jobs and being normal people paying off credit cards (yep, this movie cost more than our Indiegogo goal, as expected – and we haven’t done Post yet)), now it’s time to get into gear and see this thing through.
It’s a combination of – I can’t wait to see it and I want it done.
Creatively, it’s rough for me to stay in one place for too long. I started writing this thing in 2009 technically, though the official script started in 2012 (I think??).
When projects go on for a while I start daydreaming about new ones. And it helps to sink into other art a little bit (that whole Artists Way “fill the well” kind of thing) – reading Virginia Woolf and Thomas Pynchon at the same time (why not?), playing very bad guitar, taking notes about the next script, fantasizing about doing a play and about how to use the persimmons growing from the tree outside our apartment.
But the goal is – finish this movie.
And we’re on our way. I’m inching towards a very rough edit. Though at the same time there are still endless clips to label and convert and organize.
AND – we have to film for one more weekend, hopefully in the next month, fingers crossed. We are so so close, but we’ve got 10 pages left of script – ironically, the first part of the movie – set in San Francisco. So that’s what we’re planning right now.
But I promise, even as we go into cave mode, staring down this movie on the Macbook, to be better about sharing the process. And I also promise to share some more footage. Definitely better stills, hopefully a scene. Maybe a blooper or two (some of the best stuff we have is when Chris stands in for me so I can check the shot and he just stares with no expression at the camera – it’s amazing, I might have to make a movie of it).
so glad to hear from you via the blog, keep at it Rebecca and Chris, best wishes!!! Michael
Hey Michael! Great to hear from you!! So sorry we couldn’t stop in and visit you at Stone’s Throw on this last trip – it just about did us in. Maybe in the future? :-)