168 Film Finished!

What a week it was. 2 weeks ago was a frenzied planning week, getting ready & calling in cast & crew to make the short film. Although I had registered months ago, due to countless problems that arose, it became apparent that "Francine wasn't going to be able to make her little film"…and that's when things changed. I got a different perspective on the whole project & suddenly things just seemed to happen. I went from having 2 confirmed people to work with, to a cast & crew of 22, within a week!

Although filming only lasted a day, CJ had his work cut out for him in the edit suite! Great material to work with but some real challenges too. One thing he could count on with Walt, was absolute consistency, making for easy cuts. However, scenes that had quite a bit of movement, were a different story. Add to that changing light when working against 2 walls of windows, you get the idea!

Once CJ had put together a directors cut, Jim came into the picture with the music & a song Vanessa E had written & recorded the day before. Again, the speed with which it came together was amazing. Jim had described the film to her the best he could, sight unseen. Vanessa also got the fire & after coming up with the chorus, wrote 2 verses then & there! To add to the incredible way things were fitting together, the music & film "just happened" to hit the crescendo at the exact same time! Wish I had been there to hear it, but CJ & Jim both were pretty overwhelmed with how it all fit.

Would you believe saving the film seemed to present the most stressful challenge? Instructions were a bit vague on the format (there were so many variations on the codecs) and after waiting 40 minutes to save one version, it would only play on one computer, not the other. Several trips & purchases and hours later a few versions were saved & off to the post office we went.  The film was to be mailed prior to 2:00 PM local time, we got it in at 1:52…and that was after the Post office employee spent several minutes looking for a stamp that would actually show the time!

And so now we wait. The local films were turned in Friday. During the next  weeks, the films will be viewed & narrowed down from 85 to 35. The next step will be a couple weeks after that when we are notified which films are "award eligible" & the nominations….& then the big night! Que sera, sera!