THE FILM IS IN!

It was a bit of an unexpectedly stressful process-- some things, namely sound, were not quite as I imagined them to be 2 weeks prior to film festival submission, but luckily I was on break from school so I could devote Many Many Hours to fixing it up exactly how I wanted.

And guys? I'm actually really happy with it. I mean, yeah, there aren't too many points at which you forget you're watching a Very Low Budget Film, but consdering everything we had to contend with, I'm proud as hell of all of us. The music especially-- thanks for the millionth time to the brilliant Casey Bushmaker-- is just so great. And the acting. And (little pat on back to self) the writing as well. Sound, lighting, FX? Yeah, they're amateur. But where the art lies, where the creative talents of the people involved shine through, it's more than a $1300 film. It's like, $2000 at least. :) Kidding.

So, it has officially been submitted to the WI Film Festival. And I think I'm going to send it to the Chicago Underground Film Festival as well in the next couple weeks. Seems like a good fit for the project.

And honestly, even if it doesn't get accepted anywhere, that's fine. The point was having a deadline to finish the thing-- I'm one of those people that needs deadlines-- and now I've Finished my First Feature Film, and that's a collection of F's I'm pretty happy about. There will be screenings in Madison and possibly Chicago in the nearish future (I'm hoping for a Worm and Poodle screening + SparkleFuck show) and the film will be available online sometime soon as well.

Thanks again to everyone involved!

In Which Amy Is a Magickal Fairy Creature To Whom No Wrong Can Fall

Okay, so I was seriously ready to accept the consequences of my own failure. I didn't turn in the movie on time, I'd have to wait another year to turn it in, etc etc.

But I thought I might as well write to the festival and inquire as to whether I could submit it as a Student Film. I thought I couldn't because I wasn't a student during primary shooting.

But they responded yesterday and YES! YES I CAN! So in fact it's WAY BETTER this way, because not only do I have until Dec 31 to come up with a rough cut, and not only is my entry fee lower, but I'll only be competing against other student films, against which my bright ideas but dim budget would stand a much better chance.

So the film is actually in a better position now than if I had made my deadline in the first place.

Whatcha doin to me world? You gonna make me soft.

Soft and awesome.

This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You

So I'm sure some of you are wondering... "How's the movie goin, Amy? How'd turning in the movie on Halloween to the WI Film Fest go, Amy? Surely you did that thing you said you were going to do because you're not flaky like everyone else in the world, right Amy?"

Well... here's how it went down. I got the initial sound mix from Carl on Saturday afternoon, and put in 14 hours over the course of the next 2 days fixing the whole film up and plugging last-minute holes, and at the very last minute I looked at the film and I realized... rough cut or no rough cut, this is not the product I want to send to the festival. 

Ugggghh, it pains me so. You have no idea. Well, maybe you do, if you know me and how over-reachingly ambitious, OCD, and insane I am. But... UGGGHH. 

However, it really is for the best. Why work for a year on something and then turn in an inferior product? So I'm going to wait until sound and music are a little more complete before turning it in. I'm inquiring with the festival if I can qualify for Student Status (for which the deadline is December)... I doubt I can (because I wasn't a student during principal shooting), but I might as well try. And there is next year. And there are a million other film festivals. And, lest I start feeling bad about myself, I do need to remember that only three months ago, my hard drive was broken and I had to remake the whole film from scratch. So, you know. I'm not THAT much of a failure.

But, because I do feel badly, and because I want to maintain excitement about the film, I decided to provide you guys with another Sneek Peak.

Onward and Upward (and a trailer!)

Considering that I've spent the last 2 weeks moving to Evanston and being diagnosed with pharyngitis*, I've actually made a stunning amount of progress on reconstructing the movie! And I've purchased a new hard drive (2 Terabytes for $89- we SO live in the future) to avoid future disaster. Hurrah.

I'm hoping to get the finished ("finished") film to Carl the Sound Editor and Casey the Soundtrack Composer next weekend, only about a month off schedule. 

In the meantime, enjoy this trailer I made before the crisis! Again, for legal purposes, I did not write the song "Our House." Sorry to shatter your illusions about me being an 80s pop star. It hurts me too.

*as far as I can tell, what the medical profession calls "bacterial infection in your throat that we can't identify."

The Plane Has Crashed Into the Mountain

Let me take you on a thought journey for a moment.

A few months ago, you directed your first feature-length film. Since then, you have been spending 2-10 hours every day editing that raw footage into a semi-polished gem. On the evening of Monday July 25th, you finished the film! One hour, 15 minutes long. You export it in preparation for the following day's meeting with the Sound Editor and Soundtrack Composer. You go to bed happy, because YOU JUST MADE A FREAKING MOVIE.

Tuesday morning, July 26th. You wake up to see a somber face hesitantly informing you that last night, your laptop was dropped by a friend and the hard drive is seriously damaged. You, in your infinite wisdom, did not have a backup copy of the film.* The film is, in all likelihood, destroyed. You have the tapes full of raw footage still, so refilming shouldn't be necessary, but the 350-400 hours put into editing and polishing your baby are gone, flung into the void.

Oh, also, you're moving to Chicago on Monday.

That's been my week.

But! No time for self-pity. I've already taken stock of what survived the fall and what did not (survived: 2/3rds of raw video files, most of the still photos and sound files. perished: 1/3 of raw video and, most crucially, the Final Cut file itself, where all of the editing work was stored)... with a little bit of help and a lot of determination, I shall make it again.

It's kinda like this. (Emphasis on :30 and :43.)

*I really feel the need to explain myself here, because I KNOW it's incredibly unwise not to have everything backed up, let alone something of this importance. But HD film is so enormous that the movie didn't fit on my external hard drive, and I'm Totally Poor so I couldn't afford to buy a new hard drive just yet. Hence, my laptop was the only place the film existed. Past tense. Sigh.