Sunday, June 13, 2010

Vacant House Update:

Well, I haven't done a very good job of blogging during the production of this movie, but let me make another attempt at doing so.

Well, here we are, three summers later, and the film still isn't complete.

HOWEVER...

It will be, and I am very excited about the recent progress.

I have to laugh a little as I sit back and read previous posts... The one entitled 95% done makes me chuckle the most. Since that post, there have been two more shoots (the most recent was completed just this week), and one more shoot scheduled for the end of the month (June 2010).

I'm not very good at "blogging as I go," and my hand-written journal is another reflection of that fact. But, I am good at reflecting.

So, here goes... where do we stand now with the film, what were the little hitches that caused some bumps and bruises along the way, etc.

At the end of last summer, I screened an assembly cut of the film for some friends of mine... Let me stop right here and explain to you the valuable lesson I learned during THAT process. The artist in me never wants to show my work to anyone until I think it's "perfect." But the film student/professor in me has been trained otherwise. It's almost a knee-jerk reaction for me to just "put it all out there" for people to criticize. As a result, I have a tendency now to invite people into the creative process a little too early.

And, let me just say... when all you have of a film is JUST an assembly cut with absolutely NO temp music or sound effects you are NOT ready to start soliciting feedback. It's actually OKAY to guard your "baby" for a little bit.

As a result, the initial feedback I received was pretty heart wrenching. I just assumed that my friends would have the same vision as me and be able to see the potential of the film... but they were not.




I walked away from the film for months; I couldn't bring myself to even THINK about the film, let alone finish it. I was starting to believe that my film was going to go down in my personal history book as an EPIC failure.

Nearly five months passed after that screening before I was able to even open up the editing files and look at the film again. I started forcing my way through the film, and as sickening as it was to be reminded of my friends' feedback, I just couldn't help but BELIEVE in my little film.

Yah, it's no masterpiece, and it's barely good enough for me to even wanna put my name on it. But as I screened it again after separating myself from it for those many months, a little voice inside of me kept saying... "you've got something here. It might not be GREAT, but it's something..."



As I scoured over the film again, I realized, much to my dismay that we were NOT 95% of the way done shooting the film. There were still bits and pieces, transitions, and even entire scenes that were needed to make this a complete film.

So, once again... as I have every summer since I started this project... I continued WRITING my film.

Yah, you read that correctly. The story just wasn't DONE. The ending wasn't working, and we still needed more.

So I called up Cris and asked him if he'd be willing to fly out to Southern California just ONE MORE TIME to make the film better. He agreed without hesitation.

So, last week the cast and crew reconvened for yet another shoot. We recorded about 5 pages of voice over, and shot about 3-4 pages of new scenes, including a completely rewritten ending.

We have one more day shoot scheduled for the end of this month, and then after that... we TRULY are done. The film still might not be that great, but it's time to finish this film and take what we've learned and apply it to new projects.

But, for the first time in over a year, I am once again excited about this film.

There's more to report, but I'll save that for future blogs.

Hope all is well with everyone, and be sure to keep an eye out for announcements regarding the film.

Jeremy

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