Rough Cut!

Well, the first rough cut of Endings is complete, clocking in at a surprising one hour and fifty two minutes (01:52). I say surprising because I fully expected this cut to run a lot longer that that. So this is very good news, as it means we can cut the film for the proper pacing and flow and not have to worry about artificially trying to shorten it. It will no doubt get shorter (I really want it no longer than one hour and forty five minutes), but now I don't have to worry about it!

And here is the cut itself. The picture below is a screen capture of the entire rough cut of Endings, straight of editor B.K. Garceau's computer (click on the picture to see a full size version).



(By the way, for those of you who are interested, the blue tracks on the timeline represent the video, while the green are the various layers of audio tracks).

American Messiah to iTunes

I got word last night that The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah will be available soon on iTunes (thanks to a new deal I signed with an aggregator/distributor who was able to make a deal with Apple). iTunes is notoriously hard to get your indie film on, so I'm pleased to have finally gotten some exposure for the film there.

I'll announce when it goes live. It should take some time, as they have to digitize the film, and I'm sending the DigiBeta copy out today for that purpose (it'll go through the distributor, who has a slate of films going on to iTunes).

Anyway, count me as pleased. I may just download a copy myself, to put my film on my iPod...

Burn After Reading

I finally got back to the theater this weekend, to see a Coen Bros. film, of course. I mean, if you're going to make it out the theater, it might as well be a film that promises to be good.

Burn After Reading was quite good -- expertly made and acted. It's a "lesser Coen Bros." movie, in the sense that it isn't too deep and it covers ground that they covered well in past films like Fargo.

But lesser Coen Bros. work is still pretty good work.

I went to the movie with a friend, and he noted afterward that this was the kind of movie either of us would love to write -- but which would never get made if we did. It's just one of those industry things, I guess. The Coen Bros. can make a movie like this, given their clout, but if I wrote this exact same script as a spec and sent it around, it probably wouldn't spark too much interest...

That might sound annoying or pessimistic, but I'm just at the point where I view it as reality and nothing more. Frustrating, yes. But it's just the way it is.

I'm being charitable to myself, I think, because on another day this past week, I would have happily railed about how unjust that is...

My absence from blogging

One of my few regular readers noted that I haven't been blogging much as of late. And he's right. I've just been feeling really busy with classes having started and may other things going on (I've been creating the panels for the Doctor Who area of Film & History's conference next month because I am serving as the DW area chair, for example).

Also (or maybe because of all that other stuff), I just haven't had much to say. Postproduction on Endings continues (we're about halfway through the rough cut); classes are in full swing and going well; the craziness of regular life is underway (getting the kids to dance practice, girl scout meetings, church, and etc. is always a challenge)...

So, I'm still here. I'm still working. I'm just thinking and not writing. For the moment.

Real Life

There's nothing like a kid throwing up when you get home to take your mind off your day...