Grant Deadline Extended! Sort of...

So I had an intensely stressful week last week for personal reasons and because I was desperately trying to get my grant together before the deadline. Quentin has been an enormous help in giving me advice and feedback and helping me with the budget. Given how busy he is with his full time job it's really amazing that he's made the time. Anyway, I was all stressed out and about to curl into the fetal position from the pressure and high expectations when I made one last visit to the Women In Film Foundation (WIF) website and discovered that the deadline had been extended! WOO HOO!!! Unfortunately, because of my schedule (I'm going on vacation to Florida next week!!) it's only bought me a couple of days and not the entire 3 weeks it was extended by ... but.... I'll take what I can get. A few more days of checking over my work is perfect. I'm actually starting to feel really positive about the application finally. It feels like it's coming together as a strong proposal.

I am also extremely happy with the cut of the film that I'm submitting. Jamie, David and I had our last edit session yesterday and it was awesome. I think that the film is already just awesome and I know it's only going to get better. I am, as I'm writing, laying off a the DVDs which I"ll be sending off to the foundation. So just a few more ducks to line up and I'll be able to send off the grant application tomorrow! And then I will have a party because I will be so relieved. I will also be sending the film off to Fantastic Fest in Austin. It's a genre festival which I'm hoping will premiere my film and kick off a successful festival run. So everyone keep your fingers crossed for me (if anyone reads this blog that is)!

Grant Applications

So I've been working on this grant application for a few weeks now. It's due at the end of the month. It's a finishing fund grant through the Women in Film Foundation. It's right up my alley as it's geared towards woman in leadership roles in the film industry. This has been a great learning experience as I have never applied for a grant before. It's extremely nerve wrecking. It doesn't seem to matter how much research I do or how many grant books I read. I still feel unprepared. I'm sure part of it is insecurity because my track record with applying for prestigious things in the film world isn't great. However, this time I'm determined. Besides I have no other choice since I have run out of money for post production. Anyone have a rich relative who feels like helping me make a movie?

Anywy, thankfully Quentin has been very help as has the Foundation Center here in NYC which I have found to be an invaluable resource on grant writing. On the flip side of the coin the Edit is going really well. Jamie and David are always coming up with creative solutions to editing problems and the film is starting to just hum right along. Molly will be coming in on Sunday when we meet next to do a little Additional Dialogue recording and then we will be almost entirely set for our Rough cut which will go out with the grant application and to a few festivals.

Fingers crossed!

Editing

So I just had my first official editing day yesterday. This of course means that I am back in the creative process. I can't believe how much a founder when I don't have a creative outlet. I just couldn't tell you what I've been doing the last two weeks since the shoot. However, I could give you all the boring details about the edits I've been making.

Basically everything is going well and the footage looks awesome. I am editing it myself right now, but hopefully very soon I will have the help of two very talented editors.

Ok back to work.

Finished Shooting

Well I have been relatively negligent here. I finished shooting! Last Tuesday the 16th we wrapped about about 11:30pm! It was a crazy 5 days of shooting. It felt like running a marathon everyday and I was almost completely obliterated on wednesday. I wandered aimlessly about my house my brain mush my muscles sore and unsure what to do with myself. In fact I didn't really start to come back to myself until Saturday.

Right after shooting there was a lot of wrapping up to do and now there is a lot of loose ends to be tied. First and foremost I"m dying to get my footage back! I have yet to see any dailies which means I have no evidence of all the amazing work my crew and I did to get this film made. I do however have some awesome pictures from on set taken by the fabulous Julie Fiasconaro our scripty!

I don't know what to say about the shoot except that it was amazing and from Day 1 I knew that it was exactly what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. The journey certainly isn't over but a huge mountain has been climbed. I will keep posting on this blog as I progress along in post production so that you all can know exactly where I am.

Right now I'm working on getting an editor for the film. I have a few people in mind and I'll let you know when someone is confirmed. And of course I'm sure that as soon as I get dailies I"ll be back here gushing about the foootage.
xo

1st Day of Shooting

Went really well. We got all the creepy hallway shots and the celebratory bar shots! We still owe the realty agency but that's ok it's a quick shot we can pick up later. Everything looks so amazing! The Red and Shawn are making it magic.

Shooting Tomorrow

Oh my Goodness. So much has happened since I last updated. I wish I'd been more diligent about updating but there simply haven't been enough hours in the day. Our entire crew is on. We finally locked in a great AD named Rick Flynn, a scripty and a sound guy. All of our roles have been cast:

Megan Melnyk will be playing Tina,
Molly Pope will be playing Maureen,
Jordan Smith will be playing the co-worker
Kent Meister will be playing Richard Powell
Daniel Abeles will be playing Billy

I had a wonderful rehearsal with Molly and Megan last night where we practiced tying Molly up. That was a good time!

We've finally locked in all of our locations thanks to our fabulous locations manager Alec Bates. We had a slight set back with our office space on tuesday but we found an alternate location out in Flushing that's going to work just fine.

The entire crew has been working so hard to get the film made it's simply amazing! And everything is coming together beautifully. At this point, 1 day out from shooting I thought I would be a nervous wreck BUT in reality I'm feeling really good, and really confident. With all the pieces moved into place all I have to do is come in and make the magic happen as they say.

So wish me luck tomorrow on our first day of shooting. I'll update again when shooting is over as I imagine I'll be too tired to keep posting during shooting. But you never know.

Shooting Date Set

It looks like we are officially shooting over Valentine's Day weekend! It will be a 5 day shoot and probably mostly nights so I'm preparing to be nocturnal. We are making offers to our lead actresses today. I can't say who they are yet, but they are fabulous and I'm very excited to start working with them.

With a little over a week to go before shooting everyone is switching into high gear to make sure that we are super prepared to move forward with our very ambitious shooting schedule.

Over the next couple of days I'll be taking a good look at the script and making sure that I have it clear in my mind exactly what I want for the look and feel of the film. I'll also be working on communicating this to all of the talented crew. Because I'd be no where without them. And then it will mostly likely be meetings, meetings, meetings, and rehearsals. I'm already exhausted just thinking about it.

Ok gotta go lots to do!