February 14th

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

A special day for me...... but not because of a sweetheart, unless ofcourse you call the film my loved one.

Well YIPP - F&^%*#ING - EE. I finished the first VERY rough assembly today. Meaning every scene that i shot, has been edited. I'm not100% happy with all the scenes nor am I satisfied with how they were edited. But they are all there in a rough form. Now we can see basically what the film looks like. Sound is a whole other issue. Soafter like 11 weeks of cutting ALL that I shot, it's time to get picky and to also start trimming the weaker stuff out.

Gotta say though, when I strung all the pieces together into one big edit, I freaked out. I looked at the screen to get a running length. The running time was 2 hours and 41 minutes. That means I have to cut out ALOT. I would have to take out almost 33% of the content. It could be done. I have worked on projects like that before. But it is a VERY painful and time consuming process with plenty of experimentation.

Luckily, I misread the timeline. Sure it said the film ended at2:41:03, but the timeline started at 1:00:00. Standard procedure, butI wasn't sure with Final Cut Pro. WHEW... I would hate to have to lose that much. That would mean we also spent 33% of our shooting time on stuff that waasn't going to make it into the film. What a waste that would be.

So, right now the film is running 1 hour and 41 minutes NOT including head or tail credits. For those I will assume 3 minutes. Hence, allin the film is running about 1 hour and 45 minutes.....PERFECT.

It means I still have to lose about 15 minutes, but that makes for a better movie. So starting tomorrow, I will attack the film and instead of just putting the scenes together as scripted and as Iplanned when I shot them, I will look to economise and tell a better story. Now the fun starts.