15 December 2008

Learning Curve

When Christopher and I set out to make End we knew it was going to be a learning process. I remember telling him that success or fail, just making this movie was going to make us better filmmakers. Ever since those words came out of my mouth that has been slowly coming true. I am learning a lot.

The first thing I learned is that with a brilliant cast and crew I can accomplish a nearly impossible production schedule. We had some issues, and some fun things to deal with in post, but we did it.

Now that we are in post production I am learning that making a feature film is not all that similar to making a short film. The biggest difference is time – not the length of the film itself, but how long it take to put it together. There is just so much more to deal with and it’s hard to take that into account until you are actually doing it. Let me tell you post production on a feature takes a long time. It’s suddenly become clear to me why post production staffs are huge and why it takes such a long time to finish a feature – even on our budget. I can’t wait to see the finished product but I am going to have to wait. That is the hardest part of post – waiting for everything to finally be ready to pair together into a complete form.

I am also learning that music is a great thing but another layer that takes lots of time and patience. We have not found a composer yet, but those we have been talking to are great sports and seem to be genuinely interested in this film. That is always a good thing to have in a potential new crew member. Again, for a short film music is so much simpiler.

However, despite everything I am learning, even the painful things (like drywall is much more fragile than you think) I believe End is going to be a film worth making and watching. I am excited for the near future when I can show End to all those that worked so hard on it and begin the next and final step.