Whoa! Has it really been half a year since my last blog post? Yikes! Ok lets get this party started.
Updates:
One Year Anniversary of the Start of Principal Photography.
Monday June 13th marked one year ago that the first scenes for Love, Concord were shot on location at Diggers Diner in Concord. That day will forever be etched in my brain as for me it was a culmination of literally years of work both for the movie and for my dream to direct a feature film. I remember at one point simply watching my crew setting up the first shot and thinking "wow, this is actually happening." Living out a childhood dream is a surreal experience.
Now I know what some of you might be thinking "One year later and the movie's still not finished?" My response to that is simply, you can't rush an artist. Actually in all practicality, being a full time teacher took precedence over the post production of the movie. It was my first year teaching at the high school level, and me being the perfectionist that I am didn't want do either of my passions (teaching and moviemaking) half assed. Therefore, I rarely had time to edit other than holiday breaks and the occasional weekend.
My other response to the notion that the film is taking too long to complete is to point out that, again, this is an independent film. I unfortunately do not have a full time staff to manage the day-to-day operations of traditional post-production schedule. Meaning, I'm doing most of the editing alone. Thus again why it's taking so long.
Change of the Timeline
So in one of my previous blogs I had hoped to have a 3rd cut by spring break of 2011. Well that didn't happen, obviously. Instead I'm currently working on the 2nd cut of the film. Which after the feedback from my colleagues on the 1st cut will be a very polished version of the film. In fact after I finish the 2nd cut, hopefully by the end of this week, I plan to hold one more screening for my colleagues to air out any last chance changes. Based on the feedback I'll either quickly in-act those changes or consider the film "picture-locked."
For those of you who don't know that term, picture-lock means all visual editing is done on the film. Therefore, sound can be focused on so that it can be enhanced or repaired where needed without the worry of the movie being changed and thus ruining any synchronization issues with sound. In other words, you don't start working on the sound of a movie until you know for sure the picture is not going to change.
Teaser Trailer and NALIP
So in anticipation of meeting distributors at the NALIP(National Association of Latino Independent Producers) conference this past spring, I asked Jimmy Freeman to edit a teaser trailer for the movie. We sat down and compared similar genre movies to ours and I gave him some guidelines as to what I didn't want included. Then he set about working on the trailer and less then a week later he was ready to show me his first cut.
Let me preface my reaction to his work by noting that Jimmy has always impressed me with his keen sense of editing. Of all his valuable artistic skills, it's his editing that truly sets him apart from others. Therefore, I knew his trailer would be good at the very least, but then he showed it to me. WOW! I was so moved by it and how well he represented the movie that it sent chills down my spine. It was so good that all I had him do was swap out a few shots, add a sound effect here and there and that was it.
After forcing both my lead actors, Angelina Leon and Jorge Diaz, to come to the conference we were all excited to see what the reaction to the trailer would be. We screened it at the filmmakers lounge on the Friday evening of the event, and got a decent reaction from the crowd. But it wasn't until Saturday morning when I started sharing the trailer with distributors that the excitement really started to build. Then what really gave me a sense of flattery was when my friend and fellow filmmaker Miguel Angel and his production team saw and enjoyed the trailer. Hearing from them how well done the movie looked based on the 2.5 minute trailer validated all me and my crew's hard work.
Miguel then took it upon himself to introduce me to a bunch of other industry people. All of which had ties to distribution, and all of which loved the trailer. In fact many of them were eager to see the first cut of the film, but to which I was not comfortable yet sharing. Nonetheless, based on the strength of the trailer we have a few interested distributors which is a HUGE deal! So hats off to Jimmy and his unbelievable work!
So where's the trailer already? Well we need to change the music before we can publish it on the internet. But we're close to being able to finally officially release it, so stay tuned!
The Next Movie?
Believe it or not I'm already thinking of my next feature project. While I can't give away much details I can say that it'll most likely be a project that's been running around in my head for a while. What I'm excited about is how Angelina (star of Love, Concord) has expressed interest in helping me write it. In fact her and I have already brain stormed the plot, characters, and setting. Our next step is to write a treatment and scene outline for the project. But again my main focus is to finish Love, Concord.
Well that's the much needed scoop of Love, Concord. Thank you all for the consistent prodding and excitement to see it finished. We're closer to end than the beginning that's for damn sure, and the journey has been quite amazing!
Forward!
-Gustavo
