Victories and Setbacks...

So, for the 0 of you following this blog, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into the inner workings of the DLS process using the example of our current project, 52 TAKES OF THE SAME THING, THEN BOOBS. I had the idea for BOOBS in the Spring of 2007. I met the wonderful actress, Roxanne Arvizu, at CineVegas that summer and asked her if she'd be interested in doing the film. She agreed to do it. We shot the film in the Fall of '07. We shot for 1 day in Agoura Hills (at the public access studio where we shot PORNOGRAPHIC APATHETIC, 5 years prior). It was a blast. A good time was had by all. 2 1/2 years later the film is finished. It took that long because there were so many effects in the film and because we had other projects come up between then and now. It also took that long because I was personally executing all of the effects in the film myself--learning Motion and AfterEffects in order to realize the vision. Some of the effects would take Final Cut Pro 5 minutes just to think about. Then there's the render time. I'm not going to guess how long it takes to render every effect, but trust me: it takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG-ASS time. Adjust. Process. Render. Tweek. Process. Render again. That was the process. Getting the idea of why it took so long to finish the film?

Now the film has been accepted to the Florida Film Festival based on a rough cut I sent them, which is fantastic. It's a great festival and a lot of fun and I go everytime I can afford it. The deadline to deliver materials was last Friday. On Friday night, my computer had a major meltdown before I had time to export the project to make a Mini-DV version for the Florida Film Festival. I had to re-install Final Cut Pro over the weekend. Now that FCP is up-and-running again, the film is re-rendering from beginning-to-end which seems to be taking a few days. So now the film is way past the deadline for its World Premiere screening and I'm alternating between biting my nails and praying.

That brings us to today. Will the film finish rendering in time to actually screen at the festival? Will there be further technical glitches to prevent the creation of the Mini-DV? Will there be time to create and print promotional postcards for the film before the festival begins? Will there be time to submit to other festivals whose deadlines are rapidly approaching? These are all questions that plague the indie filmmaker working with no budget. And I'm not even touching on the stresses of working on multiple projects at the same time and prepping for the next project(s). For those of you that are filmmakers (and keep in mind there are still 0 people following this blog), you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who aren't and want to be: Make sure you love it because it's about 1% glitze/glamour and about 99% hard work and pains-in-the-ass.

Wait. Let me rephrase: Don't make sure you love it. Make sure you CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT.

xo
T. Arthur Cottam

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