Finish Line…

For the first time in a long (long, long, long) time, I feel like we’re close.

I had thought, several weeks back, that we had locked picture. In fact, I told many people we had locked picture, including myself.

But after some feedback from friends in  the industry (and one glorious week off to clear my head – my first since 6 months *before* we shot the movie), I decided to “unlock” the movie and make some tweaks. Nothing huge. In the end, I only cut out another 1.5 minutes. But even something so small (or actually, many tiny, less than a second cuts) can make a huge difference…

(Mini film school alert!! To me, pacing comes down to the rate at which I impart information to the audience… it’s always time to cut the instant the audience “gets it.” Never a beat more than that… no matter if its expository information, character information, emotional information, etc.)

And watching this new cut, even though I have seen this film literally hundreds of times now, it felt fresh. I felt myself loving watching this movie, as an audience member, even though I was the guy who wrote it and cut it. And so I think we’re finally done.

A big part of it feeling done was the music. Matt Pond and Chris Hansen have gone above and beyond the call of duty and put so much passion, sweat, blood and tears into the score… it really is something incredible and I hope (think) it will have a life of its own beyond the movie.

The sound mix is also nearly done. Milkboy Recording have done an awesome job with it and also put in heaps of effort.

We hope to start the color correction very soon as well… That will be the last step of finishing the movie.

Then , we’re entering Sundance with the most complete version I can muster this week… That’s the first step on the next leg of this marathon: going out to fests and sales agents and seeing who is charmed by this awesome little picture.

We’re getting there. I think we’ve made something incredible. I’m hoping I can get it out to all of you soon… hopefully the powers that be will agree…

Finally - watch Josh on Cougartown, premiering this Wednesday on ABC!

- Ben H.