More Photo Ops

As promised in a previous entry, I've posted a few other photos from my recent, brief but momentous trip to Nashville to record Ms. Dolly Parton for her role in our film!

You can check them out here.

Reality Check

Just woke up from one of those recurring dreams - you know the kind: You're standing in front of a room full of your peers only to realize, to your horror, that you're naked?

Oh no, wait, that wasn't a dream - it was my first cut screening. Twice over.

Kind of the same feeling though. Except you never wake up!

Seriously, though, overall I'd say the reaction was positive (to the film, I mean). In Montreal, people chuckled in lots of good places (and only one bad one). Some cried (I hope it was in the good places!). In Toronto, there wasn't as much overt reaction either way. But lots of good, constructive comments after the lights went up.

The bottom line is, my naissant film is still very much a work in progress and everyone in the respective rooms was there to help us, the filmmakers, towards making the best film possible. Their reactions and input were invaluable at this stage. What I have in front of me now, though, is a pretty big challenge. Time is running out on the editing phase of the process and there's still so much work to be done if we're going to achieve our ultimate goal: making the best film possible.

Nonetheless, my editor, J-F and I are taking a few valuable days to absorb all the feedback and replenish our creative juices before launching back in to the edit for the final push.

Think I'll go crank some Dolly now! (and put some clothes back on)

Post-Parton...

... and first cut. All in one week.

While one milestone has been memorialized in an image, one mile (or thereabouts) of images is on the verge of being presented...

Tomorrow morning first thing, we will show our first cut to the first of our investors. To get to this turning point, my editor, Jean-François Bergeron and I have been burning the midnight patio lanterns to carve out something that is palatable for the first-time viewer, while still remaining very obviously "a work in progress...".

And with no objectivity left in me at all, I would say that we've achieved our goal: What we have - after 7 straight days of pretty methodical montage - is, I think, a well-prepared canvas that reveals a "sketch" of what the final work could look like....

So to sum up: so far so good.

I think.

The reaction of others - tomorrow in Montreal and then Wednesday in Toronto - will, however, tell much more of the other sides of the story than I can right now. I'll let you know what goes down...

Meantime, I'll put up some photos I took on my inaugural visit to the Sound Kitchen Studios in anticipation of meeting, and working with the one and only, Ms. Dolly Parton!