Last Night's Premiere

In February of this year I called three people who I thought would be interested in reading my script. I secretly wanted to coax them into helping me produce it into a film!

The first was Mr Shawn Lewallen. .IMDB Credits Shawn actually read the script a year previous and was interested in the project but at that time he was in prep for 'Cocaine Angel' down in Florida so was unable to commit. Which actually was a good thing because we were not far enough in to the funding of the film to be able to greenlight pre-production at that time. When I got back in touch with him earlier this year, the script had undergone a few changes and he was still interested in shooting it. As you can see from previous posts on this blog, Shawn has since won awards for his work on Cocaine Angel and from the images posted on this site of 'The Calming', has shot incredible images for my film.

The second person I called was Meg Lansaw. A personal friend of mine who I had worked with on Erica Dunton's movie RedMeansGo in 2004, Meg had last year just shot her short film '80 Windows' and was still reeling from her screening. I gave her a copy of the script and wanted to see if she would be interested in helping me cast the project. She jumped onboard instantly! And for that I thank her because as you will see if you look back through past entries of this blog, Meg had come to my rescue many a time during the final days leading up to principal photography! But to top it off, she had single handedly set-up 43 scheduled auditions from an incredible 200+ headshot submissions, confirming all the details while on vacation in LA the weekend before the auditions were set to take place!

The third person who signed on as an original interest back in February was Mr Rick Pour. CEO of Evolution Digital Studios, Special Effects Make-up artist IMDB Credits and also a good friend of mine. Rick signed on as a Production Advisor to me. His help in every aspect of pre-production was invaluable. From allowing me to invade on his studio for auditioning and screening to putting me in touch with insurance companies and informing me on legal matters to do with release forms et al. A whole world of which I had never encountered before. Ricks help made pre-production painless. And then he came on set and Gripped for me when we were down two men!!!!

These three people were the backbone to get this film off the ground. They trusted my vision and had faith in what I had written. And that is incredible. I owe last night to them!

When I started this blog, I wanted to capture everything that I was experiencing on a weekly basis and log it so that I could go back and see how crazy it had gotten. There were numerous highs followed by exhausting lows. Same story for every production ever produced I am sure. The blog was to document every aspect of pre-production, photography, post and it's first screening. Which was last night...

The 7pm screening was standing room only! I was so happy to see so many people out last night to support local filmmakers. This town breeds talent and that was evident last night in the six films that were shown. Even the 9pm screening had every seat filled! When your film is complete and you show it for the first time, it feels as though you must let it out into the world to find an audience. I imagine this is how it feels to be a parent when you let your child move out of the house for the first time!!!! Festivals are its future and my future for that matter. Even though I stated that this blog will conclude when the film screens for the first time, I will continue to update it so that I have a record of everything that happens to this film now that it is complete.

As I move on to another project, I will never forget my directorial debut.

I want to thank EVERYONE who came out last night to Jengo's Playhouse to watch the selection of Short Films that were screened. You make filmmakers want to continue what they're doing.

Thanks.