Wrapped and back in Brooklyn

The wonderful and exhausting experience that was Desert Rain has officially entered the next phase.  We finished shooting Thursday evening and got sloshed on homemade margaritas.  Of course, we had to watch dailies during the wrap party and in the course of our celebration we somehow lost track of Tape #7.  Thankfully it's backed up to hard drive, but losing tapes is not something you want to do when you work so hard to get the footage.  We couldn't look thoroughly enough before leaving Albuquerque Friday afternoon, but I'm praying it shows up in the next day or so.  A running line throughout shooting was "lucky take 7" - it's fitting that the number 7 has taken center stage in the missing tape saga.  

In the end we recorded just under 30 hours of footage for a 90 minute film.  That's roughly 20:1 on the shooting ratio, which gives us plenty of choices in post.  My gut feeling tells me we have 97% of the film, if not all of it.  There's a phone call we need to shoot (we'll shoot it here in NY) and there could be one or two beats missing from the story. Technically, we have some sound and camera issues that can probably be salvaged in post, but maybe not.  Put all of this together and it could mean another day of shooting back in Albuquerque to complete the film. I hope to avoid it - we all do - but 11 days to shoot a feature is a ridiculous pace, and if we need a day of pickups, I can live with it.  We may have no choice.

I'd like to take this moment to thank my super duper cast and crew - everyone worked so hard.  I saw this movie in my head well before we started shooting, and all involved helped me realize that vision.  It was incredible to see shots and scenes come off exactly the way I envisioned, and I owe it all to them - they worked like dogs and never wavered.  We all came together, we all believed.  The experience was like no other, for me personally, and it was largely because of the people around me.  Thanks guys!

I'm excited to be back in Brooklyn, relaxing some, and even more excited to be dropping the footage with my editor, Matt Zoller Seitz, this coming Monday - I truly feel we have a great little film.  Shooting the movie was an ambitious venture, and I'm counting on that ambitious spirit to drive us through post and beyond.  Our sights are set on the SXSW November deadline - yeah, quite ambitious indeed.