After 6 weeks of intense, fine cutting of the movie, last weekend we spent 3 days back in Albuquerque shooting added scenes and pickups to complete the film. As the movie became more clear through the editing, I decided to add a slew of scenes, which equal 12 screen minutes or script pages, roughly, in an effort to solidify the story. I knew I would be missing something after attempting to shoot a feature in 10 days, and if you follow the blog you know I did NOT like the idea of additional shooting, but I had no choice. We've come this far and the additional scenes really make a difference and we were efficient enough to get them cut into the film for our Los Angeles Film Festival submission, which went out this past Friday, March 5th.
Along with the shooting of new scenes, we spent time re-recording dialogue, due to sound issues, mostly, and adding dialogue to help restructure scenes and story. This was all sound work, most of which we were able to do ourselves at our home in Rio Rancho. It was a real "no frills" ADR session. For the most part it worked just fine. The key for us in shooting additional days and recording ADR was keeping the cost down. We did. Traveling cast and crew (all 5 of us :), shooting 3 days, a week of ADR and editing, equipment, etc., cost us less than the $2500 we had budgeted. The savings will go to a much needed sound mix. Sound mix and color correct are the last frontiers in making the film really pop.
The funds for those technicalities as well as any other funds needed may come via the NYC Indie Film Funding Conference which is being organized by B.K. Copsky and runs in New York on the 26th and 27th of March. Desert Rain is one of a handful of films selected for this 1st annual event. We will screen our 80 minute rough cut in front of a room of execs with the ability to help us finance the remainder of post-production. Needless to say we're excited about this opportunity and feel the movie is ready to be seen by such a group.
We're really happy with where the film is at. It has a flow to it that viewers will respond to, and Dan and Skye are characters an audience will root for. I think the story and pacing are 95% there - another week of fine cutting before the conference will be the final touch.
With all that said, DR should be ready for Spring, as scheduled. Stay tuned here for any and all screenings and premieres. We're confident, with the latest cut, that news of multiple screenings throughout the country will be coming in the very near future.
Thanks for following and if you haven't checked out our website already, please do - www.desertrainthemovie.com.
