Film as Prayer

Tomorrow at 8 am we commence to film "An Eye for an Eye", David Hodel's excellent script. It has been a very difficult pre-pro. We lost our great location today, and I had to scramble to find another, and will have to most of tonight, because the only location we have left is . . . our house. The horror. The bedroom is . . . not ready.

I am Props, Craft Services, Catering, oh, and Director. Bought 300 bucks worth of food today, and am trying to store it all in my house. Will be up making props after I rototill the bedroom.

Life in independent film.

The budget is 2k, but if we were just being paid our low, indie day rates, to shoot it would be more like 16k.

WHEEE!

Going to make an envelope of fake money.

Miss you, Art Department . . .

And Catering . . .

And Craftie . . .

I hope I can concentrate on my real job tomorrow . . .

We are having a gala for the feature in three weeks, and I am trying to put it together singlehandedly at this point, though several folks have said they might help out if I get it more together. Very exciting, and scary beyond belief.

What if nobody comes? What if nobody invests? We must absolutely film in May, it is the only chance to film in the islands. What if my new version of the script isn't ready?

Trying not to freak out, but to trust God. Managing it only some of the time.

People will want to invest, I keep telling myself, as I freak. They have to want to.

Pitching scripts in the morning to a new producer . . . praying it goes well . . .

And then I am filming the short next week . . . and I need to rewrite the script, everyone wants the new version . . .

I am beginning to interview for an assistant, as it is apparent that I cannot continue this way.

God be with all of this . . . if we raise enough money, we are doing this. It is getting real.

The "Christian Wisywyg Film Festival" was a blast. It was a day-trip, 4am to 11pm, sadly necessary because of Terry's work schedule, our kid/money sitch, and the fact that I am doing three jobs at once right now. Otherwise I would have stayed at my dear friend Gretchen's house, which I really hope to do next time. I've never even seen her house, and she is one of my two oldest friends. She drove two hours into town and two hours back, for a screening of a ten minute movie. I love this woman!

At the festival, I went to two church services (yes, church at a film festival - surreal and wonderful!). At one of them, a minister said he thought there was someone who needed to come down for prayer for release of finances for a film. I went down to the front; my heart on fire.

The minister put his hand on my forehead, and began praying for the breaking off of confusion and discouragement related to the film. He also said he felt that God would say to me: "You haven't missed it, I am with you." (I began weeping copiously at this point.) He said that he saw two others that need to stand with me. They don't know it yet, but God knows who they are.

Whew. Kind of exactly what I needed to hear. We need to raise this budget, and soon. And I have been panicking at the enormity of the task, and my utter fear of not being up to it.

Then the screening was a complete joy. And as they applauded, they made me get up and take a bow after it, to more applause; a first in my experience. And many many folks said they loved it.

It was a very good day.

Now I am faced with the realities of current life: in serious preproduction for a short film I a shooting in a week in Seattle, while simultaneously working to raise the money for my feature. "To-Do lists" a mile long each day, and fewer hours to to them in because of my chronic fatigue and kid duties. When you get up at noon, and have to drive the carpool at three, and have to entertain and feed very energetic boys until bedtime, and then get to work at ten, it's hard to get a normal days' work in!

God, please heal my body so that I can do this, please . . . please provide funds for an assistant so that I can do all the work I need to . . . the sea is very big and my boat feels very small . . .

It looks like we might (cross all digits) be looking at actually going ahead with filming my feature! We raised our first serious money toward the production of my script, "The Dark Horse", on Saturday. We are continuing to raise money, and we are looking to film in May 2006, if all goes well. I hesitate to say much more, as it is all so tentative just now, but if you have a spare prayer . . . we need much, much more money to make it happen.

Also, I am in preproduction on yet another short, "An Eye for an Eye", to be filmed in two weeks. A great script by my friend Dave, with an awesome team. Very very exciting.

Making movies over here!

Praise be to God . . .