I had a fantastic private screening at Universal last night with a group of industry folks who loved the film. I have been back and forth on the ending and the placement of our credits, and their reaction and comments after the film sunk into my consciousness. I woke up at 5AM today in a cold sweat, feeling that I need to change the ending back to the original ending. I spent most of my morning digging through old footage to line everything up to see if it works with our new cut. It does. Even though the film is basically finished, we are changing a few things before our launch in January. Home stretch to perfection!
I had it just about finished when my fabulous web designer, Hilary Carlip called with an update about our upcoming website overhaul. It's going to take a few weeks, but will allow me to start posting short clips from the film, since I know you want to see some. I want to also include some footage that will be in our DVD extras, including the fabulous Megg Rose who performed a Christina Aguilera song in sign language. I'm working with Mason, my music supervisor to get the rights to include it. Megg hasn't even seen the footage of her performance yet and has been patiently reminding me every few months not to let it get swallowed up in my 300+ hours of footage.
My supervising editor, Thomas Miller beeped through, calling from some airport to talk about changing the ending, and I'm sending him a Quicktime with the change for him to look at. I then got a text from Ninette from Powder about our music video from the film. She connected me with a fabulous location for the film shoot, which was confirmed later this morning. That helped me set the production date for this music video for December.
More emails came in, including one from a distributor who wants to set up a meeting with me and my producer's rep. I've been working with Jeff Dowd, The Dude and real life inspiration for The Big Lebowski. He's been in a good mood lately, and has been incredibly helpful in introducing me and the film around town.
Now my videophone is flashing from a colleague in Texas who is interested in booking my film. Thanks to some choppy reception, I convinced him to download Skype so we could finish our conversation.
Knock knock - my new accountant arrived for her first day. Welcome to the hurricane. I gave her a quick tour before leaving her with my books to answer my ichat with my good friend Max from Canada. Max has a wonderful cameo in the film, and is one of my favorite actors ever. I want to cast him in the music video, and host the television pilot that we are planning. Big smiles and thumbs up.
"You have mail" - my composer Kubi sent over a sample of a new score he is replacing. I love working with Kubi and could talk music with him all day.
The Dude called while I was heating up dinner, brainstorming on how we can get 5,000 people to come see the film opening week in Los Angeles. [Send me an email if you have ideas on how to get folks into the theaters in the middle of the day during the week.] Jeff has some great ideas on how we can build a fun event with live entertainment, a photo exhibit and infamous White Russian drinks in the lobby with The Dude after screenings.
One last listen to a new sample Kubi sent me before [bleep bleep - incoming text] turning down an offer to go have drinks with my friends Gary and Teal, who just got out of their show at the Groundlings. This is such a long crazy blog, but I thought I'd share my day with you.
Bleep-bloop-ring-flash-knock knock - I'm ready for bed.
