Whippin' It (Good) With Shoes Fully Tied

Right now, at this very moment, listening to Devo, drinking Chardonnary courtesy of Chateau St. Jean, I am officially celebrating. Three weeks behind. It's been a wild two weeks. Took a hatchet to the world and spent a few days dealing with the bleeding. And throughout all of it, I'm smiling.

Just when I was ready to finalize the editing process and begin refining the film, I had to take a little break to deal with life. My full plate was waiting: reviewing the rough cut, finalizing the montage, completing and sending out the music licenses, meeting with my post-production team to refine the edits, pull out and relabel the audio recordings -- all this to stay on schedule. The key is that our composer is leaving May 15 and will be gone for two weeks. He wanted to see the rough cut by May 1 so he had time to watch it, lay down some draft music, and meet with me to move forward with his ideas and my changes. Alas, it was not to be.

Sometimes we have to stop to tie our shoes, so that's what I did. The rough cut sat for 9 full days without me even looking at it; the montage was posted up for nearly a week. So I took care of business. In the back of my mind, it was nagging, like a Very Important Meeting that you had to attend and where you had to give a speech but had never written it. I had dreams about old boyfriends and semesters in junior high. The whole school year had gone by and I hadn't attended one class the whole time. I woke up mildly panicked. Oh man, didn't I dump that guy? Oh no, could I make up the classes in a week? It Was Crazy. Amusement Park Crazy. Alice in Wonderland Crazy.

Just when I felt like I was hitting a wall, I got an email from a neighborhood friend, a kid from my junior high and high school, who was with another friend in L.A. They were talking and my name came up. (I don't ask how or why here, I just accept the blessing.) The best part of this story is that the mutual friend is Don Terbush from Universal Music Group, who has been one of my great sources for film music over the last ten years. One of my (still-to-be-done) tasks was to call Don. So an angel knocked on my door that day. Well, literally, it was an email angel in the form of an old neighbor, whose dog bit my brother when he was 10 years old. I called Don right away, gave him the details about the project and sent him the music list for licensing.

100 lashes to me. Nothing like a little lashing to wake a girl up. But I'm a traditional kind of gal, with a nice little whip. I plowed through the film a dozen times, identified where to tighten, where to cut, where to use an alternate shot, where we're going to need music, and laid out the remaining edits to complete it from Intro to Fade to Black. Shoes are tied. No tripping over life here. Bring it on.

And because I'm in a friendly mood and slightly drunk, here's a list of songs we're licensing, or at least hoping to license... just for fun.


Opening - HONEY IS COOL, On The Beach
Montage - THE MIGHTY QUARK, Kangaroo #1
Patio Scene - WYE OAK,  I Don't Feel Young
Closing scene - NOUVELLAS, These Days Are Gone
Credits - KASEY CHAMBERS, If I Were You