Moving into Plank Mode

Since the pre-production process began in full force, it's been a lot of great work.... evenings, weekends, nights, early mornings. During this, I've tried to stay on the wagon -- running, biking, swimming to keep the juice flowing. On August 30 I ran the Santa Rosa Marathon, doing the half course (13.1 miles) with my running team. But within the next month, my body rebelled.
Screaming "too much," my back went into full spasms and paralyzed me for days. After a month-plus of inertia, I've slowly climbed back onto the wagon, and am now fully immersed in a low-impact, strength-building regimen.... yoga, weights, elliptical. I am perfecting the plank and embracing my inner hippie. Talk about commitment. The other half is business-gal agent 99.

But the work has continued, with me in recline mode on the bed, laptop in hand. We've cast all the major parts and are now planning THE big event: a fine tequila-tasting fundraiser where people can meet the cast and crew, and sing karaoke. The party to end all parties!


DATE: Saturday, January 9
TIME: 4pm to midnight
COST: $20 per person
LOCATION: 1300 Ordway Street, Berkeley

In the meantime, I'm creating a prospectus for two funders and hope to bring in $20K+ in the next six weeks. Cross your fingers. Light a candle.

And if you haven't yet pitched in, please click on the Paypal donate button and donate! If 100 people give just $50, then we are that much closer to our goal.

Pre-Production Pow-Wow

We met on Saturday for a 3+ hour meeting to talk scenes, shooting plan and wardrobe, but had a big setback. Mick, our beloved co-writer and editor, has decided that he just didn’t have the enthusiasm or energy to stay with us. It’s sad, but not really unexpected… so we’re now going to have to find a creative, generous and hearty editor willing to do a rough cut for us. His contributions to the script cannot be underestimated and he will, as always, be welcome back to the team any time.

We went through the script scene by scene, breaking them down by where we can cut and what elements will be included. Visions of shots, pacing, deleting some things, adding other elements, aiming to develop a pace and a flow, and ultimately aiming for an authentic and engaging story -- that's what we're tackling right now.

We'll be meeting every 10 days or so from now on, with a full crew meeting in early September. Casting will taking place in July & August.

For information on cast and crew needs, audition dates and production timeline, some details are below.

CAST Table Read - Sept 26-27
CAST Rehearsal - Oct 3-4
Set-up & Blocking - Oct 11
Shoot - Oct 12-15
* Possibly one extra pick-up day for two characters

We'll also post more on the blog and on our Facebook page once we get our casting notices out.

We haven't had much support yet, so we encourage you to help us make this happen. PLEASE donate to our film! Without your support, we'll have bad lighting, bad sound, and it will look much more amateur than we intend. We want to submit it to Sundance and to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and can't do that without your help. THANK YOU!!

Our Location is Set!

After a couple of months of touring around the Bay Area, we have found a beautiful, lovely bridal shop in Santa Rosa! Taking a long lunch break, Maria popped into a couple of shops in Windsor and headed back to Santa Rosa. We'd heard rumors and suggestions from many people about the shop, but were unprepared for its beautiful decor and amazing dresses. The friendly owner, Allison, was just as excited as we were.


Sam and Maria followed up a couple of days later and Allison had already picked out some dates, cleared it with mall management and decided that we MUST use their inventory rather than props. With Jill (shop manager) & Allison on our team we have some great crew members and supporters. It's exciting -- now we have to move full steam ahead on casting, creating a shooting list, storyboards, wardrobe, and all those other pre-production details.


Here we go!