#2 Down to the Wire

Jennifer Westin, workin' it.

I’m sitting next Producer Jennifer Westin, who is right now investigating the latest UPS drop off time and the closest drop off location to our tape house, where The Lake Effect is gettin’ laid down.   

We’re a week late on our deadline to get the movie to The Raindance Film Festival in London and we’re only two weeks out from our screening at Moondance.  The good news is that the film is FINISHED.  It is DONE DONE DONE and we will get it to the church on time. 

The Lake Effect has been gestating on 10 Mac computers, 6 hard-drives, and 5 monitors… and after a lengthy Labor Day spent attempting to solve our credit crisis, we got our ducks in a row, and it was done… which was weird.  It was done. 

A lot of filmmakers experience depression after the completion of a film.  I specifically remember a number of filmmakers crying to our academic advisor in the aftermath of the mad rush to finish our student films at UCSB...  (I may or may not have been one of them).  Honestly, it’s like postpartum depression: all that anticipation, all that sleep deprivation… minus the hormones.  There’s no more passion and potential – just the reality.  For the record, when Luna was born I was on cloud nine for months – I was all glowy and gushing constantly, I had (have) such a huge crush on her. 

Truth be told, I’m not experiencing that postpartum thing at all now.  I won’t lie.  I’m exhausted… but I’m too busy to think about this as over!   The end of the post-production process is really just the beginning of the life of this little movie… and I’m very very excited to see what it grows up to be.