“Wonderful! Heartfelt! Well scripted and acted! My heart is touched and mind flooded with memories!!”  “Emotional but has a healing spirit.”  “I would tell everyone to see it – bring tissues.” 

These are just a few of the comments we got tonight that brought giant goofy grins to our faces. 

Tonight’s screening of the SC Production Fund films was a definite success.  The auditorium was packed, and it was gratifying to see so many people supporting local filmmakers.  And it was great for us to get the chance to see some of the previous films produced due to this amazing grant.  It's interesting that even though all three films tonight were very different, they were all inspired by true stories and ended on hopeful notes. 

Saying Goodbye was the middle film shown.  We made sure everyone knew it was a work in progress and asked for volunteers to fill out feedback forms.  After the credits rolled, we exchanged nervous glances, because no one clapped at first, and it sounded kind of ragged even after the applause finally started.  But once the lights came back on, we saw that everyone was busy sniffling and wiping their eyes.  Mission accomplished!

We then shared with the audience a little about where the story came from and some anecdotes about the ornery cats and filming at Agapé.  We also answered a few questions from the audience.  It was a nice way to ease into some of the things we’ll have to do once we hit the film festival circuit.

At the end of the evening, many people came up to tell us how touching and moving they found the film.  And it’s official, the strip poker scene is the clear favorite – everyone mentioned how funny it was.  Wonder how much it would cost to have Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” playing in the background?

We then read through the feedback forms people turned in and the comments were so positive and encouraging.  The best news is that 100% of the people said they would definitely recommend the movie to a friend!  In our first focus group, only 40% said they would definitely recommend to a friend, so we now feel really confident about this version of the edit.

The feedback does show there is still some confusion about the time jumps and flashbacks, so we still need to tweak a few things, but we’re definitely getting closer to picture lock.  Thank you so much to all of the audience members who took the time to offer comments and feedback.  Every little bit helps us make the movie stronger.  And on that note, here’s our favorite comment from the evening, since it’s exactly what we set out to do and we’re thrilled that people are responding to our work:

“It was a thoughtful, sensitive, humorous, and wonderful portrayal of a difficult subject – the reality of aging and end of life issues we all face.”
 

Attention fans in the Charleston area!!  You can watch a “rough draft” of Saying Goodbye on June 2nd.

The South Carolina Film Commission has arranged for a free screening of the films financed by the SC Production Fund as part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.  Although Saying Goodbye is still a work in progress, our film will be part of the program on Wednesday, June 2nd along with Song of Pumpkin Brown and The Cannon Street Boys.  If you are a fan of local films, you can also go on June 3rd to see Appalachian Dreams and The Four Children Of Tander Welch, which was produced by our 2nd AD Matthew Sefick.  On both nights the screenings start at 6:00 (changed from 5:30) at the Charleston County Public Library.  

Keep in mind, our film is still a work in progress, so it’s a little rough.  We haven’t done audio mix or color correction or those other tweaks that go into making a movie look seamless.  Also, we don’t have our original score in yet.  We have a few places with canned music so the whole thing isn’t eerily silent, but this is not the music that will be in the final version.

We’d love to have y’all come take a look and tell us what you think.  We will most likely grab people we recognize and ask them to participate in a focus group after the screening, so be prepared to play movie critic. 

And don’t worry if you can’t make it, we still plan to have a fancy premiere in Charleston once the film is officially complete.  

Click here for details about the screening.  Hope to see you there!

Our movie is shrinking!  The original cut was about twenty-five minutes, but after the feedback from our focus group, we made some drastic edits to bring it in at just over twenty minutes.  However, the prevailing wisdom about film festivals says we still really needed to lose another five minutes to have the best chance at succeeding on the festival circuit.  But at this point, we are so immersed in the movie that it’s tough to be objective about what needs to stay and what would be best left on the cutting room floor.  So we decided it was time to bring in the big guns.  

OK, so it's not a trailer (we promise one is coming), but we hope y'all will enjoy this mash-up of kitty cat behind-the-scenes footage. As you know, working with a cat on the set of Saying Goodbye was like... well... herding cats. Here are some of our "favorite" cat moments--at least the ones where no one was cussing or crying.

Special thanks to two of our USC students, Karmen and Amanda, for making us aware of this purr-fect song, and a HUGE thank you to the great Steve Ibsen for letting us use it!

If you can't see the video above, click here to watch it on YouTube.

Ah, the internet. So full of incredible treasures you would never know about unless you happen to stumble upon them. Such is the case with the quirky, yet totally awesome, site iwanttodrawacatforyou.com.

Seeing an instant cross-promotional oppotunity, I contacted the site's owner, Steve Gadlin. He agreed to make us our very own, 100% original, sure to become a masterpiece in the Guggenheim, cat drawing. I think it turned out quite beautifully. The attention to detail and realistic expressions of a cat enamored with our website nearly brought tears to my eyes. Looks like our former cat artist, Amanda, has some competition.

Yoopy Do-licious, don't ya think?

Today was a very bittersweet day – the last day of class for our project.  It’s almost impossible to believe that two semesters of working with the students on our movie have flown by so quickly.  We know they have been looking forward to this day, because they are ready for summer and many of them are graduating and moving on to what we know will be successful careers, but we will miss them.  We have enjoyed every minute of working with them, and they have been such an amazing source of energy and inspiration for us.   

For today’s class, they presented their final project – a press kit for our movie.  It’s great practice for them as they get ready to embark on their filmmaking careers.  Plus, we can stea—uh, we mean borrow— some of the things they came up with when it’s time to create the official Saying Goodbye press kit.  In addition to their press kit, they each had an additional project to help with the film.  Fred and Matt created an extended version of their behind the scenes featurette, Kasey researched film festivals and selected the ones that are the best fit for Saying Goodbye, Cassie put together a targeted marketing plan for us, Amanda composed a memory book from the set photos, and Karmen designed a new movie poster (right). 

It’s been a blast working with all of the students from both the first and second semesters.  We truly appreciate all the help you have given us, and we hope to work with you again in the future.  Good luck as you go forth and take the world by storm!

March and April are busy months for film festivals in South Carolina, which is ironic, because that’s when the weather is the most amazing, so who wants to sit in a theater all day?  Anyway, since Brian and I had never been to a film festival before, these local ones were the perfect opportunity to see how things work before we (hopefully) attend festivals as official selections.  Plus it was a chance to scope out the films and filmmakers we will be competing against in the future. 

We watched the shorts programming blocks at the Charleston Film Festival, the Charleston International Film Festival, and the Indie Grits Film Fest.  I had never really watched short films before we started to make ours (I know, shame on me!), but now I’m hooked.  I love the economy of storytelling and the way it’s possible to deliver such powerful emotion (whether it’s laughter, thrills, or tears) in such a short time.  I know I’ve done this backwards, since you’re supposed to study the craft before attempting to make your own short, and I’ve learned so much by watching the shorts at these festivals.  I’ve seen what works to pull the audience in (funny is better) and what doesn’t work so well (don’t be pretentious).  As we refine the final edit, I’m applying what I’ve learned, and I’m already itching to get started on a new project. 
 

Like the Pied Piper, Fred Story came to town this weekend to enchant us with his music.  Fred will be scoring Saying Goodbye, and his company Concentrix will be handling the sound design.  Fred guest lectured in class yesterday and it was his idea to treat it like a spotting session, which is the meeting he has with clients when watching a movie for the first time.  This way he could teach the students while they got to participate in a part of the post process they don’t normally see.

At the beginning of class, we all watched the latest version of the film together.  Fred really seemed touched by it and said he was thrilled his team was going to be a part of it.  Of course, we loved hearing that!  Then he talked about some of his ideas for the score.  He wants to make sure he keeps the music subtle, so it doesn’t distract from the emotion we’ve created on screen.  He plans to pick an instrument to represent Gabriel the cat (he’s thinking either violin or oboe).  Fred also said he can use music cues to help people recognize the time jumps and flashbacks.  All of this sounds great to us, and we can’t wait to see the magic he works on our movie.

Then today the SC Film Commission hosted Fred presenting a workshop on sound design to filmmakers from around the state.  First he showed us clips from films he had scored and talked through how he made his musical choices.  From our interactions with Fred, we already knew he was good people, but after experiencing examples of his work, we are thrilled to ‘hear’ our film is in good hands.  Later he showed us various scenes from other movies and talked about what the music did and did not do for the film.  He also offered everyone pointers on how to find the right person to do your score and sound design, and how to communicate with them to make sure everyone has the same vision.  The whole weekend was music to our ears.

One of the topics for this semester is editing, so the students attended a SC Film Commission workshop on editing and Cliff also conducted a class on editing for them.  Then to practice what they’d learned, the students were divided into three teams of two and tasked with creating a 3-5 minute Behind the Scenes featurette using the footage Nate and Fred filmed on set. 

Today’s class was the big unveiling of their projects, and it was so much fun!  The teams did a great job of selecting interesting moments and putting them together in an entertaining way.  And because the two of us spent a lot of that week of shooting running around stressed because of misbehaving felines and other issues, it was great to be reminded of how much fun everyone had.  We’ll be posting the students’ videos over the coming weeks. 

With the class starting out in such an entertaining way, poor Jocelyn then had to follow that up with a lecture on press kits and all the pieces that make a great one.  It’s good stuff to know, but it’s not exactly riveting material. 

Look what the Easter Bunny left us! I guess even holiday characters are eager to help us promote the upcoming release of Saying Goodbye.

We're still hard at work wrapping up all the loose ends on the edit and hope the film will be hopping into film festivals near you in two wiggles of a bunny's tail.

Did anyone else get something cool in their Easter basket?