T-Minus Eight Days

Well I had an update written yesterday but I pulled it. I'm not going to go into why right now, because there's more important things to focus on. What I will say is this, today was one of the more stressful days I've ever had as we had an unexpected crisis where one of the lead cast members needed to be replaced last minute.

Let me tell you it's not even remotely fun to deal with trying to fill a role last minute when you have a busy day job and no official resources like a casting director to help. I've been stressed enough as it is, leaving work and either going to a preproduction mtg or just working on prep stuff at home until well past midnight. When I found this out I actually had a moment where I was ready to give up--for personal reasons and the overwhelming nature of the whole thing. I slept on it and decided in the morning that all I can do is forge on and deal.

So today I pushed forward and we'll try to figure it out. It's added a pile of extra work at a time when I couldn't need it less but way it goes with the world of independent film. Fortunately I have friends that jumped the second they heard the news and put out an APB to help us find a replacement. We're talking to one actor on Sunday and there's a few more that I hope to meet this wkd as well. I can only hope that one of them is actually right for the part.

As for the personal side of it, I'm kind of numbed by the whole thing. Not really sure what to make of it all. I can't really get upset now because that's an additional distraction I don't need. We'll see how I view these events in three weeks when these four days of shooting are behind us.

Fortunately I have some friends that have practically thrown themselves into this to help me in every way they possibly can...often without me even asking. I'd never get this done without them. I've only been talking about this for nine months so it's good to know there's people there when I need them most.

OK....enough about the sucksauce....

Marc and I had a fantastic meeting last night and I'm feeling more and more confident about our ability to pull this off. The list of little things to do seems to grow when it should be shrinking, but that's OK.

Tomorrow we have some details about how many people to hire for sound to deal with. Our DP thinks we need a twoman crew and I don't think we can afford it. But bad sound will kill us, so we need to sort that out. Don't even get me started about how we'll get good sound in Vanguard. That's week two...I can't think about it now!