The end is in sight. You can stop holding your breath. I have a final cut of Have Gun Will Murder and in a few short hours will be heading to central NJ to have Adam & Bruce do the final audio mix. After that all that remains is to possibly redo the titles & credits, do a final color mix and apply some effects. With any luck it will be up by the end of the week. FWIW, Filmmaking would be a lot easier if I didn't have to al so work a real job.

Also, saying you're going to do it right the first time is easier when you've, y'know, already done it right before. And practice is never the same thing as the real thing. For one thing, there's more wind. Also, orange shirts are not girly, but black with small polka-dots are. And lamps are taller but walls are stronger.

so meanwhile here's some photos our awesome stressOrama
Have Gun, Will Murder micro-movie shoot

So you tell yourself your going to plan and plan and plan to be prepared for every possible outcome. Yet you get to the starting line and suddenly decide that sneakers won't cut it, you're going to run that race wearing hiking boots! So why are you then surprised that your feet hurt?

That bit of strangeness is refering to today's shoot of Have Gun Will Murder. First the positive: Tony & Dana were AMAZING. We keep stumbling upon these amazing actors. Who knew so many great actors are out there?

Now the negative: for some reason I thought our audio plan would work flawlessly and when we tried it in the field, it failed. We didn't plan enough and we didn't simplify enough. We need to find a way to have one-button audio. Boom mic direct to minidisc (or DAT) without a mixer in between. Level control only. Our lighting was a bit dull but I think it worked for the film. I'll do some playing with After Effects to get as consistant a look as possible. I'm tired so I might be complaining more than I should since I still think this one will turn out as entertaining as our other movies. Despite all the obstacles, we still have a great one here.

But the important part is I think we have some great footage. After I take a nap, I'm going to load it in and start doing a very very rough edit. Keep coming back to Words Pictures Movie for updates as I edit & Bruce and Adam mix the audio. Hopefully before two weeks are up, it'll be up here, on Google Video and YouTube.

Six days.

Six days until the camera rolls on the next WPM movie, HAVE GUN WILL MURDER. We have our cast and most of our props. We have our tiny crew ready. I've even started to work on some effects.

So hopefully by the 14th of October you'll be able to come here and download the next WPM extravaganza.

After that, look for our next short to roll in January. In the meanwhile, we'll be writing and learning how to pull off some of the effects for the feature. All exciting stuff and if we feel like it, we might even post some micro-documentaries here to get y'all excited about the process.

I am really looking forward to HGWM. I've spent some time in some weird psychological limbo for the past six weeks that was pointing me in the direction of failure when had I just opened my eyes and ears, I may have been very successsful. I may never know. I think I was actually trapped in my own mind.

I think the key to a successful life is to have goals and acting on them rather than letting them fester in one's brain. Its not only good creatively but makes one far more an attractive human being to know and associate with.

So my new theme is to tear the ideas out of my brain and put them into play out here, in this crazy place called reality.

Keep watching the Words Pictures Movies site for more info and hopefully far less self-analysis.