The movie is finished. I was honestly starting to wonder if it ever would be. I’m sure many of you have been wondering the same thing, and I don’t blame you. If I had known just how long this was going to take, and how much it was going to bleed out of me for so long, I might have thought twice about undertaking the endeavor at all.
I started the journey of making this film three and a half years ago. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s longer than the U.S. fought in World War II (which at the moment feels like a particularly apt analogy).
For some perspective, when I sat down to write the script in May of 2012, Mitt Romney was running for president. There were half as many Paranormal Activity movies as there are now. There were zero Hobbit movies. Some people were still convinced the world was going to end in December.
In the time between then and now:
- I got married.
- I lost 30 pounds, then gained it back, then gained another 30.
- I had to go to the cardiologist for the first time.
- My short film First Date lived its entire lifetime: premiered, won 5 Best of Fest Audience Awards and a jury award, got posted online, and garnered 15,000 views and counting.
- 200,000 people saw me propose to my girlfriend via the magic of YouTube.
- My beard grew 8 inches.
- My “girlfriend’s kid” became my stepdaughter. She grew a foot taller and became a teenager.
- We added an amazing little boy to our family. He has since more than doubled in size.
- I missed Thanksgiving last month because I collapsed in the airport and had to be taken to the hospital.
That’s right. The process of trying to finish this film almost literally killed me. It has been without a doubt the most difficult thing I have ever undertaken in my life, and part of me wishes that when I asked my wife if she thought I was crazy for wanting to try this, she had said “yes” (and I had listened to her).
But regardless, it is done. For better or worse, we have a movie. I could tell you how awesome it is, but the truth is that I have no goddamn idea. It might be. People seem to like it. Some of them like it a lot. But I’ve watched it so many times that I feel like if I have to sit through it again I might actually go insane.
I am excited to share it with you nonetheless. I can’t say with any certainty when that might happen. It’s largely up to the festival programmers now. But one way or another it’s a pretty good bet it will be up on a big screen somewhere (hopefully several somewheres) this spring and summer and get wider distribution sometime soon after. I promise I will keep you posted.
Thank you all for coming on this journey with me. The hardest part is over. The part where I get to share it with you all is coming soon, and that makes me very happy.
–Steve
