So, we finished. On time? No, one day over. On budget? sort of. This was a unique budget situation where the budget had a bit of play to expand or contract based on the look of the film. On creative point? absolutely.

I think there is always a lesson (actually more than one, but I think there is always ONE big one) that is invaluable to be learned from every shoot. I have been spending the past week or so contemplating what that one is from this shoot. I’ve been able to easily come up with the small ones (which all hold smaller stories which I will try to illuminate in  future blogs: all top level people need to have done physical production, make your financiers lock to a finite number before pre-production,check every actor’s reputation, if it’s the first time you’ve worked with your keys…be involved in the hiring of their staff also) but the one overarching lesson I should hve learned has been eluding me. and it’s why writing a wrap up blog about this production experience has been delayed.

Then, I woke up in the middle of the night with one phrase on my mind, “intersection of art and commerce”

hmmm…

now, this is a concept that has always been some thing I think is the crux of why I’m involved in the film process. I am essentially an artist who works in a commerce driven society. So, how do you do that? But beyond that, how do you do that responsibly.

My personal lesson on this film is, by making art. See, this film is, by all “industry standards” in subject matter, something that might be a long shot. It’s a mid thirites females lead. It’s not a genre film. It’s something that, when I read the script, I knew I HAD to get made, because it was just so real. And, because of that, as we went into production, the casting fell into place…which made it into a commercially viable project. We have a cast that has no huge names, but runs in good names very deep (Sam McMurray, James Rebhorn, Lesley Ann Warren, Ron Leibman….and that’s outside of our leads)

If you asked me, at the outset, what kind of movies I would be looking to produce, this, at script stage, wouldn’t have been one. But when I read the script, I knew it was something that could make this kind of magic.

So, I’m trying to, in a cynical industry, hold on to this as the lesson from this production. Believe in art. Believe in the writer. Believe your instincts.

p.s. I promise to get to the stories from the other smaller lessons in the next two weeks.