I’m on trailer duty for 13 Months of Sunshine, the Ethiopian film I’m editing. We’re actually much closer to a rough cut than I had suspected, though there’s still quite a bit of work ahead. Even though cutting this trailer is actually taking away from editing on the film itself, it’s to rekindle some excitement about the film, which has been over a year in the making, and also to possibly raise a few more funds to enable a couple of reshoots and perhaps start a campaign for distribution. The more I work on the film, the more I realize it’s a wise investment of my time, energy, and even resources on. I’ve doubled my involvement in the film to include “Visual Effects Coordinator” and the director has talked to me about giving me “Associate Producer” credit as well, which doesn’t really mean a whole heck of a lot in movie speak, but it is an indication of how expanded my role has become in a film that, eight months ago was only half-way shot. With all the capturing and logging as well as editing, I’ve taken the editing role to its full capacity, and I hope that will reap benefits down the road.
I’m confident that it will. The more I look at the film and see it coming together, the more pleased I am with its outcome. It’s been an especially long and arduous road for the director, who has put so much energy and time and his own money to complete the film. And the most positive aspect of this whole experience is the relationship with the director that I’ve come to really appreciate. Not only is he someone with a lot of drive and potential, but he’s great at some things that I will never be good at, like producing. It helps that nearly everything we’ve worked on thus far together has resulted in unanimous conclusions. If I think a scene needs X, Y, or Z, he agrees. Then he’ll point out something I’ll see things in a new light and we’ll be off and racing again. It’s been a great collaboration. We’ve begun some idea surfing for future projects, and I am confident that we will be working together for a long time.
At any rate, the trailer will hopefully be ready to go by Thursday. I’ll post it here whenever it is complete. It’s going to be quite a bit more polished and easier on the eyes than the first one–which wasn’t bad in terms of its look, but it was entirely too long. More to come…