Meet N' Greet

So anyway, I met with the movie producer guy yesterday over a plate of honey shrimp and fried rice. It really was more of a meet and greet than anything. But, having said that, I think I made a fair enough impression that they will probably shoot me over a 5 or 10 minute Quicktime clip to try my hand at scoring - at some point.

Seems, that even though prinicple photography on this little indie darling wrapped early September last, they're just now getting the finishing touches on their...wait for it...rough cut. Wait, what the fuck? Five months for a rough cut? Oh, yeah...I said it! Five...months...

Five, Cinco, Cinq, Fünf, more than four, but less than six. Got to hand it to Midwestern film production values. Oh well, I shouldn't gripe, I'm not the one shelling out the cash to get this thing done. In fact, if it gets me the chance to score a feature length film...even if it is crap (I'm reserving judgement until I've seen some footage...really!), then I'll pucker up just ever so slightly. I can go to confession afterwards if I really feel like my soul needs cleansed.

So, the rough cut is clocking in at about two hours. Guesstimating by the manner that he delivered this tidbit of information, I'd say that that's about twenty minutes longer than they really want. At they're current rate, they should have a locked edit sometime around December...2010. These guys cut film like I blog post! But what the hell, they seemed like nice, decent enough fellas. Oh, yeah, did I mention the editor was there too?

So the flick is set sometime around 1900. I'll spare the history lesson, but needless to say the white man's "civilizing" of Native Americans is well documented. Boarding schools were set up so that whites could "help" young Indians learn to be good, Christian, God-fearing, useful members of society. More often then not, the young savages would escape their cells, er, dormatories and try to return to their own culture. This story revolves around one particular young man who escapes, only to be hunted down by an Indian tracker (Wes Studi). Whilst trying to return to the "school", a crime is committed (I'm guessing the murder of a white man - they never really said), and the pair end up on the run, being tracked by a more efficient, and ruthless Indian bounty hunter. That's pretty much all I got. They've temp-tracked their rough cut with bits from The Others, and Philip Glass' Dracula. Apparently, there's a voice-over narration throughout the picture of readings from the actual Dracula novel - how this fits into a period Indian/Western drama I haven't the fuckinest clue!

Funny part is, my guy Rich's recollections from the shoot don't lend themselves even in the slightest to the direction the filmmakers are currently taking with this. His comparison was that your average episode of Law & Order was darker in tone than what these folks were shooting. He shared a little anecdote about how one day he asked the DP to have a look through the camera at the shot he was setting up and remarked to him that with the angle, lighting, and zoom level currently being employed, they might as well be shooting a monkey fucking a football. Later towards the end of the shoot, he went to a Target, bought a Curious George doll and a football, mounted the two together, and left it in the production office for the DP as a...gift. But, what the hell, if they'll let me do this, I'll give them exactly what they want - no matter how ludicrous it sounds. So...that's where things stand at the moment. I'll keep all three of you (hehe) up to date as things do or don't happen.