Thank You

Tonight, the read through of Ragged Isle was simply beautiful.

This story has really had so many forms that sometimes you wonder if we have gone in the right direction. Well, after the read through tonight I know that we chose wisely.

Thank you so much to all the energetic and talented actors and crew for donating the most precious thing of all: time. Without all of you Ragged Isle is just words on a page. We can never thank you enough.

Ahh! Oh, wait. That's fine.

I was somewhat enraged today when I learned that a location we shot at last year, as well as having many connections actors and otherwise to, was trying to make us jump through hoops and shell out a hefty amount of cash to use their venue. They were given a no thank you and I fumed for a bit as Barry tried to talk me down. I had told myself this very important reason why the scenes must be shot there and was very excited and set on that idea. When I learned that the scenes would not be shot there it was as though they stabbed my idea with a huge knife ripping a giant hole in the heart of the story. At the height of my rant Barry came up with a brilliant idea - another location. A location we have shot at before and have a very supportive contact at. Okay. I am slowly letting go of my reasons why it had to be the other place and embracing this new idea. Just roll with what comes. That is the secret of survival when making a web series.

Hmm...

Barry and I spent this past Friday through Sunday ripping down our old deck, redesigning, and starting to build a new deck in scorching heat so we have been out of the Ragged Isle world for a bit. We are back now, until we go to our annual family camping weekend in Bar Harbor on Friday, at least. We will be taking the camera to get some nice shots up there.
The list of things to complete is long and getting longer. It is hard to imagine completing this all in time but I know we will because we have to. We start shooting Ragged Isle on August 3. That is very soon. Time marches on and we better keep up.

Tetris

Okay. Schedules. I am deep into this process, which is a major one. I have 10 days tentatively scheduled and plan to start putting some dates out tomorrow night with general times and not specific call times, you'll see. There are also 3 or 4 other locations that will be pretty easy to place in here and there and a few hold outs that we are still working towards. We are doing our best to ensure that Barry and I will be the ones having the long days and not the actors. Not all will escape, though.

The scheduling process in an interesting one for me. It seems that when I first start all I want to do is stop and rip paper, although usually I just yell for stupid reasons for a few days at anyone near me. As the process continues and I sulk at my computer thinking how this was a horrible idea once and twice is madness, I look at my paperwork and realize that I have 4 locations scheduled with the scenes in proper order due to people's schedules.

That moment is something to be cherished and I have passed that portion of this journey and I look forward to our time together this summer / fall.