23 September, 2005

Features First, left behind

Kennedy Goodkey - Writer DudeBlah.

Okay, we blew it. Sort of.

Craig is now off in Toronto for a few months, which makes things harder. We knew this was going to happen, but I don't think we quite appreciated its impact… but I suppose that is sort of shifting blame a bit too. I did just lose the better part of a month to rehearsing and performing a Fringe Festival Show.

Wendy and I met, night before last to get our Features First application back on track. Part way through the evening I admitted that for various reasons I feel like Features First is the wrong program for us. Part of that is a certain fear of someone trying to push us to make the film something that it was never intended to be, but that is going to be a reality no matter how we get this thing made. I feel like the Features First schedule (over 10 months) is contrary to what our intentions are — this film is going to happen in the spring, not a year hence. Having said that, the Features First program would be an awesome experience — I just don't think that this is the right project.

Further on in the meeting Wendy made a call to a professional acquaintance to ask about some budgeting information. From the one side of the conversation I heard I could grok a lot of info.
  1. Wendy was getting a lot of insight out of the discussion
  2. We weren't going to get the budget done right on time.
When she hung up that was exactly what she imparted. Yes, we could get the budget done on time, but not well — and certainly not for free, or even cheap. Ah the immortal equation: Speed, Quality, Cheap... pick two.

But we did get put onto something else... the CFC's Feature Film Project. Very similar to Features First in both application requirements and benefits, but even more suitable to our needs and with a deadline an extra two weeks away (a critical amount of time) AND with a second application date in January.

In the end this was kind of a no-brainer.
- Kennedy