A watershed moment.
Yesterday Craig, Mike, David and I gathered together to watch The Beast of Bottomless Lake for the first time front to back on one piece, properly edited.
There is still a lot of work left to be done, but the perspective has significantly shifted. We now have a 'whole' by which to compare against. It also means that I have been robbed of a stock answer. Almost every day I hear some variation on the declaration 'I can hardly wait to see the film!' to which I regularly quip "Yeah, me too!" Simple, but not without its own subtle wit.
But I have seen it now. It's not final, but there is a lot more clarity as to what this particular beast is.
We have a few weeks wherein we are each going to watch and re-watch and compile our own individual list of notes, wishes and thoughts on how to improve the edit; then we will make some high impact changes as time will allow and put that next version in front of a test audience or two... or three. What exactly we get from that remains to be seen, but we'll make our final fine-cut edits based on the ammunition and insight we get from those sessions.
Then we move on to sound, FX and colour correction...
Our intended goal: to be ready to submit to the Toronto Film Festival.
