The biggest issue the audiences identified in the first three screenings was pacing. Everyone thought it was funny as shit, they loved the dialogue and the characters and the story, but they felt that it kinda dragged at the beginning a little and that two scenes in particular were way too slow. And they were right.
It took us WEEKS in the editing room to find ways to fix the pacing problems (we even brought Jesse Bradford in for the final two days of editing and he gave us some great notes), but that was the thing I was most anxious about with the final cut: Did we solve the pacing problems?
Well, we haven't done a full screening of the final cut, but according to the relatively small group of people we've shown the movie to fresh since then, not only did we solve them, the pacing of the movie is now an asset. Nils and I both showed the movie to some fresh eyes, and not only did these people not say it was slow, they actually commented on how tight and fast-paced it was. Wow. If they only knew how hard it was for us to get it there.
I have watched the final cut three times now. Once by myself right after I got it to see if it was as good as I hoped, once with my girlfriend to show her the improvements over cut #2 and cut #3, and once again today with a couple other people to see their reaction, and I want to emphasize two points that I have been harping on in the blog:
1. I am even more confident in my belief that this thing is not only really fucking good, but has the potential to be a classic.
2. It is NOT perfect, and please do not mistake my enthusiasm for the movie as me thinking it is.
As proud as I am of this movie, it is far from perfect. There are many things, especially small things, I think could have been done better. Many of them are things that most people won't notice (continuity errors, line phrasing, blocking decisions, etc), but one is kinda big and is an issue with one of the two plot lines that was a script problem that Nils and I never really fixed. I think this thing will become a classic because so many people will love the characters and the dialogue and the story, but the fact that it has small things that could probably have been done better will give people who don't like it plenty of things to nitpick about.
Don't get me wrong--I think this movie is fucking awesome, and I think it has the potential to be regarded as one of the best comedies released over the past generation. And even though it's not perfect, lots of classic movies are far from perfect. When I think of a perfect movie, I think of something like The Godfather, or The Big Lebowski, or Unforgiven. A perfect movie is a movie where I cannot imagine it being done any better than it was, and very few movies are like that. This movie is definitely not in that league, at least not for me. Even as proud as I am of the finished product, I know that if Nils and I made this movie again today, we would do a lot of things differently and do a better job (at least with the details).
That's actually one of the most exciting things for me: Without any experience, through just hard work and (mostly) smart decisions, Nils and I made a truly awesome movie. Now that we have done this once and have this experience, we know where our weaknesses and strengths are and have an idea how to fix them. I can't wait to do this again, and see how good of a movie we can make when we actually know what the fuck we're doing.
But before we worry about that, there are two months of sound work to do, then picking a distributor, then marketing, then the release. The hardest part is done, we've broken out from the pack and there is a clear path to the goal line. But having 40 yards of clear green in front of you doesn't automatically mean you score; you have to actually run the distance.
Now that the editing is done and the holidays are about over, we will have more time to dedicate to this blog, so you can expect more posts from me and Greg and Nils. Plus Jesse Bradford is going to give his take on the movie, and in January I am screening the movie for my law school friends, so you'll get their takes on it too. And I'll be writing a lot of posts about the distribution process, the release process, and the marketing process. Lots more work to do means lots more for me to write about.
Digg it · del.icio.us · StumbleUpon · Fark It · Print Friendly
