12 STEPS CLOSER

posted by Russell Johnson

Last night David and I watched the first full complete assembly of the movie and for just a 30 minute movie it is stuffed. Since we had to lose around 20 minutes from the first cut the movie it is just so dense with information and visuals. The pace is quick and never seems to lose momentum. All good things considering this began as a "talkie" movie and it still is but the editing is all over the place and not in the sense that it's not well done. There are so many editing tricks we've implemented you never get bogged down with lengthy dialogue sequences. Some people might consider it "MTV style" in spots but for this movie it really works. It's a lot of stuff we have never done before in a movie and the results are fantastic. So the movie is still a dialogue heavy one but now it's also a visually heavy one as well. We shot 2 endings to the movie and we stuck with our first instinct which I think sells the whole movie and how you feel about the main character. I always knew how I wanted the movie to end but I have to give credit to David for putting all together. He came up with a great idea on how it should go together visually, he picked just the right shots and it works perfectly.

David made a good point to me a few nights ago as we were going over some scenes. This movie could have been edited 2 years ago but it would not be anywhere near as good as it is today over 2 years later. There still are a few things we need to do such as some ADR work, and some fine tune editing but right now we are on the best schedule we've ever been on as far as finishing goes.

This weekend David and I will sit down once again and do a final once over of the movie and then get it off to our composer (Durb) and our sound designer (Neil). Followed by a test screening and finally a release date. Which will be coming soon. Can't give it away yet but for all intents and purposes the date has been set. Hopefully we announce that date within the next week.

THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST

posted by Russell Johnson - writer/director of 12 STEPS NOWHERE.

So many things have changed since we went out and shot the first bit of footage for 12 STEPS. First and foremost the BLOG, which has become a useful and popular tool on the internet. Hence the start of the 12 STEPS blog and welcome. The movie is in the final few stages of post-production and we'll be posting all the info you'll need on the movie.

Get on with it already!

As I stated, the movie is in the final stages of post. It's been a long time coming for various reasons, none of which are really important. The movie is on it's way!

The first assembly of the movie ran around 50 minutes and we are trying to keep it to 30 or less. No easy task. There's so much that needs to be cut and that's always a hard thing to do. However a valiant effort is being made by David Cottingham, my business partner and producer for the last 4 years. He is now editing the movie and took over for our original editor Chris Yelton. Chris moved on to greener pastures during the editing process and we lost a damn fine editor. But David has stepped up and has become a very talented editor in his own right. And being that we have worked together so long there's no one I trust more with my final vision for the movie. If anything he'll come up with some great ideas of his own.

On that note the first 10 minutes are off to our trusted music composer Justin R. Durban or just Durb as he's known to us and I plan on sitting down this weekend and looking at what we've got so far. Finally, it's time for a website update. We started shooting this movie over 2 years ago and the site has been up for quite some time and there's a lot of updating to do.

The movie is still on pace for an end of June, early July release date so stay tuned!