Weighted is done.

Last Monday, Weighted was officially, entirely, totally, completely completed. As I'm writing this, the DVDs are in the process of being created, and people are being invited to the premiere, which is this Saturday. If you're reading this, you're invited. So go click "Attending" on the event page.

Even though the film was originally scheduled to be completed about two months ago, this is still record timing. I know of no other BYU student capstone being completed, from pre-production to premiere, in so little time. From the time we got funding to this Saturday, this film will have taken about six months. Of course, the early stages of story, writing, and conceptualization were happening months before that, but the actual course of production, the heavy lifting, as it were, was all done over six months. Pretty great. Especially for a bunch of students who were working on a multitude of other projects throughout the entire process.

Here's what I learned: filmmaking is hard.

At the end of the day, the actual film is...well, I'll let you be the judge when you see it. I'll just say that the script was better, as a completed thing, than the film is, which isn't at all surprising, considering our limited experience, time, and budget.

I also discovered that probably the hardest special effect anyone could ever attempt is to make a person fly. My VFX guy (Nick Dixon, everyone...) and I had a conversation about why that is, and I won't go into the dull details, but suffice it to say that there may not be more than one or two movies ever made in the history of the universe that made flying look natural for a human being. And that emphatically includes all the huge-budget Hollywood movies out there that try to pull it off.

This proves both that I and the people who agreed to help me with this film are (or were, at least) incredibly naive, and that we've all got that thing called grit, because while the effects may not astonish anyone, they're also not awful, and by golly they could have been. In fact I saw many versions in which they were.

I could probably talk forever about this movie, and the things I learned, and how I felt and feel about everything, but I won't. Unfortunately, the entirety of experience that goes into making a movie cannot be summed up effectively in any way. So, to end, these words: I'm glad it's over with, and I can't wait to do it again, and soon, by the grace of God.