The Reveal

Just yesterday afternoon at work, I told the head of a major studios' publicity department, "Our audience craves one thing: the reveal. Show them something they haven't seen before."

What I meant was, nothing drives clicks in the movie news business like exclusive trailer and clips. It's not rocket science.

Still, studios roll out these sneak peeks in strategically-timed microscopic pieces. They don't want to give too much away.

Our buddy, "American Hardcore" (and Slamdance founder) Paul Rachman, though, suggested to Chris and me months ago now that we deluge the Internet with clips.

Which brings me to tonight.

It's nearly midnight. We're editing. Well, Chris is editing, and I'm making (strong) suggestions over his shoulder.

We're working on the open. We've scarcely made it past my first line of VO ("It seems to me..."), which means we're approximately .005% into the film, and means that, at this rate, we'll have a rough cut sometime in 2010. Still, it already looks like a film. Which kind of blows me away.

The New York City footage is great: frenzied, chilly, and blue (in contrast with Nantucket's warm reds). Chris also digitized a bunch of 8mm footage my dad shot when we were kids that, frankly, is amazing stuff: me in a crib, Chris pushing me in a stroller.

I don't know how many times I've thought (and said), "What the hell have we done!" Little by little, though, it's feeling like the real thing. The script is 97% written. And we probably have 75% of our footage together. It's coming together. And it looks cinematic.

So I wish we could show you, and make good on Paul's suggestion. And we will. But not tonight.

I'll bring a FlipCam into edit next time and show you what I mean. But it's gonna' be a while before we roll out clips in earnest. So for now, trust me. It's good. It works. You'll see.