Positive feedback from James on the nearly completed draft of Heist.

I sent him the 66 pages that I've completed. I waited pretty impatiently for him to get back to me with his thoughts. When I finally saw the first line of his email response (which was "You bastard! How could you leave me hanging like that!") I felt that I was on a good track. :)

Of course, he's still waiting to see if I can pull the ending off. As he put it, I seem to have "just the right number of balls in the air" but he was also quick to point out that I could still screw it up. I'm abundantly aware of that, but even if I do a crappy ending the first time out, its not a tragedy, that's what rewrites are for.... :) The timing on the ending will be tough, so I expect some rework - especially with all the details that are involved.

All the things that I've so far been concerned about; authenticity of the characters, pacing, overall story, holding interest, etc. all seem to be right where they need to be. So that was good, and has encouraged me to dig into it again this weekend to try to complete it.

I have been chipping at it in bits at night, but I'll need at least another 10 solid hours of dedicated time to complete it.

I was inspired yesterday by the success of another Robert Rodriguez disciple, Roger Ingraham. Roger produced and directed the feature "Moonshine" which was an official selection at Sundance this year. The report that I heard on the news last night said that he was 22 years old. In his interview, he said that he'd produced the film for about $9,200 and that included a car crash scene.. When he said that he'd read "The 10 minute film school" by Rodriguez, I couldn't help but grin. It was so great to hear about someone who has applied these low budget techniques with such great success. They mentioned that Miramax and New Line Cinema had requested private screenings at Sundance.. The memorable comment from the interview was "The hardest thing about the project was just deciding to do it." :)