Screening of "This Was America" (school project) a resounding success!

The school project that I've been working on so diligently these past several weeks is "in the can" and was screened before the student body and staff of Fairgrounds Middle School in Nashua yesterday.

I was amazed at the reaction of the students. They were applauding almost every segment, and couldn't get over the look. The staff was amazed as well. It turned out that the librarian worked at the NH public TV affiliate a short time ago and has a great network of contacts there. She wants to see if they'll air it. This will of course mean requesting broader licenses for the music (not to mention clearances from the parents of the kids that are in it) - Florentine films and Jay Ungar (writer for "Ashokan Farewell" www.ashokan.org) granted limited use rights only. However, I think that if both Florentine and Jay know that there's an airing they may be willing to work something out - but I'll worry about that when the request comes in.

I also have at least two indie producers that were sufficiently impressed by the quality to offer to pitch the concept to some network contacts that they have.

The project came in at about 35 minutes. So.. Another one for the reel - and it was well worth it I must say.

Final stats were that it was produced for about $1,000 and took roughly 300 hours of my time to complete.

However, this "little film" came at a cost. A seemingly unending string of late nights to complete the project on time have had an impact on my health. Last night I fell into my bed at 6:00 and slept like a log all night - never moved once - and managed to sleep until 9:00 this morning. While the extra sleep was great, I'm still not 100%. I was pretty weak all day and seemed to have a hard time doing even trivial work out in the yard - nearly fainted once. I think it's fatigue.

Work has resumed on Heist. I worked on it for over an hour today just re-reading the script and getting back up to speed with where I'd left off. So I'm starting to get back in the groove with that.

I was informed last night that the Discovery Channel has (finally) seen the trailer for my "Big Idea Hunt" reality show concept, but there's no word from the prod co that I'm working with regarding a reaction. Hope to hear something soon though.

As for Star Coaches, there's a really surprising amount of momentum building behind it at Original. Still waiting to hear more, but it's looking positive thus far.