Where to...?

Before I finish the all the last of the production, all the final little bits, I have been thinking of the next steps. That is outside of what needs to happen in post-production.
After all the work that has gone into this I really need something with this film. I cannot imagine not making another film, but to what value if no one sees this one? At a minimum I need the film to be seen at some important film festivals. I don't expect to get into the big ones, or even the medium ones. I cannot expect to be in Cannes or Venice, or Rotterdam. I mean the smaller ones. So how?
Over a year ago I went to Cannes to meet sales agents. My thinking was to get interest as soon as possible from the people who will eventually sell the film. But then I began to have doubts. What sales agent would want to sell my film? I am completely unknown. At the same time sales agents get films into film festivals, so if they thought it had potential, or that I had future potential they would take a chance on spending time and money for not return. They would be thinking of sales for my next film, or the film after that.
Another plan: find a co-producer. This would be someone who believes in the film and myself, and would take it to the next level, to finish post-production, and then work to get it into film festivals. Finishing post-production doesn't mean that we have a 35mm print. We could finish on DigiBeta. Let's face it, unless I am exceeding lucky no one is going to put up the money to finish it on film.
The problem with finding a producer is where to start? There are so many people calling themselves producers. Even if someone has a credit it is hard to know who has done what, or if they were any good. I have a few leads, that is people I could approach for names which I will try. Otherwise I would be trolling IMDB, looking at films and sending off emails to people who I don't know and don't know me. This could take a long time and would be probably be fruitless.
Finally, another plan: to finish it myself, then go to the film festival programmers and try to convince them to show my film. This is of course the last resort.
Any of these will take a lot of effort, work, and time could easily fail. So which plan?

Making of...Final Shot

Now this is the last of the Norway Making of... In the near term I will be looking at collating some of the material from our work in London.
In the meantime I have met with JC to discuss shooting the last of our pickups. He was rather keen to wait for the weather to warm up a bit, and I didn't argue. So that is our next step.
In the meantime I continue to put together materials for marketing.

Turning point

I have been struggling with this post for a few days, just finding the words to explain what I have been feeling. How to put it? I realised this morning that it wasn't so complicated.
It came out of the showing I had over a week ago. Isabella, Ana and Mark came over and I presented the latest edit. I had trimmed a little out of the first and third segments, remixed the sound in other parts, and added new sounds in other areas.
First, I felt more comfortable showing it to them, which I attribute to the fact that the majority of the pieces are in place. I always start a showing by listing out the missing pieces and this time the list was shorter and less critical.
Their was response was quite good. There was some criticism, some thought the pace too slow, but not everyone agreed. Mark thought perhaps, and rightly so, that instead of pace it might be an issue of rhythm, which is something I would leave for an editor. They did not agree on the meaning of this or that sequence, but they all had their own ideas, and since this has always been an open text, this was a great victory for me. They might for their own questions, but I had not confused them.
Fundamentally, the issues are all to do with post-production, whereas before the problems were to do with production, to what I needed to shoot.
It is true I have some more production work to do, some off-screen dialogue, the bedroom shots, which I have referred to as the Rothko shots, the odd shot we need to help with the passage of time and lead us into the next sequence. All told, about 1.5 days of production which I would like to do as soon as possible.
It is soon time to get on with the next phase of production, selling it. So soon this blog will now change, no longer about production, now more mundane tasks, meetings, trying to get money or interest from producers, funding bodies, film festivals, and sales agents.
Before that I think I need a break. I look back at this blog and I cannot believe that I started this in 2006! It really has consumed a large part of my life. I think I would like to set aside one month at least where I do nothing but the day job, have no obligations, no other project to finish, to have a normal life.
It is just part of my mental health. I have even been collecting material for my next project. I think that I need this, need my mind to rest from this project for a little while.