The Roller Coaster Continues

I'm sitting on the ferry, traveling from Vancouver back to Victoria, British Columbia. Figured I'd use the free wireless to update y'all on today's emotional roller coaster ride.

I started the day without much sleep last night - I have this irrational, and completely irritating habit of not being able to sleep the night before I travel. I have no idea why this happens. I'm usually a really great sleeper (and napper too!), but in any case, this morning I was off to a bit of a rough start.

I headed over to Jen's place to pick her up, with just enough time to catch the ferry. I had an important meeting with a producer in Vancouver, and since we live on an island we have take a ferry and if we miss it, we have to wait 2 hours until the next one. So I arrived with the clock ticking, only to find out that Jen had 2 sick kids at home, and a duty day at one of the kids'pre-school. ARGH! Her hubby couldn't do the duty day as he needs a new police check, so our hands were tied. After a mild freak-out (on my end), and a few outbursts of "God Dangit! We were going to get SO much done on the ferry!" and some other swear words... I sucked it up and went on my lonesome.

side note: I should tell you here that I'm a new driver. So, driving in Vancouver isn't really my cup of tea just yet.

Anyway, I made it to the meeting after 3 hours of travel, and it rocked. Seriously, this producer was awesome at helping me learn what I need to know, and with offering free advice & contacts for me to follow up with. SCORE! He helped me to realize that there is indeed money out there for us, and all I need to do is ask for it. Double-score! Being in Canada does make it easier for indie filmmaking. Or so I'm told anyway. I'll get on his suggestions tomorrow.

I also had a conversation with a movie star's mother today. We're trying to book her daughter for our little movie, and let me tell you - talking to a star's mom is the same as talking to any mom - they all just want to know that their kids are awesome. Same as teaching in inner city schools really. I'm happy to say that she loved our script as well. Woohoo! More conversations to come I'm sure.

To finish the day, I went to meet up with our Director of Photography, at the IKEA restaurant - because sadly, we don't have an Ikea on Vancouver Island, and it was the only place I thought I knew how to get to without getting lost. And lost I got. So very lost.

It took me 2 hours to meet him, after breaking down in a parking lot (I'm not even kidding - I wailed! And boy oh boy, am I ever happy the star's mom didn't hear the f-bombs I dropped!). Our poor DP was waiting forever for me! What a great guy. I heard loads of stories about what he's working on now, particularly about directors smoking joints on set while he waits for them to get back on task.

Second side note: Seriously? Seriously?! We are so going to ROCK this movie if that's what happens out there on other indie sets. We're 2 women, one a former-innercity-school teacher, the other a mom with a masters degree, a photography background and 3 kids - we're focused, driven and on task, and ... sober on set. Um, yeah - no wonder so many people want to work with us!

And now, here we are. I'm back on the ferry. This time it's rocking back & forth, which is really rare for this journey. I can't wait to get home, get back to focusing on the kickstarter campaign, and get back to bed. Tomorrow I'll rock the new ideas, get my dress fitted for Elton John's Oscars Party (is that for real?!), meet up with a great friend and one of our most supportive investors and hang out with Jen and the kids. WOOHOO!

See how it's all up...down...up...down...and loop-di-loop?

Another weekly update: This week's theme - the rollercoaster

1. The Times Colonist article came out on Tuesday, and I didn't even know we were on the front cover until I received a few tweets of congratulations. Crazy! And I looked crazy in the photo, but that's cool. It was a really fun photo shoot.

2. We received a tonne of emails from folks we don't know to say congrats on the movie. FUN! One stood out in particular. It was from a woman who always wanted to act in movies, but her parents wanted to keep her safe from the possible rejections. She's proud of us for taking the leap forward and sent us a cheque in the mail. Woohoo!

3. Our kickstarter campaign leaped from 7% to 10% in a day - mostly because of the Times article. Score!

4. Received an email from local garage band, Handsome Distraction - they want to help us fundraise, with a view to being in the movie somehow. Met with Devin over a drink and discussed the movie, his ideas & how we can collaborate. I love people that just get on with things, pitch their ideas & take charge. AWESOME.

So, we agreed that they will organize a local garage band gig here in Victoria & we'll spread the word about them, give them credit in the movie & do as many shout outs as we can. Good times.

The other idea that's brewing is a massive garage band contest where indie bands submit their music on facebook or our website and their fans vote. Our promise would be to watch each & every submission and choose the best ones for the movie. Any ideas on that one?

5. I pitched to Awesome Shit Club - a local group that has people give $50 into a collective pot and invite people like me to pitch their awesome ideas. There were 10 pitches, kind of like Dragon's Den, but very local. Great ideas! The winner was the "Doc-Bus" - a couple of women who want to buy a bus & travel the country showing documentaries. At least I lost to a fellow filmmaking enthusiast.

6. Speaking of Dragon's Den - it's a dream of mine to one day have dinner with the dragons. I just know we'll really get along over wine & good food. So, when I saw the tweet that CBC Vancouver was holding a contest on their facebook page for Brett Wilson, I had to enter. We had to submit a 60 second pitch video on their page in the hopes of being 1 of 3 selected to pitch to Brett in person at a mall in Vancouver today. We lost (theme of the week? ugh...) - but I loved doing the pitch. You can see it on the bottom of their facebook page.
We also posted a funny outtake video on our facebook page, where Jen's one year old daughter ends the video with a "Woooo!"

7. I went to two of Philip Bisset-Caveneiro's talks where he also plugged our movie. What a kick-ass business man/entrepreneur/philanthropist/friend.

8. Jamie Gale & I met in person, after tweeting for a couple of months. Local mortgage broker for high-end properties (Go Jamie!), and movie lover. Love that!

9. Experienced the total emotional roller coaster of crowd-funding for indie movies. From "FRACK YES! We can do this! AND IT'S SO FRIKKIN' FUN!" to "Oh gawd, am I really asking people for money AGAIN?"

My shoulders hurt, my neck is killing me, I haven't worked out in ages, I'm afraid I'm being a bad friend - it's like I have a new boyfriend and all I want to do is talk about him (blah blah blah - movie this, movie that - blah blah blah)...but then I hung out with a great friend this week, laughed about this very neurosis & since she does have a new boyfriend she completely understood. I love her enthusiasm for her guy and I'm happy to listen to her talk about him non-stop, so we're okay. I can talk movie and she can talk boy. Phew!

10. Hired Andy Dooley as my life coach. Yup - I know... I need one. Andy's a really fun, super-positive, silly guy and I know I need to get all the help I can get in these next few months. No idea how I'll pay him, but hey - that's what he's for right? To help me see clearly, find more $, laugh more, make it all easy...plus he's a good friend and I feel really comfortable being honest about my ups & downs these days so I think we're a good match. Stoked!

11. Had great chats with Adam Daniel Mezei, a PMD and reporter with Film Courage who is at Sundance this week. He does a live video every morning at 9am from Sundance and I've managed to catch at least half of them. Great guy!

12. Speaking of Film Courage - they asked me to write an article for their website/blog and man oh man, have I ever got to get on that! It's been weeks since they asked, and I really want to do it - but for some reason, I'm totally blocked. Help!

13. Bought my gold & industry pass for the Victoria Film Festival, where I plan to meet Dan McKellar & Bruce McDonald. Set up a meeting with Mongrel Media, Canadian indie distributors.

14. Jen whipped up some promo postcards for me to hand out at the Vic Film Festival and when I have meetings with folks. Had them printed at Staples - 1000 postcards cost $333 - and they're not even cut straight! ARGH. Fingers crossed that they bring in the funds to make it worthwhile.

15. Met with our designers via skype. I love these guys! I'm struggling with the purpose of our website in pre-production, as the site will launch March 4th (the date I set which depended on when I get paid so I can pay them), and we start shooting April 4th. We only have a few cast members and will be doing more auditions in a few weeks, so the garage band isn't really all there yet.

Their concepts are awesome - the problem is me. Their idea is to have the website tell more of the back story behind the band, which I love - but I wonder: why aren't other indie's doing this? Or are they? I need to see some quality indie film websites that launched in pre-production. Today's task: web searches. If you know of any sites I should see, please let me know. Although I doubt you've even read this far into the blog post as I am saying way, way, way too much today. Just so much to say!

16. AHHHHHHH!!! I'm overwhelmed. Can you tell?