So the editor of Causality Scheme, Sarah Gersh, edited the film using Final Cut Studio 2 and I own Final Cut Studio (the 1st version).  Well, she sent me back the hard drive that I sent her and on which she edited the film on.  I was very excited to see my hard drive come in the mail and at the time my Mac was out of order - the hard drive had crashed on it.  I was using my work laptop for my day to day activities so I didn’t REALLY need to fix the Mac - that was until I got the hard drive back!  So, I scrimped and saved and sold off some old film equipment and found the money to buy a new hard drive and also to buy the new Mac OS X version.  I was stoked when I got that stuff in the mail!  So I installed the hard drive in my Macbook Pro and then I popped in my Mac OS X Tiger install discs.  1st disc went just fine… the 2nd it turned out was used to go sledding on over a sharp rocky cavern - it was unreadable and I could not finish my install!

The next day I took my Mac in to the Apple store and they were super cool and installed a fresh copy of Mac OS X 10.5 on my Macbook Pro!  Okay, so then it was finally time for me to go home and install Final Cut Studio.  I didn’t remember this but it took me 3 friggin hours to install it!!  Now, finally, it was time to look at Sarah’s cut of Causality Scheme directing in Final Cut Pro… I clicked File, Open, and navigated to Sarah’s Final Cup Pro Project file and…..   ‘general error 41′

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!  I did some searching and found out that I can’t open a FCP file that was created in a later version than mine!  Big Shitski is what that is!

So there I was digging in my garage for more things to sell.  I found a few things worth a few hundred and started hocking them.  It took me a few weeks, but I was able to wrangle up the fundage to purchase the Final Cut Studio 2 upgrade.  That was today.  I’m actually pretty excited about it though.   Final Cut Studio 2 has some really awesome stuff in it.  I can’t wait for it to show up.  It’s like it’s Christmas!

So it’s been over 2 years since I filmed Causality Scheme and it’s now finally done.  It’s almost like I never made the film - it seems like it’s just been so long ago that it was like a distant memory of a film that I had once watched.  Yes, it may have been a distant memory, but now the time has finally come.  Causality Scheme, the most talked about indie film in Illinois (well, at least by my friends and family), is about to be premiered!  

I’ll be hitting some festivals in Dallas and in the Chicago area.  I’m also going to be keeping an eye out for certain festivals that are looking for my type of short film as well.  I’m also going to attempt at festival submission overseas as well.  I’ll have to check on subtitles there though!

Causality Scheme was a story that came to me from Joseph Schantz, a friend of mine.  He brought me an unfunished three page story that he had jotted down over a weekend.  He was a part of the group of people that I invited over to my house to come up with an idea for Bohoc Productions’ 2nd film.  Joe was quiet pretty much the entire time, but then come Monday, he handed me this gem.  I was extatic - I was floored - I wanted to film the movie right there and then!  Well, I wanted to do this one right (thank God I did!).  I decided to find a screenwriter and find actual locations that we would be able to use, and we even built a set.

What didn’t I do that I wish I had done you ask?  Well, I wish I would have storyboarded.  There were some continuity issues that I ran into when I first put together the rough cut of the film.  I had to completely scrap the entire script and start from scratch because the flow of the film was WAY too fast.  I felt like someone was pushing me with their cane from behind me to go faster and go faster - that’s honestly how I felt when I watched the movie the 1st time.  That’s when I knew I had to find an editor that wasn’t me!  Sarah Gersh took on the job.  I had met her through my uncle.  We met and decided that we can work together on the film.  It took on a new life once we had a new set of eyes looking at the movie now.  Well, it still took another year to complete the job, but I have to say that I am finally proud of saying that I filmed this movie.  Seriously… after seeing the first cut of this movie I was going to quit as a filmmaker.  I was so disappointed.  That’s probably why it took me so long to finish it.  I shelved it and didn’t take if off the shelf until after meeting the film’s current editor Sarah.

Causality Scheme was a collaborative effort.  There were quite a few screw-ups and luckily they don’t show in the final product.  I just wonder how many good movies that I like now started off like mine did.  If you think about it, I wonder what Scorsese thought when first seeing Taxi Driver’s first cut… did he like it?  I might have to scour the special features on the DVD to check.

Causality Scheme is a good movie - even by my standards it is good.  Obviously the budget of a few hundred dollars shows in the production quality but still, for the amount of money I spent on making this movie, you’d think it would look horrible.  It doesn’t!  I think it looks great!

Well, keep an eye out.  I’ll be screening at festivals all over the US and I will also offer the DVD on Amazon.com as well to purchase.  Please stop by to view the movie or even pick yourself up a copy of the DVD once we get it ready to purchase.  The storyline of Causality Scheme is SO good that you really need to watch it a few times (or 10) to really get all the little things that is in that film.  Can you understand it?  I can, but you have to pick out the clues!

Good Luck!

So, we are almost completely finished filming Causality Scheme.  What a wild ride.  The first day of shooting we had technical difficulties (that’s just a good saying for I screwed up) and have to reshoot some of the scenes.  The second day of shooting went much better.  However the cameraman on Day 3 didn’t know I don’t label my miniDV tapes and popped in the tape that we had footage on!  Yep, have to reshoot that stuff too.  It’s no one’s fault, just a miscommunication.  Oh, by the way, I have started labeling my tapes now, and I also am turning on the little safety switch on the tapes too.  You live and you learn right?

Everyone is working very hard and dilligently towards making this film a reality, and boy what a reality it is!  The footage that we didn’t screw up looks absolutely beautiful.  Causality Scheme is going to be one heck of a movie!