Well Friends, after 21 days of shooting "Dancing on the Edge" is finally in the can and it's GOOD! You can all be very proud of an awesome achievement! Working with a script that called for locations with limited access requirements, Mother Nature giving us fits, long hours and deferred pay, your morale and professionalism during the campaign was above all praise. It was so hard for me to say goodbye to you all at picture wrap and I can't wait until we're back together again shooting "Runaway Hearts" this summer.
As I sit here tonight I can't help but think of how blessed this production has been from start to this moment. Its hard to believe that it was only a few months ago we had our hopes of shooting "Iron Lyncs" this April dashed when we had to turn down the $12M which proved to be from an unacceptable source. It was a knee-jerk reaction to that launched me into producing Dancing... but I knew I had to shoot something or die! So I dove head long into the project and come hell or high water, I was going to put it in the can. I scraped together what little money I had and managed to buy the camera and grip and figured I'd shoot during the day and fund raise at night in the hope that I could find enough to buy you lunch each day. And God did the rest. Each day, the money would appear from mostly unsolicited sources, friends who wanted to help, my partners who pitched in what they could, and another day's shooting went in the can and the lunches and craft services got better and better. Then there's our magnificent cast, who for the most part, being relative if not virtual beginners, delivered performances that were nothing short of brilliant, day in and day out. Then there were the locations themselves. How perfect was "Priority Place" and the grace of all those at Our Lady of Lourdes to allow us to invade their Pastoral Center for the better part of two weeks. How about the day we spent shooting in the Clark County Sheriff's Office where even "COPS" was denied permission to shoot. Or the Sheriff himself taking the time to come out late on day 21 to play a part after driving all day returning from a family tragedy? Or Happy Valley Urgent Care that only came available 24hrs prior to shooting there and just "happened" to have a training facility next door!
But the greatest miracle for me is my awesome crew, many who stuck with this show at great sacrifice! You have all made a permanent place in my heart.
Now we move on to post, the miracles just keep on coming. As I stood in the drizzle on night 21 I was troubled as to where I was going to find the $30K I'd need for post when my phone rang and God provided for that too! Do you suppose He's rewarding us for not taking that tainted $12M? More fun to come, Sandy
