"Spade on the River" is taking flight. I don't think there is anything more beautiful on this earth than the realization that the thing you were so driven to do is actually going to work. You meet a girl at the supermarket and immediatly fall in love with her. Later, you see her in town and exchange words with her. Two weeks later you meet regularly and you begin to realize that you and her might actually wind up getting married.

For me, I was inspired one day to write a movie about how damaging it is if you follow every single rule, all the time, and look down on everybody else who doesn't. I wrote a script, one that was a little sketchy, but at the very least entertaining. Then I went through the process of trying to get auditions and, of course, a cast and crew. From there, scheduling was hard, and getting everybody together was even harder. Well, not that hard to be honest. Actually, it was pretty easy. I'm making it out to be harder than it was, I guess. STILL THOUGH, it took some work. Finally shooting started, and the first day was pretty bad, but promising. I ended up scrapping nearly the whole day. A billion cast members dropped out, crew members mysteriously vanished, reshoots kept piling up and I started thinking it would be a miracle if this thing turned out any good, let alone finished.

Now the caterpillar is coming out of the cacoon. The schedule has flown off the hinges, but it doesn't matter. We still have a TON of scenes to shoot (or reshoot) but that doesn't really matter. Even the fact that we only have 4 weeks to finish shooting doesn't matter very much, because what has been shot and edited is looking amazing. Not perfect by any means, but very encouraging. There's a sense of purpose about the whole thing now, not just a 'we're doing a movie' aura but 'this movie could make some serious noise' thang. The climax of the movie is truly professional, as good (better even) than most climaxes in studio movies.

Sami Haj is carrying the movie. His acting is true to the character and engaging. He makes Keith as likable as you can. Nathan Archer has been the only steady crew member and he has a lot of other stuff to offer. Heather is showing a lot of promise, and Nate Boggs of course was very good. Brett Valenti doesn't need to be mentioned; anybody that has seen his stuff knows what he's capable of (except him, for some reason). Apart from a couple days where I was a little off kilter, I have done a pretty good job as Calvin as well.

Of course I have a lot to learn about directing. The angles that I pick need to have better chemisty with each other. Until recently, I was the only director working that had never heard of the 180 degree rule. I need to have the actors framed better (the framing in the movie is fine and functional, but not outstanding). Of course a lot of these problems would be fixed with more time and money, but I should be able to do a better job of them as it is.

There are a lot of things I envisioned being better than they are when I as writing the movie. I could have done better sound, been more diligent with the lighting, but I kind of settled after a while when I realized the schedules we were working around. It became kind of a 'lets get this done' thing. But one thing I couldn't have envisioned being better was the editing. At first, when I was roughly working with split screens (and I have to thank my professor Todd Kesterton for teaching me about split screens) they were very rough and amateur. They distracted from the scene, but I was still excited that I was able to do them. Now they flow right in with the story, and the movie has it's own style. Of course, a TON of it was ripped right from 'The Hulk' (the best edited movie in a billion years), but dealing with the subject matter, it all works, and works well. Of course I haven't ripped EVERYthing off, and people who go to see this movie will see a lot of stuff they have never seen before. But man, does Ang Lee know what he's doing.

My mom, Chris Cowgill, acts in the film. She plays a small part, but she flew all the way from Moreno Valley California to act in it (not really, it was moms weekend:). She is wonderful, of course, and is scoring the film and has a couple songs in it. Some other bands are letting me use their music, and I'm still hoping Kepano Green will lend me a few songs.

Finally, the movie will not be released until Fall, 2005. I am trying to get it to play in the Darkside Theatre in town, which will be digital in Fall. I will spend the summer editing and getting the sound right. After it runs in the Darkside (hopefully) and a few other theatres (again hopefully) I'll send it to a few film festivals.

The most exciting thing is knowing that next year I am making a movie (Lord willing) that will be more fun to watch, have a bigger following, and I'll have a lot more resources for.

For a first time full length movie, "Spade on the River" couldn't be very much better.