Cutting it down

It’s absolutely crazy that the year is almost gone. Really, PATER MATER is still sort of a young project- the initial idea came at the beginning of 2021, so we’ve been working on it for a year. And we’re super proud of how much we’ve been able to do in that amount of time (with the exception of keeping this blog updated). After we finished shooting in July, the last few months have been filled with editing and preparing for the next steps of post-production. The stages of filmmaking are really different: shooting itself is a highly collaborative, many-parts-moving, continuous rush of a process. Editing, on the other hand, can often be just one person in a room with a laptop and a few extra screens. It’s slow, sometimes excruciating, sometimes exhilarating. You find things that you were sure were going to work that don’t, you find new things you never noticed or imagined that do, and you rediscover all the little mistakes and surprises that came along the way (like an inquisitive dog head appearing in the middle of a bush). It’s like writing the film for a third time. I think that’s what’s so exciting about this art form: there’s so many opportunities to shape and change the final work, and the work done at each step enacts meaningful change. A film can be completely different if any one of many minuscule factors are tweaked. That’s exciting, and terrifying. And that’s why we love it.

The all powerful Adobe Premiere Pro. All hail.

It has also become increasingly evident that one can continue tweaking an edit forever, and we’re coming to a self imposed end to the process soon. That means we’re finally ready to raise some more money for the rest of post-production, so be on the lookout for news of our Kickstarter to be launching in the next few weeks. We’re really close to crossing the finish line, and community support of independent art will help us get there. And we think you’ll like the final product, too. :)