12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

This week has been a strange one for me, because for the first time in the course of the whole 12in12 process, I’ve actually been feeling … ahead.  I had a rough cut of “The Proposal” by Monday night, and picture lock (or close to it) 24 hours later.  Today I went through the whole movie doing color correction (and a bit of audio work while I was at it); this evening Mike and I had a long conference with composer Thomas Sullivan (“A Summer’s Day”) to finalize the score.  If push came to shove, we could post the movie tonight; in fact, I had a moment about an hour ago when I was convinced we were posting tonight.  And not in a panicky, oh-my-God kind of way — in fact, I was looking forward to putting the movie out there.

Part of the reason for this is the way “The Proposal” was shot.  As I mentioned earlier, we didn’t get a lot of traditional “coverage” on this movie, choosing instead to film each section of script in a single, continuous shot.  This means that there are far fewer options in the editing room; the rough cut came together in the course of an afternoon, which is fairly insane for a nine-minute movie.  And I have to say, I really like this style of shooting/editing.  It’s not appropriate for every film, of course, but I think it works extremely well for this one, and I’d be curious to try it again in a less time-crunched situation.  (The extreme version of this style is the one-shot movie, which is something we keep trying to work into 12in12, so far with no success.)

When the other one drops, it ain't gonna be pretty.

The other reason this feels like a relaxed week is that we were planning to head down to Florida this morning, which would have been a major disruption of our weekly schedule.  Since that trip got pushed back, we now find ourselves with time on our hands. Time enough to whip a movie into shape in much shorter order than we’re accustomed to.

But that’s not all.  I also spent five or six hours today with “Spirits” DP Derek Van Gorder, scouting subway locations and exhaustively building a shot list.  That sort of advance director-DP conference is a luxury we haven’t really been giving ourselves on this project; with the exception of “Old Love,” we’ve been operating on the show-up-and-shoot-it paradigm, with at best a phone conversation by way of “getting on the same page.”

On a project where perpetually playing catch-up has been the status quo since Day One, this sudden sense of ahead-ness is disorienting, even disturbing.  Without the feeling of impending doom hanging over me at every moment, how on Earth am I going to get anything done?  How do I even know what to do when the top priorities aren’t thrusting themselves into my face with all the urgency of an unread e-mail?  Moreover, if I’m not feverishly pouring my every ounce of strength into a merciless, all-devouring project, then who am I and what am I doing with my life?

Fortunately, this conceit that I’m somehow “ahead” is probably just an illusion.  Most likely, I’ll wake up tomorrow with a sudden, crushing realization of all the things I’ve left undone which need my full attention right now.  At that point, I’ll be back in my comfort zone.  Till then, I’ll try not to look a gift horse in the mouth …

Then again, maybe I should.

Posted by Keith