Busy, Busy Filmmaking Month!

This past month has been a busy one for me. I went to Shanghai to continue working on a film project with documentary filmmaker Leslie Iwerks and DP Suki Medencevic. It was soooo hot. We found out that we filmed outside on two of the hottest days on record in Shanghai. We were huddled under flags and umbrellas and had lots of Gatorade and water on hand. Definitely not recommended to shoot in such heat but you do what you have to do to get the job done. We had a lot of fun - Leslie and Suki are awesome to work with - it's great to be friends and coworkers. And being surrounded by such talent is very inspiring.

The 5-day shoot went well and we made it back to the States without a problem, except the intense jetlag. Shanghai is 15 hours ahead of us. They say it takes one day per every hour of time difference for your body clock to return to normal. So I had 15 days of recovery. Fun times!

On top of filming in Shanghai, we got great news that Netflix wanted to renew our title Not Since You and post our new title The Diary of Preston Plummer. The renewal was easy. Delivering Diary however was a little harder. I had to get our master tape to Deluxe so they could create the electronic file for Netflix. Luckily, Deluxe delivers files to Netflix all the time so they handled the entire delivery of the file. It was a little pricey but necessary. The film is available on Netflix now so please check it out here!

The trickier part was all the artwork they needed in photoshop layers. Our wonderful poster designer Hillary Gronvold stepped up and handled it for us. Thanks Hillary! (Here's some of Hillary's work (we love her): http://cargocollective.com/minidesignco). If you ever need any graphic design, we definitely recommend Hillary.

Next, we planned a final shoot for our new Web series Honest Andy, for our Web channel So Natural TV. We had a great shooting day - our cast and crew have become a well-oiled machine. We can't wait to launch the series and we're hoping to secure funding for our next Web series so we can keep the awesome momentum going. It feels great. I have really wanted to get involved in creating content for the Web and I'm really happy with the material we're creating. My producing partner and writer/director Leena Pendharkar is so talented and we get along amazingly well - loving our partnership.

Additionally, we are nearing a final version of our new short film Plain Clothes, written and directed by - and starring - Sam Jaeger! I am a huge fan of Sam and his work. What a wonderful person and talented filmmaker. Super excited for this short. Can't wait to figure out its launch and our next feature we will be making together.

Brandon Trenz and I completed our feature script romantic comedy titled The Fixer. This one is near and dear to my heart as it's set in the world of publishing - my home for almost ten years prior to film. And I also finished a first draft of a chick lit novella I am writing. My brother Kevin Kelly and I are nearing a first draft of our new comedy and my cowriter Kristin Goodman and I are packaging our project The Virgin.

Last but not least, I am also packaging two wonderful features - Ashland by the awesome husband/wife team Lindy and Kris Boustedt and Pitching Tents by Rob Fox and Jayme Petrille. Really proud of these projects.

So that was my month - whew! I'm busy but loving every second!! Feeling good about the future and definitely figuring out who I want to be as a filmmaker. And working with some amazing people. Very blessed. These are good times.