It occurs to me that what I posted early might be confusing to a bunch of you. So let's visit the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Let's go back to 2010. It was the very early days of @kickstarter. There hadn't been a lot of successful film campaigns yet. 1/?

@grking and David from @filmcourage had done it. @marty_lang and @PaulMakesMovies too. @gregorybayne had raised $25K and it felt like a miracle.

We were all sort of guessing on what to do. 2/?

And @MELADDWILLIAMS!

I'm missing some people.

Anyway, I raised a little over $4K for a film about a fishing trip in the Northern Maine woods that goes very, very badly.

I had, I dunno, 700 followers and had just made a $900 feature and no one really knew who I was. 3/?

I barely cleared the $4K goal. That was enough for food and plane tickets and a tiny bit of gear rental. We rented a lens and I think 1 light for 1 scene.

The rest @dustinpearlman shot w/ natural light and a couple bounce boards.

We had 7 days to shoot a 45 page outline. 4/?

One of those days included a 4+ hour company move. So 6.5 days.

I talked @KieranNYCLA, @iamjonnymars, and Tyler Peck (I don't think he's on Twitter) into starring in it. My Father played the fishing guide. He had never acted before.

Total cast & crew: 11 people. 5/?

It rained off and on every day. There were bear hunters all over the place. The boom op got sick and had to go to the hospital (she's fine).

It was not the easiest shoot I've been on.

But we did it! 6/?

Then I started editing. I kept editing as I did A Year Without Rent. @PaulMakesMovies can confirm.

Oh, forgot to mention @shackett loaned us a 7D to shoot on.

After AYWR, we were tentatively programmed to premiere in a festival. 7/?

I was pricing out plane tickets to go do the sound mix in Philly when we got bumped. It happens.

Everything got put on hold in favor of paying work.

8/?

I was so fucking burned out. I had already fallen asleep on @mattsontomlin's set then went directly into consulting and @JackMarchetti's near-miracle campaign.

The depression hit me hard. Somewhere in there I wrote a script about suicide that was, uh, not received well. 9/?

I started running and that helped a lot. I got the depression under control. Worked at a social media startup for a while. I met someone and before I knew it, we had a house and a kid and I didn't have a computer that could open Final Cut 7 anymore. 10/?

Around there I was pretty convinced the film was dead. I couldn't bring myself to find out. So if I kept the drive up on the shelf, the film was still alive, you know?

I was convinced I'd never make another film.

Not a great feeling.

11/?

Then the pandemic hit, and weirdly that helped. I didn't get a quarantine break, cuz job, but it felt like a fresh start. I ripped off the band aid.

@dustinpearlman was able to get Final Cut 7 working on his girlfriend's computer.

12/?

Dave (the sound mixer) was able to get his files up and running on whatever system he used way back when.

And then it was just a question of Dave finding time to do it. We did it back and forth over email, which isn't super efficient, but we got it done.

Huzzah!

13/?

Today I dropped it as a surprise Christmas present in a backer-only update.

I'm not really sure what the distribution plan is. Maybe festivals? VOD? I'm too deep into this to look at it objectively. I'm just glad it's done. I can't even tell you how good it feels.

14/?

The lesson here is never give up. If you're prone to depression, get help.

I'll leave you with the poster, which I did myself, and the @letterboxd link: https://letterboxd.com/film/up-country/

Thank you all for your patience & I promise if I ever make another film it won't take so long. FIN

I'll jump back in to say thank you to everyone for all the kind words.

Also, if you want to see my $900 first feature, it's free on Vimeo https://vimeo.com/21048525