Yeah, what happened to that wicked-fast post-production pipeline that had us hitting benchmarks (First cut! Final cut! Color locked!) and expecting final delivery sometime a few months ago? Nothing! We did it! Whew.

But what followed immediately after was a round of internal (re)evaluation and a critical round of “market testing” (limited screening/feedback gathering) that confirmed our suspicions about what needed work and clarified some other weak spots. The result was some new material that needed to be shot (and cut, vfx’d, scored, etc.), plus some new creature effects (!). Plus a second round of color grading, various dialog, sound and music tweaks, etc., etc. All important improvements…but also more time.

So instead of the expected “What? Already!?” surprise delivery, we’re wrapping up a more polished (and improved) finished piece that will have taken almost exactly 9 months to gestate. That’s right. And like that other business, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster of highs and lows..but mostly highs, with an ever-increasing appreciation of all the people who participated and gave us such excellent work — without which, of course, this would have been a long, depressing turd polish. As it is, we’ve been able to focus on making sure all that brilliance made it onto the screen, into the story, and all added up to something that is as engaging, fun and entertaining as it can possibly be.

Here is an color grade example, showing the progression from original footage to finished look. More soon. Sorry for the radio silence; it’s been quite frustrating to be in this phase of “very little to talk about” or worse, repeating essentially the same exact thing every time someone asks (“Yeah, well, we’re still working on finishing, you know, color, vfx…almost there!”) — but now that we’re actually wrapping up we’ll have much more to say — and the time to say it.