I must begin by apologizing to any remaining faithful readers who no doubt have been disappointed by our lack of updates for the better part of, oh, the past eight months. We were holding off until we could make a glorious announcement that we had been accepted into Sundance or SXSW or some other film festival. Any other festival. But nearly eight months into the festival rounds, we are oh-fer.

0 for 19 – to be exact.

The first few rejections, from major festivals like Sundance, SXSW, and the Berlinale, were expected (though we had  our fingers crossed) and we took those in stride and looked boldly forward to the next round.

Our producer Sumi continued to email Keith and me the form letter rejections and we’d all make a few pithy jabs at the location of the festival in question, e.g.:

re: Nashville, Mike: “Ahhh, who likes country music anyway?”

re: Florida, Keith: “Screw old people, and alligators, and hanging chads, and Elian Gonzalez, and lawn flamingos.”

Though as the rejections continued to come in, the internal jokes got significantly more R-rated, certainly not appropriate for a family-friendly weblog like this one. After nineteen consecutive rejections, it’s hard not to become an insufferable potty-mouth.

Striking out at anything is discouraging … at least in real baseball you go back to the dugout to a bunch of other guys who also don’t get a hit most of the time. But entering these festivals is not only time consuming and expensive -  couple hours busy work and $50-$100 per entry – it’s also a fairly solitary pursuit. Sumi, Keith and I are the only ones who face the defeat and we don’t even get to commiserate in person.

Someday, we’ll have a water cooler to chat around. But for now, we will be better about sharing our struggles and God-willing a success or two on the blog.

The bad news is, our batting average is .000. But the good news is, it can only go up.

We’ll keep you posted – cross your fingers!

Love,

- ML

Film Festival Rejections:

• 12/1/10 Sundance
• 12/15/10 Berlinale
• 1/15/11 Cinequest
• 1/31/11 SXSW
• 2/15/11 Florida
• 2/25/11 Nashville
• 3/6/11 Tribeca
• 3/31/11 London
• 4/22/11 Seattle
• 4/28/11 Los Angeles
• 4/29/11 Nantucket
• 5/10/11 Sydney
• 5/12/11 Edinburgh
• 5/18/11 Gen Art  – Subject was “Your Film Matters”
• 5/18/11 Waterfront
• At some point: Washington DC, Hong Kong, Cleveland, New Directors

Second things first, we changed the name of the Four Week Feature from “Crazy Lake” to “Chasing Home.” “Crazy Lake” was always a working title, the name that was on the slate, but was never seriously considered as a title until the last week of August, when we were too strung out to think of anything better. Thankfully James Fauvell hated “Crazy Lake” so much that he sat down and came up with no less than 30 titles – of which “Chasing Home” was one. Thanks, JF!

First things second, WE ARE IN CONSIDERATION AT SUNDANCE! This just means that we paid $100 to Sundance, but it sounds really good. Keith and DVG worked their little buns off all of last week, tweaking, tightening and adding more closeups of me. Now the film is much better. Thanks, KBDVG!

More soon!

-ML

Can I put this on my resume??

As Keith mentioned, we were at the extraordinary Attic Studios on Saturday. Here are some more pictures from the evening!

Awesome view

Sunset THROUGH Manhattan!

The best way to see Keith - in silhouette

The Team

The Producers

MAMBO #5

MAMBO #KEITH

After the party is the afterparty

Thanks for coming, everyone!!

-ML

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

I’m in that netherworld, where I’ve returned but I’m not really here or there. I’m in that space between awake and asleep, the place where I will always love you.

So before I’ve forgotten everything completely, a few images for the road.

Will, Matt: Our abused PAs from L.A.

The Final Countdown

DylanVG

Shine

The line at Brewvies

Rain

Windmills

JESUS CHRIST!

Fauvell at his soberest

Luggage & Brigitte - but which is which???

How to recieve a free thorough pat down at the airport!

Riding off into the sunset...

Thanks for the adventure, team. I sure hope I remember some of this.

Love always,

-ML

Keith and Lee arrived safe and sound in Brooklyn at 11AM, EST, Sept 2nd,  39.5 hours after they left Utah. It is 35 hours on Googlemaps from Utah to NYC. That is very impressive time. This is how they looked:

Champions

Then Keith left and Lee took a nap in my bed. But James and I woke him up for an important conference call. Here’s that.

Screening tomorrow at 8PM!

-ML

I can see them now, on I-80, headed east, top down; their beautiful blond and brown hair whipping together, swirling in the cool night air, winding its way through the harmony of their laughter; they’re chortling away about something the only the two of them would ever find funny, wondering how on earth they didn’t find each other until now, but thank God they did, because no one else, NO ONE, could ever love them like they do each other. Sharing popcorn over the stick shift, Delilah on the radio, their baseball hats touching OH GOD THEIR BASEBALL HATS TOUCHING!

Hell

The latest coordinates, courtesy the darling, unique, irreplaceable LEE GILLENTINE.

620PM CST: We’re stopped at a lovely rest stop with wireless somewhere in Iowa past Des Moines. Keith needs to download the audio to watch a rough cut of Crazy Lake. He’s so needy. I’ll be making a pit stop in Olympia, WA soon

820PM CST: It’s twilight in Illinois. We’re 114 miles east of Chicago.

1020PM CST: Just gassed up outside Chicago. 814 miles to go!

1AM: EST: We’ve passed mile marker 126 on I-80 in Indiana. Keith is driving, and I’m going to get some sleep.

DRIVE SAVE YOU TWO. VERY SAFE INDEED. I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU BOTH.

-MICHAEL JAMES LAVOIE

Four weeks = 28 days = 672 hours.

With just 4 hours remaining, the project is over 99% done. But the film is still being feverishly worked on. To my left, Keith is editing the audio for a beautiful scene at a location called “Poverty Point,” and across from me, Derek Van Gorder is doing the same to a scene with the stunning Brigitte Choura.

Miles away, Chad Sonenberg and Lee Gillentine are ADR’ing some dialogue with James Fauvell – I’m supposed to be looping that dialogue into a scene with less than perfect audio by 11:59:59 tonight but the clock is ticking.

All that is to say, the work is never finished – BUT WE WILL STOP AT MIDNIGHT. What will be screened in SLC tomorrow night and NYC next weekend will be exactly FOUR WEEKS worth of work, not a second more or less. Eventually, we will sweeten the audio and color correct and all those bells and whistles that make a film feel like actual cinema and not a piece of crap.

As eager as we all are to sleep in a bedroom with less than three people back in NYC where we can get thai food delivered and catch up on Mad Men, we are equally anticipating properly polishing this rock into a glistening movie diamond.

Til then – ONLY FOUR HOURS LEFT!!!

-ML