I have said many times before; Spectre is a movie about returning to life.

It has been a year and a half since we filmed the movie. And while we it is not finished yet, the project is very much alive. The last year-and-a-half for me has been focused mostly on family and my day job. My wife and I are raising two energetic little boys now, so the film has had to take a necessary back seat for a while.

But I’ve never lost sight of the goal. Every single day the film has been on my mind in one way or another. Remember that this project has always taken a while to produce. The 19 page script took several years to craft. That’s just the way we rolled with it considering that it was a “side project” in our everyday lives. We filmed the movie over the course of eight days, and have since taken our time in preparing the way for the final stretch.

So what has been done so far? Well, we’ve gone through several rough-cuts. The first “assembly” edit of the movie was 36 minutes. The edit after that (which I actually think of as the first true rough-cut) was 24 minutes. The current edit is sitting pretty at 19 minutes long, which is dead-on exactly what we expected with our 19-page script.

We’ve done a lot of visual FX tests. We’ve experimented with color correction. We’ve experimented with music. We’ve experimented with alternative ways of telling the story.

And now, we’re actually tracking shots, building and animating 3D models, implementing visual FX (lots and lots of particle systems… sigh), and doing sky replacements.

In the very near future we’re going to start publishing weekly updates to this blog. You’ll hear from me, as well as our Art director, our Director of Photography, the lead actor in the film, and from one of our fight choreographers. Each of us will talk about our areas of focus and give you some insight into what its like to attempt to make a professional-quality short film with a mini budget and lots and LOTS of time.

This is an exciting time, and I hope you’ll continue with us on the journey. We just opened up a Facebook page, so if you’re on Facebook, head over there and become a fan.