Color Me Wow

Trying to find the words. Mostly, when I think about last night, I just shake my head in stunned, wide-eyed silence... in a good way.

Last night was the big screen premiere of "Pray for Daylight" at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis. Our first feature length movie, filmed in the fall of 2005, was finally getting a real debut. It was planned mostly as a big "thank you" to all of the cast and crew that graciously volunteered their time and talents, and the location owners who allowed us to invade their space for a few intense hours.

Then it grew. We decided to open up the free showing to the general public. We set ourselves up with a publicist. We duplicated DVDs, had a big movie poster made and alerted the media.

If you screen it, they will come.

After just 2 weeks of here and there promoting, 80 - 100 people were in attendance... and not just cast and crew. Family, friends, neighbors, co-workers -- and people who had no prior affiliation with our little vampire movie -- showed up.

And I think they had fun!

Before the show started, Tony got up and said a few words. One of the most important things he did was to give people permission to have an opinion and VOICE it. It sounds like a given, but it isn't. People have a tendency, when asked about someone else's creative efforts, to politely smile and nod -- even if they hated it. He asked them to be involved; express whether they liked something or not - in the moment - and I think that paid off.

As for the movie itself. Wow. Everyone who worked on it is painfully aware of all of the movie's problems. But I have to say this: it looked better, played better, sounded better and all-around *was* better than I had ever imagined it would. Sure, it has its warts. Sure there are things we would have like to have done differently or done better. But "Pray for Daylight" is now complete. If we entertained a few people for little while - brought them a few minutes of escape from day to day life - it's all worth it.

Thank you to everyone who came to the premiere and made it such a special event.
Thank you to the guys of Jagged Spiral: Conrad, Colin and Josh. "Pray for Daylight" is a melodrama - and your music brought new depth to each and every scene. (www.jaggedspiral.com)
Thank you to Sasha for Syiera's dangerous beauty and grace. With no training you made difficult martial arts moves look easy... and better than those of us *with* training. (Dammit!)
Thank you to Robin for vibrantly breathing life and vitality into our big, bad! (Oh, and thanks for getting shot, too!)
Thank you to Rob for making the movie look so "pretty" (MORE MAGENTA! MORE CHINA BALLS!) and sound so good (ADR RULES!)
Thank you to Rick for creating the vision of Eric Saveau and Cassie Banning that we've all come to love, and for bringing an earnest and believable Saveau to life.
Thank you to Teresa for fantastic fight sequences and putting the "kick" in Cassie's "ass".
Thank you to Trey for your skills as an actor, insights, humor and for sitting in a chair for three days with a nasty polyester gag in your mouth. (SPOILER ALERT)
Thank you to EVERYONE - cast, crew, generous location owners... and the families / friends who put up with our cast and crew being involved!

Most of all, thank you to Tony, our fearless leader, for being the driving force behind Stone Soup. Nothing would have happened without you.

What's next for Stone Soup? There are ideas in the works. Nothing to announce quite yet. But one thing's for certain. Stone Soup films will be back.