March 16, 2015 It's a wrap.- Monday evening after a few pickup shots the crew left for a night drive to Malibu. And that was a wrap for my part of Almost There. The crew has two more stories to shoot then begins the fun part, postproduction (picture & sound editing, sound mixing, etc.). Post is where the movie is made.

Not sure what I got out of it but Jacqueline says I am much improved as an actor from the first few days. I'm more natural in front of the camera and the voice over recording came much faster at the end.

At first I thought I’d pay more attention to the technical details because that's what I did in Hollywood. (Nikolai had a nice collection of Zeiss lenses.) But I came to realize that I needed to ignore what lens he may be using, what sort of shots they were getting, etc. and just pay attention to “my character”. I tried to follow Jacqueline’s directions and let the the crew, especially Assistant Director Beatrice, take care of everything else. Shooting the dance scene some folks sat at the table between shots which would have been a continuity issue. I was about to mention it to them but then realized that's not my job, Beatrice will take care of it. She did.

The experience reinforced what I already knew about the movie business. Actors have it the worst except maybe for the 20 million per picture A listers. I got a bit less than 20 million but I ate well.

They say they will finish post around May 2016. Maybe I will see a DVD that summer.

June 1, 2016 Email from Jacqueline. Returning from Tokyo where they shot the third subject for the film they are back to editing. They are looking to finish sometime in July. Don’t know if that is just picture lock or that includes color correcting, music and other post production elements.

September 3, 2016 Email from Jacqueline. "How you're doing? Just wanted to let you know that ALMOST THERE is there! I'm very happy with the film. You are really great and everybody watching the film loves you! We had picture lock* yesterday and sent the cut to the festivals. Hope we can meet iin Sundance,  or Cannes, or Amsterdam or...... I will let you know."

*"Picture lock" usually means editing is finished but audio fixes, music, color correcting and other postproduction activities may still be required.

September 17, 2016: Color correcting is an esoteric art. Color correcting not only sets the color balance, exposure, etc for each shot but also makes sure each shot matches those before and after for a smooth edit. The guys who do it make several hundred dollars an hour and they are worth it. Jacqueline sent this photo from the audio mix studio in Zurich.