Dispatch from Les # 7: The Movie Premiere is a Success

We finally had our premiere. I haven't had much time to write this web log and do it justice. Perhaps I will find more time in the future since we had a successful premiere of Having My Baby July 9 at The Studio Movie Grill on Royal Lane in Dallas. We had a great attendance rate at just under two hundred people. Many thanks to all of you who came and supported us.

Many people congratulated me right afterwards and said they loved the movie, and I could tell they were being sincere. The movie also got a lot of laughs where one might not expect them. The audience was hooked from the very beginning due to the rapid pace of the story unfolding, and due to the interest in the characters Blaine and Sophie's unusual romance. And the story line is very original: A young man kidnaps a young woman from an abortion clinic to prevent her from aborting his baby. No one ever came up with that one before. Originality really counts for a lot in this industry.

The demographic of people who seem to like this movie the most are elderly Christian women. They just gush over it, which makes me very happy. I have only had two people out of approximately a thousand say that they found the movie (or script) to be offensive because: 1. It glorifies violence and kidnapping. 2. It portrays Blaine as a Christian but his actions are not Christianlike. I think they miss the point, and possibly miss the bus. First and foremost, Having My Baby is a love story.

Those of us among the cast and crew were very happy the night of the premiere. I think the movie was better than people expected. We had some minor sound issues, and the sound was turned up a wee bit too loud, but we have since fixed those problems and have been submitting the film to festivals in hopes of winning some prizes and garnering some notice from the film community. To create a watchable, 2-hour, feature length, action drama for around $80,000 is really quite phenomenal. That feat in and of itself is really half the story. Sam and David and I have a lot to be proud of, in that after four years we never gave up; and we were always able to settle our differences amicably, and remain friends, and put the movie first over self interest. It was not easy!

We are on IMDb now, too. We are official! I began pre-production on this movie in August 2005, and our premiere was July 9, 2009. That was four long years, never knowing if we could finish it. But we did and we are very proud. We have one more free screening in Fort Worth on August 27 (see http://www.havingmybabymovie.com/) and then we can rest a little easier and get our lives back. Our only real chore after that will be to submit it to festivals and sell some DVD's online.

I may then shoot an over the top, R-rated biker flick called Dead or in Huntsville which I wrote back in 1993 and produced for the stage in Deep Ellum, and have since adapted into a screenplay. But I will definitely have to raise the money first - no more guerrilla filmmaking with a near zero daily budget for me. I'd rather not put myself and my crew, friends and family through that again. "The horror... the horror!"

Viva la original, truly independent films! Viva la Dilligaf Productions!