Miss Mystic
Preproduction, Production, Postproduction,
and Screening History
SCREENPLAY written August-December 2003 (first draft)
characters tailored to star Lee Barnum, Nicole Nelson, and
Walter Ellis
story conference with cast input in October 2003
Death of Walter Ellis due to cancer relapse, January 2004
SCREENPLAY Second draft February 2004, Third draft April 2004
CASTING COMPLETED March 26, 2004
CAST READTHROUGH April 4, 2004
SHOOTING COMPLETED April 10 – June 9, 2004
(mainly weekends) using a Sony TRV-120 for video and a Marantz
PMD-670 for audio
- script shot by May 23;
voiceovers, sound effects, and additional pickup shots in June -
14 days of principal photography began with scenes 29, 31, and 9
and ended with scene 41,
plus two more days (June 3 and 9) for several brief unscripted
non-dialogue flashback scenes.
Weekend 1: 28.6 pages shot Saturday,
Sunday, Monday
28.6 pages total
(approx. 32% of the screenplay) by April 12th (3
shooting days)
Weekend 2: 19.4 pages shot Friday,
Saturday
48 pages total
(approx. 54% of the screenplay) by April 18th (5 shooting days)
Weekend 3: 3.5 pages shot Friday,
Saturday
51.3 pages total
(approx. 58% of the screenplay) by May 1st (7 shooting days)
Weekend 4: 11.2 pages shot Friday,
Saturday, Sunday
62.5 pages total
(approx. 74% of the
screenplay) by May 16th (10 shooting days)
Week 5: 25.5 pages shot Tuesday,
Friday, Saturday, Sunday
88 pages total
(100 % of the screenplay) by May 23 (14 shooting days)
Pickup Shots: Unscripted dream scenes and flashbacks shot Thursday, June 3
and Wednesday, June 9
All scenes for movie shot by June 9 (16 shooting days)
Editing started May 28
using
Final Cut Express on an iMac G4 with a LaCie firewire drive
(continuing through June & July into August)
June 4 - roughcut scenes 1-9 edited (first 16 ˝ minutes, 11% of
script)
June 12 – roughcut scenes 1-17 edited (first 41 minutes, 39% of script)
June 21 – roughcut scenes 1-28 edited (first 72 minutes, 71% of script)
June 28 – roughcut scenes 1-38 edited (first 89 minutes, 90% of script)
July 3 – roughcut scenes 1-41
edited (first cut completed: 99 minutes)
July 9 – cut #1 (99
minutes) camcorder audio remix
July 20 – cut #2 (96
minutes) camcorder audio
August 8 – cut #3 (95 minutes)
Marantz digital audio
A Test Screening of the first roughcut
was held SUNDAY, JULY
11th, 2 pm
at the Fire Hall Theatre, downtown Grand Forks
The well-received gala WORLD PREMIERE
of the final cut was 7:30 pm Saturday, August 28 at the historic Empire Theatre
(with its box office gross approximately equal to its production
costs!)
MISS MYSTIC was
enthusiastically received during
a special limited theatrical
engagement September 17-21, 2004
at the Empire Arts Center in downtown Grand Forks
At the third annual
FORX FILM FEST in Grand Forks, ND
MISS MYSTIC played at 3:35 pm Saturday, November 13, 2004
and was awarded the jury prize for BEST FEATURE
At Sub Rosa Studios’ annual international “B-Movie Fest” in Syracuse,
NY
MISS MYSTIC received an HONORABLE MENTION