Phantom Menace was terrible. "IT'S WORKING!!!" is awful.

Our first episode of changing gears is not Shakespeare. We've got plenty of wrinkles to smooth out. It is done though. We set a deadline of one week from the start of filming to the show debut. That's a pretty tough timeline. We got pushed back further because the camera we planned on filming with was gone the day of the initial shoot.

But we got it in on time, and there are certainly some good points about it. Not least of them is that we learned a great deal while producing the show. Honestly, I'd say I've learned (or relearned for Final Cut in some cases) more in the last week than I have in the last few months at CATS. There's a set of practical lessons you never learn until you've had the chance to make some mistakes along the way.

It's given us the chance to see each other under a lot greater pressure than we have before too. That's been good. Weds afternoon we kind of cracked under the pressure of an unrealistic timeline we'd set. The frustration for both of us was pretty high, but by the end of the night we'd set things right and got the work done that we planned anyway (and Melissa made a good suggestion to change the format we were working with that will serve us well going forward).

But now that things are turned in, we need to rest. We've got plans to film 5 segments in the next 2 days, and I've got 2 CATS shoots (Melissa has one too). It's going to be a tough 2 days, but we've been running hot for a few days already. The challenges are good for us, and I think we'll be better filmmakers and people after we get through these next few months.

Press On, as they say...

-Andy