At about 4:00AM this morning, Ren put the final shot into the Final Cut timeline, completing the first “Natalie, Queen of Scots” cut. It stands at one hour and 28 minutes and gave us a huge sigh of relief for finally having something that we can watch in its entirety. No matter how rough it would be, no matter the unmixed sound, no matter the uncorrected color, we would be able to see what this movie was. A quick render.

Then we actually watched it.

I have never been more emotionally affected by something that I’ve been involved in making. I have never been more proud in anything I have made before. Even in its rough cut, the movie is solid – with a center of gravity that I honestly think can rival any film made for a thousand times its budget and resources.

Let me explain something, because I feel as though we have pulled a minor bait-and-switch in regards to what people think this movie is about. Sure, we’ve posted pictures of the alligator, the lemonade stand, and the classroom, we even released a teaser trailer that was jam-packed with the “anything goes” war scene. But those are all just moments in the film, mere scenes. The emotional backbone of this film is really what the overall story is about.

The movie is excellent – I say that at the risk of coming off as arrogant since I was the writer and director. But through the blood, sweat, and tears of this production (of which there was a lot – and still ongoing), I know now, more than ever, that it was worth it. We have a film. We have a film that we knew we had to make, no matter the cost. It was too important of a story to leave on the back burner.

Apologies if you think all I do is pass out congratulations, but this film is the work of about 400 separate people. It’s easy to assume that a film belongs solely to its director, but this has never been the case on any set I’ve ever been on – and perhaps more-so with Natalie. Every crew member, every cast member, every investor, every extra, and every person on the sidelines cheering it on is the only reason why this film not only got finished, but is just damn good. I can recall at least 12 different instances where we were on the verge of packing up and if we lost even one of those 400 people, that would have been true. The fact that new people are still coming up to offer support is only more proof that what we have here is phenomenal.

Our first few film festival submission deadlines are right around the corner, with the first one being October 30th. And trust me, once it gets a public showing, the entire world will know.

Came before we knew it, but suddenly a bunch of us were in Harborage Yacht Club and Marina celebrating the wrap on Natalie, Queen of Scots, our very own freaking feature film.

It was a pretty unbelievable day.

The video above was our “congrats on five weeks of hardcore filming” present to the crew — I edited together some of our footage and photos, and it’s a cute little video, I think.

Some pictures of the party below, courtesy Chelsea Parker.

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Day: 29

Location: The Jensen Beach parking lot, in Jensen Beach, FL

Phrase of the day: “That’s a wrap!”

More to come, but here are some photos from Day 29, the last day of filming.  Temperatures at 4 p.m. were in the 90’s. Even so, morale was high and the air full of electricity! A big thank you to the Martin County School District for supplying the buses for the afternoon (talk about production value!) and to all the extras for coming out and participating.

Check out some of the photos below (taken by Misti Guertin and Chelsea Parker):