To all of our lovely Witches, Wizards, and Non-Magic folk,
Hello! How are you? I sincerely hope this message finds you well. It’s been quite a while since you last heard from any of us, so I suppose that is where I will start.
First of all, on behalf of all the cast and crew of The Gathering Storm: A Marauders Fan Film I would like to apologize for how long it has taken to bring this film to life and to make this dream a reality. We realize that you have been waiting a long time for this film, and we are truly sorry about that. I think that should be first and foremost. Believe me when I tell you, we all want the film to be finished just as badly as you do. And we absolutely hear you every single time one of you asks us “When is the film coming out?” Whether we like it or not, it is always a fair question. So again, we sincerely apologize for the wait and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting us, for sticking with us, and for maintaining your enthusiasm for this project. We are working very hard to make it the film that you deserve.
That brings me to a brief (ish) explanation of what the past year or so of post-production has looked like and why it has taken this long. The first thing to admit is that this project was an enormous undertaking. When this film was dreamed up and our team was assembled, the majority of us were still students, with a few exceptions who were recent graduates. As you may or may not know, it is very rare for student-run projects to reach feature-film-length. It is equally rare for fan films to do this. The simple fact is that without a professional team already assembled and behind you (as well as a professional budget), it is incredibly difficult to bring together enough resources and people – and to carve out enough time – to shoot and produce anything longer than 25-40 minutes long. Even projects of that length are incredibly challenging undertakings. Admittedly, we probably unknowingly bit off a bit more than we could chew at the time. However, that is not in any way to say that the quality of The Gathering Storm suffered as a result. It just slowed the process a bit, because we were all basically learning on the fly. As you know, it took us almost the entirety of that first year (May 2014 – March 2015) to finish shooting all the footage we felt we needed in order to put together a high-quality film and a fully-realized story. Yes, our inexperience hindered us in a few places along the way, as it does with any student or fan project. While we may not be a Hollywood Blockbuster level production, I have no doubt that you will love getting to see the Marauders story we have all wanted for so long.
Since the completion of shooting, post production has been a sometimes fast, sometimes slow process. Approximately the first six months after we wrapped shooting (March 2015 – August 2015) were completely lost, as a result of some unexpected turnover in the editing department. To put it somewhat more bluntly, our original editors were unable to continue with the project. In addition to that, the editor that we initially brought on to replace them also, after a few weeks, determined that they would be unable to follow through with this project. So searching for a qualified editor willing to commit to the entirety of the project was step number one, and that took much longer than we had hoped. After that, our post-production team evolved significantly. Members of our team, myself included, who were not originally going to be part of post-production, were brought on in order to shoulder more of the workload and in order to get things moving in a productive direction.
The first few months were spent in intensive meetings between Aaron (our director), Danielle (our producer), Jenni (our new editor), and myself, where we recalibrated and reconfigured many of the creative aspects of the film. In short, we felt like some of the moments of our story were not as “earned” as they should be, so we spent a significant amount of time on fixing that (and we believe we were successful, by the way). Those meetings illustrate a larger point about the tediousness of this process though: We have kept you guys waiting for so long now, that at this point we absolutely refuse to give you anything less than the very best possible version of this film. Yes, we could have accelerated the editing process We could have not bothered to adjust story elements, and we could be taking much simpler and more-direct routes through finishing the final aspects of post-production… but we as a team cannot and will not in good conscience do that. You guys deserve the very best, both for your support of us during the campaign, and for your continued support and patience now. In every single conceivable sense of the phrase, we would not have been able to make this movie without you. And we will never probably be able to fully express our gratitude. The least we can do is make sure that every aspect of this film is done in the best possible way it can be.
That is why post-production has taken so long, along with a number of extenuating circumstances. We have had other crew members have to leave the project due to personal conflicts (as mentioned before, plus others), our lead editor and our VFX artist both have to work over 60 hours a week at their real jobs, some of us lost friends and family members over the past year, and a member of our post team lost their home in the Louisiana Floods this past August. It’s been a year, you guys. As 2016 has been for many people, it has been. a. freaking. year. And to be clear, these aren’t meant as excuses. We are not asking you guys to stop begging for this film or to “get off of our backs.” We want you on our backs. Stay there. You’ve earned it. These are simply being offered to you as explanations for part of why we have so dearly needed your incredible patience and support.
We have been going back and forth amongst ourselves for a few weeks now, trying to decide whether to send out a new update. For a while we were thinking we wanted to hold off, not release any more updates until we were ready to release a new trailer. But we have decided, that with things moving as slowly as they have, we didn’t want to continue to maintain radio silence. We realize that updates have been few and far between for both supporters of our Kickstarter and of our Indiegogo, and we’ve pledged to be more vigilant about that. If you are one of our backers, please check the Indiegogo or Kickstarter Pages. We’ve posted an update for you regarding backer rewards, as well.
So that’s where we’re at. We’re still here, we’re still hard at work, we still love each and every one of you for your support, and we have not forgotten about you or this project. We’re into the home stretch now. What remains is finishing the original score, visual effects, sound mixing, color correction, and a few other finishing touches. As I mentioned before, because all of us have now entered “professional” life, we all have a lot less time on our hands to get these things done. So I cannot honestly say how long those remaining tasks will take. But what I can promise is that we will do the best job that we can, and we will not be cutting any corners. You all have waited this long for The Gathering Storm. We will not be delivering the 75%-of-what-it-could-have-been version. When it is finally done, it will be the 100% version of this film. And I promise, as soon as we know when we’ll have it done, you will too.
We get just a little bit closer every single day.
This project has been a huge part of our lives for the past couple years and it has been amazing to share the journey with all of you. We’ll all be able to say “Mischief Managed” together soon, I promise. ^_~
So, finally, from all of us on the TGS post-team, and from everyone who worked on the film during production as well: Thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts, for your continued patience and support for The Gathering Storm. You’ll be hearing from us again soon.
Benjamin Wessels
Co-writer, Actor, and Associate Producer
