So, today was the day! I took The Creature from Lake Michigan over to a duplication house (Super Digital) to have DVD's burned from my master!
If I mark the anniversary of the film as the day we began shooting, then it only took 21 years and 9 days to finish. If I mark the anniversary of the film from the day we wrapped principle photography, then I finished it more than a month shy of 21 years. Either way, it was kind of a while and it felt very strange to finally hand the film over to someone else.
I've got to say that I'm a little nervous. This was really a film where anything that could go wrong did go wrong, so I'm kind of holding my breath to see what might go wrong with the duplication process. I checked every aspect of the DVD master that I could check to make sure it was perfect and ready for duplication. Here's hoping I didn't miss anything.
Worries aside, the completed DVD features the film and a series of extras, including:
Deleted and Extended Scenes
Photo Gallery
Trailers
A Commentary Track
I really don't have any idea who might listen to a commentary track, but I figured that the film took so long to put together, I probably shouldn't let it out without some kind of comment on what happened.
In other news, I've located more of the cast of the film! I found Greg, who played the director. Russell, the actor who plays the cop, found me and turned me on to the location of Gabriel, the actor who plays mobster thug #1. Then, I finally located the name of mobster thug #2, which I've been missing for 21 years. Actually, I had some help from two of my ex-business partners in Nocturnal Pictures--Jennifer Hofmann and Michael Browne, who were both instrumental in figuring out that Keith played mobster thug #2.
Of course, I'm still trying to locate a huge group of people. My leads on Emile Levisetti, the lead, have dried up. I'm unable to find anything substantial on Donna Shreve, the female lead, and I haven't got the faintest clue what happened to Ellie Cahill, who played the starlet Bambi Twinkle. At least with Donna, I can find some credits on IMDB and prove that she really did exist. But Ellie has vanished without a trace, as if she was never there.
Oh well. I have between 14 and 18 business days until the DVD's come back from the dupe house, so maybe I'll still find them!
