Welcome to 2011!

2010 was a big year for Guilty Witness, and we thought that we’d take a moment to summarize our 2010 accomplishments, check in on Hard Bargain’s current progress, and give a look forward to Guilty Witness’s plans for 2011 and after.

2010 was an important year for Guilty Witness Productions because until 2010, there was no such company. In February of 2010, Gloria C. Adams and Skylar Landsee began discussing the prospect of making a movie- specifically Hard Bargain. By May there was a script and a skeleton cast, and very little budget. To develop the budget, we held a garage sale, and Skylar sold his car, most of the proceeds going to the film’s budget. And then filming began. It was a difficult three weeks, but we survived and managed to get the whole thing filmed within our time frame. We have many people to thank for that: not only our amazing actors and crew, but also several generous people who welcomed us into their homes, backyards, and offices to film, as well as amazing cast moms like Elaine Blackwell, Angel Adams, and Sheryl Sands, without whose support the filming process would have been impossible.

After filming the post-production stage began, which was elongated by the semester starting in August for Gloria and Skylar, who are both currently college students. But as of January 3rd, we are currently in the “Sound & Score” stage of post-production, where sound mixing, some voiceover and dubbing recording, and music are all we have left. We are pleased to announce that there is a first cut of the movie, which means that if all goes well with sound, we are on track for a release in Spring of 2011 as promised. Good job and keep up the good work, editing team!

As for the future, Guilty Witness has a lot on its plate. In the immediate future we have completion of Hard Bargain to focus on, as well as the subsequent festival showings and self-promoted premier in 2011 into 2012. But we do not plan to rest on our laurels. In the works are several possible short films in which we plan to diversify and develop as filmmakers. We plan to create several more short films within the next two years, honing our skills before eventually graduating to features.

But if we are to do any of this- the completion and promotion of Hard Bargain, the creation of new Scripts and Productions, then we need your continued support. In Hard Bargain we have proven to be extraordinarily resourceful; what we can do with a small budget is impressive. But we’ll need to continue fund-raising. If you or anyone you know is interested in donating to our budget, either for Hard Bargain’s promotion or for the production of future projects, please contact us at hardbargain.thefilm@gmail.com Donations can be in the form of money, in the form of filming-related resources, in the form of encouraging words, or in the form of used furniture which we can sell at garage sale this spring.

We can do great things. We can create great art. But we cannot do it alone.