I've been lost in a place that doesn't exist, each scene taking me deeper and deeper into Johnny's world. I live in the film and the film lives in me. The lines between reality and fiction have been blurred and now it all seems so very real to all who are close to the film. These characters I once imagined, created from nothing, now have faces, voices, names, and it all has come to life.

Each scene I edit brings a little more crispness to the vision. I find myself under the spell of the music, images, and most of all, feelings of the film.

The last few scenes I have been working on over the last week have been the most dramatic of the film. I have reached the climax of the film, with four challenging scenes, very emotionally charged, the kind that keep tugging at your heart strings every time you watch them. Hours on end I edit, watch, tweak and watch again and again and again... And each time going through the emotions... I feel drained.  

I am making incredible progress though.

This morning I woke up at 7AM after going to bed at 3:30AM, I could not wait to go back to the film and edit some more. I am now all the way at the last scene of the film. Which means I am almost done editing, well at least the first draft that is. There will be many more weeks of fixing things, adjusting levels, reassessing edits, improving, experimenting...

Last night I edited the dry lake storm footage. I watched me, on the screen, drive my deuce right into the eye of the storm and I was in shock .

I DID THAT??????????

It looks so incrediby majestic and scary it doesn't even look real. I remember being there and how hard it was driving in that sand storm, but if I didn't know any better I would swear this is all special effects. It just looks much too wild to be real.

But it's not CGI. It's the REAL FUCKIN' DEAL.

Endless Walls of twisting dust rising 4 stories high before the deuce and I, and I went in...  The twister swallowed us whole...

I must be insane.

But what a scene!

Below: A much more peaceful dry lake a year earlier, Frank (right), Jordan (left - hiding in the truck) and I take a sunrise drive on the lake bed, after a long night spent filming on location.