Hey NG's,

Long ago, I talked about a film I was working on called "Venaticus". It was a student film for my Moving Image Production II class. We were assigned to make a short film paying homage to a director of our choice. I chose David Fincher.

Before anything, I just want to say that making this movie was ABSOLUTE FUCKING HELL.

It was one of those experiences where I had a clear vision in my head and then immediately had to make countless changes once filming started. As any filmmaker will tell you, nothing ever goes according to plan. However, they will also tell you a good filmmaker is a good problem-solver. And that's what making this movie was: a series of problems that needed to be solved.

The first problem was, of course, time. We had three days to shoot and just couldn't get every single little thing I would've liked. Luckily we were able to improvise and make most of it work.

Most of the other problems came during post-production. My class had forced us to edit on Final Cut Pro X. I want this to be abundantly clear: I fucking HATE Final Cut Pro X. In my opinion, it is an oversimplified, laggy, garbage-ridden program that I wouldn't use if you paid me at this point. I couldn't stand working with it, but had to. So around this time last year, I slaved through the first cut and turned it in for class. My teacher enjoyed it, I didn't.

From that point until now, I went through a total of six edits, landing on the current. I switched back to Adobe Premiere for the 5th and 6th re-edits because the class was over and I was free to do what I wanted with the movie.

I spent countless nights cutting and recutting, changing color, enhancing filters, mixing/editing sound. It was a grueling experience. I wanted to construct the best possible version 1: for myself, and 2: so I could turn it in to my school's annual Big Screen Film Festival...only for them to reject it.

Upon realizing this thing wouldn't make it to the Big Screen and wouldn't be seen by film critics, staff, and students alike, I thought "who gives a shit? I didn't make it for them". And it's true. I didn't make it for them. I made it because I like making films and that's exactly what I did.

With that, I hand the film over to you guys, free from all the red-tape bullshit. It is now 100% public for anyone to see and judge. I've been listening to what you guys have to say for 10 years now and I'm not about to stop now.

Please feel free to let me know what you think.

-Matt Hunter