1260 - that's how many emails are in my Babnik mailbox as of today (October 30th), and early on I deleted at least another hundred before I decided to keep all emails just to see how many would accumulate, all related to this production.

From Alejandro's initial email to me on August 15th, through today, about 95% of these emails are between him and me about various production details. The rest are between me and other participants of this production (actors, crew and location donors). And even though we wrapped on October 26th, there is still many things to do for the film and the email count will keep growing. It will be interesting to see the final total of the emails when the post-production is finished and the film is released.

Talk about virtual production office. Alejandro and I got together just once early on for preliminary discussions about the project. Afterwards we only saw each other on the shoot days. Everything else was done via emails. Alas, Alejandro will have to suffer more of my presence while we translate the dialogue for film's sub-titles.

One would think that producer's life is crazy hectic, and that's true most of the time, but I eagerly embraced the role and for me it was just pure fun. I mean how hard is it to find models for the shoot! And how hard is it to offer vodka and pickles to my friends to have them participate as extras.

Locations luckily turned out to be easy. I know many people in San Francisco's Russian community and I knew whom I would ask for the use of their premises, and I didn't have to visit locations since I already knew how they looked inside and outside. I was ready to offer bribes and to beg to let us use the locations. But I was pleasantly surprised by the location owners' generosity, how quickly they agreed to let us film on their premises, and the virtually unrestricted use of their facilities. I am (we are) very thankful!

Of course I'm greatly simplifying things and I know that production was much much more hectic and stressful for Alejandro and the rest of the crew, but personally for me, it was a leisurely fun ride. Let's do it again!