Follow-up to the movie

From a prior post, I mentioned that my latest movie project was finished just in time for my friends birthday.

So I was waiting all weekend for Sunday afternoon to arrive so that I could surprise my friend with his movie.

He decided that he wanted to play a game "Who knows me best?" where he asked all sorts of questions (why is this important? what word did I think I made up?, questions that friends would know). I thought this would be the perfect time to "ambush him" with the movie, so I worked it out with his sister that she would take control of the movie and pass it off as her own to get it started.

So we gathered everyone in the living room and went over the quiz....and then pulled the curtains closed to darken the room and started the VCR.

I made sure I was sitting in a position where I could see both my friend and his mother.

The way I designed the movie, you don't really understand what it's truly about until about 4 minutes into it

It was perfect because (unbeknownst to me) he had leaned over to his partner on the couch and said "Why is he showing HIS movie?" he was so mad that he thought I was using his party as a vehicle to showcase my movie. (I'm still laughing about that)

There's a lot of buildup and you think the movie is going in one direction and suddenly it breaks into baby pictures and Jim Croce signing "Time in a Bottle."

Right when the music starts the words "Along Came Arthur" scrolled along the screen one word at a time and everyone there was calling out each word as it came on the screen (it was a very cool effect I hadn't planned) and suddenly he realized what it was all about.

He and his mother were both trying not to cry looking at all of these old pictures.

Afterwards, he gave me a big hug and told me how mad he was at me.....not only because he thought I was trying to take over his party, but that I totally surprised him and he had no idea about the whole project.