13 Months of Sunshine has taken over three years to create, with the bulk of shooting taking place on weekends and during the week when the actors’ schedules allowed. After roughly 60% of the film had been shot capturing and editing began. Director Yehdego Abeselom and Editor Jeremiah Lewis would work nights, compiling scenes in Adobe Premiere Pro. This took another nine months, during which the rest of the film was shot and then edited together.
A rough cut of the film was compiled by September 2006–it was almost three hours long! The next few months was spent cutting it down to a modest hour and 40 minutes, with many scenes being cut completely, and other scenes being reduced to move the story along.
A general rough of the translations of the Amharic portions into English subtitles was put together and screening the film to small groups to get input began. Executive Producer Jeff Bartsch joined the film in early 2007 and was able to bring enough money in to do a sound mix, which involved recording ADR for about 80% of the film, recruiting sound designers to cut in effects and backgrounds, and then taking it in for a final mix with our re-recording engineer R.D. Floyd.
Now we’re working on the most difficult phase of the film–marketing and trying to find distribution. It’s a challenge all the way through, but with everyone’s help we will find success down every avenue.