A public casting call in June for the six
major characters and dozen other speaking parts produced over 90 hopefuls
during the three nights of videotaping auditions. Jacobs was so impressed with
the quality of the turnout that he wrote several new roles into the script and
expanded others. He rehearsed the actors the last half of June, and they shot
the bulk of the movie in 16 days, spread over about three weeks in July. Much
of the picture was shot at the University of North Dakota, with close
cooperation by the UND Department of Theatre Arts (whose scenic designer built
the replica sarcophagus). The lack of free access to an adequate editing
system, however, and then the start of the school year, slowed down
postproduction until Jacobs ordered his own computer editing workstation. He
then spent about 20 to 40 hours every weekend of November and December getting
the movie put together in time for a “sneak preview” test screening of the
first roughcut in his Intro to Film class on December 11th, with an
encore screening December 17th.
The 116-minute roughcut was trimmed to about 111 minutes by the first
week of January 2002, and a 110-minute version by mid-January with the
separately-recorded (and cleaner sounding) digital dialogue track painstakingly
dubbed on shot by shot to replace the original camcorder sound. Jacobs tweaked
some more of the editing and audio levels in February, resulting in the
109-minute version that premiered at the Empire Arts Center in April. After a
few more revisions, the final 106-minute version was released on video in
August. He hopes ultimately to produce a DVD version with an audio commentary,
deleted scenes, outtakes, and other “bonus” materials.