Fortunately for me, the process of creating timelines for film projects is well established and well-documented.
The majority of the time before January is spent working on beating the script into shape, and after that is a short time for casting (I dont plan on holding an open casting call) before a lot of shooting crammed into a short time. This gives me time to make a quick edit before sending it off to the composer/orchestrator for a week or two and then finishing up the edit well before the presentation deadline. The reason to finish this far beforehand is for A) wiggle room, B) tweaking export settings, and C) making lots of copies of DVDs and Blu-Rays.
