Editing Pieces of April (section)

===Pre-production===
Hedges started working on the script for ''Pieces of April'' about eight or nine years before the film was released, though eventually forgot about the project. After his mother was diagnosed with cancer, she encouraged him to continue writing. Hedges went looking through his old drafts and remembered that the mother in ''Pieces of April'' also has cancer. After telling his own mother of this, she told him it sounded like a project he should work on. Hedges says he only began putting serious effort into the script after his mother had died.<ref name=about>{{cite web |url=http://www.aboutfilm.com/features/piecesofapril/feature.htm |title=Interviews: Pieces of April |work=About Film |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812093425/http://aboutfilm.com/features/piecesofapril/feature.htm |archive-date=August 12, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> He said that while the film was not autobiographical, it was definitely impacted by his mother's death, concluding that he wanted to make a film that was not about her, but instead a tribute to her;<ref name=all>{{cite AV media |date=2003 |title=All the Pieces Together |medium=Pieces of April, DVD featurette |publisher=[[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]}}</ref> the film is dedicated to her memory. Hedges was additionally inspired by a true story about a group of friends who had "borrowed" an apartment to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner. When they went to cook their turkey they discovered their oven did not work, so had to go door to door in the building to try and use one of their neighbors'. ''Pieces of April'' was in pre-production on three occasions, each time with a budget of around $7 million, though attempts to get the film off the ground repeatedly failed. The fourth time Hedges attempted to get the film developed, he took it to independent company InDigEnt, who signed it immediately, albeit on a much smaller budget of $300,000.<ref name=director/>