I've been doing the background research for my second novel this week and I've found some really cool stuff (which is all I'm going to say about that). But one of the parts of this project is a need to quickly summarize the various decades of US History (over the last 50+ years) in order to get the gist of the prevailing mood. Now, I can only speak from my own perspective, of course, which is why I thought I'd open this post up for discussion. I need to see if you all agree with my very short and highly subjective views of American History and prevailing national mood over the last 50 + years.
So, here goes...
1950's: Repressed, conservative, commercial, belief in progress, square, and delinquent. I see the 50's as a time when America got back into the business of doing business. This, to me, is the period when we became world leaders not by conquest but by working harder and longer than anyone else. It was almost as if after WWII we weren't going to squander all that sacrifice - but as a result, we became way too serious, like the guy at the office party who just can't relax. Which leads us to...
1960's: Liberal, Free Love, World Changers, Experimenters, Radicals, and arrogant. I see the 60's as the reaction to the 50's. What does all this progress and business mean if not to change the world? We can't keep doing things the old ways - that just leads to more war and more destruction. So lets change everything - society, law, environment, everything! And to hell with you if you don't join us!
1970's: Angry, disillusioned, hungover. I see the 70's as the aftermath of the 60's. All of the things that were "good" about the 60's suddenly ran smack dab into reality. The freeing of your mind with drugs - how about a society suddenly rampant with drug addicts? Free love and social change - how about a breaking down of families and a lack of care for schools and children? Positive change and high moral ground - how about Watergate and the Vietnam war? The 60's were over and all we had left was the headache.
1980's: PARTY! and a growing sense of responsibility. I see the 80's as a time when we renewed our national spirit by realizing that it was okay to enjoy ourselves a little. After the excesses of the 60's and 70's, we were ready to just have fun. But, at the same time, all those radical hippies were now a little older and a little wiser and were educating the young on their responsibility to change the world. Changing the world became a chore, a job, with regular working hours. We worked on nuclear disarmament and created bans on smoking and danced the night away.
1990's: Spoiled. I see the 90's as a time when the party of the 80's went on - long after it had any reason to keep going. And as a result, it was a decade where the excesses of a party that has gone too long started to haunt us. We became obsessed with trivial things and turned sports and entertainment into social events that quickly dwarfed the importance of reality. And, as a result, the party took on a life of its own and we simply became pawns of it.
2000's: So far, I see the 2000's in much the same way as I feel about waking up late for work. There's that initial wake up call, followed by a great deal of rush and fear, followed by a renewed focus on being sure that you never wake up late again. I think the entire country has been running around frantically trying to make up for our lack of attentiveness before. But I think we're just starting to settle back down and get down to business again.
Well, that's the short of it. Tell me what you think. Am I even close?
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Keys to the Kingdom
Once upon a time there was a magic kingdom with a magic ruler. He was a very smart man who knew that in order to make his dreams come true, he needed more than just to wish upon a star. He got his brother to be his financial wizard and his best friend to be his artist and together, the three of them created wondrous worlds and built a huge empire. But even though the work was divided between the three of them, everyone knew who was in charge - it was the man with the dreams.
Later, a new generation came along when the kingdom was struggling. In order to strengthen their shrinking empire, a new ruler was given the keys to the kingdom and the people pleaded with him to save it. He turned the empire into a ruthless cash cow. He smashed his competition. He built up the empire's infrastructure and started snatching up rival and friendly empires around him. This once tiny magic kingdom became a behemoth empire trodding on friend and foe alike. Those who had been with the original king saw the dream quickly fading and the profit margin quickly rising as the bottom line for the kingdom. Criticism became rampant. Revolts began. And eventually, the empire began to fade again. Other empires started marching into territories that had once been the exclusive domain of this magic kingdom. The golden dreams of the vast empire turned to ash in their mouths. They sacked this new leader and turned to his replacement for help.
The first thing the replacement did? He found someone with a dream of what the magic kingdom could be again - someone who remembered the old kingdom and how wonderful it had been - and he put that person in charge of changing the empire back into what the kingdom had been before. For this magic kingdom, perhaps it was not too late to remember what it was that had gotten them there in the first place.
In November we have a choice in this country. We can keep going down the path we've been traveling, or we can embrace a new vision. New visions and visionaries don't come along that often. Most leaders only want to continue with the status quo. They don't want to rock the boat. They will point out how close they resemble the last guy. They will say that experience matters. They will laugh at the visionaries dreams as just fantasies. But they will have no new ideas and no vision on how to do things differently.
Perhaps that's what we want. Perhaps we're happy with things the way they are. Perhaps our pocket books are just fine, our education system is perfect, our way of life is the envy of the world. In that case, voting for more of the same makes perfect sense.
But if we're not happy with things the way they are, or we're struggling to make ends meet, to get our children through school, to see our country being mocked around the world for the arrogance and ignorance we've shown, then maybe its time for a change.
Sometimes when you reach a dead end, you have to admit it and try going a different direction for a while.
The rest are all details.
Later, a new generation came along when the kingdom was struggling. In order to strengthen their shrinking empire, a new ruler was given the keys to the kingdom and the people pleaded with him to save it. He turned the empire into a ruthless cash cow. He smashed his competition. He built up the empire's infrastructure and started snatching up rival and friendly empires around him. This once tiny magic kingdom became a behemoth empire trodding on friend and foe alike. Those who had been with the original king saw the dream quickly fading and the profit margin quickly rising as the bottom line for the kingdom. Criticism became rampant. Revolts began. And eventually, the empire began to fade again. Other empires started marching into territories that had once been the exclusive domain of this magic kingdom. The golden dreams of the vast empire turned to ash in their mouths. They sacked this new leader and turned to his replacement for help.
The first thing the replacement did? He found someone with a dream of what the magic kingdom could be again - someone who remembered the old kingdom and how wonderful it had been - and he put that person in charge of changing the empire back into what the kingdom had been before. For this magic kingdom, perhaps it was not too late to remember what it was that had gotten them there in the first place.
In November we have a choice in this country. We can keep going down the path we've been traveling, or we can embrace a new vision. New visions and visionaries don't come along that often. Most leaders only want to continue with the status quo. They don't want to rock the boat. They will point out how close they resemble the last guy. They will say that experience matters. They will laugh at the visionaries dreams as just fantasies. But they will have no new ideas and no vision on how to do things differently.
Perhaps that's what we want. Perhaps we're happy with things the way they are. Perhaps our pocket books are just fine, our education system is perfect, our way of life is the envy of the world. In that case, voting for more of the same makes perfect sense.
But if we're not happy with things the way they are, or we're struggling to make ends meet, to get our children through school, to see our country being mocked around the world for the arrogance and ignorance we've shown, then maybe its time for a change.
Sometimes when you reach a dead end, you have to admit it and try going a different direction for a while.
The rest are all details.
Yeah?... And?... So?...
Last night I watched a documentary about Ub Iwerks on Ovation TV (channel... 130 something or so). In my home. Sitting on my bed.
For most of you, I can see you scratching your head and wondering what the big deal is about. But for my siblings, right now someone is picking them up off the floor or calling for a defibrillator. The spell has been broken. The seal has been torn. The apocalypse is nigh.
"WE WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER HAVE CABLE IN THIS HOUSE!!!!"
I've heard the mantra so many times, I could recite it in my sleep. Truth be told, after having cable in every single barracks, apartment, dorm, etc... that I've ever lived in away from home, the pleasure of cable had long since worn off anyway. I stopped caring that I was one of only a few people left on this planet that didn't have cable. It was, and still is, an excuse to throw away money to see the same amount of crap that I can see for free without cable.
But that all changes in February of next year. Like it or not, Congress has finally decided to switch every TV station over to digital. Come February, we were going to have to either buy converter boxes (A $40 dollar rebate won't go far on a house with four different TV's and three unique television tastes) or simply go without TV. Now, my Step-mom still has her preference and was stocking up on books and candles (in case electricity went digital, apparently ;) but my Dad and I realized that maybe the battle was over, the windmill wasn't going to fall, and that it was time to give in to the cable giants and surrender. And we wanted to beat the new year rush when all the late comers reach the same conclusion.
So, as of yesterday, I have some 200 new channels to explore plus Sirius radio and CD music and pay-per-view and a gazillion sports stations and... Well, in all 200 channels last night, I managed to find a documentary about Ub Iwerks on Ovation TV.
I'm not sure I'm really going to change my opinion about cable, but until its all free on the internet, I guess I don't have a choice.
For most of you, I can see you scratching your head and wondering what the big deal is about. But for my siblings, right now someone is picking them up off the floor or calling for a defibrillator. The spell has been broken. The seal has been torn. The apocalypse is nigh.
"WE WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER HAVE CABLE IN THIS HOUSE!!!!"
I've heard the mantra so many times, I could recite it in my sleep. Truth be told, after having cable in every single barracks, apartment, dorm, etc... that I've ever lived in away from home, the pleasure of cable had long since worn off anyway. I stopped caring that I was one of only a few people left on this planet that didn't have cable. It was, and still is, an excuse to throw away money to see the same amount of crap that I can see for free without cable.
But that all changes in February of next year. Like it or not, Congress has finally decided to switch every TV station over to digital. Come February, we were going to have to either buy converter boxes (A $40 dollar rebate won't go far on a house with four different TV's and three unique television tastes) or simply go without TV. Now, my Step-mom still has her preference and was stocking up on books and candles (in case electricity went digital, apparently ;) but my Dad and I realized that maybe the battle was over, the windmill wasn't going to fall, and that it was time to give in to the cable giants and surrender. And we wanted to beat the new year rush when all the late comers reach the same conclusion.
So, as of yesterday, I have some 200 new channels to explore plus Sirius radio and CD music and pay-per-view and a gazillion sports stations and... Well, in all 200 channels last night, I managed to find a documentary about Ub Iwerks on Ovation TV.
I'm not sure I'm really going to change my opinion about cable, but until its all free on the internet, I guess I don't have a choice.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Empty Calories
Success, as a meal, is remarkably devoid of anything that actually saps my hunger. It tastes mostly like air, like a hot wind that I've been chasing. For someone with limited success in his life, this is an incredibly freeing observation and yet, a tiny bit bitter - in the way that all true wisdom tastes.
My first inkling at the taste of success was in the Navy. When I was at the Class A school learning my trade as an Intelligence Specialist, I broke every single record for educational success in the training school. I not only graduated at the top of my class, I would have graduated at the top of any class - ever. But my achievement was overshadowed by the fact that I was not offered the plum bonus of instant promotion to petty officer (a position chosen by the voted upon class leader). That position, instead, was offered to my school rival and most hated foe. My success disappeared in a moment's notice and I discounted all my work done as a frivolous waste of energy. However, as I moved throughout the remaining two years of my active duty naval career and enjoyed not being a petty officer, I realized that perhaps I had been done a favor after all - that maybe this plum bonus was not quite so plum. It didn't make my accomplishment a success, however, it merely meant that it wasn't quite such a bitter defeat.
After the Navy, I became an Assistant Manager at a movie theater. Having seen some of the other assistant managers, I quickly surmised that this was no success either - just a ribbon on a pig.
I continued to do well in school and graduated with honors from Idaho State University. This and $4.50 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So, no real success there either.
After school and back at the theater for a "short" time, I was finally offered a chance to manage a real movie theater all by my lonesome. This success, however, was certainly tainted by the fact that for the next six months I managed one of the worst theaters with some of the worst customers and in one of the worst hiring locations in the entire state. I had one day off in six months (and I do mean one day - weekends and holidays included!). My "success" only meant that I worked harder than I had before and was twice as miserable as I had been before. It did make me reevaluate my priorities though, so I guess it wasn't all bad.
When I finally left the theater business for my current job, I started as a customer service person which was fine for the short term. But after a while, I yearned for a little more and eventually was promoted to Inventory Manager/Purchasing Agent/Jack of All Products Person. At last, I had achieved a kind of success - a position that commanded a little bit of respect even if it didn't allow me the chance to open a secret bank account in the Bahamas. I worked with gusto as I took control of this position and made it my own. And then, after six months, I began to realize that what my success had really given me, other than a title, was more work and more responsibility for more pay. In essence, I had achieved... nothing, really. It was more, to be sure, but more of what?
In the last week, I wrapped my first film (more or less) and in the crowning moment of my achievement and success, I simply felt tired. I had earned this success through long hours of hard work, but in the end, all I had managed was the first step on a much longer ladder. One moment's success immediately turned to the thought of my next film and the renewed struggle to bring that one to fruition, followed by the next film, and the next film, and so on and so on. It occurred to me that writing, directing, and producing a film was not a culmination to a successful campaign, but the start to a long and arduous road of artistic exploration. I had started on the road, but I had not gone anywhere yet.
I was thinking about this last night when I started musing about young Christopher Paolini - the author of the very successful Eragon stories (the third book is coming out soon). I realized that this young man had achieved a kind of success that I had once dreamed about in high school and had done so at an age by which, at one point, I was sure I would have achieved his level of success. But then what? What will Christopher Paolini write next? Has he now become pigeonholed into his fantasy realm? Will such early success take away his drive to succeed? Or will he discover that success, ultimately, is nothing but hot air?
St. Augustine realized at a certain age that when he looked back he could see all the places where God had entered his life to bring him to Christ. I wonder too if he realized that all those disappointments and failures, as well as the illusions of success, had also contributed to bring him to where he was in life. God has an interesting way of tempering us. Sometimes it is with fire, sometimes it is with blunt force, and sometimes - like Wile E Coyote often discovers - it is with the illusion of a wall that isn't really there, so long as you're the Road Runner.
So, then, what is real success? Perhaps true success lies not in the achievement of a goal, but in the lessons learned along the way. Perhaps true success is not measured by the places we've been, so much as by the journey undertaken to reach those places. Perhaps true success is not derived from the happiness of achievement, but from the attaining of wisdom. When it comes to success, our smiles are nothing compared with God's smile upon us.
Everything else is just a meal filled with empty calories.
My first inkling at the taste of success was in the Navy. When I was at the Class A school learning my trade as an Intelligence Specialist, I broke every single record for educational success in the training school. I not only graduated at the top of my class, I would have graduated at the top of any class - ever. But my achievement was overshadowed by the fact that I was not offered the plum bonus of instant promotion to petty officer (a position chosen by the voted upon class leader). That position, instead, was offered to my school rival and most hated foe. My success disappeared in a moment's notice and I discounted all my work done as a frivolous waste of energy. However, as I moved throughout the remaining two years of my active duty naval career and enjoyed not being a petty officer, I realized that perhaps I had been done a favor after all - that maybe this plum bonus was not quite so plum. It didn't make my accomplishment a success, however, it merely meant that it wasn't quite such a bitter defeat.
After the Navy, I became an Assistant Manager at a movie theater. Having seen some of the other assistant managers, I quickly surmised that this was no success either - just a ribbon on a pig.
I continued to do well in school and graduated with honors from Idaho State University. This and $4.50 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So, no real success there either.
After school and back at the theater for a "short" time, I was finally offered a chance to manage a real movie theater all by my lonesome. This success, however, was certainly tainted by the fact that for the next six months I managed one of the worst theaters with some of the worst customers and in one of the worst hiring locations in the entire state. I had one day off in six months (and I do mean one day - weekends and holidays included!). My "success" only meant that I worked harder than I had before and was twice as miserable as I had been before. It did make me reevaluate my priorities though, so I guess it wasn't all bad.
When I finally left the theater business for my current job, I started as a customer service person which was fine for the short term. But after a while, I yearned for a little more and eventually was promoted to Inventory Manager/Purchasing Agent/Jack of All Products Person. At last, I had achieved a kind of success - a position that commanded a little bit of respect even if it didn't allow me the chance to open a secret bank account in the Bahamas. I worked with gusto as I took control of this position and made it my own. And then, after six months, I began to realize that what my success had really given me, other than a title, was more work and more responsibility for more pay. In essence, I had achieved... nothing, really. It was more, to be sure, but more of what?
In the last week, I wrapped my first film (more or less) and in the crowning moment of my achievement and success, I simply felt tired. I had earned this success through long hours of hard work, but in the end, all I had managed was the first step on a much longer ladder. One moment's success immediately turned to the thought of my next film and the renewed struggle to bring that one to fruition, followed by the next film, and the next film, and so on and so on. It occurred to me that writing, directing, and producing a film was not a culmination to a successful campaign, but the start to a long and arduous road of artistic exploration. I had started on the road, but I had not gone anywhere yet.
I was thinking about this last night when I started musing about young Christopher Paolini - the author of the very successful Eragon stories (the third book is coming out soon). I realized that this young man had achieved a kind of success that I had once dreamed about in high school and had done so at an age by which, at one point, I was sure I would have achieved his level of success. But then what? What will Christopher Paolini write next? Has he now become pigeonholed into his fantasy realm? Will such early success take away his drive to succeed? Or will he discover that success, ultimately, is nothing but hot air?
St. Augustine realized at a certain age that when he looked back he could see all the places where God had entered his life to bring him to Christ. I wonder too if he realized that all those disappointments and failures, as well as the illusions of success, had also contributed to bring him to where he was in life. God has an interesting way of tempering us. Sometimes it is with fire, sometimes it is with blunt force, and sometimes - like Wile E Coyote often discovers - it is with the illusion of a wall that isn't really there, so long as you're the Road Runner.
So, then, what is real success? Perhaps true success lies not in the achievement of a goal, but in the lessons learned along the way. Perhaps true success is not measured by the places we've been, so much as by the journey undertaken to reach those places. Perhaps true success is not derived from the happiness of achievement, but from the attaining of wisdom. When it comes to success, our smiles are nothing compared with God's smile upon us.
Everything else is just a meal filled with empty calories.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Passive vs. Active Theology
Sometimes I like to call things as they are, and so I have to say that the sermon on Sunday at my church was one of the longest, driest, snoozefests that I've ever endured. Except... it wasn't.
The point of the sermon was that the task of becoming transformed Christians is not a passive thing, but an active one. God will work on us, but only if we work on ourselves - that to become more in Christ is to actively seek becoming more in Christ. There, I explained the sermon in about forty four minutes less time than the actual sermon. But that being said, this sermon was like yeast. On its own, it did nothing but lay there. But combined with the word of God, it perked up and grew like the bread of heaven.
I realized, as I struggled to stay awake, that God's words were penetrating into my heart and mind - that even as I forced my eyes open, my eyes were being opened from within. It was a really good example of how God works in our lives.
Let's figure out who we want for a spokesman for the Church. I think he or she should be a dynamic personality, one with wit and exuberance, perhaps someone young with a winning smile and an enthusiastic knowledge of God. This winning spokesman should have plenty of experience dealing with the poor and unfortunate and should, naturally, already share the Church's view of the world and of God's role in it. This person should also be a role model for the young and old alike. They should walk the world blameless and in high regard.
God, on the other hand, wants a middle-aged persecutor of his Church who has actively been seeking to have His disciples arrested and murdered and who basically believes that any person who practices this faith is a heretic.
There seems to be a disconnect here - like a mind-numbingly boring sermon that has the power to fill the mind with incredible thoughts. Its almost as if God has His own plan for not just our lives, but our very words and actions - as if anything we say or do, no matter how insignificant and no matter how poorly delivered, might plant the seeds of God's word in someone else's life. God seems to have His own way of getting things done.
So, as I sat passively listening to a sermon about being active, I realized that God was actively engaging me with His words to start thinking about my sometimes too passive existence.
And as a result, I managed to stay awake.
Either that, or it was the coffee I'd had before the service.
The point of the sermon was that the task of becoming transformed Christians is not a passive thing, but an active one. God will work on us, but only if we work on ourselves - that to become more in Christ is to actively seek becoming more in Christ. There, I explained the sermon in about forty four minutes less time than the actual sermon. But that being said, this sermon was like yeast. On its own, it did nothing but lay there. But combined with the word of God, it perked up and grew like the bread of heaven.
I realized, as I struggled to stay awake, that God's words were penetrating into my heart and mind - that even as I forced my eyes open, my eyes were being opened from within. It was a really good example of how God works in our lives.
Let's figure out who we want for a spokesman for the Church. I think he or she should be a dynamic personality, one with wit and exuberance, perhaps someone young with a winning smile and an enthusiastic knowledge of God. This winning spokesman should have plenty of experience dealing with the poor and unfortunate and should, naturally, already share the Church's view of the world and of God's role in it. This person should also be a role model for the young and old alike. They should walk the world blameless and in high regard.
God, on the other hand, wants a middle-aged persecutor of his Church who has actively been seeking to have His disciples arrested and murdered and who basically believes that any person who practices this faith is a heretic.
There seems to be a disconnect here - like a mind-numbingly boring sermon that has the power to fill the mind with incredible thoughts. Its almost as if God has His own plan for not just our lives, but our very words and actions - as if anything we say or do, no matter how insignificant and no matter how poorly delivered, might plant the seeds of God's word in someone else's life. God seems to have His own way of getting things done.
So, as I sat passively listening to a sermon about being active, I realized that God was actively engaging me with His words to start thinking about my sometimes too passive existence.
And as a result, I managed to stay awake.
Either that, or it was the coffee I'd had before the service.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bros Before Hoes
Six months after we got together, my girlfriend told me she wanted to break-up. "Just for a little while," she said, almost apologetically.
I was shocked, to say the least, as I had been sure that things were going just fine up until that moment. So, naturally, I asked why.
She finally told me that on the very same day I had decided to finally tell her about the way I felt about her, another friend of mine had done the exact same thing. She had never told me this, though she had told my friend this as part of her explanation about why she was seeing me and not him. I had only noticed that my friend had been distant from me for the past six months, but had never suspected the real reason. He had probably wondered why I had put a girl before our friendship, but I had never known that he had been interested in her as well.
I decided to be fair (mostly because I was fairly confident about the outcome) and told my girlfriend to go ahead and go out with my friend. I explained that I would be waiting for her when she finally changed her mind and came to her senses. Less than two weeks later, we were back together and that was that. I never mentioned this to my friend or to anyone else. As far as I was concerned, this was between my girlfriend and me.
(As an aside to this story, my girlfriend and I eventually became engaged before she broke it off after six years. My friend ended up going out with a girl who had had a huge crush on me - though, again, I never mentioned this to anyone - and they ended up dating for at least two years and maybe more).
I suppose that had I known that my friend was interested in the girl from the very beginning, I would have never asked her out or told her my true feelings. And, as a result, I would have been miserable until I found some other girl to moon over. I'm not entirely certain we would have remained friends, but I do know that a lot of strife might have been avoided all the same.
After the Navy another friend of mine was dating a girl I had known most of my life on a friendly basis (we were friends, even if we didn't hang out together). He was madly in love with her. She was in love with him. They were totally wrong for each other and I think most everyone knew it. But, again, I didn't say anything.
After my friend proposed to this girl and she turned him down, they broke up and the break up turned nasty for the girl. Though she had done nothing wrong except turn my friend down, he started bashing her to his friends (and her friends) until she was, more or less, ostracized from their group of friends.
About three months later I ran into this girl and she asked me why I hadn't warned her about my friend. I told her bluntly, "Because you wouldn't have believed me. And then you and my friend would have hated me for butting in."
There are times when the guy ethic expressed in this post's title can be really idiotic. Had I simply interfered with my friend's relationship, both might have been spared some heartache. Had I simply known that my other friend had an interest in my girlfriend as well, we might have been able to come to some sort of amicable arrangement, and a great deal of heartache (on his behalf) might have been prevented. But because of this ethic, in addition to broken relationships and hurt feelings between the various couples, the collateral damage spread into friendships that had very little to do with the actual relationship. Suddenly people who had been the best of friends before could no longer associate with one another simply because two of the friends in the group had decided to break up, thus splitting a group into two camps. Once a relationship ended, the entire group was affected and things could never go back to the way they'd been before.
And all because of a stupid rule.
Currently, I am on the outside of one of these internal friendship/relationship debacles and I can't help but see it for what it really is - arbitrary and depressing. Friends who have been friends forever are being torn apart as a result of a mismatched and misguided love affair. Hurt feelings, betrayals, lies, jealousy, and all the thousands of other pieces of shrapnel of this exploding relationship are tearing through friendships like hot knives through butter. Its so damn unfortunate, and so damn unnecessary. So and so breaks up, so and so hook up, then they break up and so and so get back together, and then so and so's friends hear all the sordid details of the break up/hook up/break up and lines are drawn and sides are chosen and someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. But nothing is ever really that easy, is it?
We grow older for a reason - and that is to take our own experience of stupid decisions and of things probably left unsaid and use them to help the younger generation before they make the same exact mistakes we made. Otherwise we simply perpetuate the cycle of regret for another generation.
So, if anyone is out there listening, I need to say that allowing a friendship to die because of a failed romantic liaison that doesn't directly involve you seems like a harsh punishment and a heavy price to pay for the stupidity of youth. I ask all involved to forgive and to forget and to move on.
I was shocked, to say the least, as I had been sure that things were going just fine up until that moment. So, naturally, I asked why.
She finally told me that on the very same day I had decided to finally tell her about the way I felt about her, another friend of mine had done the exact same thing. She had never told me this, though she had told my friend this as part of her explanation about why she was seeing me and not him. I had only noticed that my friend had been distant from me for the past six months, but had never suspected the real reason. He had probably wondered why I had put a girl before our friendship, but I had never known that he had been interested in her as well.
I decided to be fair (mostly because I was fairly confident about the outcome) and told my girlfriend to go ahead and go out with my friend. I explained that I would be waiting for her when she finally changed her mind and came to her senses. Less than two weeks later, we were back together and that was that. I never mentioned this to my friend or to anyone else. As far as I was concerned, this was between my girlfriend and me.
(As an aside to this story, my girlfriend and I eventually became engaged before she broke it off after six years. My friend ended up going out with a girl who had had a huge crush on me - though, again, I never mentioned this to anyone - and they ended up dating for at least two years and maybe more).
I suppose that had I known that my friend was interested in the girl from the very beginning, I would have never asked her out or told her my true feelings. And, as a result, I would have been miserable until I found some other girl to moon over. I'm not entirely certain we would have remained friends, but I do know that a lot of strife might have been avoided all the same.
After the Navy another friend of mine was dating a girl I had known most of my life on a friendly basis (we were friends, even if we didn't hang out together). He was madly in love with her. She was in love with him. They were totally wrong for each other and I think most everyone knew it. But, again, I didn't say anything.
After my friend proposed to this girl and she turned him down, they broke up and the break up turned nasty for the girl. Though she had done nothing wrong except turn my friend down, he started bashing her to his friends (and her friends) until she was, more or less, ostracized from their group of friends.
About three months later I ran into this girl and she asked me why I hadn't warned her about my friend. I told her bluntly, "Because you wouldn't have believed me. And then you and my friend would have hated me for butting in."
There are times when the guy ethic expressed in this post's title can be really idiotic. Had I simply interfered with my friend's relationship, both might have been spared some heartache. Had I simply known that my other friend had an interest in my girlfriend as well, we might have been able to come to some sort of amicable arrangement, and a great deal of heartache (on his behalf) might have been prevented. But because of this ethic, in addition to broken relationships and hurt feelings between the various couples, the collateral damage spread into friendships that had very little to do with the actual relationship. Suddenly people who had been the best of friends before could no longer associate with one another simply because two of the friends in the group had decided to break up, thus splitting a group into two camps. Once a relationship ended, the entire group was affected and things could never go back to the way they'd been before.
And all because of a stupid rule.
Currently, I am on the outside of one of these internal friendship/relationship debacles and I can't help but see it for what it really is - arbitrary and depressing. Friends who have been friends forever are being torn apart as a result of a mismatched and misguided love affair. Hurt feelings, betrayals, lies, jealousy, and all the thousands of other pieces of shrapnel of this exploding relationship are tearing through friendships like hot knives through butter. Its so damn unfortunate, and so damn unnecessary. So and so breaks up, so and so hook up, then they break up and so and so get back together, and then so and so's friends hear all the sordid details of the break up/hook up/break up and lines are drawn and sides are chosen and someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. But nothing is ever really that easy, is it?
We grow older for a reason - and that is to take our own experience of stupid decisions and of things probably left unsaid and use them to help the younger generation before they make the same exact mistakes we made. Otherwise we simply perpetuate the cycle of regret for another generation.
So, if anyone is out there listening, I need to say that allowing a friendship to die because of a failed romantic liaison that doesn't directly involve you seems like a harsh punishment and a heavy price to pay for the stupidity of youth. I ask all involved to forgive and to forget and to move on.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The True Olympic Spirit (From Time Magazine) via New York ;)
Raising the Stakes at the Olympics
Former Chinese Olympic gymnast Li Ning lights the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Fabrice Coferini / AFP / Getty
I hate the olympic spirit. No competition should be ruined by an undercurrent of peace and harmony. Would baseball be better if Derek Jeter hugged David Ortiz after every game and talked about how wonderful Boston is? If you want an endless event in which everyone pretends to respect everybody else, go to couples therapy. If I'm going to spend two weeks watching something, I want to see some people pouring Champagne on one another and some people crying at the end of it. That's why I watch the baseball playoffs and Girls Gone Wild. How damaging to sports is the Olympic spirit? After all these events, I have no idea who won. Sure, NBC sometimes flashes a "medal count," but that is the stupidest way of measuring victory since the Electoral College. Gold, silver and bronze all count as one point? Then why make different medals? Sure, it practically guarantees that the U.S. gets first place, but that's only in a system in which it's as good to be third best as actual best—and in that world, Ralph Nader would get to make presidential decisions. If you also gave a point in the medal count for fourth through 6.7 billionth best in each sport, China and India would be kicking ass.
So I've been working on a new scoring system to improve the Games. The first step is to eliminate all but one medal event per sport. You know why Michael Phelps won eight golds? Because they were all for the same thing. Turns out, he can swim fast when he does two laps and four laps — and when he's alone and when three other Americans go right after him! You want multiple medals? Do multiple sports. Phelps gets two medals only if he's the best swimmer in the world and the best Taekwondoist. For soccer, the most popular sport in the world, the Olympics give out one gold for men and one for women. That's fewer than go to race-walkers. Shooters get 15. Canoeists get 16, and that's assuming that the 14 rowing events are somehow different. To be fair, under the current system, the basketball team should be having competitions in three-point shooting, dunking, rebounding, passing, that halftime trampoline thing, T-shirt cannon-blasting and restraining Ron Artest.
In my system, overall points would be weighted by how popular the sport is, as determined by television ratings. You got a bronze in the gymnastic floor competition? That's 100 Olympic points. You nailed a gold in the modern pentathlon? (That's pistol-shooting, épée fencing, swimming, horse-jumping and a run.) You get two points and the right to keep whatever European royal title your family is holding on to. Boxing champions get only three points, since everyone would clearly rather watch ultimate fighting. Sports in which competitors wear makeup get a deduction, as do sports played in only one area of the world: badminton (Asia), water polo (California), field hockey (Smith College). I would also consider body mass index in the point system. Phelps is clearly in incredible athletic shape, so he'd get twice as many points for his wins as the table-tennis gold medalist would. In fact, if time allows, I'd have all the gold medalists, except wrestlers, wrestle one another in an overall 1,000-point super-Olympic event to determine the world's best athlete. I'd also make them all live in one house and complain about one another to the camera a lot.
NBC highlights only the top few competitors in most sports, but the winners would look a lot more impressive if we also got to see the worst. So I'd give the last three places anti-medals, all made of a decreasing quality of chocolate, starting with Russell Stover and working down from there. Then we would use the European soccer system, in which we'd kick out the country with the most anti-points. Not just out of the Olympics, but out of the international community. The country would lose its seat at the U.N., the little stamp it puts on passports, all its welcome to signs and whatever war it's currently waging. Also, the country that comes in first should get something real: maybe some extra carbon output, four years without tariffs or the right to put its flag on all the world's airplanes.
The stakes need to be raised. We can't continue to have every gymnast hugging every other gymnast when her floor routine ends, and not just because it's bound to be used as bait on To Catch a Predator. If the purpose of the Olympics is to make the world more peaceful, maybe the reason it hasn't succeeded is that the Games aren't warlike enough. The ancient Greeks got themselves oiled up to wrestle for a good reason: to channel their bloodlust into something meaningless. Also because they were crazy gay. Globalization has made getting along with countries we've never heard of more important, and the best way to do that is to beat the crap out of them in sports we've never heard of and then rub their faces in it. If we're going to get along, we're going to have to learn how to hate each other when it matters the least.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Writing for Christ
This blog is a commentary on an excellent book review and discussion by Andy over at A Mile From The Beach (see the link on the right). In his review of the book, Wild Goose Chase, by Mark Batterson, Andy mentions the author's description of several cages that we like to use to civilize our Christian impulses. In his latest missive, Andy talks about the Cage of Responsibility and how we can sometimes let work get in the way of our Christian walk, and also about knowing the difference between what God wants us to do and what we want to do in our own lives. This is what I'd like to talk about.
I was a writer before I really even knew how to write. I can't really explain the distinction to the non-writer, but I can use some analogies. You know the kid who always found sports easy and that you knew would eventually play professional sports when they grew up - well it was kind of like that for me.
Like most kids my age, I didn't particularly have any love for the written word or for reading. I wasn't precocious or some Bobby Fisher like genius. I was a normal kid. I liked to play with my friends. I liked to run around and kick balls and slide and swing and do all the things other kids like to do. And then, one day, October 31st, 1976, I sat down at a desk in my second grade classroom eagerly awaiting the opportunity to go outside in my Halloween costume and be in Halloween parade, and my teacher handed out a last minute writing assignment before the parade. We had to write, in our best penmanship, a one paragraph short story that began with the words, "It was a dark and stormy night..." I groaned with the rest of the kids at this awful busy work on this festive day, but I took out my pencil like all the rest and prepared to write.
What will I write? My mind suddenly filled with ideas so fantastic and so incredible that it was like finding that there was no back wall to the wardrobe I had just entered. I started writing... and writing... and writing... No, I didn't want to go out to the parade, I wanted to finish this story... and I wrote... and wrote... and yes, I did want to take it home and finish it. As is typical of my writing style to this day, I turned my one paragraph story into a seven page epic short story filled with adventure and rescues and battles and villains and heroes. And I haven't stopped writing since.
Its easy to believe in a calling when you are basically given a career in 2nd grade. I don't recall wanting to be a writer before that (and to be fair, I've always considered myself more of a story-teller, with an emphasis in writing) but I can tell you that I've never really had any other ideas for a career since. This might sound like a very uncomplicated path to live, but in fact, it has created exactly the sort of adventure filled life that Andy was blogging about in his book review. Being a writer might be something I'm good at, but it hasn't always made a lot of sense to my personal life.
There have been many times when I considered giving up writing. At one point at the end of High School when I was dramatically in love and ready to settle down and be like everyone else, I knew that my basic decision was between the girl and the writing - that I could not divide my passion equally. In the end, she required too much of me, and I found that I could not give it. I didn't want to have an ordinary life and in making accommodation's for my writing life, I probably ended up driving her away. Even then I was sharply aware of what my writing was costing me, but I couldn't give it up.
At the end of my initial college career, when I was ready to go on to grad school and get my Master's Degree in Anthropology so that I could make something of my life, the tug of being a writer caused me to reevaluate my decision. On the very last day of the deadline to submit the paperwork for post-graduate studies, I informed my adviser that I would instead be going back to San Francisco to pursue a writing career. This was a stupid decision as I was particularly good at being an anthropologist and would have easily excelled in grad school. But somehow I knew this was not the direction I was supposed to take.
I've always taken my writing gift as a responsibility not on the basis of pride in my work but simply because I've known since I was in second grade that I was supposed to be a writer. I've long known that I can't stop writing no matter what I do. I will write until the day I die. Someone put a hot coal to my typing fingers and the words continue to pour out in torrents. But I do often wonder why I was given this gift and whether anything I've done up to now has meant a difference to anybody else. Its not that I expect to be a great writer, so much, as that I expect my writing to make a difference - that if it really is a God ordained gift, that it must be useful to His purposes somewhere down the line.
Perhaps I will never be meant to know how my gift is to be utilized for His purposes. Either way, I will continue to write... and write... and write... until He tells me to stop. I can do nothing else. This is what I was ordained to do.
I was a writer before I really even knew how to write. I can't really explain the distinction to the non-writer, but I can use some analogies. You know the kid who always found sports easy and that you knew would eventually play professional sports when they grew up - well it was kind of like that for me.
Like most kids my age, I didn't particularly have any love for the written word or for reading. I wasn't precocious or some Bobby Fisher like genius. I was a normal kid. I liked to play with my friends. I liked to run around and kick balls and slide and swing and do all the things other kids like to do. And then, one day, October 31st, 1976, I sat down at a desk in my second grade classroom eagerly awaiting the opportunity to go outside in my Halloween costume and be in Halloween parade, and my teacher handed out a last minute writing assignment before the parade. We had to write, in our best penmanship, a one paragraph short story that began with the words, "It was a dark and stormy night..." I groaned with the rest of the kids at this awful busy work on this festive day, but I took out my pencil like all the rest and prepared to write.
What will I write? My mind suddenly filled with ideas so fantastic and so incredible that it was like finding that there was no back wall to the wardrobe I had just entered. I started writing... and writing... and writing... No, I didn't want to go out to the parade, I wanted to finish this story... and I wrote... and wrote... and yes, I did want to take it home and finish it. As is typical of my writing style to this day, I turned my one paragraph story into a seven page epic short story filled with adventure and rescues and battles and villains and heroes. And I haven't stopped writing since.
Its easy to believe in a calling when you are basically given a career in 2nd grade. I don't recall wanting to be a writer before that (and to be fair, I've always considered myself more of a story-teller, with an emphasis in writing) but I can tell you that I've never really had any other ideas for a career since. This might sound like a very uncomplicated path to live, but in fact, it has created exactly the sort of adventure filled life that Andy was blogging about in his book review. Being a writer might be something I'm good at, but it hasn't always made a lot of sense to my personal life.
There have been many times when I considered giving up writing. At one point at the end of High School when I was dramatically in love and ready to settle down and be like everyone else, I knew that my basic decision was between the girl and the writing - that I could not divide my passion equally. In the end, she required too much of me, and I found that I could not give it. I didn't want to have an ordinary life and in making accommodation's for my writing life, I probably ended up driving her away. Even then I was sharply aware of what my writing was costing me, but I couldn't give it up.
At the end of my initial college career, when I was ready to go on to grad school and get my Master's Degree in Anthropology so that I could make something of my life, the tug of being a writer caused me to reevaluate my decision. On the very last day of the deadline to submit the paperwork for post-graduate studies, I informed my adviser that I would instead be going back to San Francisco to pursue a writing career. This was a stupid decision as I was particularly good at being an anthropologist and would have easily excelled in grad school. But somehow I knew this was not the direction I was supposed to take.
I've always taken my writing gift as a responsibility not on the basis of pride in my work but simply because I've known since I was in second grade that I was supposed to be a writer. I've long known that I can't stop writing no matter what I do. I will write until the day I die. Someone put a hot coal to my typing fingers and the words continue to pour out in torrents. But I do often wonder why I was given this gift and whether anything I've done up to now has meant a difference to anybody else. Its not that I expect to be a great writer, so much, as that I expect my writing to make a difference - that if it really is a God ordained gift, that it must be useful to His purposes somewhere down the line.
Perhaps I will never be meant to know how my gift is to be utilized for His purposes. Either way, I will continue to write... and write... and write... until He tells me to stop. I can do nothing else. This is what I was ordained to do.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Production Diary - Day Ten - The End of Almost All Things
Sunday was the last scheduled filming day and it couldn't have come any sooner. Things were already starting to unravel before Sunday and things were definitely not entirely kosher during the final shoot. The end result, however, is that the main shooting of the film is done.
We started the final film day by setting up for a church thank you barbeque. We bought enough hot dogs, potato salad, green salad, buns, etc... for 80 people and cooked them all up in the kitchen, while I went around and figured out where we would be setting up the camera and in what order we would shoot the scenes. That amount of organization done, the rest of the day pretty much came willy-nilly.
We had about forty people for the barbeque (so we had a lot of leftovers) and the entire cast was there, so that was good. The Blumenthals came and agreed to play the parents of Monica and my Dad's friends, Rita and Jamie, came and agreed to play the parents of Gabriel. But more importantly, Andy from A Mile From the Beach fame came and brought his children (and my former T-Ball players) Margaret and Henry to play Harry's children. So I had managed to fill every single named character position in the entire script before shooting started.
Quite frankly, the energy just wasn't there. I can't blame the cast or the crew when I felt the lack of energy myself. It was like the entire weight of nine previous shooting days was upon us. I rushed around to get my "extras" into place and to get my actors to understand how they were supposed to move and react and then I ran and started filming them. Sherman became my backup cameraman for the day for most of the shots where Harry was required - mostly since it was his camera that I've been using. But between all the setting up, directing, producing, barbequing, limited acting, and hosting I was doing, there just wasn't any energy left for enthusiasm.
And we could have really used it. There was an unexploded bomb in our midst (of which I'd only been appraised of the night before - and then without any gory details) of a social/personal nature and it seemed to sap the energy of all the regular cast members at the same time. These sorts of bombs go off all the time behind the scenes in movies/plays, etc... So I've been through them before. But as this was the last shooting day, there was really nothing I could about it. I didn't have the energy to also be the pep-squad for the cast. Fortunately, most of the footage didn't require a lot of energetic acting. There was a lot of moving around from one place to the next.
Finally, we were forced out of the set by the incoming Indonesian church (and our allotted time frame ended) and we wrapped photography and I dropped off all the remaining actors and then went home and crashed - hard. I fell into an immediate two hour nap, only to wake long enough to go share my leftovers with my sister for dinner, before coming home and lasting another hour or so before I simply dropped into my bed and fell asleep again. It was my bodies way of restoring all the sleep I had missed in the previous three weeks.
So, now, the filming is "done". There are actually two more shooting days that have yet to be scheduled. But at this point, more than 90% of the filming is done. I will now move into post-production by, first, putting together a rough cut of the film so that I can determine if there's any missing footage. If there is missing footage, then I'll try to schedule additional shooting time on the last day (when we wrap the filming with our final outdoor scene). And if there is no additional shooting time available, then we will simply wrap the film as is and call it a day.
After the final shooting is finished, I will put together a final edit of the film. And then, I will build a final sound track to go with the edited film. Only after all that is completed will a premiere be possible. In my mind, the original premiere date of the end of September is still in effect. But in reality, I'm thinking that date might be sometime in December - during the holiday season when all the Oscar caliber films come out. ;)
Either way, this is the last of the Production Diaries. But stay tuned to this blog for further updates, as I have them. In the meantime, it's been great to have you all along for the journey and I hope you enjoyed this inside look at the making of a film.
We started the final film day by setting up for a church thank you barbeque. We bought enough hot dogs, potato salad, green salad, buns, etc... for 80 people and cooked them all up in the kitchen, while I went around and figured out where we would be setting up the camera and in what order we would shoot the scenes. That amount of organization done, the rest of the day pretty much came willy-nilly.
We had about forty people for the barbeque (so we had a lot of leftovers) and the entire cast was there, so that was good. The Blumenthals came and agreed to play the parents of Monica and my Dad's friends, Rita and Jamie, came and agreed to play the parents of Gabriel. But more importantly, Andy from A Mile From the Beach fame came and brought his children (and my former T-Ball players) Margaret and Henry to play Harry's children. So I had managed to fill every single named character position in the entire script before shooting started.
Quite frankly, the energy just wasn't there. I can't blame the cast or the crew when I felt the lack of energy myself. It was like the entire weight of nine previous shooting days was upon us. I rushed around to get my "extras" into place and to get my actors to understand how they were supposed to move and react and then I ran and started filming them. Sherman became my backup cameraman for the day for most of the shots where Harry was required - mostly since it was his camera that I've been using. But between all the setting up, directing, producing, barbequing, limited acting, and hosting I was doing, there just wasn't any energy left for enthusiasm.
And we could have really used it. There was an unexploded bomb in our midst (of which I'd only been appraised of the night before - and then without any gory details) of a social/personal nature and it seemed to sap the energy of all the regular cast members at the same time. These sorts of bombs go off all the time behind the scenes in movies/plays, etc... So I've been through them before. But as this was the last shooting day, there was really nothing I could about it. I didn't have the energy to also be the pep-squad for the cast. Fortunately, most of the footage didn't require a lot of energetic acting. There was a lot of moving around from one place to the next.
Finally, we were forced out of the set by the incoming Indonesian church (and our allotted time frame ended) and we wrapped photography and I dropped off all the remaining actors and then went home and crashed - hard. I fell into an immediate two hour nap, only to wake long enough to go share my leftovers with my sister for dinner, before coming home and lasting another hour or so before I simply dropped into my bed and fell asleep again. It was my bodies way of restoring all the sleep I had missed in the previous three weeks.
So, now, the filming is "done". There are actually two more shooting days that have yet to be scheduled. But at this point, more than 90% of the filming is done. I will now move into post-production by, first, putting together a rough cut of the film so that I can determine if there's any missing footage. If there is missing footage, then I'll try to schedule additional shooting time on the last day (when we wrap the filming with our final outdoor scene). And if there is no additional shooting time available, then we will simply wrap the film as is and call it a day.
After the final shooting is finished, I will put together a final edit of the film. And then, I will build a final sound track to go with the edited film. Only after all that is completed will a premiere be possible. In my mind, the original premiere date of the end of September is still in effect. But in reality, I'm thinking that date might be sometime in December - during the holiday season when all the Oscar caliber films come out. ;)
Either way, this is the last of the Production Diaries. But stay tuned to this blog for further updates, as I have them. In the meantime, it's been great to have you all along for the journey and I hope you enjoyed this inside look at the making of a film.
Friday, August 15, 2008
What's Next?
When I get really bat-scat crazy busy, my mind tends to wander and I start thinking about my next job. No, seriously - I'm defective that way. So during this entire filming schedule over the last two or three months, my mind has been free to figure out what it wants to do next.
Since I announced the temporary (though somewhat permanent) demise of my first novel, I've been gravitating towards two second novels. Now, I'm not going to announce what they're about or anything, but I wanted to let you know that I'll be writing both of them concurrently (or at least until one takes off over the other). I've actually started the note taking process today that will eventually lead to a synopsis (I'm creating characters, basically). I hope to start writing before the end of the year on both.
I've also already been in discussions with Andrew about writing the next film. We're going to try for a shorter turnaround on this next project so that we can film relatively early in June (or right around the time school gets out). But to do that, we need to have a script finished and ready to go around March or April at the latest. The good news is that we already have the gist of the story (Andrew's idea) and some of the characters decided. The bad news is that we haven't really started the writing process just yet and I know we're going to want to improve the script vastly over the script for 12 Step Jedi - so harder work in a shorter amount of time. If it all works out though, this movie might be really really cool.
So, basically, other than noodling around with other projects in my spare time, I'm going back to writing for the foreseeable future.
Unless, of course, God has other plans. But when has He ever had plans for me ;)
Since I announced the temporary (though somewhat permanent) demise of my first novel, I've been gravitating towards two second novels. Now, I'm not going to announce what they're about or anything, but I wanted to let you know that I'll be writing both of them concurrently (or at least until one takes off over the other). I've actually started the note taking process today that will eventually lead to a synopsis (I'm creating characters, basically). I hope to start writing before the end of the year on both.
I've also already been in discussions with Andrew about writing the next film. We're going to try for a shorter turnaround on this next project so that we can film relatively early in June (or right around the time school gets out). But to do that, we need to have a script finished and ready to go around March or April at the latest. The good news is that we already have the gist of the story (Andrew's idea) and some of the characters decided. The bad news is that we haven't really started the writing process just yet and I know we're going to want to improve the script vastly over the script for 12 Step Jedi - so harder work in a shorter amount of time. If it all works out though, this movie might be really really cool.
So, basically, other than noodling around with other projects in my spare time, I'm going back to writing for the foreseeable future.
Unless, of course, God has other plans. But when has He ever had plans for me ;)
Production Diary - Day Nine - Revenge of Harry
Harry Rightcourt is the kind of character that can only be played well by Alec Guinness. In anybody else's hands he comes across as pompous, arrogant, and foolish. Which was particularly good, because that was what we were going for, and there was nobody more pompous, arrogant, or foolish than me to play the part.
Okay, that's not exactly fair. I purposefully did not write a part for myself or with myself in mind because after careful consideration I knew that I would have to be behind the camera most of the time. That kind of time commitment and effort was going to be just too much if I added playing a part as well. Harry forms the light side contrast to Chester's dark side. The subtext of the film is this tug of war between Harry and Chester for the soul of the main character. Chester is the criminal, smuggler, and debonair handsome rogue. Harry is the middle aged family man experiencing a crisis of identity but doing so with a good heart. So, of all the characters that I wrote, I can honestly say that Harry was the one I least wanted to play.
Naturally, that's why I ended up with the part. It's hard acting like the "parent" to a bunch of "children". Most of the time I'm on screen, I'm dispensing advice like some sort of garden variety Confucius. It was a lot of memorization (even after the rewrite) and then I had to somehow bring life to lines like, "The path to one's heart is a lonely journey." Seriously, who writes this stuff?! I do not admit to be a great actor, in fact, I'm not even a particularly good actor. I will say that the thought of getting on screen or in front of an audience doesn't bother me nearly as much as it will bother them. I'm like the guy who gets on American Idol who knows that he can't sing, but does it anyway.
I feel sorry for Andrew having to direct me. I listen to his directions and try to follow them, but its kind of like my brother trying to describe to me how to remove the transmission for my truck over the phone. I seize on the first bit of instruction that makes sense and say, "I can do that." Emphasize this word... gotcha... what was that other part about looking some particular way or saying something with a certain inflection? Not important. I just gotta remember to emphasize this word.
Anyway, somebody with a lot of brain power saved the worst for last and Harry had most of his scenes left to film on the final day of regular shooting. Between Harry and the final pick ups on various lines and reactions, the only other thing we did was look forward to Sunday's final shoot. On Sunday, we have the big Family Day scene that provides the emotional center of the film. Gabriel gets busted for lying and he and Monica break up. But because it takes place on Family Day, we needed a lot of extras, and so, as part bribe and part thank you, we're hosting a barbeque at my church, and wouldn't you know it, as a result there will be a lot of extras there at the barbeque ;) Once this complicated scene (and a mirror one that takes place at the end of the movie, but is much shorter) is finished, the film is more or less wrapped.
More or less because there are two remaining sequences that need to be filmed. One takes place at someone's home and is the source of a lot of interviews of friends of Gabriel. We were short of actors when we started filming and since these parts were small in comparison to the stuff that took place at church, we decided to hold off on casting these parts. I think we've got about half of them cast now and we should be scheduling these scenes for shooting soon. The second set of shots are the ones we're going to do outdoors. The first is the "last" shot of the film - a group photo shot similar to the end of Episode One and Star Wars - that launches the credits. The second is the shot that takes place a few seconds later and reveals the truth that the audience should have realized a long time before (when we practically hit them over the head with it!) And the final sequence is a battle scene that will take place in a park between our Star Wars patients from Shore Leave and a group of Lord of the Rings patients from the nearby rival institute: House of Healing. This sequence will only have a short version in the actual film, but Andrew and I are going to go back and rewrite the longer version for inclusion on the DVD (since we had to cut out so much stuff in order to make it fit the film). We'll need lots of extras for this scene as well, but it should be fun to do.
And then, that'll be it. So we're down to like three filming days left, but only one of which is scheduled. And then post-production begins on Monday night.
I can't wait for Sunday to be over.
Have a good weekend!
Okay, that's not exactly fair. I purposefully did not write a part for myself or with myself in mind because after careful consideration I knew that I would have to be behind the camera most of the time. That kind of time commitment and effort was going to be just too much if I added playing a part as well. Harry forms the light side contrast to Chester's dark side. The subtext of the film is this tug of war between Harry and Chester for the soul of the main character. Chester is the criminal, smuggler, and debonair handsome rogue. Harry is the middle aged family man experiencing a crisis of identity but doing so with a good heart. So, of all the characters that I wrote, I can honestly say that Harry was the one I least wanted to play.
Naturally, that's why I ended up with the part. It's hard acting like the "parent" to a bunch of "children". Most of the time I'm on screen, I'm dispensing advice like some sort of garden variety Confucius. It was a lot of memorization (even after the rewrite) and then I had to somehow bring life to lines like, "The path to one's heart is a lonely journey." Seriously, who writes this stuff?! I do not admit to be a great actor, in fact, I'm not even a particularly good actor. I will say that the thought of getting on screen or in front of an audience doesn't bother me nearly as much as it will bother them. I'm like the guy who gets on American Idol who knows that he can't sing, but does it anyway.
I feel sorry for Andrew having to direct me. I listen to his directions and try to follow them, but its kind of like my brother trying to describe to me how to remove the transmission for my truck over the phone. I seize on the first bit of instruction that makes sense and say, "I can do that." Emphasize this word... gotcha... what was that other part about looking some particular way or saying something with a certain inflection? Not important. I just gotta remember to emphasize this word.
Anyway, somebody with a lot of brain power saved the worst for last and Harry had most of his scenes left to film on the final day of regular shooting. Between Harry and the final pick ups on various lines and reactions, the only other thing we did was look forward to Sunday's final shoot. On Sunday, we have the big Family Day scene that provides the emotional center of the film. Gabriel gets busted for lying and he and Monica break up. But because it takes place on Family Day, we needed a lot of extras, and so, as part bribe and part thank you, we're hosting a barbeque at my church, and wouldn't you know it, as a result there will be a lot of extras there at the barbeque ;) Once this complicated scene (and a mirror one that takes place at the end of the movie, but is much shorter) is finished, the film is more or less wrapped.
More or less because there are two remaining sequences that need to be filmed. One takes place at someone's home and is the source of a lot of interviews of friends of Gabriel. We were short of actors when we started filming and since these parts were small in comparison to the stuff that took place at church, we decided to hold off on casting these parts. I think we've got about half of them cast now and we should be scheduling these scenes for shooting soon. The second set of shots are the ones we're going to do outdoors. The first is the "last" shot of the film - a group photo shot similar to the end of Episode One and Star Wars - that launches the credits. The second is the shot that takes place a few seconds later and reveals the truth that the audience should have realized a long time before (when we practically hit them over the head with it!) And the final sequence is a battle scene that will take place in a park between our Star Wars patients from Shore Leave and a group of Lord of the Rings patients from the nearby rival institute: House of Healing. This sequence will only have a short version in the actual film, but Andrew and I are going to go back and rewrite the longer version for inclusion on the DVD (since we had to cut out so much stuff in order to make it fit the film). We'll need lots of extras for this scene as well, but it should be fun to do.
And then, that'll be it. So we're down to like three filming days left, but only one of which is scheduled. And then post-production begins on Monday night.
I can't wait for Sunday to be over.
Have a good weekend!
Production Diary - Day Eight - The Day We Won't Talk About
There comes a time in every production when you just know that you're going to lose your cool. You can just see it coming and there's nothing you can do about it. We had so much film to do on Day Eight, that the cool-loss was inevitable. But the end result, if that's what we judge things by, was that we got all the stuff we needed to get.
Because of scheduling conflicts this was the only day where we could shoot the Masters of a great many really long shots. For those of you who don't know, the Master shot is the entire scene from beginning to end. So for a complicated scene that might take five minutes, you have to go all the way through it until you get it right. We had five Master shots to do in one night, and that was only about 1/3rd of all the shots we needed on Monday.
But we actually got through those fine. We had pretty much done all the complicated parts of the shots beforehand, so the Masters themselves were more of a longer repeat of the same material. The most we had to do was two takes of a Master before we moved on. Then there was a long series of short shots, people saying a line or two, over and over until we got those right. Where we started to break down, however, was in a scene that was almost entirely physical - the break out scene.
First, it had to be lighted. We did two takes of one part of the scene where our "hero" appears on screen bathed in a red light and looking incredibly sinister. This was fun and delightful, but it was also supposed to be something that only appeared in the imagination. The first part of the scene showed our heroes crossing the empty social hall bathed in moonlight. We accomplished this by the simple expedient of rotating the "moon" to follow them across the hall. But when we got to the last part of the scene, the wheels finally came off.
It was a simple little set up. A fight breaks out between the security guards and the escaping patients. Its a one sided affair as the patients only have toy weapons. The Han Solo character even runs after the guards and chases them around the corner, only to be zapped by tasers. But with the moonlight set up and the dark hallway, some of the scene was lost in shadows. As we'd all been working our butts off up until this point and as this was the most exciting scene of the entire night, after the first take, everyone was pumped. And that was the problem. Take six pumped college kids in a room and let them get excited and you have total chaos. There was good natured swearing and cheering and hijinks going on on one side, while on the other, my entire film crew was telling me not only that we had to reshoot the scene, but that it had to be this particular way or that particular way - none of which had anything to do with the scene I was trying to film. I finally lost my cool.
I don't even remember what I said, but I snapped it out like a drill sergeant. Then I snapped at the actors to be quiet (they were very loud and were yelling un-church-like words). And then I walked away for about ten seconds to collect my thoughts. And that was it. I came back, listened to my film crew, made a decision and we reshot the scene with a slightly different angle on the moonlight and a different posture of the main actors, and the scene came off brilliantly with only minor changes. But I felt bad and very unchristian at that moment.
Though I apologized afterwards, I really had to question my motives for making this film and I had to remind myself that my motto going in was, "If it ain't fun, why are we doing it?" But in the end, it was watching the footage that we had filmed that night that finally did the trick. Maybe there needs to be a certain amount of chaos on any film shoot in order to get good work.
Still, it made me realize one thing... the sooner we're done with this film, the better. The proximity fuse has been lit and its only a matter of time before things really blow up. I'm going to try and get everything done on the next shoot (everything except Sunday's shoot) so that we can have a bunch of days off in a row. A little break would help us all.
Because of scheduling conflicts this was the only day where we could shoot the Masters of a great many really long shots. For those of you who don't know, the Master shot is the entire scene from beginning to end. So for a complicated scene that might take five minutes, you have to go all the way through it until you get it right. We had five Master shots to do in one night, and that was only about 1/3rd of all the shots we needed on Monday.
But we actually got through those fine. We had pretty much done all the complicated parts of the shots beforehand, so the Masters themselves were more of a longer repeat of the same material. The most we had to do was two takes of a Master before we moved on. Then there was a long series of short shots, people saying a line or two, over and over until we got those right. Where we started to break down, however, was in a scene that was almost entirely physical - the break out scene.
First, it had to be lighted. We did two takes of one part of the scene where our "hero" appears on screen bathed in a red light and looking incredibly sinister. This was fun and delightful, but it was also supposed to be something that only appeared in the imagination. The first part of the scene showed our heroes crossing the empty social hall bathed in moonlight. We accomplished this by the simple expedient of rotating the "moon" to follow them across the hall. But when we got to the last part of the scene, the wheels finally came off.
It was a simple little set up. A fight breaks out between the security guards and the escaping patients. Its a one sided affair as the patients only have toy weapons. The Han Solo character even runs after the guards and chases them around the corner, only to be zapped by tasers. But with the moonlight set up and the dark hallway, some of the scene was lost in shadows. As we'd all been working our butts off up until this point and as this was the most exciting scene of the entire night, after the first take, everyone was pumped. And that was the problem. Take six pumped college kids in a room and let them get excited and you have total chaos. There was good natured swearing and cheering and hijinks going on on one side, while on the other, my entire film crew was telling me not only that we had to reshoot the scene, but that it had to be this particular way or that particular way - none of which had anything to do with the scene I was trying to film. I finally lost my cool.
I don't even remember what I said, but I snapped it out like a drill sergeant. Then I snapped at the actors to be quiet (they were very loud and were yelling un-church-like words). And then I walked away for about ten seconds to collect my thoughts. And that was it. I came back, listened to my film crew, made a decision and we reshot the scene with a slightly different angle on the moonlight and a different posture of the main actors, and the scene came off brilliantly with only minor changes. But I felt bad and very unchristian at that moment.
Though I apologized afterwards, I really had to question my motives for making this film and I had to remind myself that my motto going in was, "If it ain't fun, why are we doing it?" But in the end, it was watching the footage that we had filmed that night that finally did the trick. Maybe there needs to be a certain amount of chaos on any film shoot in order to get good work.
Still, it made me realize one thing... the sooner we're done with this film, the better. The proximity fuse has been lit and its only a matter of time before things really blow up. I'm going to try and get everything done on the next shoot (everything except Sunday's shoot) so that we can have a bunch of days off in a row. A little break would help us all.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Production Diary - Day Seven - Bad Picture, Bad Sound, No Reshoots!
It was inevitable that we'd eventually have, well, I wouldn't call it a bad day of filming - but a difficult day nonetheless. When you shoot a big picture, you're bound to run into a day where its too windy or its raining or there's a power outage or something and you just can't work around it. That was Saturday.
The first problem was somewhat anticipated and embraced. I'd decided before I even arrived at my work that I wanted to do some hand-held photography just to add a feeling of documentary realism. There was a scene where it was practically written that way. So, we set up the shot and we went ahead and did it, and it came out really good. Then we went to the other shot at this location and I discovered that the space was too tight to use the tripod successfully, so once again I hand held the shot through its five different takes and it seemed to me very good. Once I got home, however, and ran the tape back I suddenly remembered something from Day Two of the shooting. An internal error in the camera had negated the hand held stabilizing unit inside the camera. This particular stabilizing unit is designed to smooth out the inherent shakiness of hand held shots and is found in most video cameras available. As I've been using a tripod in every shot up until Saturday, I'd forgotten that this problem existed until I saw the footage. It looked great when I was filming it, but the second I played it back I had to question whether I had been having seizures at the time I was filming. Fortunately for the film, the last takes of each shot were less shaky than any other take - so the actors and the film maker happened to be in sync. Still, the shakiness might be a little jarring to the rest of the film.
After the first problem of the day, we headed over to my sister's new personal office and set up shop to film a bunch of interview scenes. The camera went back on the tripod, but, this time, we started discovering sound problems - namely the fact that there were several windows in the office all facing towards a freeway not 250 yards away. The constant buzz of traffic was very loud in my ears no matter which way I faced the camera and the microphone. But there was nothing to be done about it. Any attempt (other than closing the windows, naturally) to block the sound would have resulted in less light and a very dark looking office. So, we just went for it.
Sometimes the challenges in film making are numerous, but the difference in filmed art vs. other forms of art is that you can't always control the environment you are trying to artificially create. And sometimes, rarely, you just have to accept that there can be no reshoots and that you are going to have to go forward with what you have. It sucks, but that's just the way it is.
And so now... the killer Monday. Everyone on board! Everyone on deck! And a huge chunk of the film depending on tonight's outcome. At some point, you just let things come as they may. Tonight will be what tonight will be. Que Sera, Sera... and all that.
It's in God's hands now!
The first problem was somewhat anticipated and embraced. I'd decided before I even arrived at my work that I wanted to do some hand-held photography just to add a feeling of documentary realism. There was a scene where it was practically written that way. So, we set up the shot and we went ahead and did it, and it came out really good. Then we went to the other shot at this location and I discovered that the space was too tight to use the tripod successfully, so once again I hand held the shot through its five different takes and it seemed to me very good. Once I got home, however, and ran the tape back I suddenly remembered something from Day Two of the shooting. An internal error in the camera had negated the hand held stabilizing unit inside the camera. This particular stabilizing unit is designed to smooth out the inherent shakiness of hand held shots and is found in most video cameras available. As I've been using a tripod in every shot up until Saturday, I'd forgotten that this problem existed until I saw the footage. It looked great when I was filming it, but the second I played it back I had to question whether I had been having seizures at the time I was filming. Fortunately for the film, the last takes of each shot were less shaky than any other take - so the actors and the film maker happened to be in sync. Still, the shakiness might be a little jarring to the rest of the film.
After the first problem of the day, we headed over to my sister's new personal office and set up shop to film a bunch of interview scenes. The camera went back on the tripod, but, this time, we started discovering sound problems - namely the fact that there were several windows in the office all facing towards a freeway not 250 yards away. The constant buzz of traffic was very loud in my ears no matter which way I faced the camera and the microphone. But there was nothing to be done about it. Any attempt (other than closing the windows, naturally) to block the sound would have resulted in less light and a very dark looking office. So, we just went for it.
Sometimes the challenges in film making are numerous, but the difference in filmed art vs. other forms of art is that you can't always control the environment you are trying to artificially create. And sometimes, rarely, you just have to accept that there can be no reshoots and that you are going to have to go forward with what you have. It sucks, but that's just the way it is.
And so now... the killer Monday. Everyone on board! Everyone on deck! And a huge chunk of the film depending on tonight's outcome. At some point, you just let things come as they may. Tonight will be what tonight will be. Que Sera, Sera... and all that.
It's in God's hands now!
Friday, August 08, 2008
Production Diary - Day Six - And on the seventh day he... DOH!
And on the seventh day... he grumbled and prepared to shoot more footage. *sigh*
I'm a little tired. I've been out every night this week working on the film. The footage has been spectacular. I went home last night, after filming, and immediately plugged the tape into my camera so that I could watch it (without sound), even though it meant not getting to sleep until One am.
Last night, we had a case of the crazies. Everyone was just a little bit mentally fatigued and it started bringing out the humor, which resulted in some really funny outtakes, but also slowed things down. Still, we managed to get all the shots we needed and ended at our normal time.
The scenes we shot were about half of the night time scenes that take place in the mental facility. So we set up the lights and shot the scenes in "moonlight" with flashlights and all sorts of cool effects. The end result, while maybe not "movie" spectacular, were pretty darn good for such a small budget. And in this case, I think budget has to refer not only to money spent but also time and crew. We didn't have a huge crew nor the time to do anything more elaborate. In fact, although we had three lights, we only used one.
In the first scene, yours truly had to actually do some angst filled acting. And I think I came pretty darn close to nailing the scene. Nobody, of course, is more surprised than myself. When I see what the other actors do, those who have been trained to act, I have no clue as to how they do it. So for me to come into a scene and hold my own... well, I was seriously mystified as to how it happened. Suffice it to say, when the suggestion to do another take came up, I just said, "No, let's move on. You're not going to get anything better out of me."
We shot two of the films multiple endings (you'll see... ;) last night as well as several outtake moments and a few tying up loose ends moments from other day's shoots. After all the shooting we've done this week, we're still only 44% finished with all of the shots we need.
Tomorrow we do our first location shooting away from the church. We're coming to my office here at Yasutomo to film a scene in a locker room (I'm not really sure why this office has a locker room, but I'm not complaining either ;) and then we're going to my sister's new office to shoot some interview scenes that start to fill out the mockumentary aspects of this film. Hopefully, a nice short day of filming followed by a quick retirement to a bar somewhere to celebrate the halfway point of the filming.
And then, on Sunday, I need to make all the preparations for the massive shoot on Monday (the second to last massive filming day!) where we're going to be getting all the master shots and all the scenes with extras in them filmed in one six hour period. Yeah, right! Thematically, we're covering like half the scenes in the movie in one day. But by the end of the night on Monday, the end will definitely be in sight.
So, here is my call out to all who live in the area and might be interested in doing something fun on Monday night... I need extras! You will do nothing more than stand in the background probably. But if you bring a robe, you will appear in at least one scene. And if you bring a white shirt and dark slacks, you might appear in another scene. And if you bring both, you might appear in the same scene twice, in different outfits, and with a fake moustache! So, get in touch, and I'll put you in my film.
Have a great weekend!
I'm a little tired. I've been out every night this week working on the film. The footage has been spectacular. I went home last night, after filming, and immediately plugged the tape into my camera so that I could watch it (without sound), even though it meant not getting to sleep until One am.
Last night, we had a case of the crazies. Everyone was just a little bit mentally fatigued and it started bringing out the humor, which resulted in some really funny outtakes, but also slowed things down. Still, we managed to get all the shots we needed and ended at our normal time.
The scenes we shot were about half of the night time scenes that take place in the mental facility. So we set up the lights and shot the scenes in "moonlight" with flashlights and all sorts of cool effects. The end result, while maybe not "movie" spectacular, were pretty darn good for such a small budget. And in this case, I think budget has to refer not only to money spent but also time and crew. We didn't have a huge crew nor the time to do anything more elaborate. In fact, although we had three lights, we only used one.
In the first scene, yours truly had to actually do some angst filled acting. And I think I came pretty darn close to nailing the scene. Nobody, of course, is more surprised than myself. When I see what the other actors do, those who have been trained to act, I have no clue as to how they do it. So for me to come into a scene and hold my own... well, I was seriously mystified as to how it happened. Suffice it to say, when the suggestion to do another take came up, I just said, "No, let's move on. You're not going to get anything better out of me."
We shot two of the films multiple endings (you'll see... ;) last night as well as several outtake moments and a few tying up loose ends moments from other day's shoots. After all the shooting we've done this week, we're still only 44% finished with all of the shots we need.
Tomorrow we do our first location shooting away from the church. We're coming to my office here at Yasutomo to film a scene in a locker room (I'm not really sure why this office has a locker room, but I'm not complaining either ;) and then we're going to my sister's new office to shoot some interview scenes that start to fill out the mockumentary aspects of this film. Hopefully, a nice short day of filming followed by a quick retirement to a bar somewhere to celebrate the halfway point of the filming.
And then, on Sunday, I need to make all the preparations for the massive shoot on Monday (the second to last massive filming day!) where we're going to be getting all the master shots and all the scenes with extras in them filmed in one six hour period. Yeah, right! Thematically, we're covering like half the scenes in the movie in one day. But by the end of the night on Monday, the end will definitely be in sight.
So, here is my call out to all who live in the area and might be interested in doing something fun on Monday night... I need extras! You will do nothing more than stand in the background probably. But if you bring a robe, you will appear in at least one scene. And if you bring a white shirt and dark slacks, you might appear in another scene. And if you bring both, you might appear in the same scene twice, in different outfits, and with a fake moustache! So, get in touch, and I'll put you in my film.
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Production Diary: Day Five - Coppola's got nothing on me!
I was mildly ribbing one of the actors last night for bringing the wrong wardrobe to the shoot. This after having overcome obstacles like broken cameras, questionable sound recording, etc... This is what it is to be a producer. I told the actor that we'd just reschedule that scene for a later day and squeeze it in to an already tight schedule. (Originally we didn't have three extra days next week, which means that we'd have to be finishing our shooting schedule tomorrow! We're not even at 50% yet!) It reminded me of Francis Ford Coppola's troubles on Apocalypse Now. Of course, I was being facetious, since his shoot took something like two years to complete and he had to deal with typhoons, military coup's, and a lead actor who nearly died of a heart attack. I'll take my car troubles, scheduling conflicts, and wardrobe obstacles any day of the week. But ultimately, its all the same thing - a series of fences to jump on the way to the winner's circle. Its just that the scale changes from one film to the next.
That having been said, last night was absolutely delightful - the kind of film night that makes you think that maybe you've overlooked something because everything is going so smoothly. Not only did we get almost all of our shots done on a busy schedule, but we actually finished early. Either we're getting the hang of this filming thing or we just had an easy night of it.
It probably helped that Andrew and I were having a good time last night hearing some of our favorite bits of dialog come to life on screen. We shot two of the group therapy sequences where we gave Andrew's character his best lines and also where we really amped up the George Lucas "really bad dialog" love scene stuff - I'll save the actual lines for you to see in the film. Needless to say, they're quite awful and, as a result, really hilarious.
But my favorite parts of last night were a bit of physical improvisation. We're finally moving into the area of physical comedy (it's been mostly sitting or angst so far) and we were able to add a bit of that silliness to a couple of scenes. In one scene, we just had a character enter the scene really intensely. And in another, we had one character use another as a shield. It was quite awesome. I'm definitely going to have to rethink some of my comedy writing the next time I do a silly movie to include more physical humor.
The film is getting into its stride now. I ran the camera last night for the first time (and I kind of liked it!) and Tom and my Dad ran the sound (it was his 72nd birthday yesterday, so I owe him big time!) We also added Kurt to our cast as Guido and I think he'll fit right in.
Well, folks, while everyone else enjoys a day off to recuperate, I've got a ton of prep to do for tomorrow and Saturday. I just rented the lights for the shoot tomorrow and Saturday and I still have a BBQ to plan for a week from Sunday. Later I have to not only rehearse my lines for Thursday, but also do two days worth of dailies for viewing on Thursday. Looks like another long night.
That having been said, last night was absolutely delightful - the kind of film night that makes you think that maybe you've overlooked something because everything is going so smoothly. Not only did we get almost all of our shots done on a busy schedule, but we actually finished early. Either we're getting the hang of this filming thing or we just had an easy night of it.
It probably helped that Andrew and I were having a good time last night hearing some of our favorite bits of dialog come to life on screen. We shot two of the group therapy sequences where we gave Andrew's character his best lines and also where we really amped up the George Lucas "really bad dialog" love scene stuff - I'll save the actual lines for you to see in the film. Needless to say, they're quite awful and, as a result, really hilarious.
But my favorite parts of last night were a bit of physical improvisation. We're finally moving into the area of physical comedy (it's been mostly sitting or angst so far) and we were able to add a bit of that silliness to a couple of scenes. In one scene, we just had a character enter the scene really intensely. And in another, we had one character use another as a shield. It was quite awesome. I'm definitely going to have to rethink some of my comedy writing the next time I do a silly movie to include more physical humor.
The film is getting into its stride now. I ran the camera last night for the first time (and I kind of liked it!) and Tom and my Dad ran the sound (it was his 72nd birthday yesterday, so I owe him big time!) We also added Kurt to our cast as Guido and I think he'll fit right in.
Well, folks, while everyone else enjoys a day off to recuperate, I've got a ton of prep to do for tomorrow and Saturday. I just rented the lights for the shoot tomorrow and Saturday and I still have a BBQ to plan for a week from Sunday. Later I have to not only rehearse my lines for Thursday, but also do two days worth of dailies for viewing on Thursday. Looks like another long night.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Production Diary: Day Four - The Mockudrama!
I think that title best describes what is fast becoming a hybrid of a project. It started as a mockumentary, then we added a storyline to this comedy and its now got all the elements of a drama with humor... so, I guess its sort of a mockudrama.
Yesterday was a relatively easy day which is why I managed to get home and be in bed in time for Headlines on the Tonight Show. Still, we worked really hard and continued to have technical difficulties. We had another two new crew members - Guy and Marenie - both from City College and previously in my sound class and cinematography class. Guy ran the camera and Marenie helped me with the sound. We had sound issues on a couple of early scenes, which we straightened out after that, and our camera started making weird noise near the end, so we switched out with Guy's newest version of the same camera. I'm hoping to solve all those problems today, as I'll be behind camera for the first time.
We mostly shot the back story scenes for characters last night - especially the character of Monica (played admirably by Audrey). But we also finally started adding scenes for the two montage sequences later in the film - including a short cameo by my kindergarten bound nephew, Joshua (which was really cute, but might end up on the cutting room floor... we'll see).
The dialog scenes were mostly cute ones so the atmosphere was nice and light all evening, no dramatics. And it allowed us to do some fancy stuff with the camera with my new film makers. Having worked with them in class, I knew them to be the types that wanted to push boundaries. So if you see any cool camera angles and shots in the film, chances are you'll be able to thank them for the footage.
Of course, I'm behind the camera tonight and so, who knows? I may go all Scorsese on them tonight!
I figure after all this shooting, we're still below 25% done. That should change tonight as we get a large chunk of shots out of the way.
See you all tomorrow.
Yesterday was a relatively easy day which is why I managed to get home and be in bed in time for Headlines on the Tonight Show. Still, we worked really hard and continued to have technical difficulties. We had another two new crew members - Guy and Marenie - both from City College and previously in my sound class and cinematography class. Guy ran the camera and Marenie helped me with the sound. We had sound issues on a couple of early scenes, which we straightened out after that, and our camera started making weird noise near the end, so we switched out with Guy's newest version of the same camera. I'm hoping to solve all those problems today, as I'll be behind camera for the first time.
We mostly shot the back story scenes for characters last night - especially the character of Monica (played admirably by Audrey). But we also finally started adding scenes for the two montage sequences later in the film - including a short cameo by my kindergarten bound nephew, Joshua (which was really cute, but might end up on the cutting room floor... we'll see).
The dialog scenes were mostly cute ones so the atmosphere was nice and light all evening, no dramatics. And it allowed us to do some fancy stuff with the camera with my new film makers. Having worked with them in class, I knew them to be the types that wanted to push boundaries. So if you see any cool camera angles and shots in the film, chances are you'll be able to thank them for the footage.
Of course, I'm behind the camera tonight and so, who knows? I may go all Scorsese on them tonight!
I figure after all this shooting, we're still below 25% done. That should change tonight as we get a large chunk of shots out of the way.
See you all tomorrow.
Monday, August 04, 2008
And Now For Something Completely Different...
Um, really, what could I say to make this any better?
'Darth Vader' Spared Jail in Jedi Church Attacks
Source: The Associated Press
Posted: 05/13/08 4:22PM
Filed Under: Weird News
HOLYHEAD, Wales (AP) - A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of a group calling itself the Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday.
Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones - aka Master Jonba Hehol - with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates' Court.
He also whacked Jones' 18-year-old cousin, Michael Jones - known as Master Mormi Hehol - bruising his thigh in the March 25 incident, prosecutors said.
The two cousins and Barney Jones' brother, Daniel, set up the Church of Jediism, Anglesey order, last year. Jedi is the faith followed by some of the central characters in the "Star Wars" films.
The group, which claims about 30 members, says on its Web site that it uses "insight and knowledge" from the films as "a guide to living a better and more worthwhile life."
"We all love the films and what they stand for. Obviously some people are going to laugh about it," the Wales on Sunday newspaper quoted Barney Jones as saying last month. "But a lot of people do take it seriously."
Unfortunately for Hughes, his March attack was recorded on a video camera that the cousins had set up to film themselves in a light saber battle.
"Darth Vader! Jedis!" Hughes shouted as he approached.
Hughes claimed he couldn't remember the incident, having drunk the better part of a 2 1/2-gallon (10-liter) box of wine beforehand.
"He knows his behavior was wrong and didn't want it to happen but he has no recollection of it," said Hughes' lawyer, Frances Jones.
District Judge Andrew Shaw sentenced Hughes to two months in jail but suspended the sentence for one year. He also ordered Hughes to pay $195 to each of his victims and $117 in court costs.
In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 - 0.7 percent of the population - listed Jedi as their religion.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Production Diary: Day Three
Warning: The following content may be total jibberish. Lack of mental activity will be to blame.
Previously, we have shot 9 total shots (with multiple takes of each) and have actually completed no scenes.
Last night, we were striving for 18 total shots and five completed scenes. I know we dropped one scene and, at least, three shots from the list before the night was done, but I think you can see that we had to step it up a notch over our previous efforts.
So, Day Three for me began on Tuesday as I broke down the list of shots and determined all of the actors and props and decorations that we needed. We actually had to create a bedroom set inside my church and decorate it, as well as put up our normal decorations for the main room. This required designing and printing a seven foot long banner (I may hang it in my office when I'm done with it! It looks awesome!), buying a wig, a stash of moustaches, rewriting three Star Wars opening crawls, finding a key card, digging my roll-away bed out of the closet, and many other assorted errands that took me all of Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday to get done.
On Thursday, I stopped by Costco for pizzas on my way to the church, then spent the first thirty minutes or so just unloading my car (robes, equipment, bed, etc... I looked like a guy that had just been kicked out of his apartment). We had quite a crowd last night for a very few number of scenes, but I used every single person.
As people ate pizza I began setting up the music room as a bedroom. Then I removed the couch from the music room to put it in the main room and began placing equipment where it needed to go. I had added two crew members since the week before, Tom and Katy, both from City College and both extremely helpful last night as I had Tom take on a role in the movie and as I had to take the role of Harry, that meant one less crew member.
We started with Scene 2 - our introduction to the main characters and the establishing shot for the entire facility. In the scene, our hero enters the room, walks across the room while everyone looks on, and then does something that firmly establishes him as being bat squat insane. All in one take. Of course, we were missing one of the key actors in the scene, so we started by doing a bunch of cut scenes, close ups, etc... while we waited for this actor to arrive. Finally, not being able to wait any longer, we moved on to the bedroom scenes.
There are three main bedroom scenes (five total, but one is a night scene - to be shot next week - and the other takes place in a doorway) and I didn't want to haul my bed back and forth to church more than once. So we were going to film all three scenes if we had to start a Coffee IV and stay until four am. Unfortunately, I was in two of those scenes.
Um, though I'd been working on the film straight since Tuesday, I hadn't actually opened the script to read my lines or anything. I wasn't concerned because, having written it, I was pretty familiar with the character and the sort of dialog he had. What I didn't count on was the fact that my brain had disengaged around 4:30 that afternoon. It took me about an hour to scrape through the first scene with many embarrassing retakes as a line of dialog that I had just said fifteen times before would suddenly hide somewhere in my brain behind the nudie mags and rocks. Anyway, we got through my first scene (only later did I realize that it was the first actually completed scene in the entire film) and we moved on to a much easier second scene that only took four takes. Finally, I was done with acting and could change hats again.
That was when our luck started running out. The last bedroom scene took nearly 9 takes and with our best actors because just when the plane stopped interrupting the sound, the cell phone vibrated, and then the fire engine went by and then the janitor turned on her radio and then... well, you get the idea. Anyway, we spent way too much time in the bedroom - but when we were done, we had three scenes finished.
Finally, our actor had arrived and we were able to get the master establishing shot that we needed (only four takes) and the last close ups. And that was when I called it a night. We were all exhausted from the filming.
I'm not quite sure why its such exhausting work. Perhaps there's a level of focus I'm not used to in my normal job, or its the combination of coordination and artistry and technical wizardry that is so taxing. Whatever the reason, I always come home with a body that feels like its been through a marathon and a mind that's racing like its been dosed with LSD and sleep is difficult. Of course, I have to go to work the next day and its always a bear, but I simply must endure.
Next week, I have shooting days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so I should be just about ready to kill someone by Saturday night. That might require a mandatory "Director's" meeting at Joxer Daly's pub in San Francisco after the shoot ;)
Until then, I've got three days to get it all organized before I'm right back in it.
Have a good weekend!
Previously, we have shot 9 total shots (with multiple takes of each) and have actually completed no scenes.
Last night, we were striving for 18 total shots and five completed scenes. I know we dropped one scene and, at least, three shots from the list before the night was done, but I think you can see that we had to step it up a notch over our previous efforts.
So, Day Three for me began on Tuesday as I broke down the list of shots and determined all of the actors and props and decorations that we needed. We actually had to create a bedroom set inside my church and decorate it, as well as put up our normal decorations for the main room. This required designing and printing a seven foot long banner (I may hang it in my office when I'm done with it! It looks awesome!), buying a wig, a stash of moustaches, rewriting three Star Wars opening crawls, finding a key card, digging my roll-away bed out of the closet, and many other assorted errands that took me all of Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday to get done.
On Thursday, I stopped by Costco for pizzas on my way to the church, then spent the first thirty minutes or so just unloading my car (robes, equipment, bed, etc... I looked like a guy that had just been kicked out of his apartment). We had quite a crowd last night for a very few number of scenes, but I used every single person.
As people ate pizza I began setting up the music room as a bedroom. Then I removed the couch from the music room to put it in the main room and began placing equipment where it needed to go. I had added two crew members since the week before, Tom and Katy, both from City College and both extremely helpful last night as I had Tom take on a role in the movie and as I had to take the role of Harry, that meant one less crew member.
We started with Scene 2 - our introduction to the main characters and the establishing shot for the entire facility. In the scene, our hero enters the room, walks across the room while everyone looks on, and then does something that firmly establishes him as being bat squat insane. All in one take. Of course, we were missing one of the key actors in the scene, so we started by doing a bunch of cut scenes, close ups, etc... while we waited for this actor to arrive. Finally, not being able to wait any longer, we moved on to the bedroom scenes.
There are three main bedroom scenes (five total, but one is a night scene - to be shot next week - and the other takes place in a doorway) and I didn't want to haul my bed back and forth to church more than once. So we were going to film all three scenes if we had to start a Coffee IV and stay until four am. Unfortunately, I was in two of those scenes.
Um, though I'd been working on the film straight since Tuesday, I hadn't actually opened the script to read my lines or anything. I wasn't concerned because, having written it, I was pretty familiar with the character and the sort of dialog he had. What I didn't count on was the fact that my brain had disengaged around 4:30 that afternoon. It took me about an hour to scrape through the first scene with many embarrassing retakes as a line of dialog that I had just said fifteen times before would suddenly hide somewhere in my brain behind the nudie mags and rocks. Anyway, we got through my first scene (only later did I realize that it was the first actually completed scene in the entire film) and we moved on to a much easier second scene that only took four takes. Finally, I was done with acting and could change hats again.
That was when our luck started running out. The last bedroom scene took nearly 9 takes and with our best actors because just when the plane stopped interrupting the sound, the cell phone vibrated, and then the fire engine went by and then the janitor turned on her radio and then... well, you get the idea. Anyway, we spent way too much time in the bedroom - but when we were done, we had three scenes finished.
Finally, our actor had arrived and we were able to get the master establishing shot that we needed (only four takes) and the last close ups. And that was when I called it a night. We were all exhausted from the filming.
I'm not quite sure why its such exhausting work. Perhaps there's a level of focus I'm not used to in my normal job, or its the combination of coordination and artistry and technical wizardry that is so taxing. Whatever the reason, I always come home with a body that feels like its been through a marathon and a mind that's racing like its been dosed with LSD and sleep is difficult. Of course, I have to go to work the next day and its always a bear, but I simply must endure.
Next week, I have shooting days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so I should be just about ready to kill someone by Saturday night. That might require a mandatory "Director's" meeting at Joxer Daly's pub in San Francisco after the shoot ;)
Until then, I've got three days to get it all organized before I'm right back in it.
Have a good weekend!
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