Rejoice fellow citizens of the world for Thanksgiving is almost upon us and there is much to be thankful for.
To start with, tonight is the annual showing of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. The only thing I can really think of with regards to this particular special is the scene where Charlie Brown thinks he's going to finally kick that football, only to have Lucy yank it away at the last second. How much is that like real life? What are the footballs in your life that you're always trying to kick? For me, lately, its been my diet. Just when I think that ball is finally in my sights... yank, AUUUUGGGGHHHHHH! Thud! I go boom. Put in that context, human failure is actually humorous, especially in light of the fact that WE ALWAYS THINK WE'RE GOING TO KICK IT and we always end up flat on our backs. So keep that in mind these holidays when you can look around at a nation flat on its back because we all thought for sure that that football was going to stay in one place this time and we were finally going to kick it.
Tonight I'm also putting some of the final touches on my summer film. I'll be adding the credits which somehow can't possibly convey my depth of gratitude to all who participated in this project. My one hope is that all who participated had a good time doing so. Beyond that, I just hope they enjoy the final film.
But as for me, I'll be spending a lot of time (scene 4,6,7,9,12,14,17,25,and 28) getting popcorn during the premiere. Its not because those particular scenes aren't good - in most cases, they're fantastic - its more because I'll be on screen during those scenes. I'm not one of those actors who doesn't like to see himself act. On the contrary, my ego is very healthy. Its more the fact that my character is, at best, a pompous a$$, and at worst, dull as dog poop. Sometime between the concept and the creation, Harry turned out to be one of the worst character's I've ever had the displeasure of being associated with. Now, I'm not the greatest actor, but Lionel Barrymore would have turned down this roll.
So, it was with some pleasure that I realized that there were a few story problems during the final edit that could only be fixed by filming some additional material. I, naturally, assigned this new material to Harry so that I could have a chance to redeem his character and make him somewhat palatable on the screen. I wrote the scene, showed it to the director, took notes on how to best do the performance, and then filmed it. I had great anticipation of seeing the final product because I had really done my best to make the scene sell as a funny scene. Oh... it was funny all right.
Apparently, I somehow managed to transform Harry from a stick in the mud boring Jedi into a cross between Denethor (from LOTR, played excellently by John Noble) and Liberace. For a scene that I wrote and performed, I was shocked at the way it finally came out. I almost didn't recognize my own performance as the in the closet Pink Jedi. And I seriously contemplated reshooting the entire scene until I realized that it made me laugh - oh how it made me laugh. Unintentionally I had made Harry's scene the silliest thing in the entire movie. Sure, it doesn't match any other Harry scene in the film, but it was so over the top that it kind of balances him out (like Gollum's two-face scene kind of balances out all the scenes where he's just obnoxious). So Liberace Harry survives in the final film and I have, once and for all, completely assassinated this character never to be resurrected again.
Yes, there are many things to be thankful for. So keep up the good spirits, fight the winter and holiday blues, and come back again tomorrow when I compare and contrast Bond and Batman (who's going to die this week - or so I heard).
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