Backblog #2: A Little Piece of Heaven

Last time I went home, one of the key activities planned was the filming of a "test of concept" for Elysium. Basically, my friend and I were going to try and film a scene from our affore-mentioned feature script.

The challenge in this seemed somewhat daunting. I was going to breeze into town for a week, girfriend in tow. My friend and I were going to produce and shoot the whole thing in a few days, and I was going to breeze out again, raw tape stock in my clammy, film geek hands. All of this in the little hamlet of Bemidji, a rural town not exactly known for its production resources. The biggest challenge we faced: production sound. Who in town has a boom mic? Just behind that: lighting equipment.

A few days in to my trip, we sat down to tackle these issues. We first decided what scene would be feasable yet interesting to shoot. It take place indoors, as the film takes place during the winter and this was mid-june. We finally decided on a brief, talky scene in the first act. At this point, all of the other seemingly daunting tasks fell right into place. Between the two of us, our connections were sufficient to wrangle camera, sound, lighting, actors, location and crew with surprising ease. Two hours later, we had the whole thing locked down. I was amazed.

The shoot went equally smoothly. It was just great to get behind the camera again, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to be there with me. My GF settled into the position of script supervisor, which was especially handy, and my folks acted as runners and grips, which was a hoot to see.

In the end, we were able to shoot a great little night-for-day indoor scene in about four hours for less than $20. If that sort of efficiency could be scaled up to fit the rest of the film, I'd be able to shoot the whole feature for a thousand bucks. Unfortunately, flipping cars and exterior night scenes will probably work against me in that regard.

As for the final product, I can genuinely say that I'm very happy with it. The editor and I were chuckling as we went over the final cut together, and I knew we'd nailed the tone of the piece. It got laughs in all the right places at a recent SOSO Collective screening. Laughs! Out loud! I couldn't have been prouder.

So, without further delay ladies and gentleman, I give you Elysium: The Screen Test!

My "easy" day.

I'm sorry about infrequent postings. I've been working. Alot.

I've been compositing at an effects house that specializes in music videos, and the production schedule is hectic. I no longer take my weekends for granted, as I often have to work at least one day of the two, on average.

This is not to complain or make excuses, but rather, to explain why getting off of work early can be is such an exciting thing to me. Thus, when my employer sent me home at four the other day, because there were simply no more shots to labor over, I was filled with a sense of hope and glee.

I went to the sunset strip. I'd been looking for a Keeley Compressor for my guitar rig, and I thought one of the shops might have it. No luck. I browse a while and begin walking to my car...

...Which is when all hell breaks loose. My phone rings. I answer. My supervisor at work wonders where the hell I've gone and if I could come back. I explain that I was let go for lack of work by HIS boss, but that I'd be willing to return. My heart sinks. Supervisor checks... tells me my early day is legit. I am relieved for a second, but as I hang up my phone and look over at my car, my stomach drops. The 2001 blue Corolla I recognize as my own is sandwiched between two white Hollywood parking enforcement vehicles. One is a tow truck, which explains why my car's front end is rising slowly into the air.

I run across the street and plead with the cop for a break. I'm here. Give me the fine, okay, but don't tow my car. To no avail, however. I suppose I'm lucky they offer to give me a ride in the tow truck to the impound place. How humiliating.

The damage, all told? $200. Lovely. A half hour later, I'm heading over to TrueTone in Santa Monica, hoping to get lucky on the Compressor pedal. It's a long drive, made longer by the beginning rush hour.

The guys at TrueTone are nice enough. They give me a few pedals for comparison. And sit me right in the middle of the store to try them out. Now, this bugs me. A little secret I'm gonna let you in on here is that I'm very insecure about my guitar playing skills. I'm a singer/songwriter. I only really play well enough to operate in conjunction with the other two. I'm a strummy, rhythm kinda guy, and I'm well aware that every one of the jaded sales staff and customers can play circles around me. It only makes me more nervous as the sales guy keeps giving me cheaper pedals to try. As I sit there hacking away at the strings, all I can think is "he doesn't think I'm worthy of a nice pedal like that." I'm sure he was just being helpful, but what can I say? I'm paranoid and fragile. Hold me.

So I buy the Keeley, because it's what I wanted in the first place. It sounds great. I head home, again fighting rush hour traffic, and decide to take surface streets to save some time. I get lost instead.

I finally roll in to my apartment at 8:30, exhausted. I have to cancel a dinner with some friends just because the thought of driving any more makes me ill.

Thus my easy day ends with a few hours of DVDs and some time on the computer working on my band's record. Not a bad way to finish it off, but not at all the break I'd been hoping for. Oh well. Wake me in November.

Kelly

This is why she is on my "free pass" list.

Oh Hell Yes!

Take the quiz:
What Star Wars Character Are You?

Wedge Antilles
You are the most famous fighter pilot around

Backblog #1: Fishing in Bemidji, MN

Some important stuff has happened in the last few months or so that I thought I should comment on, so I'm going to take some time and cover my blogging backlog a bit in the next few days, time and memory permitting.

My first makeup entry has to be about my trip home to Bemidji, MN.  About a month ago, Liz (G.F.) and I flew up to the great white North for a week long trip.

The nice thing about summer in the great white north is that it's actually not white at all.  It is in fact green as can be, with blue lakes and bluer skies.

And bugs.

But overall, a paradise to be sure.  We were fortunate to have great fishing weather and took advantage of it on two occasions (both within the bounds of Liz and my 24 hour licenses).

The first trip out proved to be a bit of a debacle, as we ended up spending an hour trying to start the boat motor to no avail. Much to my father's dismay and embarassment, we were eventually forced to row out a short bit from the landing in an attempt to salvage the evening. In spite of our makeshift fishing location, however, I managed to catch a rather large walleye. Dad caught another, though smaller, walleye as well. We ate both the following night.

We went out to the same lake the second evening with a newly serviced motor (oily gas was the culprit) and were able to travel out to what has always been a decent spot. There, Liz hooked what we assume must have been a northern pike, because it snapped her line clean up at the reel after an intense fight. Later, my dad caught a rather large northern after a similar battle, further cementing our theory. The northern was released, as he was too big to be pickled well and would be of more use to the lake's ecosystem than he would be to us. (Big predators prevent the lake from being choked out by tiny, inedible fish.) There were many bullheads caught on both outings as well, but those were thrown back as they taste like dirt, bottom feeders that they are.

Fishing was never a great interest of mine as a kid growing up in Minnesota. Though the grubbiness of the activity never bothered me (unlike Liz, who refused to touch a leech to bate her hook.) I would usually get bored almost immediately upon settling into the quietude of the rural evening.

However, and I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere in the six years since I've moved to Los Angeles, I have grown to love fishing. I love the relaxation, the rural air, the sound and smell of nature. I love the idle conversation with my dad, which often climbs into higher philosophical subjects, as our conversations always have. I love that all of this is interspersed with the hopeful promise of the catch, the momentary thrill of a fish pulling down your bobber, the strategy of setting the hook, and the eventual battle against an alien, and most primitive of creatures.

It is a dialectic of the crude and the beautiful, of the physical and introspective. And, though I still for the life of me can't remember how to tie a hook no matter how many times I'm taught, I look forward to my annual fishing excursions almost immediately upon returning to LA every year.

Next in the Backblog: A little piece of heaven...

PEARL JAM

You know, I was never one of the folks who thought that they fell off. The only records I have are Yield and Binaural, both of which are excellent and both of which are fairly recent. Sure, they went their own way, and that meant sliding off of MTV and pop radio a bit, but if you know me you know I hate commercial radio anyway.

I had no idea how amazing they are, though, until I saw two shows this week. One was the Sunday performance at the forum, and the other was the KROQ contest show at the tiny Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood. And let me just say... HOLY SHIT.

BOTH shows were magical.

What makes it so amazing? Rabid fans who know every lyric and are singing in unison at the top of their lungs is one part of it. Great songs well played is another. The energy on stage though... not campy, and not an act. Honest rock and roll energy in the tradition of Springsteen. Sets that go on for ever. Long, multiple encores. Eddie pouring his wine into people's glasses, like rock and roll salvation.

I now understand where the fans get their obsession... what drives them to travel with the band from city to city, singing along the whole time. And I can honestly say that I will see them every chance I get from now on. They have vaulted from a band I really like to one of my all-time favorites. I am a fan for life. Well done, guys.

Of course, the person who really gets the most credit is Liz, my awesome GF who bought tickets for the stadium show and listened to KROQ for three days (without vomiting!) to win the theater tickets. I'm a lucky guy to be in a relationship that constantly helps me grow in ways I don't expect. Now if I can just get her to love CRACKER, we'll be set.

The Conundrum of the Blog

I've noticed an inherent flaw in my blogging habits.  It is a grand paradox:  I get my best blogging inspiration when I'm incredibly busy with cool shit, which is exactly when I don't have the time to write in a fucking blog.  Goddamn it.

A new effort must be made, however.  While getting wonderfully lit up on leftover booze and pop at a pal's house tonight, I received a request for more entries. So here I am. Half way drunk, and pondering my blogospherical existence. I hope he's happy.

The irony here is that he and I live a minute's walk away, but mutual busy schedules keep us from taking advantage of the proximity.  Thus forcing internet correspondence.

And yet, the same over-loaded life keeps me from blogging as well.  Oh cruel gods of space, time, and internet.  Why do you taunt me so?!

Thanks to said friend for a grand evening of film nerdity and camera-borrowing. You know who you are, and you know we should do that more often.

Frozen Over

Yesterday I woke up sicker than I've been in a long time.  This didn't come as a terrible surprise.  I'd been subsisting on Nyquil, and Dayquil, and all of the other ___quils you can think of for the better part of a week, so a terrible peak was somewhat inevitable, if not a little disappointing.

You see, it faked me out.  Sunday went really well, and I thought I'd kicked it.  Monday was okay too.  Tuesday night, though?  That fucker came back with a vengeance.  A vengeance.  Poor Liz was over that night and I guess she hardly slept.  All I (barely) remember was a miserable, fever-wrought eight hour coughing spell.  I think I got the better deal.

So I called in sick yesterday and took time to recuperate.  In my world, that means work... but the fun kind of work.  Screenwriting work.

Thus, in the early-mid-noonish hours (I was too strung out on nasty to watch the clock) editing hell finally froze over.  The script was completed.  At least the first draft was.

So now it's out there, and I'm once again left with the strange anti-climax of completion.  On to the next thing, I suppose, while I wait to hear from all of my most trusted friends whether this project is as F-ing sweet as I think it is.  The suspense is killing me.

Two reviews are already in, though.  You'll be happy to hear that our parents really like it. Now that's a demographic you can take straight to the fucking bank.

Editing Hell

I recently finished a screenplay with my friend/writing partner.  It is a script we've been working on for months with ecstatic exuberance, convinced that we have birthed some of the greatest, most hard-core noir fiction ever known to humanity.

...But it has yet to see the light of day.

The script is in "editing hell."  Upon completion, we sat back and looked at the mess of various formatting styles and continuity inconsistencies it had become and decided that it must be revised before it is revealed to fresh eyes.  My friend volunteered to take on this task initially, then passing it off to me for a second go, to which I agreed.

So my pal set to work.  Meanwhile, confronted with the absence of a project to obsess over and with my girlfriend out of town, I proceeded to explode all over my apartment the following weekend in a pajama-clad bender of internet porn, modernist cinema, and web surfing.  A new obsession rapidly expanded to fill the void... my band's new recording project.  No A/D converter was too expensive to research.  No build-it-yourself tube mic pre too obscure.  No microphone manufacturer too self-righteous.  I stayed up until the early morning hours.  I was a sick, sick man.

The next week, I began the arduous, slightly annoying process of riding my friend about the editing.  When would he be done?  I wanted my turn.  I would not be denied.  Finally, this very week, my nags were met with a brilliant play: I was given the script and told to edit fifty scenes while my writing partner finished the last bit.

It was a brilliant move.  My bluff was called, and with my energies now bent with furious intensity toward the weekend's inevitable recording session, I was helpless to answer.

And so here I sit, writing in this infernal blog rather than editing.  My excuse is that I somehow feel no guilt about killing rendering time at work with useless tasks (as opposed to personal goals), but I know there is more to it than that.  My friend likely knows as well.

It is fear that keeps us from editing.  Fear of failure.  Fear of completion.  Fear that our illusions will be shattered and we will suddenly realize that this script isn't as good as we've led ourselves to believe. I'm especially guilty of holding my creations back when I start to feel like they're not what I want them to be.  We all create our own prisons, and this is mine.

But like all of our prisons, it is only an illusion. Editing can only make the script better. As can showing others and getting feedback. So I solemnly vow at this moment to edit this weekend, if for only a few hours. This script WILL be completed within the month.

And if no one likes it, then they can all go to hell.

Side Projects

I'm writing a cool song today!

I often wonder how other people write songs.  Me, I write them in my car.  Or in the shower.  Mostly in my car, as I shower with embarrassing rarity.

In contrast, I drive all the time since I live in LA.

I don't really know what it's about.  I think it's gonna be called "side projects" because it started on the way to a gig when I came up with the line "all my side projects have side projects...".  It's a reference to the way I fill my time with infinite creative persuits.  The song goes on from there. "All my good days have bad times." Etc. Cheery, I know.

I'd show the full lyrics here, but rock lyrics always read as being either trite, or silly, or both.  It's in the gestalt, you know?  They require melody and kickass guitars to make sense.

What I came up with this morning was the chorus, which was an independant idea on it's own.  Then I thought, "hey, I'm writing a song that doesn't have a chorus yet." So I slapped them together in my head and it worked. In my head. Haven't played it on guitar yet in any serious way.

I like putting independent bits together in my songs. I think it keeps them from being formulaic, though I'm currently leaning on a crutch of country/rock twang that I'd like to shake. It's a good system though, and often it only takes a good drive with the radio off to find something that feels right. Or a shower.

But who has the time for that?

Does Grandpa watch me Masturbate?

Here's a disturbing mental toy to play with:

Many folks (myself included) often console themselves, in the event that a significantly loved person should pass from this world, with the thought that said person "watches over" them after death.  I know, maybe it's silly, but it can be comforting in dark times to think that those who leave us (who are, as I like to call it "DEAD") are out in the vast beyond looking over our foolish little lives and smiling warmly.

This is all fine and good, until you want a little privacy.

We all do things we're not proud of.  You know, I do things I'm not proud of. I play rock and roll, after all.  It is at these times I wish the dear departed would just but the hell out.  The thought of great grandma Nelson looking over my shoulder at the porn I'm watching or the pre-marital sex I'm having is just plain disturbing.

What is there to do, though?  We all pay a price for our superstitions.  I pay mine in guilt and really unsettling mental images. 

A new look.

It's been over a month since my first post, and as I prophesized in said post, I have done nothing with my blog since... until now!

BEHOLD:  a new visual theme!  It's not flaming cowboy hats and skulls, but it's a damn fine look none the less.

Perhaps now that my latest screenplay has hit full rough draft status, I will begin to update this here blog a little more frequently.  Perhaps not.  Don't get your hopes up, though.

And who knows?  The flaming cowboy hats may yet appear...

So, this is new.

I'm starting a blog. I'm starting a blog and, like most of my endeavors, I imagine that it will become lame and half-assed due to my tendency to put too many irons in the fire. Enjoy, America, enjoy.