Sick :/

Sorry I haven't been up and about in far too long.

Post summer madness, I jumped onto another feature.  Yay, more work, right?

I promptly jumped right back off after the most severe case of the flu I've had since I was a child.  Two weeks later, and the view of a real meal is still making my stomach leap around like a gymnast with Tourettes. Ugh.

Filling time when you're that sick becomes it's own challenge - the lack of focus makes writing or drawing darned near impossible. I tried anyway - the results were promptly deleted.  I orally expelled more interesting things than what came out of the fried brain pan.

So I surfed the web.  Read some Hugo winning short stories - oh my. Science Fiction has come far.  The past years winners were lyrical, engaging, heart - wrenching character based works that leave you with that fuzzy headed 'WOW' at the conclusion.

Lest you think I'm over focused on work:

http://accidentalpenis.com/

Because life is no fun without a childish giggle here and there.

Happy October!

Finally have the time to get back to writing.  Oy.

In order to keep this from being boringly short, I'm going to share an older anecdote:

I had been spending the night at a friend's house; up late, chatting, the usual.  She wants to show me something.
Sure.

A few moments later, she puts this small, whitish, egg shaped item in my hand.  Looks a lot like a candied almond.  I'm holding it, trying to figure out if I should eat it, try to guess what it is, etc.

After a few more moments she told me what it was.

'It's my gall stone."

GAH. I almost ate someone else's gall stone.

She keeps it in a small cardboard jewelry box as a memento.  In the cotton batting.

I almost ate it.

I'm not quite sure what that says about either of us, but there you go.

Freedom! And other things.

Gorgeous, isn't it?

That's a project from my friend Eric Thomas - sometimes the simple things are the most inspiring.


In my universe (because I'm a self centered creature, and this is my blog, so there):


Finished working on a season finale of a reality t.v. show.

Beta reading this AMAZING steampunk flavored mystery from a friend across the pond.

Planning and plotting some directions for a super secret project that I can't talk about just yet.

Rearranging some scenery in the novella.

Debating the purchase of some new toys for my shooting kit.

I have to finish up and send off some one sheets this week.  For those who don't know, a one-sheet is a 250 word (approximately) outline of a feature length film.  I tend toward being long winded (if it weren't obvious) and struggle at making one-sheets read like anything more interesting than stereo instructions.

Granted, they don't have to be.  This isn't a logline, pitch, etc.  After a pitch, a producer will often ask to see a one sheet, just to make sure the storyline elements are in place.  That way, they don't read 100 pages of screenplay only to find out you've fumbled toward the end, or don't have an ending at all.

But it doesn't hurt to make the damn thing less painful to read.  Ugh.

Celtic Thunder and crazy naked man

Finished that Celtic Thunder tech through and DVD shoot, and developed a dead-on Dublin brogue while doing it.  For whatever reason, if I'm working 12+ hours a day with people who have an accent different than mine, I end up talking like someone (someplace?) else.

I am now slowly working the word 'mine' back into my vocabulary, and filing away useful bits of slang in case I ever have need of them again.

The hours were bollocks (bad), but the crew to a man was the dog's bollocks (completely fantastic).  I guess this equates to the US difference between 'shit' and 'the shit'.  Interesting, how the entire connotation of a word can go from such a negative to a positive with just a little modifier!

I have some scene rearranging and thinking to do about the novella, and glad to have a little time to get back to it. I would like to publish again before I'm 80...


So the other interesting part of my week...the crazy naked man.

Originally, this fellow contacted me to do a charcoal drawing for a poster - a poster for some avant guarde theater performance where he's naked and tied up.  That bit doesn't really bother me - I have performer friends who stick fish hooks in their eye sockets, or get branded and suspended from piercings on stage.  (Not everyone's cup of tea, but I've seen some interesting things.)

This dude, however, managed to creep the hell out of me.  How?

He FaceBook requested me, supposedly to talk about poses.  The conversation quickly degenerated into things like 'will you enjoy tying me up' (no, it will be part of the job and you wouldn't actually be tied up - this is a drawing) to 'bring your friends and they can eat sushi off of my naked body' (ewwww - can we say sanitary issues, much?).   Around the time that he offered to 'let me make more money' by 'having my friends take him to clean their homes naked while his clothes stay at my place'  I told him that I'm an artist, not a dominatrix, and he really needs to find a professional to fulfill his needs.

Yeah.  Creeped.  I can't even make this stuff up.  There's a huge difference between commissioning a drawing and getting your jollies off, and I draw.  Gack.  Hack. Spew.

I hope you are as befuddled as I am, and at least twice as amused.  I need some mental floss.

Bad Blogger, no biscuit!

Hello, patient friends and readers!

I've been a bad, bad blogger this summer - two posts in three months? For shame!

I do have reasons, the gossip of which I'll share with you now.

I was working on movies and Rock n Roll.

Two movies, in fact.

One of them was called Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, shot in upstate New York, and starring Katherine Kaneer and Jane Fonda.  Mz. Kaneer is marvelous, I look forward to both working with her again, and seeing her performances.

Another is called Summer Child, starring no one in particular, and also shot in upstate NY.

I also worked the Bethel Woods summer concert season - always a great time with fabulous crew and some great acts.  (Special kudos to the country group who came in with a longhorn - skull shaped mirror ball bigger than my car!)

Of my remaining few hours, I greedily slept them away rather than keeping you folks updated - I apologize for the brevity, and can't guarantee it won't happen again at some point.

By the end of the coming week, I will have worked ever Celtic tour currently sweeping the countryside.  Somewhere in there, I will post my project for filmmakeriq.com's NOIR contest.

It'll be awesome, and you should totally enter:

http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/07/filmmakeriq-com-film-noir-video-contest/

I can almost guarantee your project will be better than mine!

My Emily - The Screener!

One of the shorts that I shot over the past few months is now making it's festival rounds!

My Emily:

http://vimeo.com/13214211


Still working on a different feature, writing while I can, and picking up some EPK/junkets work for a few bands here and there.  I've been trying to write in the little holes of time, only to end up with QWERTY stamped across my face.

At least there will be lots more video flavored goodness from the Digital DP!

Life update

Working on another movie, so posts will be few and far between for a while.  Happy 4th, American friends!