Preproduction Postproduction And Brain Damage

I spent this last weekend masquerading as a filmmaker again, sort of. I was (officially) the behind-the-scenes videographer for my friend's production "We The Infallable." Mike Lawrence, my director buddy, who is also attending Columbia College, had to shoot his production 1 final. Unlike most projects that I have been a part of, or have heard about, Mike has run an incredibly tight ship, and has reinvigorated my faith in the world of Filmmaking.

That's not to say that the shoot was anything short of exhausting. We had a 17 hour day on friday finishing up preproduction. This involved a lot of moving tables and furniture and props around, and a whole lot of not actually being a "behind-the-scenes videographer" and a lot more of being a gopher and a peon. Saturday and sunday was the official production days.

He had organized a full cast and a full crew to shoot this short short. Being able to work on a semi-professional set, even as the annoying kid with the videocamera asking questions and taking notes, was quite an experience. It made me realize a lot of what I was missing in my filmmaking experience at LCC. It also made me realize that I am extremely happy being a writer. Being a director is a scary thing. Too much work, too much coordinating, especially if your producer is only marginally producing.

The general gist of We The Infallable is that the Devil is throwing a dinner party, and has invited six guests to break bread and sup with him. An Oil Tycoon, a Priest, a Politician, a Lawyer, a Young Millionare, and a Pornographer. At the real Last Supper Jesus said to his followers that "one of you will betray me." In "We The Infallable" the devil says to each of his honored guests that "everyone here will betray you." It's done in a very Kabuki style. Everything is very archetypical and very exaggerated but not parodied.

Mike kept talking about how he is excited about rattling chains with this story, and about making all these interesting and angering points. It occured to me on Sunday that what he is actually doing here is more Christian and more of a parable than what he thinks. He's created a very quintessential scene with very archetypical characters that we can understand and that we define as evil or as sinful and detrimental to society, and he has painted a picture using stories that we can understand and symbols that we can understand in order to make a point. I thought that was pretty interesting.

On Friday I pitched him my concept for this short story involving my diner world called "Interlude." He fell in love with it, and has optioned it to shoot next winter. Now that we are done with "We The Infallable" we are already entering preproduction for "Interlude." It occured to me today that I've done more "real" film work now than I ever did as a film major. We're aiming to shoot next winter.

I sent him an email with a bunch of attachments, covering the Interlude, other stories that take place in the diner, and a 10 page walk through of the diner so that he can get a feel of my vision. He sent the pitch to a Producer he met through a Practicum Film this year, hoping that the producer could suggest a possible Director of Photography. The producer, upon hearing the concept, offered to produce the film for Mike. This is exciting because the Practicum is pretty big time stuff over at Columbia. So as of now it seems that we have a writer a director, and more than likely a producer attached to the project. I'm going to continue posting updates here as I adapt the short story to film, and then definitely when we enter deeper into preproduction and post production.

The semester is almost over. Thank God. It feels like my brain is almost ready to seep out of my left ear. Just a little more push to make to get these heavy hits of homework done and then it is summer, and I can focus on what I want to.

We're doing stylistic parodies in Fiction 2 right now. She's given us a really large packet of stuff to read. Then once that is read you have to pick a specific piece you read and use that style to write your parody to. I bypassed most of the reading for now (I'll prolly pick it back up later for the sake of recall) and decided that I was going to do the Bible stylistic parody. The piece that I have to rewrite in the style of the Bible is one of my college pantheon ideas where all the gods are meeting to discuss the coming year. I think it fits the style pretty well, and I can get fairly sidetracked in the explaining of the gods which I don't feel like I've done really yet at all.

I'm really excited that this semester is almost over. It's been a grueling kick in my butt, and I've got so much stuff that I want to work on and do over the summer, which I'm going to be able to do because I've actually got free time (even with classes).

Found an apartment up on the north side just past Loyola. It is gonna be nice, but I found out that there is no Upass offered at Columbia over the summer, so that is a fresh and LARGE expense that I wasn't planning on having to deal with. It's really nice, though, getting out of the south loop once and for all and starting to see this beautiful city that I live in from other angles. I know I don't plan on staying here once I'm done, but it'll be good seeing some more of the city, and actually making it something worth while. Hell, maybe I can get some stories from it.

Had a conference with Mort Castle, my Story In Graphic and Historical Fiction teacher, yesterday. I love being on the level where we chatted about class work for a few minutes and then just talked fiction in general, life plans, girlfriend (mine cause he is happily married) and the fact that I haven't submitted anything yet. Sometime today I've got to find a place to send Interlude out to maybe get published. I feel really good about that piece. It came out really easily, survived mostly on two edits, and Mort said it has a sort of Hemingway style to it, which made me grin ear to ear.

In my other conference with Layla Jokanovich, my fiction 2 teacher, she said that I've got a pretty good handle on using movement to actually move the piece, and it never feels like movement is stopping the flow of the story, and that it is a pretty sophisticated technique. She didn't like Interlude, which I thought was weird because Mort loved it. I'm going to go with Mort's opinion on Interlude. He's the one who's been nominated for a Pulitzer, a Pushcart, and Bram Stoker's several times, and has more than 300 credits to his name. Yeah. He has the credentials to have that sort of weight to swing.

Today is homework day. I keep putting it further and further off, but now I have to do it. It's really beautiful out and I want to go running, but I need to get work done first, and running on an empty stomach is not fun. I'll post again if I send anything out to be submitted, which I have to.

Peanuts and commonly misheard words

"He ate my peanuts."

Isn't that a fun line? I started a short story with it. Every time I read the short story I have to make sure that I put an extra emphasis on the diction of peanuTs (with an added emphasis on the uh sound). Twice now I've started the story with unwanted snickers of people thinking that the story is suddenly about fellatio and not the intended annoyances that come with overly large people on airplanes. While the first is definitely funny it isn't the desired outcome.

Brice Beckstrom. I think it is probably the best pulp super hero name i've ever heard. So I made him into my ubermensch. The billionare pilot Brice Beckstrom, saved from certain death by the radiative Dark power becomes the Pioneer. A man of boundless strength and endurance. Able to withstand the blows of bullets and defy the laws of gravity.

He's going to be a follow up character to the Hero of the Second City Trilogy (expect those finished by the end of summer (especially once the semester gets finished and I have time to work and research)).

Apartment hunting tomorrow. And Looking for a job potentially for over the summer. maybe I'll check the ALA district office.