Wednesday, July 23, 2008

We Moved... Again

And we have cable! It's awesome.

Pictures to come. Still trying to find the camera. Internet is up. Making progress.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Cindy Leveled up!

I'm proud to say that I got to post this before she does. Cindy got a raise today. We're pretty stoked. Her employers are VERY happy with her performance and all the work she's doing. I'm very glad they've recognized that. Way to go babe!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

It's busy time

Today was a busy day. I didn't even really leave the house. The Dorkness Rising DVD is progressing nicely. Approved the DVD cover today. Now they're working on the DVD menus. Pretty cool.

Work is finally starting to pick up. Was on the phone most of the day, and worked on quotes, in fact I still got one left to do. I think fruit is starting to bear. Yah!

It's beer o'clock!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Good News

Apparently I have an exceptionally well bill of health.

My life insurance premium went down after they got the results after my physical. I cost less than Cindy.

So apparently I won't be dying of natural causes. Looks like I'm on schedule for that explosion.

Hope that don't come any time soon.

T-minus...

So we start moving a week from Friday. Have we started packing? Nope.

Turns out our friend, Matt DeMille, is moving down here at the same time we're moving. Sorry Matt!

Got the Uhaul rented for the weekend. Won't have to do it all in one night, so that's good. Wish we were rich enough that wouldn't have to move. It will be a good move for us though. We'll be able to save for a down payment or something.

Might do another 48 hour film competition. My friend Dom Zook is looking at doing another one and asked me if I wanted another go around. I need the experience, and the dumb bastard keeps letting me direct, so we'll see what happens. This time we have all the time we want to write and develop the script, but it has to be shot and edited in 48 hours.

Hope we get a DP and a sound tech this time around.

Getting ready for Comic Con in San Diego at the end of the month. We're screening the movie there. Hope to have a great turnout. Then a couple weeks later it's off to Gen Con for 4 days of drunken debauchery and no sleep. Actually shouldn't be that intense, got enough people to cover and we can actually go in shifts.

For some reason, Cindy and I aren't sleeping worth crap. That needs to stop. Not sure what that's all about.

Hey Grandma, guess I'm not the only one that doesn't blog every day, huh? :)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Best in LA

As mentioned before, tonight was the Best in LA awards for the 48 Hour film competition.

No we didn't win. And thank god, there were some damn talented people who deserved to win it.

They created a new category this year, and there was a tie for the win. Best Comedy. Nope, we didn't win that either. That one I think we kind of deserved to tie. The other strong comedy was really awesome. Oh well.

We did win an audience award. Pretty proud of that. AND, our lead actress tied for an honorable mention with another actress for best performance. I have to say I'm pretty proud of that. Not that I take credit for her performance, just that she did a great job and I'm glad someone took notice. And I got to help out with that.

Over all, I think Cindy summed it up. "Well, I think you got what you deserved." Yeah, pretty much.

About the moving I mentioned. Yes we're moving in about three weeks. Trying to save some money on rent. Found a good place actually just down the street from us. Definitely not up to what we've been living in, but you can't beat the rent for what we'll be getting in the area. And we'll save about $700/month. It sickens me that what we're saving, WAS our rent at one point in our lives.

I'd say I'm very happy with things... going back to the film competition. For a guy who doesn't know his way around a camera too well, I managed to competently pull it off. Dom was able to cut it together well. We got great performances and had fun doing it. The script was awesome, thanks to Matt.

And I've learned something... or rather remembered what my goal is as a filmmaker. In some instances tonight, we were up against giants. Hell, most of the films kicked our asses. It was a good humbling experience. I'm not a brilliant director. I don't know that I ever will be. I want to be competent, to be able to do the job I'm hired to do, or however that goes... and I want to have fun doing my job. Directing is not my goal career. It's an important part of it, and I REALLY enjoy it, and I'm getting better at it. Filmmaking is my goal career. Unfortunately, that term is still a little too vague to really make it in this town. You really do have to pick something. It's most likely going to be producing, while I learn and develop my directing skills and career on the side, when the opportunities come along.

I also find that what I want to do as a filmmaker is definitely influenced by who I'm working with. It will be interesting to see how far that takes me.

So, I have a lot to learn, but what I do know can tell a story. Not many budding filmmakers can actually say that, even though they will say it. I know I'm not desperate, because I'm not locked into one specific role and I'm confident in my abilities, my relationships, and my trust in the unknown. I'm not out to prove anything, just to make a living at doing something I love, and spending time with people.

I sleep now.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Commitment

Really haven't had time to sit down and say anything. I decided I'm just going to write SOMETHING. Cripes, I blog about as much as DG has an update on the website.

Got a brand spanking new iMac about a week or so ago. It's awesome. I'm running both Windows XP AND the Mac operating system at the same time. It's so nice. I'm totally a convert. The main thing I don't like though, is no right-click. WTF? Of course Mac has never had a mouse that really had a right click. Suppose you could always just buy one. I've got a ton of them around here somewhere.

But, I do love the iMac.

So what else... my icons are dying off. George Carlin. Stan Winston. Hoping Sean Connery and Billy Connolly will stick around a while longer.

Got word today that one of my best friends... actually probably one of my first friends ever, Barry Newman, saw me in Vegas when I was there for the GAMA Trade Show. Sounds like he did a double take to confirm it was me. Wished he would have come by and said hi. But the place is a madhouse, so I know how that would have been difficult. Thanks Diane for the tip. Sent a message on his MySpace page. Maybe he'll get back to me.

I hate moving. I know it's the right decision... but I just f*ing HATE moving. I'm dreading it. Cindy said something about stability... yeah, join the club. It ain't just a female thing.

Stress has finally caught up with her. Wondered when it would. We've both been kind of missing our departed relatives lately. Must be the approaching holiday or something... not like we did anything for the 4th... but what else would it be?

Starting to play 4th edition D&D. I gotta say I like it. I do. Wish there was more material. Kinda feels a little dumbed down, but... I think it will be fun.

Delivered the movie to the distributor last week. Dorkness Rising I mean. So that's awesome.

My job. Doing alright. Numbers were way down last month. But I increased my number of calls by at least 25%. Hoping to reach about 50 calls per week. We'll see. Today was a good day of how that could go. Tomorrow I'm going to ride with the most senior salesman with the company, apart from the owner of course. It'll be good to get perspective on how others do it. Good news is though, once the actor's strike is over, there will be plenty of work to go around and my numbers will be a lot better. I just need a good number of customers not directly related to the entertainmnet industry. And the majority of my customers are not, but they're also smaller customers that are being crushed by the downturned economy. Sales is hard work, but it'd be the same story if I were trying to get a movie off the ground... selling. In this economy. So I need to figure out how to do well, because if I can makes significant successes in this time, it'll be awesome when things are better.

Still dreading moving.

Bleh.