August 2019

baby, you got a stew going

we’re doooooing it! i’ve moved past the writing phase, and have landed in the real pre-production goodness – planning, casting, and so on. there are a lot of particulars of this story that are going to require more work than the typical film up front, specifically within the realm of prop-making. which is quite unusual for me (outside of francis’ fairy tale and the ill-fated 70s porn star movie). fun work, but it will be a challenge.

right now i’m tied up in the casting process. i followed through on my threat to reach out to people and not just act in it myself, and i’ve gotten a much better response than i anticipated! i almost regret reaching out in such an open-ended manner, because now i’m going to have to put a few people “on hold” that i can’t cast here, but who i really want to work with. my next project will likely be built around these actors, and hopefully they’ll be patient enough to wait for it.

starting to schedule things with people is making this whole thing feel a lot more real than it did about a week ago. now that i have a better idea of where things are, i’m thinking filming will be complete within a couple months (which doesn’t leave me all that much time for the aforementioned props). the ball is really rolling now.

the script itself is in good shape. following some feedback on draft two, i churned out a third and (mostly) final draft. response has been really encouraging, and i am still feeling good about where everything is in the story. there may be a bit of massaging once i get the actors locked down and i work with them on the parts, but it wouldn’t be much, and that may not even be the case.

so now that i have a solid script to work with, a story that i like, and things are beginning to take shape, i’m starting to get a voice in the back of my head that is afraid of messing it all up. when i finished writing it and realized i liked it so much, i thought maybe i should try to pass it off to someone else to film. i’ve thought about turning it into a stage play for someone else to produce (not impossible, but there’s one major hurdle that would take some doing to get around). i have a fear that i won’t do the script justice in film form. i just have to push past that concern and believe in the story. once i really get into visualizing the shots and putting together the storyboard, everything will start to become more clear.

the PATIENCE of christ

after what seems like months, i’ve finally gotten the second draft of my script in the bag. it took a lot of retooling, and a lot of focusing in and clarification, but in the end it just took a bunch of writing. i spent the whole day in and out of the script editor, nailing down the last few pieces that had to be figured out, and then just banging that shit out. ooohh my head. the whole third act (of a tiny baby 12 page script) was revised, so that’s where the bulk of my efforts went.

it was an interesting revision process, and the writing was not nearly as demanding as i had imagined it would be. trades were made between drafts, from exposition-heavy to light-weight dialogue. the whole thing runs a lot more smoothly now, but it’s tough to say if story heft was lost in the abandonment of words. we’ll have to see how it stands up against review again. but at least now i’m past writing (the struggle) and i’m onto refining again.

ideally, only minor tweaks remain, and then i can launch into pre-production and start to get this shit off the ground. funny that a project that was spawned from a desire to churn something out quickly has turned into such a large-scale effort. but it’s still possible to scale back; the most important investment for me right now is the writing, and now i can safely say that investment has been made.

* * *

this weekend was very nice despite spending my day working. friday night was another great d&d session, though there was somehow more splitting of the party even after the gang had ostensibly learned their lesson last week. we had a shit ton of pizza and wings and drinks and coffee, though, and it was a really fun evening. yesterday was a lazy day. there was one (or two?) nap(s), game playing (spider-man), and movie watching (neverending story). it was my first time watching the neverending story, and my general impression is that it is, in fact, a kids’ movie. but the visuals were excellent, and a lot of the acting was surprisingly good for that kind of film. my biggest disappointment was that we watched the original german version, meaning the sweet soundtrack by giorgio morodor was noticeably absent. so really what even was the point?

in other news, the world is burning down all around us, and these are surely the end times. it is sad and scary, and every day i hope this ongoing nightmare will come to an end.

i now feel physically exhausted from too much leftover pizza, and too much writing. i leave you with this funny picture of a pug looking at a cookie that has a quote about patience and makes reference to jesus for some reason.

the hidden shrine of tamoachan (and summer nights!!)

here i am! i was here the whole time! hiding. and not posting stuff. because of… good… reasons. ohhh all the good reasons. just… you know, bein’ busy and livin’ life.

today i was given the distinct honor to be asked to work on a sharepoint site not for the company i work for, but for one of our customer companies. beautiful sharepoint, in all its glory. imagine working with sharepoint full time as a job! imagine the fun to be had! the discoveries to be made! the bugs to report! needless to say, i declined the opportunity.

i spent a good portion of this evening on the script. just addressing issues and small rewrites, none of the major stuff yet. i’m feeling more apprehensive about the major changes, mostly because though i know what i want to do generally, i’m not sure how to do these things specifically. i just need to make some decisions.

this weekend i worked on beginning to catalog my comic book collection. got an app to make the job easier. it’s been fun getting back into the comics and “reading” again (though i really should also be reading things without all the pictures). i missed the stories, and have been pleasantly surprised to find some more stylistic issues among the small number i’ve read in the past few weeks. it’s nice to have have a hobby that only drains my wallet.

last friday we had yet another d&d session entrenched in the depths of the hidden shrine of tamoachan. this marks the fourth or fifth session in what was designed to be a single session dungeon. nothing wrong with that, though. i’m having a lot of fun running the adventure, and this session was particularly fun because “shit finally got real” for the party. and they weaseled their way out of what have could have been a very bad situation for the characters. in spite of the repeated dice rolls and book keeping i had to do for the 15 zombie fight (which necessitated opportunities of attack, regular attacks, coin flips, and saving throws for all 15 pretty much every turn), it was thrilling enough to get me thinking about our adventure again. i want to design my own dungeons again. and i’ve been mentally going over all the loose ends and imagining the fun ways to tie things up as we (slowly) move towards the climax. this month marks our third anniversary for the campaign, and there are still pieces i had planned from the beginning that we haven’t gotten around to yet. it’s exciting to see it all come to pass, and it’s been such a wonderful experience playing with this little group. as much as i love playing d&d as a player, my time as a DM has made some of my greatest memories with the game.

 

this weekend i took basil to get his nails clipped and he was really scared and was shaking so much. it broke my heart and made me want to cry.

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