Behind the scenes of this Logan Echolls tribute video I made

After I finished watching all the Veronica Mars episodes, I was right back in that deep obsession I remember so well from years ago. The Beefcake was all "I didn't even know you liked this show," so I pointed out my copy of season 1 on the DVD tower and explained that if he had known me in that summer between seasons 1 and 2, he would have had to beg me to shut up about who was at Veronica's goddamn door.

So when I finished watching everything, I still needed my Veronica fix. You can only spend so much time watching the Kickstarter ticker go up.

When I get obsessed with a show, I make a video. I love alpha males and I adore Logan Echolls, so I decided to make a Logan video. I like to make my videos match the music. The song choice is very important.

I decided to go with "Sabotage" from the Beastie Boys for one reason. In the middle of the song, there's this lone bass note that lingers, then kicks back up with a gradually increasing energy until you hear "WHOOOOOOAAAAAAH!" and then a lot of record scratches. You know what I'm talking about.

So my plan was: show Logan spinning depressed in bed over the bass note. Show him walking through the cafeteria in the building energy part, then start the part where he beats the shit out of Piz on the Whoa. And that's what I did. It was perfect, and I was so proud.

I finished the video and was totally in love with it, and then I uploaded it to Youtube. And even though it looked perfect on my computer, two shots came out pixellated.

I uploaded again. Same thing. I changed the shots. Same thing in the same place, which makes no sense whatsoever. I tried different aspect ratios. No change. I used a different uploading method. Same thing.

And if you've every uploaded a three-minute video to Youtube, you know that shit takes forever.

So after TWO DAYS of trying to get this thing to work, I noticed a note. Youtube has what's called a "Creative Commons" license, which means the artists who create the music - or rather, the studios that own that music - give permission for the songs to be used as long as they are properly attributed. EMI does not go along with this license, which means they do not give permission to little old me to use the song "Sabotage."

My video was blocked. I suspect that's the reason for the pixellation. I had been so fixated on fixing the problem that I never read the note at the bottom of the screen.

I tried another site, same deal. EMI was not having that shit. If you look, you can find videos that use "Sabotage," but they must be savvy in a way that I am not. I couldn't get my video seen.

So finally I sadly returned to my video and found a different version of the song. It's a good match, a kind of odd cover by The Penelopes, but it's not the same. The first half of the video I didn't have to recut at all. But that hanging bass note, that rising energy, that WHOA that I based the video on - gone. I recut the video to fit what I had.

I still like this video a lot, but it is a shadow of its former self. I can't share the original even as a download because the file is too big for Sendspace. I will ask Beefcake to watch it so that someone can pat me on the back for the editing genius the world will never see.

So that's how this video came to be. I still think it's kind of fun. But now I know not to fuck with EMI because they are some stingy motherfuckers.

I wouldn't say I put blood and sweat in this video, but there were tears. And lots of shouting.

If you are a Veronica Mars fan, especially if you are a Logan fan, you should enjoy it. I present: Logan Echolls, Lovable Jerkface:

Previously, on Lost Girl...

Tomorrow, the Canadian series Lost Girl returns to television for its third season. It will air in the States on Syfy starting Monday the 14th.

A lot of people are just now discovering the show, which follows the adventures of a young Fae woman, a Succubus named Bo. This show is very Buffyesque, so if you loved Buffy, you will probably love this. I am totally hooked on this show in a bad way, as I have posted about before.

The first two seasons are available on Netflix streaming, but in case you don't have time for all that, I made a video summarizing all the important stuff that happened over the last two years.

So please to enjoy Previously, On Lost Girl......

Lost Girl fan video #3

All that stuff I said yesterday that I had to do? I dealt with the stress of that by doing this instead:

No you (Lost) Girls

I made another Lost Girl fan video. This one is about Bo and Kenzi.

This is the best show ever, you guys. Ever. Making videos about it is fun.

I made a video

I finished my fan video. I bring you "Bad Boyfriend," a tribute to the character of Dyson on the Showcase/Syfy series Lost Girl.

I was surprised at how all-consuming this became. I will probably make this my new hobby.

Please to enjoy if you like alpha males. Or if you don't.

Stupid proofreading

The Nicholl reader line of the day is this:

"This writer opens with . . . character and plot intrigue that hooked me, then followed it up with a different character/plot one two punch that hooked me even more, then put those two characters on a collision course impossible to ignore. This script works on so many levels because this writer understands that no plot works well without characters who clash and learn from each other."

I'm a pretty optimistic person, so I thought hey, that could be my script. It's possible they're already reading mine because I was number 900-something.

I open with my antagonist in a pretty cool scene. Then I go to my protagonist, and then I lead them to each other until they crash. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this, but still... could be me. I decided to look back over my script to see if they learn from each other at all, and as I read I discovered a bunch of tiny mistakes I didn't notice last time I did my check for errors. That time I was looking specifically for spelling and grammar, but this time I wasn't looking for anything, just reading. Maybe next time I should just do one last minute read of the script for shits and giggles with no agenda and I'll see things I wouldn't otherwise.

I noticed places where I had changed things and forgot to adjust a line of dialogue. Like originally an old lady died in an apartment so a character says "Who's the old lady?" except later I decided to let her live and took her out of the apartment. Now that character's line makes no sense. There are half a dozen little lines like this all over the script.

These aren't things that will get my script thrown out, and none of my readers have mentioned them so they must not be a huge deal, but I'm still kicking myself. One thing I learned as a copy editor back in college, it doesn't matter how many times you read something, you'll never catch every single mistake. Still, you want to catch as many as possible before someone else does.

Trimming

I'm about to branch out with Nice Girls. I've workshopped it in writers group through three drafts now, so it's time for me to see how it plays with a friend of mine who helped me create the original treatment.

But first, I have to knock this puppy down from its current 119 page length.

This is my pattern. I write the first draft, coming in somewhere around 85 pages. Then I get notes and rewrite like crazy, bringing my draft to maybe 95. Then I get more notes, and eventually it creeps its way up to 120 pages.

Of course, we can reasonably turn in scripts of 120 pages, but I don't want to be the longest script in the pile when I can tell the same story with fewer trees.

On the first draft I write whatever I feel like. My mission is to crank through the script in torpedo-like fashion, writing the story with no concern for verbosity. So by the time I get to 120 pages I have long clever passages that sound pretty cool but take up way too much space. Now I have to go through and kick it back to 117, maybe 116.

So it's a word here, a sentence there. If I take two sentences to describe a person, can I cut it to one? Does my character REALLY need to make a big speech here, or can a determined look do the trick? And as I look for these little bits and pieces to trim down, I can also check for typos.

Editing reality shows must be fun sometimes

Sometimes I love imagining the fun the editors and writers on reality shows must have assembling their cuts. Like whoever puts together Bridezillas must just have a blast watching the crazy these bitches embrace.

So I want to give credit where it's due. On this week's Ultimate Fighter I saw one of my favorite edits. The bad boy with the bleached hair and the pack-a-day habit spent his time in the van talking shit about his opponent, one Bruce Leroy. Now Bruce is a little crazy, but in that way that never hurts anyone because he's so nice. He dresses like Bruce Lee. I'll bet if you asked him enough questions you'd find out that he thinks he was Bruce Lee in his past life.

So the bad boy, Jeffrey I think, sits in the van talking soooo much shit about how he's going to make Bruce Leroy want to go home, he's gonna beat him so bad in his stupid gi and he's gonna show him what a real fight is and he's so badass and yadda yadda I'm the bad boy and I'm gonna fuck this weird kid up and send him home to mamma because he's such a loser and whatever.

Then they cut to Bruce Leroy in the other van in his black gi as he quietly points out the window and says "Look, a hummingbird."

That's one of those moments where I imagine the editor in his bay just gleeing with delight when he realized what he had.

This happens every time

I finished the script today! Yay! Glass of wine and Top Chef to celebrate. The last thing I did was one final read through to check for errors and unnecessary words, and I realize that I have a character named Old Bored Security Guard and a character named Security Guard, and that Old Bored Security Guard ends up having so many lines that he really should have a name.

I wish I'd made this decision before I typed out Old Bored Security Guard a bunch of times.

Anyway, I draw a name out of a hat - Johan - and do the old name switch.

I have been through this before, so the next step is to go through all of his scenes making sure his name got switched in every instance. Check.

Everything looks good, it's funny, it's fun, it's clean. Wrote an email to my manager and sent that puppy right over.

Naturally, that's when I realized two things: 1) I now have a character named Johan and a character named Joe. I'm sure THAT'S not confusing at all.

And 2) I forgot to introduce Johan. When you have a character named Old Bored Security Guard, you don't have to bother with description because his name is his description. So where my script used to say "It's a typical lobby, complete with OLD BORED SECURITY GUARD," it now says "It's a typical lobby, complete with JOHAN."

What the fuck is a Johan?

After kicking myself, I changed his name to Reginald and sent the Manager a new version where I introduced the guy.

The next lesson I have learned

Every time I write a script I learn something new that I need to do. Yesterday I got a new set of notes that gave me my lesson for this particular piece.

Obviously, with my first script I learned how to write a script. And do flashbacks and voice overs. Oh yeah, they were all there.

I wrote a script about brothers who were thieves which taught me to never write something I know nothing about.

I wrote a story about a former assassin in witness protection told me that  a good idea does not a good script make. You have to have a story too. One event has to lead to another in a logical method, and you can't just throw a bunch of action scenes together and hope somebody likes it.

A Supernatural script taught me that sometimes no matter how hard you try, a story just doesn't work. And that I'm not really a TV writer.

With Not Dead Yet I learned the value of editing your writing to the simplest, most straightforward language. I still write naturally, but the last thing I do before I ship the script off to the world is to do one pass where all I'm looking for is words to cut.

Burnside taught me that no matter how cool everybody thinks your story is, that doesn't mean anyone will buy it.

And now Salvage has taught me to remember that people like surprises. I only had one real reversal, and it's not all that surprising to the keen viewer. So today I sat down and changed it all around to incorporate a reversal, which necessitated moving events all over the place. It also meant that the setting of my final set piece moved all the way to the beginning of act 2, which meant I had to rewrite the final piece. I went from 108 pages to 89 pages with a keystroke.

That's daunting. But after I started reworking it I found some pretty funny stuff. And pacing. My pacing picked up big time because my characters weren't just waiting to get to the next scene, they were surprised and forced to rethink their assumptions.

I will remember that for next time. In my ever increasing toolbox, I can now add, Don't Forget Reversals.

I will not read your damn screenplay, newbie.

I got some more notes this morning from a couple of people. One set of notes was just pull-no-punches soul crushing stuff, enough that at first I honestly had no idea what to do with them because they were so negative it just made me ponder whether or not I should go kill myself.

But while I tried to pick through the notes to figure how to fix the fact that I suck, I took the time to thank the note giver for the notes and assure her that though they are tough to take, I appreciate the criticism. No matter how cruel they seem, this person still took time to read a script they didn't like very much and tell me why they didn't like it. They could have stopped reading at page two and told me to suck it in general. Instead they stopped at page 45, but along the way explained just what was pissing them off about my work, which is incredibly useful once you dig through it.

A few years ago I gave notes on a girl's first screenplay right before she planned to enter it into the Nicholl. I read the whole thing, gave lengthy notes about why the script did not work complete with suggestions for ways to improve it and compliments about the things that did work (I believe all notes should include not just the bad, but also the good, and most importantly, advice on how to make it better), and ended by telling the person to save her money and enter with a better script next year.

Her script seemed like it was written by a person who was trying to figure out how to write a script. Interesting scenes, but not much story. The protagonist had no motivation for anything - she just floated through a couple of possibly humorous scenarios behaving exactly as you would expect her to.

This was the response I got, in full: "I think the script is pretty good, so I'm going to enter it. I'll fix those apostrophe errors."

Some time later, I read a first screenplay which read like it was written by someone who was trying to figure out how to write a screenplay. The protagonist flitted from situation to situation without any real logic. I read the whole thing and gave pages of specific notes on what worked, what didn't, and how I thought the writer could fix it.

This was the response I got, in full: "Thanks."

So I guess I should at least be glad he mustered a sarcastic thank you.

A few months ago a guy was bragging about having the best script in the world, so I offered to give him a read. It was not the best script in the world. It was a mashup of genres that spent too much time on boring stuff and not enough time on interesting stuff. I gave him suggestions on how he could turn it into a great script, because unlike the other first time scripts, this had an idea to work with.

This was his response in full:

Last night I stayed up until 1 am to give notes to a first-time screenwriter. His script needed a tremendous amount of work. It has a plot but no originality. I gave him suggestions and compliments as usual, but also suggested that he put it aside and come back after he gets more practice.

This was his response in full:


And that is why, from this day forth, if you are a first-time screenwriter, don't you dare ask me to read your fucking script. I'll be hanging out with Josh Olson from now on.

Humbling Notes

I love rewrite time. Yesterday I got some notes that were all "Hey your script sucks balls and you should shoot yourself."

Not really, but, you know, sometimes it feels like that.

At first I was despondent. What do you do with that? Someone hates your material straight up, no hope for your script, nothing to do but write a new one. I couldn't sleep.

Then The Beefcake said something cool. "You hated Annie Hall, right?"

Why yes. Yes I did.

"And that's considered by many people to be the best movie ever made. Think about that."

I did. And that helped.

And I started thinking about my opening scene. The note giver did not say he hated my opening scene, but I know. It sucks. It's two people talking for three pages and nobody wants to watch that. Sure, I made all kinds of excuses while I was writing about why it had to be this way. Salt doesn't open with an action scene, you know. My inciting incident is on page 7, so that's good, right?

Bullshit. I knew it sucked, and when that note giver said my script was hooey, it became obvious that the problem was those first ten pages.

Usually when I start a script I have that first scene nailed down in my head, and no amount of convincing can get me to change it, but normally that scene is a big fight with lots of energy, not two people in a janitor's closet dumping dialogue all over the place.

So last night I thought about those notes. I rolled around and pondered, and at just past midnight I got back up and cranked up the old laptop and got to typing.

Just because I saw it in my head does not mean it's the best opening of my story. I can easily see something else in my head, and I did. Let's face it - nobody wants to spend the first three minutes of an action film watching two people talk in a janitor's closet. I don't want to watch that, but for some reason I was attached to it until I told myself to knock it off and consider other possibilities.

I don't know if the note giver would like what I've come up with, but it doesn't matter. I like to give my script to a different person each time so I get a different perspective, so he'll never see it again. What I got from that guy is that I needed to change something. I knew what was wrong, I just needed someone to tell me that I am not the damn golden child so I could put my ego in check long enough to make the necessary change.

One day rewrite

Well it took me five hours, but I did a complete rewrite of my script in one day. I decided this morning that I was going to do the whole revision in one day, come hell or high water.

Fortunately as I get better as a writer, I have to change fewer major plot elements and more general character bits. I had to make one major change, but most of the work was dialogue that sounded the same or unrealistic and whatnot.

So it wasn't the most difficult rewrite I ever had to do, but still. Five hours straight of writing is exhausting. I feel like I should have vacuumed or made dinner or something, because saying you sat in front of a computer all day and didn't leave your office sounds like the laziest thing in the world, but I am tired.

But dammit I got it done.

Game Night: The VO session

Yesterday I drove over to Editor's studio for a little voice over session. Since it was daylight savings time, the actors were not there at the agreed upon hour, which was cool because that meant Editor and I could make some notes on the existing film and discuss what we wanted out of the voice over session.

The biggest problem is still Former Writing Partner's tendency to look like a wussy face during his manliest moment. He has a gun to his head and he's supposed to push against the gun and tell the other guy aggressively to put the gun down. But in every shot, he's tilted back and the gun presses into his head while he cringes in fear. Even if his voice says "I'm a man now," his face says "please don't hurt me!"

But without that shot of him cringing we get only shots of Lead Actor's arm holding the gun and there's just no tension. And the music in the background is kind of happy, so you're completely certain that nobody is about to get shot.

We were talking about how to fix that, then I realized something. I have no idea if anyone watching thinks he's about to get shot anyway. I wrote this knowing he never gets shot and I directed it knowing that, and I've seen the footage so many times now that my perspective is completely off. At this point I have to take the advice of others on this because I have no idea how the film looks anymore.

So anyway, we did the VO. Lead Actor showed up and had some fun ad libbing a bunch of scenes about how much he wants to have sex and get money. It is really fucking hard not to crack up in the middle of a VO session with that guy.

Chinese Guy who was supposed to VO my Chinese actress' dad did not show up. I can't blame him for not showing because it's not the greatest acting gig ever, but I was kind of pissed that he didn't at least call to let me know he'd changed his mind. Editor said he knows an old Chinese man who can probably do it. We tried using Lead Actor, but it was horrible. Hilarious, but horrible. At one point I volunteered to try it, but Editor nixed it. Too feminine, apparently. Chinese Guy emailed me later and said he'd overslept, so maybe we'll try again.

We also needed one of the girls to do some VO oooohing and ahhhhing over her boyfriend's erection but the actress couldn't make it so I stepped in. Before I got in front of the mic I could imitate her voice perfectly. The second I stepped in front of the mic I suddenly became Candy the porn star with the high pitched voice. This is why I should not be an actress. Still, there were a few usable lines.

So now we're rounding home. Any day now I'll schedule a screening and we'll get this show on the road.

Game Night: Things I wish I'd done differently

Yesterday I watched the rough cut of Game Night. So far, so good. There are some parts that really work and some parts that need help.

I've learned some things. First, we have to do some voice over. There's one section of voice over built into the script so I have to call in an actor to do it. He was recommended to me by one of my actors and she promised he'd be cool. He has to play her dad, shouting at her from outside the door. On a normal day I'd have been able to pick any one of my actor or even non actor friends and make them do it, but I had to be miss fancy pants and hire a Chinese girl to play Sheila so her dad has to be Chinese too, and picking someone who sounds like Mickey Rourke in Breakfast at Tiffany's is not an option. I just hope this guy's okay with doing an hour's work for no face time.

Without his voice over the story is completely confusing. Even with his voice over, it may be a bit confusing. So I decided to change one line. Lead Actor says at one point Nobody's leaving until we get what we came for," but it's not clear what they came for. So I'm going to have him come in and say "Nobody's leaving until we get our money." Problem solved. Just changing that little bit will fix the confusion completely, I think. I just hope we can get the audio to match. We're doing the VO at editor's studio where we have professional equipment, so that should help.

Watching the finished product makes me both happy and annoyed at myself for not seeing more problems while we were filming. Former Writing Partner never stops making a cringing face. Like, every single scene he's cringing. And in the end when he's supposed to be manly and take on the other guy by staring down the barrel of a gun, he's still cringing. On set I even mentioned that he needed to butch it up, but he said the other actor was pushing the gun too hard into his head. So ever shot, he's still cringing. Editor had to keep the shots on the other guy almost the entire time, which makes it difficult to get the intensity of the scene.

And the big reveal at the end, where we see - well, we see a big bulge in his pants because he is a man now - the reaction from the girl who's supposed to be impressed is not significant enough. I wish I'd lingered longer on that and let her ad lib some stuff.

But you live, you learn. I still think it will be a solid first film when all is said and done, and I'm proud of it and the people I worked with.

Game Night trailer

Look what I did!

This is my first trailer for Game Night. As you can hear, I am a shitty, shitty audio editor. A few of these transitions bother me too, but overall I am proud or my accomplishment.

Not Safe for Work Language largely because of the liberal use of the word "fuck".

Also you can get a nice look at my lovely well-lit apartment.

Also this is the first thing I've ever edited in my life.

On the cutting room couch

Okay after I finally got my computer problems squared away I went through all my footage and labeled it and moved it into different files so I could begin to make a video for my actors.

I learned some things.

1) Ex Writing Partner is not a very good actor. I thought he was at the time, mostly because he kept talking about how great he was and he got some lead role in a shitty horror movie in Kentucky so I gave him the part. Hell he wrote the damn part, I figured he'd be perfect for it. But he anticipates everything. Lead Actor's character, Billy, constantly threatens or throws things at Ex Writing Partner's face. Every single time, Ex Writing Partner cringes before the threat appears. You can't go directly to him in ANY take because he always makes a scrunchy face in preparation of the hit. And there are a lot of hits because this is a film largely about what a wussy face his character is.

2) I wish I'd done more with one of my characters. I feel like the character Sheila doesn't have enough depth. It's not the actress' fault, it's mine for not giving her some more surprising personality traits.

3) I need to say "action" louder. I like Clint Eastwood's method of being gentle, but I realized when I was trying to cut footage together that when you quietly say "action" it's harder for the editor to know when to set the start point for the clip. Or at least it was for me. Plus it really doesn't make sense to be all quiet and sensitive when the scene is two guys slapping each other.

4) Every goofy mistake is one more scene I have to label and more space to take up on my hard drive. That said, It was pretty funny watching my leads dry hump on my couch. The scene where we looked at the ceiling for four minutes, not so much.

5) The labels on my scenes make it look like I'm making a porn movie. "Close up on the pussy," "Eric's penis," "Let's fuck on this table." Yet there is no nudity in the film.

I'm going to try to cut some kind of amusing mock up. Perhaps a blooper reel. So far, though, all I've done is connect a series of shots of Sheila for her reel and I still managed to fuck that up by leaving a giant black hole in the middle.

I don't think I have a future as a professional editor.

24: Revenge of the Codec

I used to have a massive head of thick, blond hair. Then I tore it all out in the last 24 hours.

See, the footage for Game Night was exported directly from the camera into a Mac with Final Cut. Then it was put onto disks and sent to me, at which point I handed them to Editor, who imported them directly into his Mac in Final Cut. Then he put all the footage on my hard drive and handed it to me, where I attempted to open it in Adobe Premiere on my PC.

Yesterday I didn't know what a codec was. Now the word "codec" has pushed out every other thought I ever had. What are zombies? Are they some form of codec?

After a friend confirmed that the files operate fine on a Mac, I knew it was a hardware issue, apparently a missing codec, which is some kind of thing used to do some kind of other thing. Something about videos and languages and whatnot. I dunno, but apparently the codec is the single most vital piece of software to come along since the squiggly lines that tell you when you misspelled words.

I even made it so the kids were working at their desks all day so I could figure this out while they drew up character sketches and took periodic assessments. When I say this is all I've thought about today, I mean the only time I wasn't thinking of codecs was the hour I was running suicides on the roof of the parking deck at the gym with Trainer. I've never felt so happy to be running suicides.

So finally I found that there is only one codec that will render Mac files viewable in Quick Time or Premiere and it cost $95. They're having a sale on it though. $23 off. Weeeee.

Just now I transferred one of the disks to my hard drive because - well, in the process of trying to fix the whole thing I kind of fucked up my files and had to reload them - and I was watching season 1 of 24, which is AWESOME and also much slower paced than the current season, and I suddenly looked over and realized it was past my bedtime.

Jack Bauer's 24: saving Pre-President Palmer from certain doom. My 24: Codecs. It was kind of like 24 from Chloe's perspective if she never got shot at or gassed or watched anybody die or had to quit her job in the middle of the day on principle or if she didn't actually know that much about computers. But otherwise it was just like that.

Anyway, the good news is I've figured it out and tomorrow I will finally, FINALLY be able to cut my own footage.

Bad Girl

Today classes ended early so we could do professional development. Last time we did professional development it was Socratic seminar and I like the guy teaching so I paid attention and got something out of it. This time, I missed the sign up so the administrator in charge of scheduling put me in Classroom Management.

I have like zero classroom management problems. I am a master at classroom management. Other teachers ask me for advice on Classroom Management. So as you can imagine, I was not looking forward to this experience.

So I went in and sat at the back and right as I was sitting down the dude running the seminar told me to move up front and sit with this other dude so I could be his partner. I pulled out my laptop and began working quietly on my screenplay.

I've gotten some new notes that make me feel more optimistic because I feel like this is an attainable task and it will make my script stronger. I'm to take the protagonist and focus on her internal conflict as I rework only the first ten pages. Sounds like a perfect task to complete while I'm avoiding boredom in the Classroom Management workshop.

So I worked on the script and got a lot done. I stopped to do a stupid ice breaker activity - my partner insisted on sharing out, too, which annoyed me. I really didn't mean for the entire class to know that I don't drink milk - and then I went back to what I was doing. And every time we were told to do an assignment I did it, then went back to typing.

The dude's wife was also instructing us - mind you, neither of these two has been in a classroom for a decade and the man was barely in it at all - and he came over and made some indecipherable pantomime.

"Excuse me?" I said.

He did the same pantomime and mouthed something.

"What?" I said louder.

"Close your laptop," he said.

I wanted to remind him that I am an adult, but I shut my laptop loudly and pulled out a pen and paper, where I began to work on backstory for my male lead. This was pretty terrific because I only had one piece of paper and lots of time to kill so I wrote really tiny and filled up the paper. Lots of good stuff came out of me in my effort to avoid paying attention.

Some time went by. I did another activity with my partner, then resumed my writing. I doubt anybody in the room even noticed what I was doing, and I was in no way disturbing the class. Plus, they were boring.

Dude's wife came over and observed me for a minute, I guess thinking that since she was sitting right next to me I would pretend to care. I did not. She leaned over and whispered that she'd like to speak to me outside. So we went into the hall.

"What you're doing is clearly very important, can you do it somewhere else?"

"I'm here because I'm getting paid," I said.

"You clearly don't care about this."

"Look, I missed the sign up so somebody threw me in here. I'm not a new teacher and I don't have any classroom management problems. I'm bored."

"Oh. Well I understand that, but you clearly don't care about this so I was wondering if there was somewhere else you could be doing whatever you're doing."

I walked back into the room, packed my shit, and left and hour early. I drove to Burbank where I picked up my footage from Editor as we buried the hatched and came to an understanding. Now that I have my original footage back he can still work on the short while I get the footage to my actors and have something to play with in my ongoing effort to learn editing.

I was able to leave work, get the footage, go home and complete my afternoon emails all before I usually get home on weekdays. Because I was bad.

Bad kid 1, Classroom Management People 0.

So in conclusion, Emily at work = big brass testicles. Emily at the grocery store = massive wussyface.

Game Night Update, part 376

Previously, on Game Night Update...

Over a year ago I shot my first short film, Game Night. A few months later my editor said she couldn't finish the project so I found a new editor. And he did like a minute of footage a month. My actors have been emailing me, asking where the hell the footage is so they can update their reels. Then last month I told my editor I needed a rough cut by December. Period.

The following is paraphrased.

So last night I got an email from Editor saying Oops! Sorry, but I couldn't get it done for December but I'll get to work on it as soon as I get back from my trip in January. And there's some problems. I showed what I have to a test audience of friends and they didn't get what was going on so we should probably add some voice over or reshoots.

I took a sip of my eggnog.

I stared at my computer.

I typed my response.

I will be by when you return to pick up my footage. I'll cut the rest myself, but thank you for your time.

To which I got a response of Sorry! I swear I'll finish it! I'll work harder. I'll get it done.

I stopped being mad and finished my eggnog which helped because a third of my eggnog was actually Bacardi and realized how to solve the problem with the short.

I emailed Editor and told him to move one line of dialogue up five minutes in the short.

Then I sat back and thought.

Okay this guy has put most of the footage together. He has nine of the twelve minutes done, and he really cares about this project. He's doing it for free and it looks pretty good and he's an all around nice guy. I know he isn't delaying on purpose.

But good grief. We shot this thing in 2007, it's 12 minutes long and it won't be finished until 2009. That's embarrassing to have to confess when people ask me how the short is going.

Now I'm faced with a choice. Do I believe him and keep waiting? Or do I try to edit the rest myself even though I've never edited anything before? He also has access to a recording studio for some voice over work and a sound editor to polish some of our audio issues.

And yes I realize several of you offered to edit my shit before and probably would have been done by now had I taken you up on your offers.

Oy ve, you guys.