On the season premiere of "Emily's Vacation"...

This was a rough week, but it was terribly satisfying when my boss saw me at a seminar Saturday morning and hugged me because I got my grades in on time AND we finished the yearbook with time to spare. Go me. And go kids.

Now I have all the time in the world to get some stuff done. First order of business, get a haircut because man. There is a lot of hair on my head. My new hair stylist is excited about what she can do with all these pounds of hair, but I get the impression she gets excited when she finds a nickle in her pocket. No more caffeine for that lady.

After the haircut, though, I'm free to be a full time screenwriter for eight whole weeks. Editor has finished the rough cut of Game Night so now we're on the home stretch there, and I want to film a second short by the end of the vacation. It's called "Guthrie" and it stars Trainer as a lonely, depressed guy who is slowly losing his marbles. It would also make a fantastic Twilight Zone episode. The beauty of this short is that I can shoot it in Beefcake's apartment with only one cast member and props we already have, and I have friends with a camera and lights of their own, so this film will cost me only food and boom rental.

I'm on the home stretch with Not Dead Yet as well. First I'm getting together with Mel from PitchQ to hone my pitch and synopsis and logline so I can have a perfect package, then I've got a couple of agents to send it to - one of whom is a friend of a friend so I at least know it will be read, and at one of the major agencies, no less. Then it goes back to the Nicholl in its revised form, because dammit, I will prove that zombie stories can be Nicholl scripts too. I demand respect for zombie kind.

Then I'm brainstorming a new script. It's about a teenage girl who ends up in trouble when a search for her missing father brings out the people who want him dead.

Or something like that. That logline has some weaknesses, but it will do for now. I have to sleep on this story a little more because right now all I've got are some action scenes with no idea how I'm going to navigate between them.

If action movies were like porn, I'd be so rich by now. You know, instead of real plot each scene is just an excuse for more violence. I guess that's what it's like to make movies with Jason Statham.

So that's what I've got going for the vacation. First I should probably get out of bed.

Testing, testing....

This is a test. I finally got around to adding HTML for scrippets so let's see if this works.

This is a scene from Guthrie, the short film I will be shooting in a couple of weeks.

[scrippet]
INT. APARTMENT - DAY

Guthrie, wrapped in his comforter, sits over a fondue pot filled with oil. Next to him sits an open can of sardines.

He has the sardines pushed up on the fondue fork and he's cooking them in the pot.

He pulls out his fork and blows on the sardine on the end.

He puts it in his mouth and struggles to swallow it, his tongue wrestling with the hot, oily sardine as it burns.

GUTHRIE
Oh!

He runs to a pot of snow on the counter and shoves some in his mouth.

CUT TO:

Guthrie stares at himself in the mirror.

GUTHRIE
Aliens. Could be aliens.

He stares at his reflection.

GUTHRIE
I was sleeping. Maybe they didn't know I was here.

He stares.

GUTHRIE
But why didn't I hear them? Was I sleeping that hard?

He looks at the wine bottles by the trash can.

He looks back at himself.

GUTHRIE
Huh. That's possible.

He slaps himself.

GUTHRIE
Ow!

He looks around and grabs a big knife out of his kitchen.

He slides the blade over his arm but doesn't even break his skin before he jerks his arm away and drops the knife.

GUTHRIE
Okay. Not in a coma.
[/scrippet]

Directing: part 2

This weekend I watched some friends film again.

Okay, I watched Beefcake's friends film. We were supposed to go to the beach but there was filming for a couple of hours before we went that of course turned into an all-day event. I had fun anyway, even though I felt at times like I was getting in the way. For a while I was in charge of the air conditioning, so I feel like that made up for the two times I ruined a take by chortling.

Anyway, I realized while I was watching them shoot some YouTube footage that these guys are a pretty laid back crew and they own their own equipment and all they really need is material to shoot.

And it just so happens I have a cheapass script ready to go. The boxing script is ready but it's expensive to shoot and will take a lot of work so I'm slowly putting that together. But I have another script called "Guthrie" that I have long wanted to shoot. The script is just about as cheap as a short can get. I would just have to rent a studio apartment for a day.

Then this morning I was looking around Beefcake's apartment and realized that if I rewrote the script a bit I could turn the studio into a single and BAM, there's the location for the short. It's even messy enough that I don't have to do anything to it except move a couch around. And if I use those guys for the crew - this could cost me a cool $100 to shoot and still be good enough to put into festivals.

So even though Game Night is apparently in infinite post production, I might be able to shoot and edit myself a second film in the mean time. All I have to buy is food and a big sheet of green material and a cop uniform. I'm already cast and everything.

So I'm gonna make a movie again.

Emily the editor

As I thought about my next film project I started to piece together a crew in my head. I was going through my mental rolodex, trying to find all the DPs I know (2), all the sound guys I know (1), all the gaffers I know (1), all the composers I know (3), all the PAs I know (378), and all the editors I know (3).

And then I stopped a bit on that editor thing.

Game Night was filmed in September. And I plan to shoot again in September or maybe sooner. And I don't want to spend another year waiting for somebody else to edit the film.

The main reason I had someone else edit Game Night is that I didn't want to practice editing on something that cost me a grand to make. I wanted it done by somebody who knew something. And that has been the bane of my existence ever since.

If I'd bought an editing program when I shot the film I could have learned how to edit my own stuff by now.

So the lightbulb zapped me in the face and yesterday I ordered a copy of Avid so I can use my Game Night footage to teach myself how to edit.

But Avid is eight hundred bazillion dollars! you say.

Nope. Not if you're a teacher. Just like I got MovieMagic at a steep discount, I get Avid for like 90% off or something if I can prove I'm an educator. Just like I get a discount on car insurance. I guess they have to do something to make up for the fact that I spend all day putting up with your children.

Just kidding, I love your children.

Anyway, it's time this lady learned to do something for herself. So pretty soon I will be adding Editor to my list of qualifications. I have no idea how to edit so I hope I don't suck.

How do I fake a winter wonderland for cheap?

While I'm still building my plan to eventually film The Corner, I am for the moment concentrating my efforts on Guthrie, a short I can film for ultra cheap with two actors in a studio apartment.

I'm contemplating playing the female role myself. She only has like three lines and half of them are from the other side of a closed door and I got a big head from my acting debut so I'm gonna try it.

I have one big problem with the short: It takes place in Oregon during the middle of winter. The guy never leaves the apartment so it doesn't impact the filming that much, but there is a scene where he looks out the window and sees the mountains and the snow-covered street below. There are no people, just empty street and I want his breath to fly out into the scene.

Clearly I do not live in Oregon, but I do live near the Hollywood Hills. And of course it never snows here, but it occasionally does there.

So, effects people, how do I do that? How am I going to fake a guy looking out a window into the quiet winter wonderland for next to no money? If I have to fly to Oregon it kind of defeats the purpose of doing this cheapo short. And no, I can't ditch the location. It's 100% relevant to the plot.

Any ideas?

I'm learning not to bite off more than I can chew

I've been super stressed this week. Ooof.

Yearbooks came out Tuesday. Yearbook Day consists of putting together a slide show and presenting it to the senior class, then giving out presold yearbooks, then selling yearbooks, then listening to every student in school tell me how much the yearbooks suck and how many things we got wrong. I tell my kids not to expect anybody to say anything nice about the book. Even if it's the most beautiful and comprehensive book ever made, all anyone will notice is that you misspelled Mr. Okuwoke's name on page 57.

But at least this year I didn't get an angry parent complaining to the principal ten minutes after the books appeared, so there's that.

In between yearbook and English class and having a social life, I've been trying to put together a shoot for The Corner, the boxing short film I've been in love with ever since I wrote it. My actors keep asking me when I'll be ready to shoot. People have been offering their crew services. Everybody wants me to direct this film.

But I don't want to direct it. I want to produce it. I don't have that director gene, that element in your personality that drives you to tell people what to do and accept no excuses. Sure, I manage a classroom, but in there it's a lot of negotiation, they're all younger and less experienced than me, and if they don't do their work it usually hurts only them, not the whole class.

Directing is different.

I never meant to direct Game Night. It just sort of happened. And on the set I felt lost. I only ever wanted to get all the talented people I know in a room and watch them work - I never wanted to tell them what to do once they got there. So on set I was relying heavily on help from people who knew what they were doing. Fortunately I had a great crew and terrific actors, but I can already tell that if I end up with some prima donna DP he'll walk all over me. Actors I get, actors I know how to talk to. The crew is a mystery to me.

I loved producing, though, so I want to do that again as much as possible. I'm the kind of producer who chooses you because I like your work, and when you step on set I'll trust you to do your funky thing with the script that I wrote. That makes me happy.

So a couple of weeks ago I asked Ex-Boyfriend if he wanted to direct The Corner. He read it and although he liked parts of it, he said it was too serious to appeal to his directing style. He prefers ridiculous comedies and straight-up action stories. So he won't be directing the film.

And I had kind of a mini panic attack, partly brought on by that being the moment I had a plumbing incident that resulted in a minor flood exploding onto my floor, but also because I suddenly felt convinced I would be forced to direct it because for this particular project I want to use someone I know and trust, not some random guy I picked up on Craigslist. This post is not about me looking for a director, either. It's just me venting my frustration and admitting that I'm not invincible.

But then after I mopped up my floor Ex-Boyfriend told me I needed to take the pressure off. I don't even have Game Night finished yet (3 weeks to a rough cut, swears my editor) so I'm jumping the gun on planning something that requires a boxing ring and a host of extras.

But I already promised my actors I'd have a part for them in September, I said. They'll all be so let down.

So let's make something simple instead, Ex-Boyfriend said.

And then I realized I had this 9 minute script I'd been trying to submit to student filmmakers. It's a script I wrote that's sort of like a darkly comedic Twilight Zone episode to involve two actors and one location and can be shot for hellacheap. All I need is a studio apartment, which I could probably replicate in a hotel room.

Even if Ex-Boyfriend doesn't want to direct it I think I could handle this project. It's simple, more like a project between friends. And the minute I realized that, my stress dissipated.

So The Corner is on hold for the time being. I will produce that script because I love it, but it won't be this year unless I suddenly come into a vast fortune. Instead I will be producing Guthrie, something much, much simpler and less likely to make me freak out.

I will update my sidebar accordingly soon.