Thursday, September 24, 2009

It's A Beautiful Day

So many people drive around or sit out in their yards and never see what's above them or what's around them. They don't see what I do. Sure this picture is not for composition or aesthetics. It was just to capture what today looked like at noon. Fantastic. I want to spend the rest of the day outside now.

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

City of Hickory Comes Through Again

Imagine me utilizing down town for a film shoot. Well, of course I was approved with a simple please and a site map. So "One Night in America" has a home set to shoot October 12th, 2009.

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Sunday, September 20, 2009

A Memory and an Idea of 1987

In my last entry that wasn’t just a photo, I spoke of having writer’s block. I spoke of 3 projects that I needed to see through. I had felt since I could not come up with something new and fresh to make a film about, I should go the easy route and finish one that has already been penciled here and there. That entry was on Thursday night. Things have drastically changed in four days. What is amazing is when I am sleep deprived, I am normally no good in the “creative” department. This weekend was one of the worst for that sleep deprived part. I was fighting a mean Sinus Infection and had not gotten to sleep due to my night gig of shooting High School Football running late and just an overall restlessness late at night. (Probably due to the big ole’ Coke I drank at the game at 9:00pm.) Well, the kids don’t take that under consideration when they wake up so my four hours of sleep I calculated would mean a very unproductive Saturday normally. The house needed cleaning and the kids were ready to help so I started the daunting task slowing a bit after the second room was complete. I thought maybe music would keep me moving. I hit the shuffle on iTunes and managed to get my vast collection of The Boss, Bruce Springsteen jamming. I began vacuuming as “Dancing in the Dark” began to play. With the kids not at my feet, my mind started wandering to time back in the day when his album “Born in the USA,” was soaring the charts. I remember listening to it over and over with my buddy Russ in their big Mobile Caravan coming back from Myrtle Beach and was “going with” his sister, Ellie. I remember how simple the time was back then and how much fun we had. Then I started thinking of other times Russ and I had growing up. Then my son who is infamous for grabbing a remote control and changing the channel on cue turned the television from PBS to A&E who was doing a tribute to Patrick Swayze and were showing “Dirty Dancing.” This sparked more memories of my young adult hood and then a story idea came to my head using all these old memories of The Russell’s and my friendship with them and memories of those late 80’s years. The idea ran me over like a freight train and the next three hours between chasing kids and cleaning house were devoted to jotting down different scenarios and different angles on this small drama/comedy I had conjured up out of shear little glimpses of images, sounds, and memories. Between my long trip to a shooting gig yesterday and the 3 hour down time waiting for the fight to begin had me sitting with my blue pencil and moleskin just hashing out all these unique characters. I did that all day on Sunday and as my daughter drifted off to sleep, I found myself unable to wait for a quiet day by myself to begin writing the script. It was 10:30pm... I had an hour or so before I knew I would have to force myself to quit and go to bed but it didn’t stop me from penning the first three pages of my next “personal project.” I am very excited. Thank you Russell’s, (Russ, Clarence, Margaret, Keira and Ellie.) Thanks Bruce Springsteen and Born in the USA Album. Thanks to Swayze, A & E, and my meddling son who just so happened to change the channel at the absolute perfect time during the absolute perfect thought. This is how films, stories and images are made for me.... Timing and memories.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Writer's Block

As days turn into weeks for client’s work and deadlines to be met, there has been very little time to do my own projects. The idea of when I went into business for myself was one, not to have to work for another shitty boss but two, working for myself would free me up a little more time to do the projects I want to do. For the past two years, between Jeopardy, BAK, and working for myself, there have been four projects that were completely abandoned. Invasion was obviously booted for budget purposes. The others were scripts for features: One a horror film I thought I may be able to raise money for if Jeopardy was good enough, then I read a friend’s script and realized there are a million slasher films out there and although mine is sort of Tarantino-esque style where it’s kind of a cross between an “ode to slasher films” to “a character driven slasher film,” it’s still a dead market right now. Then there was my “Debauchery” script that I have been tweaking story ideas for for nearly three years and may be due to be penned being “my next project.” Then there is Epic that still has yet to be rewritten for my agent to shop. A lot of the reason is because I just can’t find the inspiration to write lately. My website needs updating, BAK needs editing, BUT I feel I should be doing something being I’m five years away from the mid life mark and should get on it if I want my career to be where I said it would be by 40. So what do I do on my little amount of off time, from BAK’s editing among others? I must find an inspiration and get on one of them. I mean, I find myself drawing character sketches to scripts that aren’t written and other dumb stuff on my free time. That little time would be better used actually writing.

Read the first twelve pages of these three scripts and tell me which one I should work on.

The Fantasy Adventure for Shopping Purposes. (Couldn’t make this one, nope.)

Ode to Slasher Film - Think Deliverance meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Rob Zombie

Gritty Drama/Thriller. Think White Trash “Payback” or “The Limey”


See the full gallery on posterous

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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Charlotte Drive-By

Couple of shots I just snapped off driving down Brookshire. No idea what the settings were or anything. Just poked the camera out the car window and snap.

See the full gallery on posterous

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Sunday, September 6, 2009

A Beautiful Fluke

Mark found this skull right off the street where we were shooting some establishing shots of driving. It turned one of our just basic shots into one of the better shots of the day.

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Fountain

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