For the past four months while visualizing Jeopardy, I always had it stuck in my head that the final shot of the movie would have to be done entirely green screened. After watching Jeopardy, studying the set and visualizing that last shot, I realize that maybe green screening may not be the direction to take. The shot itself, less than twenty seconds long would and moves from a Close Up to a Medium Close Up. With in that range only about 50% of the actual podium will show, leaving the back ground covered by it and Henry himself to an extent.
Doing some tests with different gels, glass, fiberglass, I am thinking just literally dressing a "set" or making a similar to show the background would be the cheaper and easier route to go. To really think about it: If we green screened the shot, we would still have to build the podium. And then I would spend countless hours in Illustrator, Shake, Photoshop, AE, Swift, building and recreating the hanging frames you see in the picture below. And even then, it may take me four months to get it right if I get all the textures and looks right. The simpler approach: Build the podium out of wood-- Use metallic paint and texture to cover the wood and give it a plastic/metal feel. Buy a metal flat for the LCD monitor-- Keep the camera static, CG the lights on top of the podium and blue LCD monitor. Construct some makeshift metal or wood frames and put gels, colored fiberglass, and the same metallic textured paint in them. Hang on those from the ceiling in front of a light blue background add some filters and post production touches to the footage to make it look like TV and BADA BING! Henry is on the Jeopardy set.
This is the final hours of my wedding weekend wrapped up into ten minutes ending in an emotional hair raising montage of time with friends and family through the years. Cutting this was one of my favorite moments in the editing bay of 2007. I captured about five hours of archived footage to use in that small four minute montage.(The Clip is ten minutes, the montage is about four of the ten.) I could have captured another ten hours. Like I've always said, my kids are going to have a great time going through my 600 to 700 some tapes I've captured over the years. If I would have had time and resources I would have done it myself for this clip. I just simply didn't have time to go through every tape of every friend and family member and pick their best moment I've captured of them. What lays out in the final is almost just as good.
The NC Incident, (Mandi and Garrick's wedding,) is being packaged and completed this Sunday. The third and final installment of the three part epic wedding trilogy is behind me. From the tens of twenty song and clip alterations, to the month long grind fest of getting my ceremony to at least what I could call a viewable stage, to half assing the final credits to say I was done.... IT IS OVER, seven months to the day. I ran a test DVD of it Saturday and it only needed one adjustment.... (THE WHOLE THING!!!) -- Kidding. This DVD is packed with stuff to keep you entertained for a good two and half hours. On top of the actual hour and a half movie, there is a commentary track that explains what you don't see, five full ridiculous karaoke performances from the reception. Alternate sequences, trailers, deleted clips, poster and picture gallery's and trailers from the past two wedding movies.
If you attended my wedding you will be receiving a copy. If you didn't make it, I may not have your address, (Jazz excluded,)so if you are interested in seeing it, drop me your address through email, (Don't post your address on a blog comment,) and I'll send you a copy.
SPOILER ALERT: This clip is the end of the film. If you want the 'build' of the movie before you watch this clip. Don't watch it now. Wait for the DVD.
To see other information, exclusive web clips, and other stuff CLICK HERE. Sunday the complete package of media, clips and other useless information will be available there.
The title of this entry and the little teaser poster above was a joke that was told Thursday night at the Tap Room the night everybody arrived. After it was told orignally, it was repeated and laughed about at least 20 more times throughout the weekend. It became almost an ongoing joke throughout the weekend.
During the six month post production period of this epic wedding video another ongoing joke arised: "Garrick, try and be subjective and selective." If you are a professional cameraman and editor, I employ you not to try and cut your own wedding video. It is not healthy and in all honesty, you may find that because in fact you may not be able to be subjective as to what to leave in and what you leave out you may end up with a huge mess as I did... I think. I had nine hours of footage to jumble through and believe me, I wanted to keep 75% of it. The longer it took me to edit the thing, the more I second guessed everything I had edited. This same situation happened to me when I cut 'The Jersey Bootleg.' Of course in that situation, there were 21 hours and there was, (no exaggerating,) 18 hours of stuff we could've kept. It's tough, because you were there and remember how it all went down. Sometimes, the camera doesn't capture it like that and as an editor, you have to try and tell the story without using every pause in conversation and reaction unraveling in front of you.
The NC Incident, was the same way, and because it of course was my own wedding video, I wanted it to be perfect. I'm a nit picking bastard anyway when it comes to the real footage I am given. This was no exception. From Color Correcting and Sound Editing every snip on the time, (2123 of them,) to re-rendering and positioning all the text twice, (once to change it, once to change it back to the original way,) I methodically made an absolute mess of it all. Now, nobody has seen this video yet, because I am still working on the perfectly laid END CREDITS, DVD MENUS and DVD SLEEVE, so maybe just to me I feel this way because on top of the CC and Sound Edits, I reworked every Sequence at least four times as well. The only two sequences that were approved by me the first cut through were the: 'Opening' and 'Ceremony' sequences. (The Ceremony was not reworked because, well there wasn't really anything else I could do with it. If you keep up with this than you that story. If not CLICK HERE upon finishing this.)
I said the other night, this hour and a half finale to my 3 Wedding Video trilogy, will be either a master piece or a f*#%ing Snooze Fest. By February, 'The NC Incident' will hit the proverbial 'shelves' for my little part of the world to see. The outcome will be determined then...
For now, I've provided a glimpse of the variations this S.O.B has gone through in the past 6 months. The two sequences below were the two I had the most trouble with. From the music to use, to the pace, to the amount of footage added to subtracted, they were reworked four times. The clips on top were the first cuts abandoned after the month long ceremony edit debacle and two month following hiatus. The clip below it, is the fourth run and will have to be final cut, done three weeks ago on a belly full of tequila a couple hours of sleep.
Jeopardy's early, early pre-production stages has already surpassed the early stages of 'Meter' by over a mile in the tolerablebility race. The pre-production stages of any film can be pain stakingly, slow. In the case of my films... Deathly slow. Meter was agonizing and the 'conceptual art' or 'art department' was utilized by the count of big goose egg. Jeopardy... A whole different bird. I won't say it has been agonizing though. Sure, I want all the red tape to be done so I can begin really planning the shoot but I know I have props and sets to build on this one so I've tried to keep myself a little more grounded. The schmetics of the newspaper stand are complete and building has begun. (Even if it just be nail a day... HA! HA!) On my week off from the "norm job," I managed to storyboard the first 2 pages of the script and even cooler, really began to spend time on one of the more timely jobs of prepping the film, the Art Direction/Set Design.
In the original story the "Serial Killer Threat," was told through third person narration. For the film, the Narration was not going to work so a 'Backstory Catalyst" had to be inserted. From the first draft until the final draft we had the same idea on what that catalyst would be. In the big cities I've lived in, I was always a frequenter of the street vendor newsstand. You could get any magazine, newspaper, tabloid in any language at most of those vendors. If you wanted a Playboy in Cantonese at midnight on a Sunday.... No fear... The corner of Ventura and Coldwater's LA Times Stand had you covered. I thought, what could be more fitting than to use the street newsstand as the narrator for this fast paced, light dialogue driven film. I knew going in that committing to this would mean building an actual stand.... Or fly to a metropolitan area to find one and get them to let us shoot in front of it with little control over one of the key scenes in the film. I chose the first option. I was not worried about building the stand. It was filling the stand with periodicals that I semi worried about. Building the stand would mean I would inherit the task of making at least 2 newspapers and five magazines of my own to cover the racks of the stands. When I say making, I mean creating my OWN funny papers. I may even have to create more than than that. We will have to see. (If I were to use Time Magazine, Baltimore Sun etc... My budget would quadruple times another quadruple.) So like Quentin, who created 'Kahuna Burger,' and 'Red Apple Cigarettes'
and Kevin who gave us 'Mooby Fast Food' and 'Nails' Cigarettes,
Garrick gets to create his own brands and world. Of course, there are no cigarettes or fast food needed, but like LA Confidential, you can assure there will be some cool tabloid titles like "Hush Hush" Magazine in there.
The actual story is based in Baltimore, but we may leave it ambigious so we can make our own world with our own rules. Here is the traditional newspaper conceptual drawing, 'Metro Post.'
There will also be a more New York Post style paper. (My personal preference over the NY Times.) There is the 'THE METRO MAGAZINE', (the logo will stay like that, but the cover will change to a more autumn feel, since the story takes place on October 18th.)
Then there is the Reader's Digest slash New Yorker magazine, "THE CITY STORY." The sketched belt and blood will be a real photograph for the final print. Stuff like this is extremely fun.
You got any good ideas for magazine or newspaper names. Let me know. I'll be happy to use them and give you credit for them as well.
I will be honest, the merging venture of mine with Borderline Films to make a couple of films has become quite stale. There have been no set plans that have been set in stone for over a year now. In filmmaking unless you have assistants and other collaborative people who have assistants working for them, working with you, then your plan has to be suttle and simple. There is no such thing as 'six projects on the table' at once when you are not making any money to do this. It's not mentally or physically possible. It is one project and one project only. With this venture, one day it has been one thing, the other day, something completely different. Before we knew it, a year had passed by and we really, (with the exception of a meeting with important well established filmmakers,) were not or are not any closer than we were. I will not say I am not part to blame in the situation. My lack of extra time made it very hard to consistently pump out progress on scheduling, trailers, websites etc… But then again, I only re-scheduled, re-budgeted, and broke down that script four times or more, because it kept changing. Maybe that was my fault too. I could have intervened and made sure we had a ready to shoot script that was locked and loaded. I will continue to be a part of Borderline and do anything needed to be done to further advance our progress, but my visions, projects and ideas have taken a backseat to a list of projects that are no where near ready for pre-production which means if I waited for my spot since apparently there is no room for it, I would be 50. Everybody at this point in time seems to be doing their own thing anyway.
Either way, with the future of The Tag Along feature undetermined, I figured I'd go off on my own until further notice. Many people will say that another short film at this point in my life would be a waste of time. I don't think so. I think my plan is going quite well, even with the extended period of stand still I just experienced. Shorts are easier to put together and more importantly, are huge for securing the right people to help you take a huge step in the right direction career wise. (That is of course if your film is any good.) I'm not taking any chances in that particular department.
For the past year, Richard Deal aka "Demus" and I have tried to put a short film together based off of one of his short stories. He is a brilliant writer and I am not, but I can adapt a story for the screen and shoot it pretty well, so putting our heads together may make for a great team. I have read five of his past stories. Two of them would be too much to take on with a shoestring budget. Two would be borderline pushing our luck, but may be able to be pulled off and one is a simple one to two day shoot in a hotel room entitled 'Two Wrongs.' We had planned on shooting 'Wrongs' when I completed 'Meter', but something happened on the way to the forum. I studied this script and even had adapted it almost word for word. It was again a dialogue driven piece. I as I thought about it, began to realize another film in a confined area with 75% of it being dialogue would be almost repeating myself considering 12 minutes of the 15 minutes of Meter is dialogue in a cab. I was stuck again. Then Rick wrote yet another brilliant short story that actually won a contest on The Mystery Author's Site. It was and still is amazing. I read it six times in one sitting and started to think: This one would make a fantastic short. This is the one with Meter in tow would be all the calling card we'd need. It would involve money. Not too much, but way over Meter's budget including constructing a couple of minor sets and finding a little access to a green screen studio. (I think I have that handled.) I also started to think or maybe it was more like assume with a nicely produced recent film under my belt, I may be able to find a couple of investors to float us a couple grand to make the film because these days in fact, short film investors tend to make their money back if the investment didn't exceed the $15,000 mark. If it is done right, I am confident it would put both Rick and I on the map for possible future jobs or maybe even one of the features I have planned for my 35th birthday. For now, I am designing story boards, gathering lumber, working on a business package and most importantly, going back to work for myself again. Step 1: Finish my Wedding Video Step 2: Make Jeopardy. If you want to keep up with pre-production,(like Meter's Corner of my site,) Click Here.It will be more of an in depth look. To read Rick's brilliant award winning story. Click Here *Disclaimer: This story's rights have been secured and copyrighted. Any replication or material taking directly from this story is eligible for prosecution under the law in Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act. Here are some of my boards I am using as part of the business package.
Three years ago, I was given a golden Labrador retriever by a friend of mine. He was beautiful, cute and irresistible. I got him at exactly six weeks. Even though I had experiences with Labs and knew the first year was a very difficult and frustrating time, I didn't care. I was traveling back and forth from Asheville to Hickory quite a bit so I figured he would get out quite a bit and stretch his legs, maybe muffling the Lab Angst everybody talks about. I named him 'Vinyard.' (**After Ed Norton's character in American History X.)
Vinyard was a hell cat. He chewed his way through my life. Legs off chairs, killed two mattresses and boxsprings, jumped out a second story window and that was all in his first six months on earth. As the year went on, he began to get better only on occasion eating my computer keyboards, DVD's and couch cushions. When Mandi and I moved to Florida, he really shaped up… Probably not so much shaped up but was just too miserable to find the energy to tear anything up. He hated it there. He was stuffed in a small apartment. It was hot as hell and we lived in a neighborhood that was a 'mandatory leash area for dogs.' Ironically enough, we ended up in that apartment because 75% of the apartments and houses either did not allow dogs over a certain weight, (Vinyard usually surpassed the limit by at least 50 pounds,) or pit bulls were forbidden. I had gotten used to it. Due to my job in Asheville, I had lived in three different apartments in a year and every one of them was decided by the acceptance of my dog. (The places were also usually shit holes.) But in Orlando, we were able on a weekly basis to take the "kids" to this huge dog park where Vinyard felt right at home. He swam, chased bitches, and fetched for two to three hours at a time. The more I took him, the more I came to grips with who Vinyard really was. He was a lab. He needed space with a little containment. He needed to get dirty. I had been forced to keep him shut in his whole life. Upon returning to North Carolina, it only got worse. We had to get a cheap place because one, Mandi was pregnant. Two, we had spent all of our savings moving home. We ended up in a basement, "bachelor pad," place that had a bathroom, living room and bedroom. (The kitchen was a hot plate on the bathroom counter. … No kidding.) To boot, the front yard was host to the busiest highway in Alexander County. We managed to acquire a fenced lot to put out in the yard. We would put them in it on nice days when we were gone. This new environment would be the first sign that I had created a monster in Vinyard.
This fenced lot was no small container. Hell, it may have been as big as the apartment we were in, minus a pregnant woman and a quickly gaining sympathy weighted man. Yet Vinyard never left his stoop at the gate door. If I was gone for three hours, he waited there, watching, barking and digging. I didn't mind the digging, for as big as he was, it would have taken him two pregnancies of Mandi's to dig a hole big enough for his big ass to get under the fence. I worried about his behavior, but didn't think there was that much of a problem because when I was around, they were inside. We moved to a bigger place on a farm and Vinny seemed a little calmer. Of course now, he was two and a half. He was able to be left out without a leash a lot of the time. Vinny was good about sticking around, but there was an issue where, if I wasn't with him, it was 'Bark Fest 2007' on the front porch. If I went inside and left him out he would sit at the front door, barking to come in. Again, whether it be 10 minutes or two hours, Vinny's bark was constant, loud and annoying. If we were both inside and I even so much as moved a finger towards the front door, I was mauled as he scurried to get out. He wanted in if we were out, he wanted out if we were in. It began to anger me, because it was getting to the point where, because of his size, I would literally have to trick him to get out of the house or worse, slam his nose in the door trying to get out with out him blasting out behind me. He wanted to play. He wanted to be around me. I loved the dog but there was like anybody only so much attention I could give. Then Payton came and uncontrollably due to Mandi and I's opposite schedules, I played full time Dad on almost all my free time, which made it harder on Vin. I got to throw the ball, play in the yard, and take trips a lot less than before. He was big and clumsy and would run into a crawling Payton quite a bit when I included him on inside activities, so we tried the full time outside thing after Deja was killed. It didn't work.
He barked hours on end at first. He slowly got used to it, but I still would have to con him with hot dogs to get him into the lot. He had a plush dog house, lots of shade and lots of room and it wasn't enough. I couldn't let him run free because when I would try to leave for work he would blockade himself in front of the car or chase me down the road. I couldn't leave him in the cage too long, because the dog was so clean that he wouldn't piss or crap in it. My whole lunch break and time after work was devoted to getting to the babysitter, scooping up Payton and getting home to let Vinny out. One day, I commenced to give him tough love and left him in the lot for 11 hours. Not because I wanted to neglect him, but I was hoping he would have to pee and maybe realize after he did, that it was OK every once and a while. It didn't work. When I let him out he peed for at least five minutes.
I dreamed of having my own home with a big yard and electrical fence and screened in porch. It would be the perfect situation. When we moved into our new home, my mom kept him for about a month which was the wrong thing to do on my part. She is the Pet Spoiler Champion. We had to get settled in and I had to save up a little extra money to get the electrical fence. I brought him out before the electrical fence was in place just to let him get a feel of the new surroundings. He never left my side. I couldn't go in the bathroom without having to move him. He would circle my every step when he was inside, which usually meant he would walk on Payton, because Payton too after she started walking never left my side either. The problem worsened as Vinny would not be contained or let me contain him without a fight. He snapped two tie offs, broke two barriers, and fended off a high powered bark collar with resilience. I was forced to park my car outside the garage, bring his dog house into it and close him in the whole time. And 75% of the time he was in there, he barked. When I was there and when I wasn't, Vinny was stuck in the garage, because I simply could not get him to cool down, relax and be independent. The electrical fence after all the wait and hoping for better was installed and didn't work. He barreled through the barrier like it was a thin rubber band. He may have been big and clumsy, but he was smart too. He knew it would only sting for a moment and then he would be free if it stung him at all. I was out of options, but out of selfishness, kept him in the garage for another week, trying to figure out the next move. The end came on a Saturday afternoon when the barking persisted for two and a half hours in the morning. I decided I would open the garage and see if he would roam the yard and street but stick around. Wrongo- He was gone in a blink of an eye. Twice, I was carrying Payton around the neighborhood looking for him, finding him in neighbors' yard eating flowers, bushes, whatever. I threw the ball to him for a while but that ended when he mauled Payton, sending her flying though the air on a thrown ball that was no where close to the vicinity where Payton was. What really pissed me off, is he saw her. He had plenty of time to move and he didn't. He put his head down like a Running Back barreling into the endzone, and wailed her. The day came to a head about mid afternoon. I didn't have a key to the front door therefore could not leave through it because I was not able to lock the dead bolt back, meaning I had to leave through what was now known as 'The Dreaded Garage.' I literally had to push the garage door button, constrain Vinny until it closed, then open a window, put Payton, the diaper bag, and me through it and escape to the car… Just to go to the grocery store. All that just to get out of the house for an hour? By 10pm, the barking had become high pitched howls. A neighbor, not knowing my phone number beat on my door to tell me to shut the dog up.
This routine went on Sunday as well. By eight o' clock Sunday night, I finally succumbed to the thought of what really had to be done. It killed me. Mandi's family had offered a friend who lived on a farm. It immediately threw up a red flag. I knew what this dog needed. A farm if was as big as Africa would not be what Vinny needed.
Vinny has bad separation anxiety. If we take 'Me' out of the equation with this dog, he may be better, BUT, you can't just throw him on a farm with no containment and no attention and expect him to stay there. It was that simple. The offerers let my words go in one ear and out the other. With no other offeres, I was down to two decisions: 1) Board him for four days and find him the perfect home or listen to my mom, who was the President of the Humane Society for six years and have him put down. It sounds terrible, but her thoughts on it were simple: This dog was so attached to me. He was stubborn, resilient, had ear problems, and a list of other things that only I knew how to handle to keep him safe from himself. Another owner if not perfect would not due.
My father who is the most down to earth guy I know put it simply: This dog is a huge pain in the ass. If you give this dog to somebody even with credentials that you have even a slight doubt about, you are going to worry about that dog for years. It may be selfish of you, you may be torn up about it for awhile, but you would never have to worry about the dog again. You won't have to worry if he is being treated right, has what he needs…. You will not have to worry again period.
I was so against that idea until he told me that. So I boarded him, giving me a week to make a decision I felt was unfair for me to ever have to make. Sandy at the vets asked, "if I can find him a home with one of our top clients would you let him go?" I said yes. (We had been taking our pets to this vet for years. I trusted her judgment over anybody else.)
Two days went by with nothing… I had checked into rescues and was refused because he wasn't coming from an "endangered environment." I asked every friend I have. They all knew Vinny. That was a dead end. Then Sandy called and said she may have a prospect. She began to tell me the living arrangement: Big fenced in back yard, doggie door to an enclosed patio and when the family was home the patio slide door was opened to the house. Their record for shots etc, was better than my mother's. I said that home would be perfect. She said she would call me back.
Twenty four hours went by, nothing. It was down to the wire. Friday, I asked Dad to go get him from the vet and I would take him back on Saturday to do the deal. Dad called me back twenty minutes later and said, that him and Mom would take Vinny for the time being. Maybe keep him until we could get a fence and maybe some professional training… Whatever. As much as my father said he hated my dog, I knew the truth. He liked the little goofy fucker. The weight had lifted. Dad said he would go up there and get him.
Seconds later, I called Sandy to tell her our plan.
She interrupted me: "Good news. That couple is going to take Vinny. We're bathing him now. They will be here in fifteen minutes to get him…"
My heart sunk. I could not stop it now. I had given them the permission in writing. It was over. Vinny was gone.
I said, "Well, can I get their contact info?" Sandy said no. She said in cases like this where the dog is going from a good home to a good home, they give the new owner the discretion to contact the old. Meaning, if they didn't call me to give me updates on Vinny or trade emails and pictures, I would never see him again.
Three days later, the couple called Sandy to tell her that Vinny was settling in quite well with the other dogs and new surroundings. Sandy called my mother. My mother told me. As upset as I was, I couldn't have made a better decision. I didn't stall too long to have to settle on a decision and I didn't impulsively make a hasty one either. For one time, every decision I made throughout the ordeal was right. Miss the hell out of the kid already. It's only been four weeks. I know his new home is giving him everything I couldn't and I'm sure he's already king of the house. I sometimes feel I failed…. Or failed him. We had spent 3 years together. There was a lot of thick and thin. Kind of humbling…
What does this say about my character? I have a 'child' for three years and just can't no matter what I do get the kid to behave so I pawn him off on somebody else?
Although, I know the situation benefits all involved and my fear of worrying about how he's being treated and if he is OK is gone. There is still no and will never be any resolution… Vinyard, I miss you. I wish you could read this and understand why I had to do what I had to do.
I would love to see you. I would love to bring you a big bone every Sunday and throw the ball to you, but apparently things don't work that way.
So now… I wait and hope that one day, our roads will cross again. Look for me. I'll be the guy with a deflated soccer ball and mangled black collar in my hands…
On Nov. 4th, 2006, Mark, Freddy, Phil, Mandi and I went out into the coldest night of the year and filmed Meter. At 5:11am the camera was so cold it stopped working. As I drove home, I worried what I really had captured. It wasn't until February that I realized that we had done a damn good job and something small turned into something huge. Within the nine months that Meter has been in circulation. We have been excepted to 6 film festivals, placed a close second in two, capturing a mediocre sixth overall prize, with three that have not even taken place yet, (and this is all in North Carolina.) Meter will hopefully be making it to Boston Theatres as it just entered the Boston Film Festival and New England Underground Fest. With the exciting journey of "the little film that could," my buddies who assist me in some of this marketing stuff advised me that I should change the box cover art of the DVD and utilize some of the good review quotes and add the 'official selection' logos given along the way. So over the weekend I did just that. I stripped down all the beveled yellows and pointless 'snaz' making it more basic black as this film is: No Frills. No Snazz. Just Dark.
Let me know what you think.
(Two Official Selections have been blurred out because the festivals have not yet released the finalists to the public, only to the filmmakers and I was told not to spill the beans.
I about plunged into the world in the floor board of my father's car back in 1974. It was the first year they were letting dad's back to watch the birth. They wheeled in my mom and by the time my father had put on his gloves and scrubs, BADA BING, I was out. Having little boys in the Lane family would not be so easy after that faithful night, for the Bambino Curse began. Italians are usually good at producing 'little bambinos,' aka, baby boys. It comes natural.
Not in the Lane Family. I was the last boy produced in several attempts with various family members. Estrogen bomb, after estrogen bomb, the little BambinAS arrived.
Upon turning, 21, my grandfather began pressing the issue of how important it was for me to, stay alive long enough to have a son. (I honestly think that may be the only thing he has said to me in 12 years.) "You are the last Lane. You must carry on the Lane name," is what my father and he always say. When Mandi and I decided to have a baby out of wed lock, my family, I was sure was going to disown me, until I realized, "wait a minute... They need me as much as I need them." If I was to have a son, the other technicalities would be overlooked. Well, I guess it is not hard to figure out that in fact, I not only had a baby out of wedlock, (and had not planned to have a shotgun wedding,) but well, I had a girl. "Boy" was I in the shit house. My cousin, (Jennifer,) had no problems producing a boy. My sister at 38 years old had no problem, (will have no problem in December anyway,) in popping out a boy. Imagine that... THEY WEREN'T LANES anymore! Meanwhile, in my wife's family, they were having the same problem. Girl after girl after girl were being produced. They had not had a boy of any sorts for nearly 8 years and there had been a lot of offsprings since. Even in the extended families they were coming up short in the 'little pecker department.'
We were doomed. The odds were stacked against us. Mandi and I reluctantly knew that if we to have another girl we would have to try a third time. We had been real careful and decided on reading "the book" to assure we would get a XY mix the second time around. Then suddenly, we were a cliche' as we got pregnant on our honeymoon. It wasn't quite what we had in mind. The days and weeks pressed on. Mandi and I were both sweating bullets because she wanted a boy as well to be the first for her family and thank God pitied me. She knew my mission would somehow have to be accomplished. "If it is a boy, we're done. If it is another girl, well, we'll wait three to four years and try one more time.... But that's it!! You get two more chances," Mandi professed. Shit, I didn't want two more times. I was barely making it through the first. The days closed in. Mandi and I both had come to grips with the fact that we were having another girl. 'Preston Velna' would be her name. It was destined. Karma, would come back and beat my ass.
YOU PAY FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO.
Tuesday we went for the sonogram. They made us wait twenty minutes. Within four seconds of the little thingy being pressed on Mandi's belly we knew.
It was over.....................................................................................................................
IT WAS A BOY! I damn near fell out. Anxiety rushed over me as she showed me his little winky. I had never been so relieved in my life. We had done it. I if a failure in everything else I did had produced a little Lane Bambino. We were going to keep it a secret until Thanksgiving. Mandi lasted about 10 minutes out of the doctor's office. Me.. Maybe 15. My grandfather will not know until about 2pm on Thursday afternoon. It may bring the morale up at the Lane Family Thanksgiving. (They had been getting quite bland.)
The curse had lifted. The Lane name will continue on for I am happy to announce that sometime in mid April, Boston Winslow Lane will explode into the world. The reason for his name.... One I love the name and have been waiting years to name him that name, (get past the city, and think about it,) and two, I find it fitting because I had called the drout of testosterone in the families, 'The Curse of the Bambino,' for the last eight years. It was fate that his name would be this. When he asks,why we named him this, I'll give him this exact story and say... "If this doesn't explain it, touch up on your Red Sox history, son." There really is no other name that will suit….
Anybody I have ever talked to says that horror film screenplays follow a completely different set of rules and formats. I had always taken a non shalant attitude towards them in general. My theory was, "A bunch of kids somehow congregate in somewhere in some woods or something. Some crazy circus animal shows up in a mask wielding a metal sharp thing of some sorts and well.... The rest is history." The characters in these "slasher/supernatural" films are one dimensional and are basically props for our demented appeitite for blood and destruction. There are exceptions to the rule. See List below:
1. The Shining 2. Rosemary's Baby 3. The Exorcist 4. Psycho 5. Cannibal Holocaust
I had always wanted to write a good Slasher flick. My slasher flick was to be handled a little differently. I wanted to keep all the great qualities of the '80's style horror flick such as, old style effects in gore, cheesy Whitesnake big hair music, mystery machine vans, pot smoking hippies... You know the rest. The difference would be, the kids that normally posed as slabs of meat waiting to be selected by the meat cutter, would actually have stories. The atmosphere would have a story as well. For example and I hate to use this because it kind of blows my cover on a little of the story I stole off of to tell mine, but in 'Delieverance,' the film/book wasn't about four old koots taking off in their canoes down a river just to end up getting caught by a couple of imbred bumpkins who well treat them to a taste of backwood hospitality. It's about riding the river one last time before it disappears due to growth in industry around it. It's about getting out in the wilderness at the ages they are. It's about four friends who have all let life change them in different ways and how they try to get back to the good things during the weekend. Around all that, comes the horror of what happens after the boats hit the river.
All the drama and set up makes the horror way more harder to stomach after you meet these guys. That is what I am going to try and do. I want the audience to like these kids and yes, even though they know the inevitable outcome, they almost fear the moment the nightmare begins because they like these guys so much.
In typing the first 25 pages, I realize I have plot holes and will have to do some reverse engineering to make it perfect, but it is a start.
I use to crank these things out in weeks flat, but then would spend three months to a year rewriting. I found, writing ten to fifteen pages at a sitting, then taking time off, bouncing the ideas around in my head and then going at it again, gets me closer the first time around. One of the most exciting elements of this venture, is that it will be the first feature screenplay, I will have written in almost six years. I wrote two shorts, ghost writed four of my friends', and written 30 pages of an incompleted one since-- But this one, will be the first feature I complete.
I kind of walked away from it, because let's be honest. If you don't have the means to make the film or don't have some kind of clout or know somebody that can get you in a literary agency somewhere, you are really just doing it to make yourself feel good. I have LSD, cocaine and tequila to do that with.
A quick inked sketch of one of my Demented Circus Animals I drew on a 2 hour ferry ride to Ocracoke Island.
