Slight Change in Plans...

...not that we had plans to begin with. But.

We're going to live here:

It's an off-the-grid straw bale house. This is the view, twenty acres of which is part of the property:

The power is solar, the heat is propane and water comes from the sky and collects on the roof and flows into this cistern:

The person who is not me in the above picture is renting the place to us. She's from the English Midlands and I share that because Patrick asked. She's a certified clown, a published author, volunteer firefighter and has her own twenty acres just up the dirt road from us. 

Also she's awesome, as evidenced here.

The property is about a mile from the town of Madrid (say MAD-rid), New Mexico. Coal miners, hippies, artists, bikers, a very awesome pub, a yummy restaurant, country western bands, tourists and, apparently, once a very odd amalgam of movie stars spent some time together there... Lots going on for a population of about 300. 

Check it out over here.

We should be moved in by September. We may very well freeze in the winter and last, but oh so certainly not least we'll be using and one of these:

(I'm also not sure if we'll have internet access and I think my mobile phone works, but I'm not totally sure.)

Believe it!

 

Hesher Is God

Not like "Clapton is God," but like Hesher is the embodiment of the actual guy-who-lives-in-the-clouds-and-does-or-doesn't-make-shit-happen.

 

He's indifferent. He doesn't protect or help you when you think He should. You even start to see that God's got his own problems. Sometimes He'll show you something cool, throw some inspiration your way, and that's nice. But eventually you learn to get along without Him. 

And one day He gives you what you think you've always wanted, but of course, it's too late and too small and unusable. 

Yet for all that, you're glad He exists, and thankful for everything He's ever done. Even hitting you with a van.

Ta-Dow.

It's done.

One complete, fully edited, credited piece of cinema is ours. We've planned a screening party for two Saturdays from now and we've chosen the festivals we will enter.

Pretty frickin' cool.

And now... on to the next one!

Dave Foley is that guy from The Kids in the Hall

It’s been a while. And there’s a reason for that. If, of course, you’re willing to accept my idiosyncratic neuroses as a reason.

See, the short is almost done. Done done. Not almost, kinda, but just needs one more thing done—it’s almost freaking COMPLETE and ready to be tossed out to the big bad world. Jeffrey is working his people-skills magic trying to secure us a location for the screening. And I’m working up the financial courage necessary to pay for entrant fees for the festival circuit. That kind of done.

So, I wanted my next post to be all Pomp and Circumstance, all fanfare and heraldry. But alas, the blessed day of completion has not yet arrived and the continuing blog silence is too much to bear (for me and two, possibly three, other people).

While we wait, let me impart here a lesson we learned the hard way. Always get sound. Even when the director says, It’s fine, we don’t need sound on this one. Tell him No. Refuse. Jump up and down. Mutiny if you must. He will thank you later. Also. On those takes when you think you’re getting sound, go ahead and give a little double check to the "microphone on" switch.

We failed both lessons a few times. Which means we had to foley some of the sound. In the video below, you'll see how we went about getting sound for a scene. Brandon and I went back to the office and, while watching a DVD of the movie on my laptop, recreated Jonathan’s movements. Movie magic!

PS: To anyone who got to this page looking for information on Dave Foley, I appologize. To make up for it, here's a fact about Dave Foley: He's the youngest member of The Kids in the Hall. That's a fact you'd learn if you looked at his trivia section on IMDb. So you should probably go there. And not here. But thanks for stopping by!

Another Log for the Fire

Quick note: I just finished a screenplay for another short (not the next short, just another short -- soon the Company will have a big cache of scripts and we can sift through them and pick one out and film it at our leisure, with funding and golden fairy wings)

This one is a mystery! With dialogue! And action! Brandon reads it now. I await the judgement of a Director Directs, then, if they so desire, I will subject it to the scrutiny of the Company. Then one day we will perhaps film it and it will be subjected to the scrutiny of the world at large. And I realize, everyone just wants to be loved, including me.

Which reminds me, if you're reading this and want to "Follow This Blog," please do so. Just click on the little link to your right. It will make me feel loved. And like I just said, that's what everyone wants. Including me. Still.