And Then Here We Are

This blog has been around for a year now. Happy anniversary.

When this started I was writing the screenplay for Archie Hotel. I finished it. Brandon and I fought like squirel versus weasel to come up with the final draft. Then the company began filming it. Then we realized a feature was too big and somewhere between July 8th and August 3rd we gave up on it.

Not 10 days after relating our defeat we had the script for a short. We casted it. Filmed it. Took pictures. By mid-October we were done with production.

And now we sit in post-production limbo as we wait for the final edit. A few days past we watched a rough cut. I'll tell you all now: it was good. Prepare yourselves.

In death, a member of Project Mayhem has a name

And like that. The movie is dead. Or at least it's very cold and not moving when we poke it. So now I can tell you...its name was Archie Hotel. Or at least that's what we called it.

Over the weekend, the Company ventured out into the woods and attempted to film one of the simpler segments of the film. A man lost in the forest. We had a forest. We had a man. All that was left was pointing the camera and pushing the big red button... Ha. Let me restate that: Ha.

We didn't focus the camera properly. We acted tired in one shot and angry in another. We wore the wrong shirt. We planned for a three hour tour, but were stuck on the island for three years. And none of us was as forward thinking as the Howells.

So the movie died. We didn't realize it right away. We put sunglasses on it and carried it around for a while, Bernie Lomax style. Then it sunk in. Brandon noticed it first. Then, perhaps due to the fetid smell of the footage or the realization that the task at hand was as heavy and crushing as a cubic ton of burial dirt, I too saw how our film was no longer with us. We met with the rest of the Company, shared the bad news, and collectively pored over the autopsy report. Then we drank.

It's been a little while now. I'm getting used to its absence. I'll admit I wasn't ready to let it go, kept holding on to its hand asking it to please wake up, yelling at Brandon, telling him to stop lying to me. It wasn't dead, it just needed better organization, more effort, more love. I made lists and forms and schedules and promises, anything I could think of to revive it, anything to not to give up. But it was gone. It is gone. That which once rang so blue and clear in our hearts is now but a dull, raw hole in our chests.

However.

We are still alive. And we have ten freakin' thousand dollars' worth of camera and editing equipment. And we have you: friends and family and co-workers to whom we've made this silly declaration, this threat, this promise that four people dedicated to the idea of independently creating a diversionary narrative from pictures and sound can do so if they try. So we are trying.

I'm back at the studio. I'm writing a short that involves four locations, all of which we have access to, and four speaking parts. It will be smaller, more manageable. And I'll tell you all about it. Right here.

You may have noticed the "About me" description has changed. This here will still be about bringing Archie Hotel to life. That process is just taking a little longer than we first expected--it's not overnight that you learn how to make radios from coconuts.

Locations, LLCs, and Love

The motherboard has arrived from the motherboard fixers. The mighty computer will be back online in a jiff.

While we whittled away the whiles waiting for that wonky whatnot, we’ve been working!!

In what way?

Well. It seems the yokel who wrote this thing decided our narrative should take place in not one or two, but FIVE distinct, commercially owned locations. Two bars, a flower shop, a café, and a hotel. Good job, yokel.

The bars aren’t a problem. We drink enough to have developed strong, alcohol-laden friendships in local establishments. And yes, Phil, I’m holding you to your whiskey-coke promises.

But that still leaves us to find a café, flower shop, and hotel that would be cool with the headache of an inexperienced, no-budget production company coming in and mucking up their junk. But you get nothing if you don’t try so we drove around on Saturday, pointed our wishful fingers and said, “There. That is where we want to shoot our film.” We wrote down the addresses on pieces of paper and took pictures and found our dream locations. So, blessed readers, any of you have friends here, here, or here?

UPDATE: An awesome co-worker at the beloved day job has an in at the Ace! He’s gonna pass on the good word. Things like this happen and you think god must be a movie buff.

We’ve also legitimized ourselves. The screenplay has been officially submitted to the United States Copyright Office. We can now freely pass out copies of the script like enticing candy that lures children into white vans.

And the wheels have begun to roll on the LLC wagon. Ariana, Jeffrey, Brandon, and I are soon to be the Organizers and Managers of Such a Pretty Garden, LLC.

We’re getting there. Sometimes this endeavor feels like looking into a big pile of string that you’re convinced is your job to unravel and you’re poking around looking for the end of the string and soon, you realize you’re bound up in string, no closer to finding either end and now all of the sudden you have to pee.

To come…a list of things we need and how you can help!

(SPOILER: You will be able to help by giving us the things we need.)

The yeasty smell of the dead

Things go wrong. Even when you want nothing more than for them to go right… When this happens, do you breathe deeply and evenly, trying to get your soul and heart to flow with the capricious randomness of the world around you? Do you curse the heavens and grit your teeth and notch up your resolve? Do you nap?

Our newly purchased, super-fast computer—the very computer that will edit, add effects to, and make perfect our collective filmic vision—has crapped out. Specifically, the motherboard crapped out and now we must send it back to its maker and get it fixed. It’s under warranty, but let me tell you, when you have a shooting script sitting on the dining room table, looking at you with wide-eyed potential every time you pass, the last thing you want to do is wait while some company in Korea fixes its crapped out product.

But then there are signs that things are going to go right. Witness: in our script, one character uses and describes a certain strange and bad-smelling plant. Brandon chose which particular plant through an on-line search of strange plants that smell bad. I’d say he chose this strange plant about two weeks ago…

Two days ago, we found that selfsame strange plant growing in our tiny patch of dirt in front of our apartment. I have not seen this plant before. I did not plant it. It is a voodoo lily and it is growing in our front yard. It smells like death meets halitosis, it looks like it wants to poison you, and I will not remove this plant because I know it is a sign that even though things happen that I desperately do not want to happen, such as our motherboard taking a big dump on my sunshine, things will work out. We have voodoo on our side.

The Shooting Script by the Numbers

Do you love stats? Here are a few:

SCRIPT INDEX

Number of roles (not counting extras): 23
Ratio of female to male roles: 11:12
Number of swear words spoken: 21
Instances of the word "potato": 8
Approximate age of youngest character and oldest character, respectively: 25, 60
Number of scenes involving a swimming pool: 2
Number of statues of former Presidents of the United States: 1
Ratio of action vehicles to parking tickets issued: 9:4
Number of separate locations: 35
Percentage that are commercially owned: 26
Minimum number of alcoholic drinks consumed: 18
Number of medicinal drinks: 1
Amount a main character claims is in his wallet when asked if he'd like to buy another character's artwork: $10

Blam! Hip Hop Pool Party!*

I've finished writing the screenplay.

Brandon is having his way with it, then he will present the shooting script to the Company this weekend.

So it begins...

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