Ken's Bleeding Palm

Saturday morning I was up till 6am and out of bed again by four hours later. I was running on almost zero sleep, but that didn't matter- I had a film to direct. It was freezing cold out in the streets of Manhattan but we made it work anyway. My friend Ken wrote the script and he was guilty of gathering the actress and 'crew' as it were. And by crew, I mean the 5 kids who mostly stood around inside of Starbucks and the dollar store doing nothing while Ken and I tried to run the shoot. 

You would think that people in Manhattan would be used to seeing movie cameras on the street, but apparently not. People were constantly annoying the hell out of us all day trying to get their face on camera and basically making our already difficult shoot that much harder. We had the crackheaded rapper from Harlem who kept following us talking constantly about how awesome he was and how we needed to videotape him. So, eventually just to get rid of him we did. People constantly walked threw our shots, ruining good takes by sticking their faces into our camera and smiling at us as if we cared that they existed. How narcissistic are people that they all shouted 'I'm famous' or wanted us to video tape them or listen to their opinion on how to shoot our movie or what we should do. But I digress.

I got some time behind a camera and learned a few things so that's all that mattered.

Actors are Such Interesting Peoples

I spent every night last week in Manhattan  meeting with a different actor. Tuesday night I found another great actor and was very excited. He even hung in there until the next afternoon when he emailed me to say that he was cast in a feature and couldn't do my project anymore. I understand completely and I wish him lots of luck, it's just frustrating to constantly have people coming in and out of my project and wasting my time sitting in coffee shops in Manhattan meeting with total strangers who only let me down.  But, now I have my cast. Saturday was rehearsals at yet another coffeeshop in the city and everything seems ready to go. Now I just need a group of extras to fill my classroom scene. Shooting begins next Sunday in the streets of Brooklyn.

Return of 'The Flu'

I've spent pretty much 24 hours a day for the past 7 days glued to my laptop (which, honestly is only slightly more than usual) reading some of the worst screenplays ever written in the history of bad movies. As well as fighting off that demon known as the flu. It's been fun. I kid. But, I'm really starting to get along with and know all the people at work and putting my networking skills to the test. There are a lot of talented young people working in the office. As well as a couple beautiful girls. The whole environment has been very conducive to thinking artisticly and learning the craft of filmmaking, so I really can't complain too much. But the scripts that I've been reading, ughhhhhhhh. Most of them are a chore to struggle threw they are so poorly written, but there have been a couple exceptions. Plus, it gives me hope that I can one day get myself an agent and have a script land on the desk of a Hollywood producer. I mean, if some of these writers could do it I should definitely be able to.