Friday... Hammering down with rain outside. Holy MofG, when is the rain going to let up! Submitted myself and my peeps online for some commercials.
Spent most of the day reading (R&G and Marie N's script) as well as carrying on with my shooting script. Checked out laptops online (that's one good thing about M's machine going gaga, we do have an excuse to get a new one, albeit a very cheap new one.
Received some tax info from David (thank God) - everything's set for submission on Monday. We opened J's box which was 3/4 full of PG tea bags (which he used as packing for munchkin's Chocolate Cow) so I'm a very happy camper. I now have PG coming out of the wahzoo (as I believe the Colonials say).
Suggested to Stephen that he edit together some more trailers for the teaser so that there's a complete set to collect! He's up for it so hopefully they'll be some more very soon.
Spoke to BB of UTV and he let me know that he's putting together a trailer for the CC job which I can use for my own publicity and that there's going to be a new edit to watch very soon so watch out for an invite. He also told me that although SAG rules instruct employers to notify talent about health requirements for overseas jobs (i.e. Panama), there is no stipulation that they actually pay for them. So, I was asked, very politely, to do some free ADR work for the CC job in exchange for then having (very kindly) paid for my shots. Fair deal! I have no probs with that. UTV were amazingly generous.
It's interesting that although SAG members must be warned that they might get Yellow fever when shooting in Central America, there's no requirement for anyone to pay them to get a shot. This, of course means, that if he doesn't want to die he has to pony up the dosh himself. Oh, and three HepA&B shots...$580. Ouch. No ouch for me though, thanks to UTV. Bless 'em.
I wonder if SAG have lost any members overseas through being too poor to pay for a potentially life saving injection... hum, that's one to ponder.
Saw IceAge2 at the flicks. Quite funny.

Thursday..
Into the office and submitted. Off to an audition for a cellphone company, my first with Mademoiselle, by the way. Went fine. I had to sit with my legs up on a cushion watching a football match on my chest. Prob something for their vid delivery service I should imagine. Back to the office for more submitting. Met up with Jules who's coming on board and checked out her most recent shoot to try and find some commercial shots. All fantastic shots and she looks great in all of them but nothing which leaps off the page. We'll try a certain one and see how it goes for a couple of months.
Back home with littl'un. Continued reading Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead (which is a classic wacky play) and Marie N's script.
M gave me her laptop and said that it had stopped working. Oh, I thought. That's not good (I'm thinking tax time, all the stuff is on her machine and she hasn't backed up in months). Plugged it in, power light on but no drive light. Oh dear, oh dear. Could be a corrupt drive. Basically it's a five year old Vaio which has seen much better days. The hinges gave way years ago and the screen's being held on with wire ties! It's cutting edge, believe me. So, oh shit, I thought. We're done, the drive is dead. BUT, can't be neggie about it can you so I gutted my lappie (which, of course, just happened to take the same 2.5" drive type (thank f) and installed the 'dead' drive. Powered and spun up very nicely (so it's the mother board in the old Vaio which has died, R.I.P.) but I was left with a machine spinning a hard drive which had no clue as to why it was in such a 'foreign' machine. Would it boot to Windows? Of course not. So, luckily, I have a boot disc with XPSP2 which allowed me to reinstall Windoze on the drive. A hour or so later, I'm in a new Windoze session with the new drive and all the data still on it. Yeehaa. See, nothing's too tricky if you put your mind to it. I'm actually typing this page with my machine and the reincarnated drive! Ain't technology wonderful!
I celebrated by starting my shooting script for the shoot next Saturday. Drew up a line of small boxes along the right hand side of a sheet of A4 and photocopied my script using the sheet with the boxes as the photocopy original. Voila, a script with a neat row of boxes down the right hand side of each page. Beautiful! OK, time to draw a bunch of stick men and arrows...

Class day. Worked with Miche and was pretty much "on track". Need to be more specific maybe. Nothing too special though. Had a first read of Check-In with Brett at the end of class. Joey was clearing up and Ricardo came in after we'd just started. At the end, Brett was happy, I was happy, Joey said that it held him all the way through (yessss!) and Ricardo seemed to like it so much he was willing to blow a wedding he's supposed to be going to on shot day so he could come along! So, all good then.
I went off to see the warehouse we're shooting in. It belongs to another nocturnal mate of mine, Blz, who used me in one of his films last year. It was a humdinger, that's for sure. VERY experimental so I knew Gary would get on with him. Gary, Bob and Robert were all pretty impressed at the space. I was really cooking ideas with all of the options the space seemed to give us. We moved around, shot several angles and I explained to Bob what I wanted on the day. He knew his stuff. Unfortunately, everything I wanted, looks, angles and suchlike was going to require prepping a large part of the space. Painting 20' walls (with primer and a few coats) or a huge part of the floor so I was beginning to see the work and the expense pile up. I had to start thinking as a low-budget filmmaker as opposed to an actor/director with immovable images in my mind which 'had' to be shot 'so no comprimises'. Also, no running water in the place which worried me a little. So, we ummed and ahhhed and say bye bye to Blz (who was as cool as ever) and left. This place really isn't in a nice part of town, by the way. In fact, it's pretty scary in the daylight, forget about after dark.
Gary called later on and told me that they'd all chatted in the car going home and thought that there were too many variables, any one of which would screw up the shoot. I had to agree as I knew noise was a major possibility, the excessive prep and the area were all HUGE red flags. I think we're going to shoot in my studio now which is a space I can control and we can take as long as we like to get what I need. The kettle and lav are nearby so it's a much better location in my book although the pics show how cool the warehouse would have been. Never mind...

Hum, what happened today (Tuesday)? Not sure. If I remember, I'll post.
Oh yes, munchkin and I went on a long walk, took in the sights of WeHo(!) and watched the fountains at the PDC. Very cool. On our way back, littl'un saw a Chrysler PT Cruiser and went over to smell it! Seems he likes 'smelling' PTs! Also, he started galloping sideways and when I asked him what he was doing, he said he was skateboarding. Not even 3 years old and already he's pretending to ride a skateboard. I think we might buy him one and see how good he is!! He'd probably take to it like a duck to water. Cute!

Remember the day's shooting I had at the Friar's Club in BevHills for the Verbal Intercourse movie trailer?
Well, it's onlne so enjoy..
By the way, it's huge and will probably take an age to stream. Oh, also, it's R rated (that's 18 for the rest of the world, guys and girls) for naughty words.
See if you can guess which one I am...

Welcome Blogger visitors...
Monday is, as ever, class day and I did the scene from Hooters again with Richie R. It went well but T still wants us to try more stuff with it so we're gonna do it again next week. Hit Y's after for her feedback on my short film rewrite. Hum... there was quite a bit she thought didn't work and I agreed with most of it but she's definitely coming from a 'film school' perspective. I know I asked for her opinion (and consequently have to listen to it when it's delivered) but I do object when she asks me to leave a copy of the script so she can 'write her own version'! Yes, fine, take what I took the trouble and time to create on the page and rewrite it. Wow, that's really difficult, isn't it! Now I'm no diva and I have a skin as thick as a rhino (you have to have in Hollywood) but I don't like critics who sidestep the hard part of actually writing words on a blank page and think they can just make your stuff 'better'. Rant over...
Went thru the first couple of scenes for our other movie, the feature we're all collaborating on. We improvised some dialogue (using our circumstances and character spines) and took down most of the words. It's a great approach to script writing and we're in the perfect position of having the actors who are going to be playing these characters actually write their own dialogue.
Had a game of chess with M much later on and, although, I lost my queen mid-game (I hate that when it happens), the game finished with just her king and queen and my king on the board. Quite a comeback, I feel!
Trawled the net for movie supplies for next week. Needed some huge tarps and some duct tape. Hopefully, we'll keep the art dept stuff down to less than $120. I need to buy Brett his wardrobe so I'll hit Ross later in the week.
Worked on the script 'til 1am and had an hour long chat with G who's going to be my cameraman. Tania, the makeup lady, won't be able to make the shoot so I guess I'll be doing that as well. So, that'll be writer, director, talent, designer, wardrobe, caterer, PA, runner, transpo, makeup... the list goes on. Ah, the joys of low-budget independent film making.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HUGE!
The advertising model is finally changing. I knew it would. ABCs move to put prime time shows online for free means that online commercials are to become part of their revenue stream. You saw it here first! Down the line it impacts actors heavily. Internet-only commercial contracts have a SIGNIFICANTLY lower income potential than TV commercials. SAG had better jump on this quickly.

Well, I'm typing this standing in my kitchen and littl'un is checking up my bottom with his doctor's kit. As we speak, my arse is getting a shot, being 'looked at' with an ear inspector and being listened to with a stethoscope. Too funny!
More stuff and nonsense and then off to PHW for an extra class, a screening and analysis of Polanski's "Chinatown". Pretty full studio 2 and watching on the new projector screen (rather cool). TS MC'ing. Apparently, it's rated the No.2 all time great movie screenplay (after Casablanca) and after sitting down and analysing it for four hours, I can see that it's pretty damn perfect!
Drews script-o-rama has a bunch of scripts online by the way (make sure you find the 'shooting' script as that's more likely the one which was shot!).
Home for stuff and nonsense.
Watched The Pianist and, I have to say, is now probably one of my all time top films.
There ya go....

Saturday...
Walkies. Off to school. We had a great meal on 3rd and then went to the Grove. Movies sold out so we went shopping! Picked him up. Home again!

Went off to get my second HepA&B shot (apparently there are three!). Litt'un came along to see Dad get an injection so hopefully he won't be so incredibly stressed when he gets his next one. Afterwards, on a drive down Wilshire, we happened across the La Brea tar pits. I always knew they were around here somewhere but I'd never seen them. We wandered around the park and looked at the large black puddles surrounded by chicken wire fences. No, they don't bubble or burp, they are just, sort of, there. Rather exciting actually. But, being the optimum medium for fossil preservation, they have dug up quite a few interesting things. There's also one which is being excavated so it has the wooden plank walls and the whole sh'bang. Ah ha, here's LACMA too. Never been here either so we checked it out. Super duper huge modern art sculptures in the grounds. Including "Hello Girls!" by Alexander Calder, pretty impressive. It's driven by the wind and some waterjets.
The rest of the grounds have other metal and steel stuff, most of them pretty abstract (and absurd), but then, that's art, innit! There is a series of high walkways which are on the same level as the main concourse, the shops, the coffee stand, etc. Nice and breezy to walk thru. We didn't go in, of course. $$$!
Home again and I worked the rest of the afternoon.
Watched Fantastic Four which, as you can imagine, I could take or leave. The one scene I found actually distasteful was the scene outside the sports arena which was staged, not for artistic contant or to move the plot forward (which could have been done in any setting) rather to shamelessly advertise a multitude of companies who had their HUGE ads in plain sight behind the performers. Every camera angle was to give one ad or another the best possible view. Really really sad.
Marie N dropped off her script and we chatted about the characters and their backgrounds. Looks like a great script. MN was very excited that I was helping her out, ahhhhh.
Oh, R from UTV decided to reply to my mail asking her to reimburse me for my shot by sending me an internal email meant for someone else. When I sent it back to her asking her what she meant by her phrase, she just sent me back a note saying it was a joke and that I was such an easy target.. blah blah.