47:59 Hour Film Project delivered

We finished! I am amazed. With 13 minutes left before the deadline, the disk finally finished burning. Jeremy -- who is from LA -- drove my '92 Tercel like a stock car racer while Danielle called out directions from the back seat and I sat in the front with a laptop checking the disk. We hit endless red lights and got stuck behind proverbial Sunday drivers. We became more determined, Jeremy pushed it harder, and we whooped and screamed. One block away, my watch flipped over to 7:30. As we approached the corner, Danielle repeated "It's still 7:30. It is still 7:30!" over and over. Jeremy turned the corner and slowed down. I couldn't wait. I unhooked my seatbelt and jumped out of the moving car, waving the disk in the air as I raced toward the door where the competition producer, JD, stood with a watch and a clipboard. I raised my watch hand and called out "IT IS STILL 7:30!!!" JD smiled and pointed to his wrist as I threw myself across the threshold, saying "It's 7:29 on my watch..."

We made it, with only one minute to spare. Oh sure, as hyper competitors, we had already submitted our film at 6:15, but that version did not have our completed sound design. We did not want to settle for low production values. This was the real film, the one that had to get in. Now it's up to the judges.

In 63 hours, I had taken two 1/2 hour naps. We had written and tossed out 3 scripts, finally settling on the concept late on Saturday morning. We left for filming at 1 p.m. with a couple of pages in hand while the screenwriter shut himself up in the bedroom cranking away to complete the script before he left for his job waiting tables at 4 p.m. We shot until 6 a.m., running the footage back to the editor starting at 6 p.m. In the course of filming we had run out of battery, used up the gas in the generator, went hungry when a homeless man made off with the crew's pizza, and stood freezing in the bathroom-free alley that was our location while people searched for the key for the car which was our main set so we could move it to light the next sequence. Our HD footage proved difficult to transfer to disk for delivery and repeatedly came out squeezed or unplayable. We had trouble contacting our composer in the final hours. I almost fell off my chair mid-sentence talking with the editor. The file transfers to our sound editor pushed deadlines beyond imagining, making us only more desperate.

I guess it was a real 48HFP experience.

I still want to do it again.

output time

I have time to write now because we're in output mode. This is always the scary -- scarily time consuming -- part. So first we argue about all the best ways to deal with it, then we experiment, and we are zombies watching the blue thermometer of progress as it crawls across the screen. It's a relative victory when the progress crawls a little faster.

We managed to do a good film! I confess I'm kind of surprised. This process has been a continual struggle, filled with emotion, technical issues and delays.

I hope I hope we get it all done in time.

T-3:18

countdown time. must finish in order to start rendering. We're close. It's pretty scary.

26 hours in

Filming today so far has gone well. My team really pulled together after a serious script struggle and we had a lot of fun filming. Now it's quiet for a bit while we pull in footage and wait for one of the leads to get out of the play he's in. Next round of shooting starts at 11 p.m. OK. Back to work.

13 hours in

It's after 8 in the morning and I've been up for 28 hours. We're struggling with the script. This hurts.

Countdown to 48 Hours

Tonight the 48 Hour Film Project starts again. Several people are curious about this process so I'm going to try to post periodically as the film comes together. For those who don't know what the 48hfp is: it's a competition in which we get an assignment Friday night (tonight) at 7 pm and must turn in a completed 4-6 minute film on Sunday night at 7. I'm directing.

Last night I intended to sleep quite a bit and even went to bed early (11 pm). I managed to fall asleep fairly quickly but then woke up at 4 a.m.! I guess I'm pretty excited. I spent a long time trying to fall back asleep, but it was hopeless.

It's odd to be up so early. I did a bunch of things and then felt behind on my day but it was not even 8 yet. I guess I am getting ready for the 48. I'm already out of sync.

One of my favorite documentaries

I saw "The Ocularist," a short film film about a man who makes prosthetic eyes at the 2003 Sundance Festival and I have been thinking about it ever since. I mentioned it at the Doculink meeting recently and finally decided to see if I could find it. I'm so happy you can see the Ocularist at Atom Films!

I have a very good life

This is what I've been thinking about lately: I have a very good life. No matter what has come my way, I have always found a way through it -- and I have never had to do that alone. I have wonderful friends. I have a good family (even when we're strained it's mostly because they're either concerned about me or worried for themselves). I have always been able to do work that is creative and fulfilling. I get to laugh a lot.

If anything, I am so self-protective that I don't let in as much goodness as is possible and available to me. I need to be less guarded.

I want to thank everyone for filling my life with good things and with love. Have a wonderful 2007. I will!

why I'm getting a low grade

During a rambling late-night conversation with a friend on the phone, I tried to explain what I'd realized recently about my approach to dating -- a realization/revelation:

What if all this time I thought I had been handed a logic problem but actually it's a creative writing exercise?

If there's one thing I know about writing, it's that when I begin a new piece I don't know where it will end up. I also have no way of predicting when something will inspire me or even what will be any good. I may write something which really works at that moment but is utterly irrelevant to my place in life at another time. Over time, my work improves but it's not a linear path.

However, good writing comes through practice and I'm most creative when I just try to write all the time without worrying in advance about whether or not it will be any good. I do learn what doesn't work, but I can't predict what will work. And I know also that what works for one reader doesn't work for all.

It is a creative writing exercise. No wonder I've been getting low marks on my logic problem...

shedding the past

Actually, I suppose "shedding" might sound a little too active... I need some kind of passive verb. My past has been shed... I'm having a digital amnesia... My computer is shedding my past... OK. All that is just a flowery way to say that my external hard drive crashed, taking with it all digital photos and music, along with a significant portion of my writing. I wish I had been consistent with backups, but as it is my digital memory is full of holes. My iPod has also decided to leave this world, its death suspiciously coinciding with that of the source of its music...

Ah well. I knew this year was going to be all about getting a fresh start. This is just getting a little extreme, I think.