Never Been So Busy In My Life

First, the best memes I saw this week:

And this one isn't virus related, but still cracked me up.

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Got done that video for the auction company. It's over 2 hours long. It's not bad, but there's things I would have shot differently had I known what I was going to be editing this into going in.

I wrote an insane amount of stuff in the last week. I worked on:

• the sequel to my movie Bounty. I'll never shoot it, but I've mentioned that I have very little control when the writing muse wants to continue a story. 
• the sequel to HH. I've worked on this off and on for about 15 years. Again, would never shoot it, it's too big budget, but that character is a part of me, and he talks to me sometimes.
• Another script I've been working on for years.
• The Ttory3 script.
• I've been turning that vampire script I wrote a while back into novel form. I'd thought about doing it last year, but could never get past two paragraphs. Just couldn't really figure the way in. Well, forget about that, because I've now written 36 pages in four days. 
• A few other odds and ends. 

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Still pushing forward to try to shoot this Ttory segment June 10-12th. Locations is absolutely the toughest this time because I need a couple of indoor locations, and not many people want to let strange actors into their house right now.

There are other issues, but if I had the locations locked down then I'd bully past everything else. For all the problems with shooting in the woods, I love the fact that you can just go there and do whatever the fuck you want there. Naked women? Sure. Bloody heads and body parts? Sure. Shoot a shotgun? Knock yourself out.

The auditions continue to come in from non-DMV people. New York, Miami, Lithuania, Romania.

And I got a first! I was not aware there would be any more firsts for me, I've been doing this for so long. But I got my first audition from a girl who decided to use a Snapchat filter DURING her audition.

I can't even being to imagine the thought process that went into doing that. It can't be an accident, because I'm sure she watched it when she was done. But that Snapchat tiara is on her for the whole auction.

Anyway, my brother's been tasked with creating the main prop in the movie, and he hit me with his standard question that he always hits me with now that he's infatuated with Cinema 4D: "Why don't we make this a CGI door?"

If he wasn't so in love with C4D, he'd know why. The thought of trying to composite a door behind people while the camera is moving is insane. There's NO upside to it. I had to talk him down from that ledge. I don't mind if we CGI enhance it later as long as it looks good, but attempting to do all that work with nothing out there--in day AND night? For fuck sake...

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They put out the wrap cover for that book I've got a story in, coming July 1st.

I dig it, but like the control freak I am, I see things I'd change. I like the picture, but the cover doesn't tell you much. I feel like it should say something about this being an anthology? I went and looked at a couple of horror anthologies that I have, and sure enough, most of them say it.

Then the back cover--why's there all that black space there? Is there going to be a picture there? I imagine a UPC will go somewhere, but there's still going to be significant empty space there.

Dunno, he said it's not 100% finished, but we'll see. Will be pretty cool holding a book in my hands that contains a story I wrote.

Time For The Intervention

Not for the Slurpees, no. I mean, yeah, I've had about 30 Slurpees in the last 35 days but I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I WANT.

No, I'm talking about making movies, of course.

I can't remember what I've talked about in these blogs. Basically, this is one of the segments I was thinking about shooting that might eventually comprise a T3. I had plans to try to shoot it late April, but that was back in February...and then the shit hit the fan.

Now I'm hoping maybe I can shoot it in early June.  I won't go past the 2nd week or so, because I'm not shooting in the kind of heat we shot T2 in. That July heat is INSANE.

Anyway, I went ahead and put up a new listing in backstage to try to fill out the roles. I asked for only DMV residents to submit, and of course, actors can't read. On the other hand, this girl from Florida submitted, so I'm thinking about starting a kickstarter to make enough money we can get her up here. (kidding about the kickstarter, but this was a real submission)

Shit's still up in the air, because who knows what'll be open then? Who knows who will be cool about us using their house as a location?

I've got my brother Paul constructing the main prop for the thing. The shooting script is one of the most challenging shooting scripts I've ever had to do for two reasons: First, there's a very complicated series of shots that I need to match each other, but half of them are day and half of them are night. So I have to shoot stuff during the day, remember the speed and focus and whatnot of the shots, then replicate them later at night. Usually a motion-controlled computer dolly/crane is used for this sort of thing.

The other complication is that I now have this gimbal, so I can do a lot more shots than I was capable of. I'm trying to design this a little less "low budget" than normal. I can't go full monty on it, because we're still limited by time, but I can certainly do a lot more than I've been used to.

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This brings me to one of the more difficult realizations I've come to. I have a strong drive to keep making movies. I always have. But a lot of the joy has been gone, and I figured out why.

It's because pretty much nobody I know anymore is into making movies any more. I used to have friends who all wanted to make 'em. They wanted to act in them or do effects on them or just come hang out and help.

Those people are gone. Even some of the hardcore people like Zig now gotta be talked into it. And I get it--what's the incentive? It ain't money, I can tell ya that--there's almost never any money in this shit now. And it isn't fun to do, as least not until it's all retrospective.

I believe it's because reality has smashed our hope. Back in the day, we all had hope that maybe we could make something that would break through and maybe make some sort of mark. We'd get the movie out there, get some more money to move on to bigger and better.

The reality is that that isn't gonna happen. Distribution is near its all-time low as far as money goes. It's still super easy to get your movie out there, yet just as hard to get paid. I have six films on A-zon right now, and they're still being streamed but I make between $20-$80 a month from them. So, basically, gas money.

Anyway, more to come. We'll see what happens.

TV: It's my life

Man, I am putting some hours into TV. Here's some full seasons I've finished in the past week:
After Life season 2(good but still pretty bleak)
Homeland final season(REALLY good)
Better Call Saul(REALLY good)
60 Days In(every season of this is great)
Devs(interesting)
I've also been watching various episodes of  Brooklyn 99, which I love, It's Always Sunny new season, new Rick and Morty, The Rookie(which is a mediocre show but I still like Fillion), 9-1-1 TV show, Riverdale(I'd have quit if my wife didn't wanna watch it), Shark Tank, we watched the first episode of Zooey's Extraordinary Playlist and liked it enough that we'd watch some more, The Flash, Swamp People, Deadliest Catch, Live PD, Last Week Tonight, Family Guy, BodyCam, Alaska PD. There's more, I just can't remember it.

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I feel like I've told this story already, probably have, but the basic thing is that in high school and college, I wrote and submitted tons of stories to magazines, trying to get published. Got close a couple of times, but never did.

So I thought I'd really try this year. I've been writing some stuff, but one story in particular I liked. I sent it to a company putting together an anthology book that sounded like a good fit for my story.

Couple of days ago they contacted me and said they liked the story and wanted it. Just like that. Spent ten years in my youth for nothing. Now, take a month and on the first try, published.

It's pretty cool. Cynical me is just like, "They only want it because you're a known person, so they think they'll sell more books."

Fuck that guy. I've continued writing the book I started. I like it so far. I have to figure out some of the broad strokes still but I'm still interested. That's the most important part.