I believe that I'm posting merely for the sake of finally getting something down on my blog. After all, I've been here nearly a week, and my schedule has yet to calm down enough to really allow time for posting. I've realized I'm creating 4 films this semester. It's been pretty hectic, and it's only going to get worse. Here's this semester's schedule:
January
I've volunteered to storyboard with Greg Weidman for the movie that Asbury's shooting in HD. It's a pretty big deal. But we didn't realize that we'd be storyboarding the entire movie by ourselves. So we're going to spend all of January storyboarding, so that it's ready for shooting in...
February
The film will shoot Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday nights this month, but there'll be some Saturday shoots. And Friday shoots. Also, we might shoot longer than we thought. I'll be working on the behind-the-scenes documentary on what happens with the film crew. We also have to edit the movie, though I'll be more than happy to leave that up to Greg Breiding, who technically has that job, since he's leading this whole operation. Poor guy. Nobody else has to shoot and edit for this movie. Fortunately, shooting for the movie will be finished in February, or at the least in...
March
I'll be shooting my Script to Screen movie this month with Jeremy White, which should be incredibly fun. This will probably be my favorite of the films I shoot this semester, 'cause it's the one that I've got the most freedom with. Plus, Jeremy's idea is hot. Which reminds me, I need to meet up with him and start working on the script, because I also need to work on my Media Ministries script, which shoots in...
April
This one's going to be interesting, because as of right now, the script is mostly about sex. So I'm going to need to tread carefully on this one. But I think this one has the most potential of all my films to be something dramatically different, groundbreaking, eye-opening. But I'll have to edit it fast, because my Media Ministries and Script to Screen are both due in...
May
And then I leave. Whew.
Let me finish this with my current thoughts on the busy-ness of my life: I'm not going to care. I mean it. I'm going to be busy - but it's all with things that I love. I love filmmaking, and the reason that I'm doing all of these things is because I love filmmaking. So, I'll just put it all out of my mind, and live in the moment. Let tomorrow worry about itself. If you scroll back down to my New Year's Resolutions, you'll note that I said I wouldn't worry about my filmmaking. I'm holding myself to it. You can hold me to it, too.
This post is dedicated to Cassie, who is sitting here watching me type this post, and complaining that I spelled her name "Cassie" instead of "Cassi," and that I never remember anything that she says. But she's made up for it by giving me expensive chocolates to eat while I'm typing, and always letting me cheat off her in class. Therefore Cassi will also get rated today:
Cassi: 4 stars out of 5. Though she's whining about not getting enough stars. Oooh, someone thinks she's perfect.
Review: Faithful
By Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King
King's name you recognize, while O'Nan is a bit of a dark horse, though he's written such best-sellers as Snow Angels, The Speed Queen, and Prayer for the Dying. It's O'Nan who carries most of the book, giving the play-by-play on each game, while King hangs in the wings, providing profanity-strewed commentary every couple of days.
Play-by-play? Couple of days? What is this book? Faithful, as its tagline notes, is "Two diehard Boston Red Sox fans chronicling the historic 2004 season." It's essentially a diary - O'Nan and King decided to collaborate together on a book about the season: they'd sit together at Fenway, exchange e-mails about the team, call each other for updates, and write individually about the season. And write they do, more than 400 pages of journal entries, every day from February 21st to October 28th. It's a weighty volume, and one that no Red Sox fan would pick up if they didn't already know that it had a happy ending.
If you wondering why this season is historic, or what the purpose of reading the book to live through a baseball season that we just lived through, than this book, and indeed this review, is not for you. Click away. This book is for Sox fans only.
Ultimately, that's what makes the book interesting. Faithful has become the Christmas present of the year up here in New England (we gave away a few copies for Christmas and got one in return) because this a year that Red Sox fans actually want to re-live. Normally, we'd cringe at the thought, faced with another September swoon or playoff failure to those hated Yankees. In Faithful, we get to live it all again, good times and bad - but we know that just on the other side of the book, we get to see that beautiful October blossom all over again. That makes it worth once again living through the season: the early season domination, the June Swoon, the sputtering through the summer, the Garciaparra trade, the desperation at the beginning of August, the sudden string of victories, catching back up to the Yankees - we know that once we make it all the way through, we'll get to beat those damn Yankees again.
That's the only reason to read this book. If that thought doesn't excite you, than you won't make it through more than a few dozen pages. This book is written by Red Sox fans, for Red Sox fans, and that sole thought of beating the Yankees is what dominates this book - that desperate, impossible dream that somehow, magically, became a reality.
O'Nan's steady, solid writing carries the work all the way to October, but it is King who thrives when the drama mounts as the playoffs begin. When the Red Sox falter in the ALCS and are on the verge of failing, it his eloquent writing that reminds the reader of that desperate feeling, before we knew that the Red Sox would turn it around:
"Yet we are still faithful; still we believe. Tonight we'll once again fill the old green church of baseball on Lansdowne Street, in some part because it's the only church of baseball we have; in large parte because - even on mornings like this, when the clean-shaven Yankee Corporate Creed seems to rule the hardball universe - it's the only church of baseball we can really love. No baseball team has ever come back from a three-games-to-none deficit to win a posteseason series, but a couple of hockey teams have done it, and we tell ourselves it has to happen sooner or later for a baseball team, it just has to.
We tell ourselves Derek Lowe has one more chance to turn 2004 from tragickal to magickal.
We tell ourselves it's just one game at a time.
We tell ourselves the impossible can start tonight."
Ultimately, the thrill of this book lies in the anticipation of the ending, not the actual payoff. You could probably acquire the same thrill through watching the World Series tape over again. But in mid-season, you just can't put it down, waiting to see what happens when Cabrera finds his rhythm and starts hitting, when Millar gets hot, when the team suddenly gels and starts playing championship baseball. And if you're any sort of Sox fan at all, you can't help but smile to see it all again.
The payoff: Three stars out of five - the book doesn't provide the same joy as a World Series win, but it's at least on par of the visceral thrill of say - watching Varitek give A-Rod another two-handed shot to the mouth. That's good enough for me.
Late-Night Posting
Boy, that post really didn't stand up to well to the harsh light of day, eh? Let this be a lesson to y'all: no matter how much the words are simply flowing from your fingers at three in the morning, and you poeticism knows no bounds, when you look at it in the morning, you'll realize that it's mostly claptrap. Though, to be fair, most of The Lord of The Rings was written late at night by Prof. Tolkein, since he didn't have any other time to do it. But, hey, we can't all be superstars.
Can't Sleep
It's 2 in the morning but I can't sleep. I don't even feel tired anymore. I feel wide awake.
I wish I could come up for some reason for this, but I can't, other than: suddenly, every second spent at home seems important. I leave on Sunday to return to Kentucky, and every second in New Hampshire feels like it should be treasured, that I should be up accomplishing things before I return to the drudgery of schoolwork.
No, not drudgery. I'm wildly excited about the classes I have this semester, three of which involve filmmaking. It's these films that scare me. I just watched one of the special features on the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition DVD about a young indie filmmaker named Cameron Duncan. Duncan was so captured by his filmmaking that when cancer took his body over for the second time, this time destroying his lungs, he continued shooting his movies, pouring his own pain into the process. The end result is stunning - all sorts of technical weaknesses can be pointed out, but when you hear Duncan's voice in the steady voiceover of a teenager who has made his peace with death, it's heartbreaking. "The only things you regret in life are the things you never did," he monotones, and I'll be damned if it didn't make me want to go out and conquer the world. There was a real power in his work that amazed me and made me insanely jealous. In his film, they bury him on a hill overlooking the park, where he "can watch over the park in protection as the seasons change." When Duncan passed on, they really bury him on the hill, overlooking the park.
And now I just feel inadequate. That I might pour myself into a project, bare my soul to the world through the power of film, and people will feel - nothing. If, in the next semester, you ever see one of my films, there is nothing that will scar me more than you saying "I didn't feel anything." Hate my work, despise it, insult it with every depreciating word that you have in your vocabulary - but at least, by reviling my work, it did something to you.
I don't know where my whole "emotional artist" thing came from, I suppose it's a product of a sleepless night. But is this the curse of the unnoticed artist? To struggle in vain and wait for the world to notice, to feel your passion and be moved by it? And, when the world passes you by, as the world always seems to, what then? For every one grand success there are ten thousand grand failures. If your life's work is in the creation of something that moves people, what happens when people remain stagnant? Do these artists just fade away? Was there ever a purpose to them trying? Is there still time to switch to be a business major?
And yet, somehow, these people arise out of bed each day and face their failure again. I can't think of anything more poetic. I think there's something so pure in creating something and knowing deep down that it will never make an impact, that the world will pass over it as it's passed over everything that you've done. And to make it anyway, because it had to be made. To create, not for the world, but because that creation was locked inside of you, waiting to get out, needing to get out. My hope is renewed, though this post is going to look terrible in the harsh light of day. Ah, well. Its creation was the important thing. Let the world pass it by.
Reviews
I've been putting phony dates on all my reviews, so that they don't show up as posts. It seemed like a smart choice, since they're meant to go into the "Revues" section, and not to be individual posts. But I'm already sick of it. I put a lot of time writing these, which means I don't feel like writing a whole new, huge post, and as a result, all of my posts will end up being a paragraph small, and all of my reviews will languish on the sidebar. That all ends today. All of my reviews will now appear on my blog first and the sidebar secondary.
I went to see Finding Neverland this evening, my little sister took me out on a date (she paid for everything, 'cause I'm poor and she's cool). It was a lot of fun, I really oughta try to make sure I see her more this summer. I never see her, and I see my brothers all the time, possibly because they are my brothers and we live in the same house, and she's not really my sister, and therefore doesn't live in the same house with me.
We also went to Barnes and Noble so I could pick up a book for my "Script to Screen" class. Each member of the class is supposed to chose their own book on making short films, read it, then report back. I picked up Rebel Without A Crew, or How a 23-Year-old Filmmaker with $7,000 became a Hollywood Player by Robert Rodriguez (the guy who made El Mariachi and Once Upon A Time in Mexico). It seemed appropriate - I love filmmaking, and I don't have any money - but it's not directly on making short films, it's a diary of his making El Mariachi, which was picked up by Columbia Pictures, for - you guessed it - $7,000, so my professor might count off.
Speaking of "Script to Screen," I've really got to get cracking on coming up with ideas for the screenplay that I'm doing with Jeremy for this project. Though Jeremy sent me up an idea a coupla days ago that's really started to get my mind moving. There's some things we need to work out, but I really think that the idea, the main idea, is something that could be phenomenal. Watching Finding Neverland and thinking about some Tim Burton films, like Big Fish, and how those sort of films looked, and worked - it made me excited to do it. Though it could be schmaltzy, and bad, too. It involves a little girl who's dying, so that's something that can go either way. But I think that Jeremy and I have the right sort of personalities to pull something like this off. I have utter confidence in our abilities.
Knock on wood.