Have a Great New Year's Eve

Lunch Today at Pop Burger in Midtown

Yum. I had two sliders and onion rings. They didn't ask me how I wanted the burgers cooked, but they were still good. Finley Quaye and Led Zeppelin songs came on while I was eating, which was another positive.

I still think the best burger in NYC is at the Corner Bistro, though.

Joyeux Noël and All of That Other Crap

Happy holidays. Here's hoping that you have a safe, enjoyable time with friends and family. I'm off to New Jersey tomorrow to celebrate Christmas Eve, and very much looking forward to it.

I'm getting close to being done with color correction for the Deafening Silence of a Very Bright Light. And just finished writing the treatment for what may become my first paying writing/directing gig for hire. Well, actually I have a few small tweaks to make tonight and then I'll be completely finished.

I hope to have some very, very good news to report here in January.

Updated Poster for the Deafening Silence of a Very Bright Light

I'm Now Officially Being Repped

My biggest news recently is that I've officially signed a one-year contract with Marc at Wilder & Wilder Management. This is pretty exciting. I met with Marc this past Friday, and we took care of business. Then we discussed the various projects that we have in the works. There are three. There's the script for my next feature, which is almost done. I have a few tweaks that I want to make, and then it'll be done. Marc's going to be gearing up to get that one in motion. Then, I have another script that I'm currently making notes for. It's actually for a television series. It's pretty cool.

And Marc may've also gotten me my first for-hire gig. I'm not going to say any more about that. Just that it's very promising. But not a done deal. In fact, it's very early in terms of planning and going forward. But it's all very exciting.

As for the Deafening Silence of a Very Bright Light, I'm still working on color correction. I think I'll be done with that by the time post-production resumes in March or so. I know that people are eager to have a finished movie. I've been contacted by a lot of the actors. They want material for their reels. Which is understandable. I want to finish the movie also.

But it's always good to hear from everybody. Andy and I were supposed to get together this past week or weekend, but couldn't sort out our schedules. I've also heard from Marie-Line and Sara McGowan. And tonight was Melody's Billionaires for Bush performance, but it was George's birthday party and so I couldn't go. But the party was fun, and I got some lasagna to take home with me. I'm going to eat it after I post this blog entry.

Support the Writers

The strike is still going on.

Congrats to Rike on Her Upcoming Solo Show on Friday!!

Say Hello to the Deafening Silence of a Very Bright Light

I actually meant to update this blog last night, but I fell asleep at 10:00 p.m. Damn, that really made me feel old. And, of course, I woke up early this morning as a result. Weird. But anyway, I actually feel rested and refreshed for the first time in a very long time. Which is nice.

Scott got the CD of the Insogo Six demo, which is good. He enjoyed listening to it. And out of the blue, I heard from my old friend Jeff Green. He and I worked together briefly at indieWIRE, after which he went on to a really good job at the YES network. He's now living in Bulgaria with his wife and two children, and working as the head of production for Eastern Europe for the Sci-Fi Channel. Good for him. And I'm very glad that he got in touch.

I should mention here that I've officially changed the title of Matutinal Reverie. It's now called the Deafening Silence of a Very Bright Light. Which I like a lot. It has a really great, almost Italo Calvino-esque ring to it. I've been fiddling around with the color correction on my own, and changed a bunch of things. I'm happy with how it's turning out, although I'm going to watch it on DVD in about a week to see how the changes hold up. I figure that a break is always a good thing. I've also chopped out about 20 minutes from the movie. I think it flows much better, and is more compact. Some really wonderful scenes had to go, but they kind of didn't really work in the broader context of the movie. But I think that having edited out those scenes might necessitate a few other small edits, so that there aren't lines of dialogue and shots that don't make sense anymore.

I'm scheduled to meet with Marc this coming Friday. Which I'm looking forward to. I'm eager to move forward with my next script. And I've also started writing a TV pilot, at his request. He thinks it's a good idea to have something else in the arsenal, just to have additional projects ready to go. And when I told him about an idea for a television series that I had, he was enthusiastic. He may also have a writing for hire job for me, which would be great. As ever, I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy your weekend. I'm meeting Brett in a few hours to go to an advance screening of Atonement, followed by a Q&A with Christopher Hampton. The whole event was organized by the NAC. It should be fun.

Happy the Day After Thanksgiving

Well, I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving. Or, if you're outside of the U.S, you've just had a fantastic Thursday and Friday. As for me, I had a really nice time down in southern NJ with family. And I got to drive a Mini Cooper that I reserved through Zipcar. That was a lot of fun. Afterwards, I met up with Steve Marcus and Mike Lippman. We hung out at Steve's house until after 1:00 a.m. I got to see his parents and his wife, and found out that they may be moving back to New Jersey and also that they're expecting another baby. And I saw photos of his brother's wedding in Bologna. Mike and his wife and I are supposed to meet for a drink tomorrow, and will be good to see them when I'm not so tired. By the time they arrived at Steve's parents' house, it was after 11:00 p.m. and I was beginning to fall into a post-Thanksgiving turkey coma. And by the time I got to bed last night, it was nearly 4:00 a.m.

In other news, I'm scheduled to meet with Marc again a week from today. We're going to discuss the script for my second feature, and do a bit of strategizing. We're also going to talk about another project that I haven't even started working on. It's very different, and in fact not a feature film. I don't want to say too much about it at this point, except that I'm excited about it. I feel like Matutinal Reverie and my most recent screenplay are very different from one another, and this third idea isn't similar to either one of them. Which makes it more interesting. I mean, who wants to do the same thing over and over again. Everything should be a challenge. And new. And slightly scary. Otherwise, what's the point?

Also, Roland is partially through reading the new script. He seems to be enjoying it, especially a music number that caught his fancy. I'm hoping that we'll get to do it as planned, although movies being what they are... who knows? From script to screen is a long, twisty process.

And as for MR, well I'm going to reconnect the hard drive(s) to my computer a bit later on today. I want to do some editing before color correction begins again in February or March, and I heard back from Bill about how to handle the editing in terms of the audio. Before I dive in again though, I promised to output the scene that Sara McGowan is in so that she can take it with her to L.A. And I have to make a DVD of the movie as it currently stands, for an application for finishing funds that I sent in to the Jerome Foundation.

Have a great rest of the holiday weekend...

Soho House is Fun

Monday afternoon was spent at Soho House with Marc Wilder. We had a fantastic meeting that went from 1:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. Most of the time was spent going over the script for my second feature. He's going to be managing me, and so we discussed various strategies and things that we need to do to get the ball rolling. All in all, it was very productive and I'm feeling extremely positive about everything. I've got a lot of rewriting to do between now and Thanksgiving weekend, so he can take the finished screenplay with him to Sundance in January and keep working up through March. I also met Kelly Poston, whom Marc describes as his "right hand woman". She took a copy of the script with her, but I don't know if she's read it yet.

And if you've never had the chicken club sandwich at Soho House, you're totally missing out. Seriously.

Other than that, I went to Broadway Video this past Friday to drop off my backup hard drive so that Gaye and Trish can output the movie to both drives so that I can take it back home with me until work begins again on the movie in March or so. I'm going to keep editing at home in the meantime. And I need to find out from Bill what the best way to handle the audio is. He replied to an email of mine, but I'm not sure I got exactly what he was saying.

What else, what else? Well, Roland has created a Myspace page for the Matutinal Reverie soundtrack. Befriend it!!

And I was supposed to meet Andy this past Friday, but I was quite busy and so couldn't swing it. We're supposed to meet this coming Friday, though. It'll be nice to see him. I did meet Dana Varon for a few drinks in the neighborhood, though. We went to Klimat, which is this very interesting Polish wine bar on 7th Street. I had pierogies and red wine. An interesting combination.

Back When I Was a Rock and Roller

No change as far as Matutinal Reverie goes. Things are still on hold with Broadway Video and the Standby Program until about February or March. In the meantime, I'm going to get the movie back from from Broadway and make those edits that I posted about last time. And I've been in touch with Bill Seery about the best way to handle the audio for those changes. I'm sure that everything will be fine, and that the movie will be much improved for the editing. I'm eager to get cracking on it again.

I had a really nice dinner with Brett so that she could tell me what she thought of my new script. It was a fun time, and as always it was good to see her. And her feedback was invaluable. Tomorrow, I'm meeting with Ella so that she and I can talk about the screenplay. As we both live in the East Village, we figured that we'd meet for brunch somewhere in the neighborhood.

And I also sent the script to the person who may be managing me. We're still talking about it, and in fact having a follow-up lunch on Monday. Which I'm looking forward to. And I think that the script is really original, and very unique. And will, of course, make a great movie. I'll be curious to see what he thinks when I see him next.

Lastly, as a special treat, here at two songs that my old high school band Insogo Six recorded in a professional studio back in 1989. We actually made five for a little demo, but I think that these two are enough to give you the idea. I suppose I can always post the others later. I made these files by importing the songs from an old cassette tape, as the original masters are long since lost. Hence, there are some pops and scratches and other unfriendly sounds. But overall, they're in pretty good shape for having spent the better part of the past 18 years in various drawers and a basement. Actually, the one called Reality is my favorite of the bunch. Mainly because of the extended guitar solo at the end, and the fact that there are five overdubbed guitar tracks on it. I played four (including the solo), and Scott Boyd played acoustic guitar as I performed my solo. Happy listening.

Take My Hand

Reality

Back to the Drawing Board for a Little While

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been pretty busy working on the latest script. I actually finished it earlier this week, after which I emailed it to six friends to read it and give me feedback: Josh Brinen, Dina Buckler, Ella Good, Brett Larkin, Paul Wang and Roland Wolff. After that, it goes out into the world so that I can raise money for it. I have these leads that I want to pursue, and somebody has expressed interesting in managing my career. Such as it is. So, we’ll see what happens.

Matutinal Reverie is getting veeeery close to being done. I met with Kyle at Broadway Video to fix Scene 3 on the Smoke system, and it really looks a gazillion times better. We spent about three hours together, and he did this really amazing thing wherein he gradually darkens the sky behind Andy and Melody as they’re walking along. It’s so subtle that you don’t even really notice it unless you’re paying attention. And you can see the clouds in the night sky, which works out perfectly because a few scenes later, when Andy and Melody are outside during the scene wherein Madeleine is begging Barnard to call Ashley to get drugs for her, it’s raining. So, that’s a bit of a plus. Also, the shot between the long walking two shot and the one where it suddenly goes from dusk to the dead of night is a close up of a cell phone. Kyle also gradually darkened that one, too, in such a way that it’s hard to see. The result is that when it suddenly becomes pitch black outside, it doesn’t seem so jarring. I really feel relieved about this. I was pretty worried about that.

Thanks, Kyle.

And since then I’ve had another color correction session with Trish, which went super well. We got a lot accomplished, and decided that we really only probably need one more to finish the thing.

But there's always something to complicate matters.

As it turns out, the finances for the movie have run a bit dry, and so we're on hold for another two to three months. Which sucks. I'm not happy about it, but that's life. I will finish. End of story. The other interesting thing is that, in the end, this may work out to the movie's advantage. The other morning, I woke up and had some ideas for a few things that I want to change. I'm considering cutting out all of Andy's direct to camera addresses. And the two television shows that the characters watch. And a scene in the first third of the movie wherein Barnard takes a cab from Ashley's apartment back to his own. And I may also get rid of a title at the movie's opening which states "Back in 2005...". I just don't like it. But first, I want to contact Bill Seery to see how complicated it'll be to do this and deal with the audio of the movie.

Lastly, I'm considering changing the title of the movie. Not that there's anything wrong with Matutinal Reverie. It just breathe a bit of new life into it for me to call it something else. Maybe something long. Don't know yet.

An Oldie But Goodie

An Oldie But Goodie
Originally uploaded by kitesarefun

An old photo of Melody taken during production of Matutinal Reverie. It's from back when we shot the dream sequence scene at Geno Talerico's apartment.

Color Correction is Almost Done

So, Matutinal Reverie is nearly entirely color corrected. I've been working fairly regularly with Trish, and we've made one full pass of the movie. She burned a DVD of the entire thing for me, and I watched it on Friday. And while yes, there are some things that need to be fixed, overall the movie just looks gorgeous. It was really amazing to me to see it with not only 85% of the color correction in finalized shape, but also coupled with the completed audio mix. I mean, this may sound dopey to say, but it... dare I say it?... is a real movie. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but it was like watching some amazing. Two years of work, and that's where it's taken me. We're still not done yet, but the end is in sight. It's really quite hard to believe, and it's a little bit draining to think back on the 2 1/2 years that've gone into it. Even if the movie ends up screening nowhere, it'll have been worth it. Because I think it's a really worthwhile movie. Something that people should see.

Scene 3, alas, is still problematical. I scheduled a session on Broadway Video's Flame system so that we can fix it. The Flame operator, Keith, is confident that he can deal with the abruptly shifting times of day in the scene. He's going to take the pitch black night from the later part of it, and then gradually decrease it going backwards to the beginning of the scene. Which is really cool. And Broadway is giving me a very cheap rate, because I know [name redacted]. After Keith is done, Trish and I will then do color correction on the scene post-Flame. Trish has really done a fantastic job, and everybody over at Broadway Video has been so nice. It's really been a pleasure to work there. Besides, they serve you cookies and milk during the afternoon. Seriously.

Once MR is totally done, I'm going to make a digibeta master and DVD dupes. And yes, I will begin sending copies out to cast/crew and festivals and whatnot. I'm going to get my ass in gear.

And I'm still working on my next feature. The script is getting close to being done, and I'm beginning to assemble a team of people to read it and give me feedback. Quite excited to hear what people have to say, since it's definitely the best thing I've ever done.

And yes, I have some leads on financing and whatnot. I don't want to say too much and jinx anything, but as soon as there's news I promise to post it here. I know I've been a bit of a lax blogger lately, but I've been busy working. So get off my back (ha).

I've also been enjoying the end of summer and beginning of autumn. Took a short trip upstate with [name redacted] and her husband to visit Carmel Holt and Steve Morris. That was a ton of fun, especially the hike up Overlook Mountain (even if it did make me realize that I need to quit smoking soon). And driving the Mustang was indeed a blast. And I also went to a lovely dinner party at Mascha van T.'s place the following week. And I saw Zul Jamal this afternoon for brunch. He's back in NYC from London for good, and so we went down to the Odeon for eggs and coffee and cigarettes.

I'm Still Writing

This past week, I met some film financiers and people with access to money who are potentially very interested in my second feature. I don't want to say much more than that (lest I jinx anything), but there was some real enthusiasm for the movie when I pitched it informally. And I mentioned that I'd have the script done by the end of September. Which is certainly realistic. But it's going to take a lot of work. In fact, this weekend I was basically a shut in and got a lot done on the screenplay. In fact, the only social thing that I really did was to meet a friend and another friend of hers for an early dinner in the West Village. Still, it was a lot of fun. And today, after I post this entry, I'm going to continue writing (or, rather, editing) again.

The only other thing of note to mention is that I ran into my old friend Jen Dubz as I was walking back to my apartment early this afternoon after picking up some food. I haven't seen her in a year or two. Not since the last time I ran into her on the street. We talked about people from our old crowd, almost all of whom are in the film industry. Everybody seems to be doing quite well. Working at production/distribution/etc./etc. companies. Financing movies. Optioning books. And blah, blah, blah. Other than Jen, running into Pauline Piechota on the street a few months ago and Lauren Purcell, I haven't seen any of those people in ages. Time flies, I guess.

Color Correction is Well Underway

So, obviously I haven't posted in a while. It's been a few weeks, actually. I had a family crisis (still not resolved, but looking slightly hopefully), some personal drama (I'm not going to even touch this with a ten foot pole here other than to say that I'm still kind of in what the fuck? mode) and was out of town for a week (related to the familial situation).

Anyway, as concerns the movie let me just say that we're right in the thick of color correction and it's coming along beautifully. I couldn't be more excited about how things are going. Gaye Lirot over at Broadway Video has been extremely nice and helpful, and editor Trish Conte has been a joy to work with. We've had two sessions so far, and I'm going to call over there on Monday to set up a third for sometime in early September. We're at the last two thirds of the movie, and it already looks so, so, so, so much better. One thing I'm really excited about is that we've done most of the work needed on the middle third, which (if you know anything about Matutinal Reverie) is an extended flashback sequence. When people would watch it while I was editing, it was hard to tell where the time shifts occurred. But Trish and I desaturated the colors and then tinted everything blue, and in addition to looking gorgeous it's now 100% clear when the flashback begins and ends.

One thing that's going to be necessary is to utilize their Smoke system in order to fix the problem in Scene 3. This scene, which is a long walking and talking sequence between Barnard and Madeleine, is problematical because it begins during dusk. Then, suddenly, it cuts to a shot and it's totally dark out. With no gradual change. Just, boom. Night. Trish and I spent a lot of time fiddling with this, but couldn't fix it. So, rather than live with it and be disappointed, we're going to utilize Smoke to fix it. Which will be expensive. And add a bit of time to the completion of the movie. But, hopefully not a lot. We'll see. Either way, it'll be worth it in the end to have done it. The only other solution was one Paul came up with that I didn't like, which was to insert a time lapse sequence of a setting sun someplace in that scene.

And that's it, really. We've been rejected from some festivals, but there's also some tentative distributor interest in the movie. And there's also some interest in the script that I'm currently writing. And I'm finally going away to play, which I haven't done at all this summer. Yes, that's right. I'm getting out of town for Labor Day to visit some old friends whom I haven't seen in about three years. And I'll be driving my father's sweet red Mustang. Hot damn. Can't wait to drive that puppy. Upstate New York, be on your guard. I speed like nobody's business.

Color Correction Begins on Friday

Color correction officially begins this coming Friday, July 27th at 1:00 p.m. I've been in constant touch with Gaye Lirot over at Broadway Video, and she's been very helpful in setting the whole thing up. I'm going to talk to the woman who's going to be my editor/colorist tomorrow, and I'm probably going to bring the movie materials over to Broadway on Wednesday (tentatively; it could be on a different day at this point). Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this. It should be fun. And, interestingly, Gaye was saying that she thinks it'll only take one or two sessions to color correct the entire movie. So, Matutinal Reverie could potentially be 100% done before the end of the summer. Wow. I'm speechless. But, let's wait to see what happens before breaking out the champagne. Also, Broadway can all of the mastering, which will make life very easy for me.

Not much else. Still writing. And it doesn't look like that mobile phone project is going to happen, at least not right away. My contact at the production company liked the ideas that my writing partner came up with, but thinks that they'll be too expensive to do, at least initially. I couldn't convince him that I excel at creating programming with very little money. Que sera. I'm still very interested in the idea, though. We'll see. I'm supposed to talk to him sometime this week.

And I'm still writing. Much progress is being made on that front.

And I watched season three of Deadwood. Very sorry that there won't be any more shows; what a great series.

Moving On... Slowly, But Surely

Still waiting to hear back from Maria about scheduling color correction at Broadway Video on either July 27th or August. According to Bill, it's hard to get time at Broadway and so I'm begin patient about it. I'm really eager to get started, but if I have to wait a few weeks then I have to wait a few weeks. Nothing I can do about it. I know that Maria's on top of things.

Am also trying to sync up the finalized outputted material from Bill in my Final Cut Pro timeline. For some reason, when I add the .aiff files to the timeline the audio and video don't sync up. I'm not sure why. Bill said that he'd check into everything tomorrow, but I can't figure out what could be causing this problem.

Am still working on the screenplay for my next feature. And had a really productive business meeting on Tuesday about a pitch that I'm working on. Somebody is potentially interested in hiring me to do programming for a company that produces material to be broadcast over mobile phones. So, I met with the person that I'm interested in working with as the writer for the project. This has a real budget, and we have some excellent ideas. I'll keep you posted.

And, lastly, had a wonderful time having drinks with Chris on Wednesday. I was still getting over my cold from a couple of weeks ago and had a cough that bordered on being tubercular (which was a little bit embarrassing), but it was still a lot of fun. I hope to see her often while she's still in New York. Ten years was really far too long to go without seeing each other.

I'm currently getting over a pretty bad cold. I don't know what brought it on. I think it's because I fell asleep on Friday with the air conditioning set to high. Usually, once the apartment cools down I turn the A/C to low. But I dozed off and woke up with the place colder than Dick Cheney's soul. Spent Friday feverish, sweating, with a sore throat and a headache. Luckily, it's mostly passed now. By tomorrow morning, I ought to be fine.

Anyway, on Friday I went over to MercerMedia and picked up the audio mixed materials from Bill. Tres exciting. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Standby Program about color correction. I'm going to email Broadway Video sometime this week, to check in.

That's kind of it, really. While I was sick, I watched Braveheart 2 1/2 times (I happened to come across it on the Discovery Channel; they played it two times in a row). I hate Mel Gibson, but that movie isn't bad. At the very least, it makes for good watching when you're suffering from a flu.

They may take our lives, but they'll never take our color correction. Or something like that. Whatever. I think it's time I took some cold medicine and went to bed. Hope your weekend was more fun than mine.

Matutinal Reverie Deleted Scene 01

Audio Mixing is Now Done

Happy Independence Day!!!! I'm off to a barbecue soon, and so I'm going to keep this short. Just remember: if anybody shoots any fireworks at you, duck. They always go up. Ha.

Anyway, the big news with me is that we finished audio mixing on Monday!!!! This is huge. Bill and I have been working on this since late January / early February, and we finally agreed that we're done. We went through the entire movie again and made a few small changes, but nothing major. We also added two sound effects for when Madeleine kisses Barnard on the cheek twice when they first meet up at the beginning of the movie. For some reason, we forgot to ADR that with Andy and Melody way back when. Anyway, on Friday I'm going to go pick up the completed mix and then I'll coordinate scheduling color correction with both the Standby Program and Broadway Video. I'm very excited about this.

The only slight downside is that I got a rejection letter from the Edinburgh International Film Festival this past week. Ah well, that's their problem.

Lastly, Katya emailed me a link to the commercial that we didn't get hired to direct back in April. It's absolutely abysmal. We could've done so much better. I'd post the link, but something tells me that'd be horribly unprofessional. Anyway, if you want to waste 2 1/2 minutes of your life, email and I'll give you the link. Yawn.

Universal Language & the Avant-Garde: Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, and Jonas Mekas

MAYA STENDHAL GALLERY 545 West 20th Street May 10–July 28

Lori Cole, Artforum

Hans Richter boiled his film projects down to light, material, and intensity in an attempt to create a “universal language” based on visual perception. In Rhythmus 21, 1921, he plays with the abstract movement of a pulsating, shifting black square. Richter’s artistic collaborator Viking Eggeling responded to this language in kind, evoking musical composition in the changing lines of his Symphony Diagonal, 1925. In this exhibition, the genesis of the two artists’ filmic ideas becomes apparent through a haphazard arrangement of quick sketches that reduce forms to the simplest geometry. The show also documents Richter’s social reach as a filmmaker, with photos of his Dadaist companions, news clippings about his various achievements, and announcement cards from exhibitions. Even transcripts of Richter’s lectures are on view, delivered when he was the director of the film department at the City College of New York, where Jonas Mekas was a student. Despite the abrupt juxtaposition of Richter and Eggeling’s monochromatic drawings with Mekas’s lush, piercing, often blue-hued Film Stills and Installation Quartet: Birth of a Nation, 1997, there is a formal affinity between the rhythmic quality of Richter’s experiments and Mekas’s project—evidenced by a flickering montage of 160 portraits shot between 1955 and 1996 of avant-garde greats such as Stan Brakhage, Chantal Akerman, Hollis Frampton, and even Richter himself.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox (Trailer)

Here's a link to the trailer. It looks intriguing:

http://magicsoapbox.com/doc/?page_id=12

June, I Hardly Knew You

Not too much to report this past week, as I was away visiting my father in Florida. The trip itself was nice and relaxing. We just kind of took it easy and relaxed, as it's currently the rainy season down there and there were literally monsoon-like downpours nearly every day I was there. In addition to my Dad, I got to see my uncle and his family. That was a lot of fun, as I hadn't seen them in about three years or so. We went out to eat a couple of times, and had a delicious meal at Morton's in Boca Raton. I can't recall the last time I ate so much. I had a shrimp cocktail, an iceberg wedge with Bleu Cheese dressing, filet mignon, hashed browns, creamed spinach, a piece of molten chocolate cake, an iced tea and a coffee. I feel full again just thinking about it. Interestingly, while down there Marie-Line sent me an invitation to join A Small World. Which I did. It's pretty fun, and there seems to be some interesting people on there. Very jet set. I only have three members in my network (including an old friend from Bard College whom I haven't seen since I was a student there), so if you're a member also and you want to connect hit me up. Oh, and don't email me asking me to invite you. Apparently, I haven't earned that privilege yet.

Moviewise, the only things going on are twofold: firstly, I've started writing again. Still working on the screenplay for what will hopefully be my second feature. Or, rather, what will be my second feature. Roland emailed me to ask what it was about, so I sent him the 3/4 page synopsis. He seems really enthusiastic about it. I told him that I'd email the completed script to him when it's... well... completed.

Also, I've started an official film blog. It's the same thing as what's being posted here, although it's also now being officially hosted on Blogger. I'll probably post there a little more frequently than here, as the software I use to update this site is antiquated (to say the least) and Blogger is pretty fricking easy to use. I'd like to figure out a way to seamlessly integrate To Here Knows When (as I've decided to title the blog, after a song on My Bloody Valentine's Loveless album; I was listening to it when I created the blog), and hopefully an idea will come to me. Anyway, if you have a blog and you'd like to trade links, feel free to hit me up. I'll also link to friends' sites and anything else of interest that strikes my fancy.

Lastly, July's approaching and I'm pretty excited about it. The month promises to be a little Bard reunion of sorts. I'll be spending the 4th itself at a barbecue at [redacted, because she's now a lawyer and doesn't want her name listed anywhere on the Internet]'s, which should be fun. There will be some other college friends there, too. And Tracy Paulding called me earlier today. She's coming into town during the beginning of the month, and so there'll probably be a little dinner with her, Carmel Holt, Abby Fleischer and Paul Winkler. And Chris Koning also arrives at some point in July (not sure when, exactly). Very much looking forward to seeing everybody and catching up. Non-Bard NYC friends, I'm getting tired of looking at your same old faces (kidding, kidding). Seriously, though, July promises to be a fun month. Maybe I'll even get down to the beach at some point. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but I would like to see the ocean (not counting Florida) at least once during the summer months. If I have to, I'll hop in a Zipcar and go down there by myself. Anyway, happy happy summer so far to you.

Audio Mixing is Almost Done

Bill and I met to do some audio mixing on Monday. It felt really great to do some work again. We watched the entire movie through, taking down notes and making changes as we went along. The two scenes that have the ADR-ed dialogue came out super well. Bill did a fantastic job of slipping all of the lines. There was one that I noticed was a frame off (one of Melody's lines), and we fixed it. Between the clean audio of Andy's and Melody's lines and the background audio, Scene 3 looks and sounds really fantastic. I'm super jazzed about it (and the rest of the movie, of course). We're going to meet again soon, and Bill thinks that'll be our last session. Then it's on to color correction. I'm excited to wrap this up and move on to the next and last stage of things. It's hard to believe that audio mixing is practically done. We've been at it since February.

Almost all of the festival applications I was preparing are done and mailed. I'll finish today. Remaining are Woodstock and Telluride. Then, it's back to working on my new screenplay. I'm really, really eager to write again.

The trailer for the Raindance Film Festival is out. I like it. I can relate to it. I also hope that they accept Matutinal Reverie for their 2007 festival (keep your fingers crossed for us and wish us luck!!!!).

Below is the notice for Marie-Line's upcoming concert at the Cutting Room (24th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway). I'm going to try to attend, but as it's so far in the future (nearly two weeks away) I can't guarantee that I'll be there. Hopefully, though. The last one was fun.

15th Raindance Film Festival Trailer

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