He's Killed The Blog... Again...

I'm covering today for our company's receptionist, who has the day off. That meant coming in an hour early, which also meant going to bed before midnight (terribly unusual). I was dragging by 11pm, though, so I sacked out unreasonably early, hoping to cash in on the extra hours and wake up entirely refreshed and revitalized.

Before we go any further, you're all no doubt aware that I have --issues-- with time. Psychological, mental, emotional... whatever. Time's sort of an obsession with me, and not just having enough of it, but appropriately using it. Most of my life is plagued trying to work out how to maximize the efficiency of my life, to use it effectively enough and to enjoy it enough. 'Nuff said.

So I went to bed early, and fell asleep reasonably soon after that. And I began to dream.

I dreamed I was getting ice cream with a bunch of kids from high school. But I didn't actually have money, and the only kids I recognized there were my ex-girlfriend and her long-time boyfriend. Apparently there was alcohol, because she and the other girls were getting a little tipsy, and (naturally) a little flirtatious. But the longer this went on, the more frustrated I got, until I suddenly made the decision that this dream was going absolutely nowhere and that it was all wasting my precious sleep-time.

So I actually forced myself awake from my dream, to cancel everything and start over again with something else. I guess I felt like I'd be hugely dissatisfied waking up after spending all night at an alcoholic ice cream shop.

The more remarkable thing is that after waking up and seeing it was still pseudo-dark out, I somehow convinced myself it was only 1AM and that I had another 7 hours of sleep. Which was fine, because I lulled myself back to sleep under the pretense that my alarm was hours from wrecking my morning.

Anyway, the truth is, whatever crappy dream I managed afterwards, it didn't work and I ultimately still woke up groggy and dissatisfied with my night's sleep a couple hours later. And the moral of the story is, don't wake up in the middle of the night trying to get a more fulfilling rest.



PS: On a more somber note, my Bible presented me this morning with a very serious passage about putting people to death who worked on the Sabbath (day of rest). The last time I read a passage like this, is was immediately before being offered a writer's PA position with Sunday hours (I declined). Keeping the Sabbath is a policy I've recently gotten somewhat lax about following (full circle to the "use of time" dilemma), so nothing's a quick kick in the butt to take one day a week and use it strictly for relaxing like a death threat. Consider Sunday my day off.

Evil Will Always Triumph, Because Blogs Are Dumb

I am morbidly ashamed of myself for allowing this blog to sit idle for a solid month without update. This is truly a crime against humanity. As punishment, I'm forcing myself to update it.

So I stopped by a certain director's blog at work today (cough Cory Edwards cough) to check on the progress of a certain big-deal film (cough Fraggle Rock cough). I haven't spoken to Cory in quite some time, and now that I'm "gainfully employed," I'm not necessarily looking for a production position at this point. It was interesting to discover, however (albeit not shocking) that between the Weinstein Company's sluggish executives and a general lull on the industry still holding over from last year's economy, nobody's willing yet to push the movie into production. Imagine that, a property as established and successful as Jim Henson Company's Fraggle Rock can't get a release date settled, even while Chris Nolan is releasing brain-obliterator Inception in tent pool prime real estate... in IMAX... Not that Nolan doesn't deserve everything he's getting, but you'd think a Fraggle Rock reboot would be a bit more... secure...

Anyway, the real question we want to know is, GEE WHIZ, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS, AJ? And you know what?

c_c;

>_>;

...I'm okay with it. :X

For Cory's sake, and Fraggle fans everywhere, yeah, I'm bummed and pissed and whatever else I should be, cause they're totally owed their movie and I'd be ultra-impatient about getting this picture rolling if it were mine. BUT, a delay on Fraggle Rock means more time to build some experience, should an opportunity on it lay ahead in my destiny. If Fraggle Rock doesn't get greenlit for photography until 2011, then that's a strong year of working hard at Mojo, making connections, building a reel, whatever-- It's buying time (for free) to make myself a more credible asset that Cory may or may not eventually find use for, on a film that could catapult me into a more direct filmmaking position for the rest of my career (without it being hauling walkies and distributing sides for five years, and working my way into a producer's path accidentally).

But, enough about that. Fraggle Rock, for me, is a long-shot. I don't even know what I'd really want to get out of it at this point. Just between you and me, and everybody else on the internet who reads this blog, I have high and certain doubts that working on major pictures in low-man roles will ever move my down marker forward. In non-football speak, "I won't get famous throwing out garbage for Iron Man 3." I see two major paths for success, and I'd like to make it known that I really didn't comprehend them until post-graduation (because film school, you see, doesn't prepare you for the real world. But they do a slam-bang job of preparing you for random pop quizzes about Soviet Montage on the street-).

The first key to success is simple: pick good friends -- pick talented friends -- and pick a good project to make with them. Then make it, and sell it, and be sure you're a vital part of that recipe for success (none of this "I boom mic'd" crap, that gets you nowhere). And be sure it gets you money, or cred. As in, credibility. Because you need either to move on to your next movie afterwards, and if you can't get one or the other, you're out of luck.

The second key to success is even simpler: make something terrific yourself. No sharing involved here (success is all yours, if it works; the bill is all yours, if it fails). Obviously, something like animation can and may be totally fail-safe monetarily, making it an excellent option.

As you might imagine, I'm working at keeping both of these doors wide open.

But enough about life lessons from someone who's barely had 20 years of it. How 'bout that Iron Man 2? Storming the box office like a gangbuster, but something tells me I'm just not going to like him any better after this picture than I did after the first. Sorry, Iron Man, but my heart belongs to Spidey. And the Dark Knight. That guy really knows how to put up a sequel.

Uh, only other interesting news is that I'm back in "productive mode" and rushing out materials every night after work as best I can. Earlier this week, Nathan Morse's KILL BOOTH wrapped and I had the honor of cutting the first teaser-trailer for it (technically the second, since I'd previously helped him work out a graphics-only teaser pre-shooting). Is it solid? It's good, and you can see for yourself at the KB website, but that's just been the tip of the ice berg this week. I moved on immediately to another long-time project, the SAW ZER0 DVD COLLECTION I've been planning, and that's been eating a LARGE chunk of my time. I think I got it in my head that I couldn't release these films until I'd made an animatic for a scene in an unfinished fourth script... So after several nights of cruddy Flash-work, I'm nearly done with that, and I'm sorry to say I can't quite tell if it was worth the hours of extra work to tack on as an iffy bonus feature. Especially when a full blooper reel O_O isn't actually ready to go on disc yet.

Goal is to wrap and burn the first DVD by Monday. Other goal is to cut a new NO COUNTRY FOR MERRY MEN trailer by Friday. First trailer was fine, but now that I'm re-releasing with *NEW* EFFECTIVE-AND-GOOD EDITING, I figure it needs a stab of fresh hype to maybe get people to watch it again, cut anew with jokes that are comedically timed to "not fall flat."

Oh! Bonus spoiler, I raced up to Burbank after work Thursday to act in Corey Trench's SELF UNEMPLOYED web series again. For those who don't follow, the series follow's Corey's character on an epic quest to never pay rent with his own money. We're now on season 2, and I'm continuing to portray recurring character "Alex," who (SPOILERS!) actually exudes the slightest ounce of a dark side... We've shot two episodes now for the second season, and my character's still not dead... no clues, however, on if and when I'm dropping from the series. I can say with reasonable certainty, though, that unless Corey writes me out appropriately in the script, I'll continue to play Alex in future episodes.

Right, that's it. I'm really hungry, and my punishment is well-served. I'ma making hotdogs. And then I'm back on Flash. Bye!