six days to heaven

i don't recommend shooting a feature-length movie in six days with non-actors, an improvised script, no budget and very slim pre-production; especially if you have minimal film production experience yourself.

yes, it was quite an experience.

it was a very frustrating and trying experience at times, to be sure, but the interesting thing about film production is that every project brings with it advantages and disadvantages. it was nice being the big guy again, fun working with people who had no egos and were simply interested in learning about making movies, and i do love teaching people what i know in those moments of down time.
and i love setting up a light and making a scene look better, even if i only have one kino and a bounce board....

and i met some really cool people who liked my work and asked me about working on other projects they are doing later, so this could be a springboard for bigger things.


i learned a few things about myself down there.

i learned that i will not give false praise. if i didn't think a scene was very interesting, i could not bring myself to tell the director otherwise. but i am also not one to speak unkind things [well, they do slip from time to time, but i try my best], and so work to say what good i can about a situation.

i also learned that i take my work seriously and do my best to do my best.

i learned that i will often not fight for attention, but will let others have it if they want it. that sounds like a good thing, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

i got to see 'newsies' on the car ride home and really enjoyed it. [making my sister very happy that i finally saw a movie that she thinks makes me more 'cultured'.]
i also saw the new 'pride and prejudice', although i couldn't hear it very well. i thoroughly enjoyed it and would be interested in knowing what they were saying.

i'd been to 'in and out burger' once before, and thought it was perhaps a little overhyped, seeing that they only had about four things on the menu; and while it was good, i couldn't see what all the fuss was.
we stopped at one in reno on the way home, and i loved it.
but that's because i learned something about it one the drive there;
there are 'codes' you can use to order.
for example, if you order a burger 'animal style', it comes with sauteed onions and some other goodies. 'protien style' comes wrapped in lettuce, sans the bun.
when we got to the cashier, my friend asked the girl what other styles there were.
her eyes darted, and she said 'that's all that there are'.
what a poor liar.
but a great marketing campaign.
because now i really want to know what other styles they have, so that i can be part of the inner circle.
we both got the 'animal style'--very delicious.

i learned something else interesting; kirk was pitching an idea for his dream movie and naming the actors he'd love to have play the roles. for his star, he mentioned someone i'd worked with before, and i groaned. i explained that this actor was, in my opinion, difficult to work with and not very disciplined, which kind of make kirk reconsider [this was just a dream list, but still....] what's interesting is that, on that project, i was just a lowly loader, quietly working in the background, and this actor never even knew my name. yet now i was in a more influential position, and my observations of this guy carried some weight.
so remember that people are watching you at all times.

driving back from san jose, we took a few wrong turns and got to see san francisco [pretty cool] and a town called 'cool, ca'.

final word:

police officer: 'i saw that you slowed down to 93 as you went around that curve, so i knew you weren't a speed-crazy. what were you doing, anyway?'

chelsea: 'singing along to newsies.....'