Scoring Tickets to 'An Evening with Carrie Fisher' Moments Before They Sold Out...Priceless!

Went to the Celebration IV page of starwars.com today and saw that they had scheduled a special Q&A event with Carrie Fisher on Saturday evening, May 26. I'm really, really, really glad we acted quickly to buy tickets for this because literally 1 hour afterward they were all gone. Sold out! Bye-bye! Stuff like this has taught me to check both the Star Wars and Gen-Con sites several times a day for updates. I just know that any moment now they're going announce Mark Hamill's involvement.

And thanks to Allen for pointing out the supreme usefullness of reserving our spot in line for the Celebration IV Store. As of this afternoon it's booked solid from 12 noon on Thursday (first opening) thru Friday evening. I figured with it being open 24 hours this go around (only extended business hours during C3) that there would be more than enough chances to get in there without a mob scene.......think again!

Wookieepedia!

Check out the link for the all "Star Wars" Wikipedia (click on logo). Wow, who knew! Remember back in the day when you went to the bookstore to buy books on the history and background of the saga? From characters to ships to actors to George & company. Now everything you could possibly want is just a few clicks away. Sometimes I wonder how we ever survived before the internet back in the stone age of 1977, sizing up the Millenium Falcon blueprints by candlelight or watching a montage of 8mm film clips from the first movie by holding it up to the sun.

"The Making of Star Wars" Now in Bookstores

Can't wait to buy this book and read it cover to cover. Just came out in stores Tuesday along with some amazing reviews. Even though initially it might be hard to get my hands on a copy, what with these flying off bookshelves everywhere, you know this will be all over Celebration IV. One way or another I'll have my copy this month.

And Now The Bad News...Star Wars Screening Surprise Guests

O.K. now I'm depressed...

Monday night's Academy screening of "Star Wars" with George Lucas and company had two surprise guests show up; Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. F$@&%*@!K!!!!!! The complete list of who attended the post Q&A can be found here. I was bummed that tickets had sold out so early but kept holding onto that one thought; even if I miss this they HAVE to be screening the first film somehow, somewhere, as a stand alone event, during Celebration IV. If they don't, it will be such a missed opportunity. And this is a phrase that those who accompany me to the event may be hearing me say a lot. MANN'S CHINESE THEATER...come on, let's go, get it on the schedule, historic, GET IT!

Yes they are having a 17 hour marathon of all 6 films. Nice. But tickets went on sale in March with little fanfare. Plus I don't want to have to wade through the prequels just to get to the one film I feel is the centerpiece of the whole anniversary event..."Star Wars" (long before this "Episode IV A New Hope" shit became part of the permanent title). To me the prequels will be taking a major back seat. I won't be celebrating them. My entire focus is on the one, true original.

However they way I've witnessed special event films scheduled in LA, I get the sneaking suspicion that if I want to attend a 30th anniversary screening of the first film on or around the actual original release date.....I've already missed it. But hey, we'll see. Hopefully someone will prove me wrong.

30 DAYS TO GO!

Yes true believers, it is now exactly one month until Star Wars Celebration IV begins! Big Honking YAY!

PLUS, I just talked to the Mini dealership today to ask a question about finalizing the sale and was informed that the ship that my Mini is on will be docking in Los Angeles on May 1! Also that when the car gets to the distribution center it could possibly be there for only a few days as opposed to ten which is what I had been told previously as a rough generalization. Right now my baby could be reaching the dealership around May 15 or even a bit sooner!

One more time in case you're just joining us...May is going to be THE BEST month!

Star Wars Insider New Look

The Insider has a new look and feel in conjunction with the 30th anniversary. Received my copy in the mail today and just flipping through the pages has me getting even more excited about Celebration IV! May is definitely going to be THE month, what with the arrival of my Mini and the incredible Star Wars event that awaits in just a little over 30 days. Wow.

Trailers, Star Wars, and a Productive Week Off

Finished cutting the trailer for "The Wizard Of Gore" starring Crispin Glover last Friday. Things were slowing for a brief period at KO Creative so they did not need me to work this week as was tentatively planned. I had my cut finished but this week would be the client's first viewing and any changes that might come back. This is being handled by one of their staff editors since of course they have first dibs when the amount of work does not require the need for a freelance editor. All in all it was fun and creatively challenging to work on, even thought the film isn't really that good.

Shawna, the post coordinator, told me things would be picking up again in a few weeks and they would very likely be giving me a call to come back in. She told me I top the call list when they need to bring in a freelancer which was great to hear. Hopefully I'll be heading back soon the way it sounds.

I also received a call from a new trailer house. Vurv, Inc. does mostly urban and youth oriented movie promotion; trailers, 1-sheets, and motion graphics. "Hustle & Flow" and "2 Fast 2 Furious" is among their most recent high profile trailers. They contacted me after checking out my resume online. Asked if I was interested in cutting a trailer for a feature film called "The Ministers" starring John Laguizamo and Harvey Keitel. The director of this also did "Empire". They were mainly checking my availability since they had not nailed down a start date yet. There was a possibility that it might have happened this week but now looks like it will be later instead of sooner. I was also informed that they have a couple of other projects coming up shortly that they'd consider having me work on if the fit was right. All of this sounds great and I'm looking forward to speaking with them again possibly in the next week or two.

This unexpected week off has been fairly productive. My next project with The Cannery doesn't start up until the middle of next week. In the meantime I've been seriously plugging away at updating my reel. Now...finally...it's done. Yay! I was able to add 4 new pieces from the past year and began burning DVD's yesterday. Next I'll be packaging those with updated copies of my resume for mailing to about 20 post houses. This time I'll definitely be stepping up the push. As mentioned, I need to keep the heat turned up twice as much as I have in the past 3 years. Previously I'd been delivering a new reel and resume to each of these post houses, old and new, around every 10 months. I now need to ramp that up to every 4 months just to maintain a constant presence. More phone calls in between will be important as well. This Saturday and Monday everything goes to the post office. Still really need to crack more of those top trailer houses.

Heading to the California Science Center tomorrow to check out "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination". This exhibit has been at the Science Museum in Boston for the last few years and is finally out this way. Can't wait to check it out at this very appropriate time; a little over a month before the 30th anniversary of the first film and Celebration IV.

My Mini: En Route to The States!

This past Friday my new baby was loaded onto a ship for the big ocean voyage across the Atlantic, down through the Panama Canal, ultimately to arrive in California probably around 3 weeks from now. YAY! The next stop will be a distribution center where a final inspection will take place before shipment to the dealership. Time wise the one thing I do know is my Mini will stay there for at least 10 days.

I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since I bought her. Maybe this 6 - 8 week waiting period won't be as bad as I thought.

1st Pic of Iron Man's Armor, Mark I

Paramount Pictures has just released the first glimpse of Iron Man's prototype armor from the new movie. Can't wait to see the final high tech action version! You can check out the photo here.

Beverly Hills Fire

Fires seem to be following me wherever I work these past two weeks. There was one in the hills above Beverly Hills today, just a series of blocks from KO Creative. Close enough so that when I went out for lunch you could smell and vaguely see smoke coming down the street. Of course it didn't help that there were high winds (for LA) blowing everything around...including a palm branch which almost whacked me in the face while I was walking down the street. People were literally leaning into the wind to walk. This is pretty odd for here.

The winds had also knocked out power to a number of areas. I could see that my power had been off during the day when I arrived home.

Third Full "Spider-Man 3" Trailer

I have my tickets to the now sold out midnight show on May 3rd at The Arclight in Hollywood. Here's the third and newest "Spider-Man 3" trailer.

"Star Wars" Academy Screening Sold Out

A special 30th anniversary screening of the original "Star Wars" is scheduled for April 23 at The Samual Goldwin Theater in conjunction with the A.M.P.A.S. film series, "Great To Be Nominated".

I knew tickets were going on sale for just "Star Wars" April 9th, and that package tickets for the entire series were going on sale April 2nd. However I kept going back and forth because Celebration IV is coming up next month. Even though it's not scheduled yet, they MUST have a special screening of the first film.

I saw the list of post screening guests who would be doing a Q&A afterward, full info about the event to be found here. George Lucas is headlining an impressive list. Of course I knew ticket lines would be hurrendously long, with college kids possibly camping out for days in advance. Yuck. I love the enthusiasm the fans have, and the dedication when it comes to being part of the mutual fan events. However when I'm involved, and it has to do with getting a specific seat, then I start to get frustrated and annoyed. Even though I started working at KO Creative on Wilshire Blvd. this week, 7 blocks from The Academy where tickets went on sale, I still felt it would be a major logisitical nightmare to seriously try for this.

So Monday I walked over to see what the situation was and found that they had already sold out the week before. Everyone bought the $30 full event package deal, probably just to go to "Star Wars" and see George and company! Yes I'm dissapointed. But I have to believe there will be a special screening of the first film either at CIV or even more appropriately at Mann's Chinese Theater, a mere nine miles away, where it originally premiered in 1977. They HAVE to do something, and if they don't it will be a severely missed opportunity.

I know Celebration IV will be having a special screening of all 6 films on Wednesday, May 23, the day before the event. However I really want to have the first film as it's own special thing. I'm keeping a daily watch on the Mann's Chinese Theater and Arclight Cinemas sites in hopes this will come to fruition.

Trailer Info

The movie I'm cutting the trailer for at KO Creative this week is called "The Wizard Of Gore" starring Crispin Glover. It's an indie picture headed to the Cannes Film Festival that's a remake of a 1970 grindhouse flick. The trailer that plays automatically when you arrive at the site is NOT my work. Don't want to smear the editor who did the cut but frankly the piece looks like it was assembled by a 10 year old. I think I'll be doing just a wee bit better.

Trailer Cutting At KO Creative

Got a call from KO Creative last week asking my availability for the next 2 weeks. I've been wrapping up working on the DVD for "Are We Done Yet?" at The Cannery which is now in the approval stage. 2 pods went out to the studio already and were approved without any changes...nice one. Now they just need to go before Ice Cube for final. The last pod, which is a kid's Q&A about the movie, is going out the door today.

My next project at The Cannery will be a 30 minute retrospective of "Aquaman" for a special edition DVD centering around the Filmation animated series of the 60's. However the piece I'll be working on will cover the entire history of the character; from comics, animation, as well as his appearances on "Smallville" and the never aired pilot for a proposed WB series (exclusively available on iTunes now). The "You've Got Mail" DVD Deluxe Edition has apparently been moved back a couple of weks which is why I have this window.

So next week and possibly the week after I'll be cutting a movie trailer at KO. Not sure exactly what film it will be for but it has to deliver to the Cannes Film Festival. This was basically the same drill as when I was there last year. At that time I cut 2 trailers for Cannes: "Venus and Vegas" and "Provoked".

This is great that I'm getting back into a bonafided trailer house again. Plus my contact at KO said there may be more work when this initial project is done...bonus! I'm also nearing the end of updating my DVD reel and resume to get out to all the trailer and general film post houses. Will definitely be stepping up the frequency of contacting each of these places as we move more into the year. Must continue this push, even when I'm working steadily at places like The Cannery.

There has also been steady talk of The Cannery offering me a staff position. This is certainly a great place to work with a good workflow of studio film projects. However I know for a fact they would not be paying even half of what I make now as a freelancer. I certainly want to stick around here on a regular basis. But as we all know I have my sights set on a wider playing field. So staying fluid has been and still is my best option. The Cannery has said that if they couldn't match what I wanted salary wise, they certainly would want to keep me on in a freelance capacity as the schedule is quite full for the foreseeable future. They really like my work and don't want to lose me either way. Good to know and much appreciated.

My Mini: Awaiting Transport!

I was very happy today to see that the little arrow on the official site where I can track the progress of my MINI moved from 'Scheduled For Production' to 'Awaiting Transport'. This means my car has been built, inspected, and test driven at the plant in Oxford, England and is now ready to board the ship for that voyage to The States.

I'm trying not to get too excited that it may actually arrive early...since at the dealership they said it usually takes the full 6 - 8 weeks. Here's hoping though!

Editors Live In Caves

Excuse me, how did I miss this?! Friday I was working, as I have been for the last number of months, at The Cannery in Burbank. No one said anything as I went about my day cutting the supplement for the "Are We Done Yet?" DVD. Day ends, I pack my bag, and head out the door. Briefly I see a chopper hovering over the Warner Bros. lot. Must be police or they're shooting something.

I get a call from my Mom asking where I was when the giant Hollywood Hills fire was happening. What?


Then I went online to find all of these horrific photos of something that looked the size and scope of the Twin Towers coming down on 9-11, a mere 12 blocks from work. It was only today that I was told a number of people had been huddled around the TV monitor Friday afternoon in one of the meeting rooms taking it all in. Meanwhile I remained totally oblivious that day as I continued cutting in my bay on the 2nd floor.

Amazing. I missed the whole thing and yet could have taken a few steps out the front door and been totally overwhelmed by the sight. Two teens from Illinois playing with a lighter. Wow.

After working late tonight I passed Warner Bros. and could see the acres of scorched earth beyond it. So yes, editors do live in caves.