Halloween 2009 and things to do today

Happy Halloween to everyone on the West and East coast and places in between! And yes, it's two months to Christmas. That'll feel like it's here in about two weeks...trust me.

MUST start working on the independent feature film I've been contracted to work on. The director, Carl, came by my place last Saturday to drop off the drives with all the footage, etc. The shoot was around ten days in length. However, because of my work schedule and other issues going on, I haven't even LOOKED at the footage yet, let alone go through it! He knows I have a regular gig that I'm trying to cut around and completely understands. I just need to really get started today!

Also need to continue the house / apartment search to get myself into a cheaper living situation and move closer to places I frequent work wise. A haircut today would be nice, and I'm looking forward to heading into West Hollywood tonight to check out various Halloween sights and festivities.

So glad I'll be at Happy Hour again this upcoming week. There's also been some talk of trailers needing to be cut for the Berlin Film Festival in January. I'm told that work will probably take place in December, which would be great. Gotta wait and see how their schedule pans out though.

Just came out of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" at The Arclight Dome in Hollywood. Amazing and very upbeat! Really gave a 360 view of what could have been.

Just got my paycheck at Happy Hour. It's nice to actually have some money left over and not be completely broke once everything is paid!

Texting option

I think I'm going to give texting my blog posts a try. Still trying to figure out if you can add a title...so far no luck. In the meantime, look for these hopefully more frequent updates without titles. I am still striving to treat this like my own personal Facebook in a sense. I want to communicate here on a daily basis and feel this will help with that. But I'd still like to have titles to what I say!

The past two weeks

For reasons that some of you know about, the past two weeks have been pretty grueling emotionally. Not just for me but for others as well. I've always maintained that this is certainly not the platform for major discussions about my deeper personal life. But I did want to acknowledge that mistakes have been made on my part alone.

The important thing now is to move forward, keep my 'mission statement' (why I'm here), and tackle, head-on, those issues that need to be corrected, first and foremost for myself. I know this can be accomplished as sure as my confidence that I could come to LA and realize my dreams and goals; making it in the film industry. That all came true. This will as well...for me.

"The Final Load"

Yes, true believers!!! The day has approached, and it's pretty amazing and incredible! I am now officially out of the Latham living situation! It's really hard to believe, and been a long time coming. But it is...in fact...DONE!

I want to thank Allen who was so very nice enough to drive all the way down from New Hampshire, get together with his Dad, and meet my Mom out at the place to remove the final load of furniture items the basically needed to just be taken out and distributed to whoever wanted them or Salvation Army. As it turned out, my Mom wanted a couple of items and Allen's Dad decided he could donate what was left to his church's annual sale. I was very happy to learn that those remaining items would go to people who needed and wanted them as opposed to just being put in the trash. Plus, Allen took a couple of entertainment center units to use in his home office.

Thank you, Allen (and your Dad and my Mom), for helping to remove "The Final Load". The check's in the mail!

Yes!!! Another week at Happy Hour!

Just finishing up my fifth week at Happy Hour Creative. I've worked on three major projects during that time, and mum is still the word on the work I'm doing. As mentioned, I can say that the first one was a sales trailer, the second a broadcast spot for a major upcoming Warner Bros. theatrical release, and the third, a trailer for an independent martial arts feature.

This has been a great ride creatively, as well as the opportunity to be working at the post house I ultimately hope to be staffing with. These projects have certainly turned up the volume on their awareness that I can take on the big gigs and hit them out of the park. Not that it's been in any doubt that I was doing a great job. I've just been given material that I could really fly with stylistically and with a pretty wide free rein of creativity.

I was just told a few moments ago that they would in fact need me next week. Although up until last night I felt certain this week that I'm finishing would be my last. So YAY!!!

"The Terminator": 25 years in the past

25 years ago on, October 26, 1984, The machines sent a Terminator back in time to hunt and kill the mother of the yet unborn leader of the future resistance. Director James Cameron's name was finally on the map, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn were catapulted into stardom, and Arnold Schwarzenegger became a sought after overnight sensation, action hero, and household name....O.K. for those people who could pronounce it.

I saw "The Terminator" in the theater the week it opened. It was raw, action packed, yet with a heart to it that you don't usually see in movies of this type; it was a love story. So thirteen years later when everyone decried Cameron's heading of "Titanic", asking how an action director could handle the more tender moments of the central love story, I always pointed back to "The Terminator". In fact, several of his movies in between also had a love aspect.

Didn't get a chance to screen the movie on Monday night (which is ideally what I wanted to do) because of my work schedule right now. But sometime this week I'll be cranking it up!

Apartment & house hunting weekend

This weekend was spent compiling more listings of and looking at houses / apartments closer to places I work, etc. It's been kind of frustrating because I'm trying to keep within a certain price range and am just not finding anything I really like yet. There have been a couple of possibilities though. However, if the rent is too low, than you have a problem with comfort, security, and a general sense of feeling at home and happy. If you go to high, I'm left with paying too much rent and not having any room to breathe financially.

Unfortunately this has caused a kind of Catch-22. Don't worry, I'm not giving up. Just realizing that this could take a while, as I suspected it would. My lease is up at the end of this month, and I have not signed a new year lease because I'm trying to move. Luckily, in speaking with the property manager a few days ago, I learned that they are willing to allow me to go into a month-to-month arrangement for a bit so I can have more time to find something I like. This is great news (!), and will allow me to relax a bit and not be rushed into a potentially unhappy living situation by the clock running out in two weeks.

From week 3 to week 4 at Happy Hour!

I am happy to report that I will in fact be continuing at Happy Hour through next week. The client for the trailer I'm trying to cut have been going a little back and forth as far as the script is concerned. We have a basic idea that I've been able to loosely cut around, but ultimately we need something concrete, direction wise.

Plus, this project will not only be moving things into next week, but it looks like there may be more work on the horizon with Happy Hour. More projects are beginning to line up and hopefully a fairly solid reason to keep me around longer will gel.

Comic-Con 2010 4-Day Memberships w/ Preview Night: SOLD OUT!!!

WOW!!! I was blown away this morning when, by sheer chance, I decided to go onto the Comic-Con site to see how the 4-day memberships for 2010 were selling...and found a shocking surprise.

They're giving a choice now for next year; 4-day memberships with or without Preview Night. Suddenly I noticed that the sales ticker for the 4-day's with Preview Night read that they were almost gone! Quickly I called Rebecca so she could get on to buy hers, as I was filling in my online registration form. Immediately she checked to find out that the Preview Night 4-day package was SOLD OUT!!! Did I take the last ticket?! Holy shit!

She was able to purchase the 4-day membership without Preview Night, and I'm trying now to arrange to get her a professional attendee membership to help her into Wednesday night's pre-event. Something I was told about last year by my friend Chris whose a producer at New Wave Entertainment. This is for industry professionals and I'm not sure how that tracks against the general attendee numbers. We'll find out.

The online registration went public about a month ago for just the 4-day passes and not the individual days (yet). I'm getting the word out to everyone whose planning on, or even thinking about going next year...BUY NOW!!! The 4-day's without Preview Night are still available, but for how long is anyone's guess!!!

Dirty Vegas' "Days Go By": truly a classic

Was listening to this tonight and wanted to check out the video again. This really is a gem of a music video; great concept, creatively executed, really nice editing...all wrapped up with Dirty Vegas in the car, rolling down the window, playing the tune, then rolling the window back up to drive away. Love the cutting between the break dancer as an adult and as a kid back in The Day. Saw this for the first time when it was released.

"Days Go By" is one of the first songs for me that represented heading to LA to work in the film industry. Plus, I always thought it'd be fun to find that sandwich / hot dog eatery somewhere out here.

Rain?! Now?! Oh, come on!

After several delays in washing my Mini, taking more than a month to finally push everything else aside and do it, I washed the body yesterday with plans of cleaning the glass, alloy wheels, and interior tonight through tomorrow morning.

And then, not realizing anything but sunshine and blue skies would highlight yet another day, IT RAINS! D'OH! Just enough so that I'll have to wipe her down once again. I even stopped over to Target at lunch to pick up some much needed glass cleaner just before the shower.

But hey, if it's the worst that will happen this week, that's fine...I can deal.

A real, honest to goodness "A Christmas Story" soundtrack...AT LAST!!!

YES!!!! I'm actually surprised they haven't put this out sooner...but no matter. It's coming in November!!! Have not been able to access the track listings yet, and I certainly hope the, aside from the obvious artist songs, the album includes music from composers Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer, as well as dialogue cues from the movie.

November, November, November, hot damn, November!!!

And just as a reminder, Christmas is only a few weeks away! Yeah, you may think it's really two and a half months from now. But just take your eyes off the clock for a moment and it'll be December...just you watch!

The weekend and my 3rd week at Happy Hour

Got a lot done over this weekend; a LONG overdue haircut, picked up tickets to see Imogen Heap, scanned through listings for house rentals closer to places I work, cleaned up stuff around the apartment, washed the Mini, and went to a BBQ with Rebecca.

Oh, so you saw that mention of the possibility of moving! Yes, True Believers!

Now that I've come to the end of my lease at the apartment complex I'm in now, it's time once again to do some scouting and putting in daily hits at my two go-to sites for rental information: westsiderentals.com and craigslist.org. I've already seen a couple of listings for houses that just might work, leaving messages for call-backs. Probably won't hear anything until tomorrow at this point. Hopefully get into something cheaper and definitely with a shorter commute.

Work wise, tomorrow I'll be moving from "Book Of Eli" to a trailer for a movie called "Bangkok Adrenaline", a martial arts flick kind of made on the cheap. At any rate, I know it's going to be fun cutting because I already have some crazy ideas to make this thing sing. This project will take me through the end of the week. Hoping they have more for me to do after that. Fingers crossed.

2nd week at Happy Hour

Work is still buzzing along at Happy Hour Creative as I move into my second project, a broadcast trailer for "Book Of Eli" starring Denzel Washington. Plus, I already know I'll be working on a third trailer next week!

Can't give away details on "Eli", but in just one day I put together about 90% of what is shaping up to be one of the most edgy spots I've ever cut. The sound and music designer, who I had a meeting with yesterday morning about musical direction, came by late in the day to watch what I'd put together. He literally said "OMG, that's fucking amazing!" and gave me the high-five. I was buzzing yesterday with a lot of drive and a lot of energy. Not just from working on this piece, but the positive kudos and my excitement that Chris (the head of the company) will hopefully be just as impressed. He'll be taking a look at it this morning when I get in.

Amazing "Raiders" trailer!

Check out this incredible trailer, using the concept of what if "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" had been released in the 1950's. Starting with "The Naked Jungle" starring Charlton Heston (a heavy Lucas influence for Jones' adventures), this guy cut together clips from 25 movies to completely capture the look and spot-on rundown of key moments. WATCH IT!!!

Happy Hour Creative calls...and work begins!!!

Amazing! Right when I was pulling my bags out of the car in Albany to enter the airport terminal and head home, the phone rings from Chris at Happy Hour asking what my availability was! Said he had a project for me that would last two weeks.

So the day after I got back, this past Tuesday, I began working on a trailer! Can't say what it's for, but the project is definitely connected to one of my favorite movies. This has been a great opportunity to really show-off some creative cutting. Putting together the first rough cut, I've been coming up with some cool eye candy to make the piece really rock. And the news gets even better...

Chris also mentioned that they have another trailer project for me when I'm done with this. Woohoo! Back at my favorite post house, working on a cool gig, AND some substantial work that will carry me through a good portion of October. GOD BLESS IT!!!