MyFilmFest.com

This is suppose to be the big one. The one where I tell you how much I am going to get done this year. Where I lay out the master plan, tell you how the great execution will be delivered and at the end of the year I will show everyone how well and beyond my great plan made out.

Well, I stand here today without a plan. I just can’t do it. There are too many things that are not even in place so that I can just be stable. (this means I can’t get work, right now).

This does not mean I don’t want to have a plan. I want one, I have an idea of what it could look like. When my basic needs come together, I know that my master plan will too.

The best I can offer to you right now is some basic stuff.

I have two or three screenplays that are coming together and will be finished within the first quarter.
I will be going back to the Sarasota Film Festival to participate in the events.
Somehow, someway I will participate in the 48 hour film project - (I so want this to be my own crew.)
If at all possible I want to get another short under my belt.

All in all I am in a good place, physically and emotionally. I have the best friends anyone could ask for. If I could get the financial thing straight it would be aces.

I am hoping to post monthly if not more.

When my friend Anesti called me and asked if I was willing to help out with FilmBlazer’s Two Week Turnaround Tour (T3) I immediatly said yes. Wow I really didn’t know what I was getting into.

I contacted Josh that night and he told me to meet him under a bridge. Yeah, okay not a problem.

We filmed the epic fight scene that day and it was a long day. A long hot day. A very long hot day. (you get the point)

I met JJ Smile, that day as well as meeting Jamie who is trekking along with Josh on this crazy film making adventure. I also met several of the best talent in Tampa, giving selflessly their abilities.

We filmed several scenes on the following days it was mostly a blur. I do remember that Josh had this incredible 8ft. crane that was provided by kesslercrane

Check out filmbazer.com and also check out the movie here called Equal Force.

This feels like a book report more than my experience of what has inspired me to keep up on my filmmakiing, but it will have to suffice as I didn’t write this as soon as I did it. That’ll teach me.

Yesterday I found out that a wonderful man passed away about a month ago from an unexpected heart attack.

I met Dennis at my friend’s work one day when I was looking for a location for Happy Birthday Jack! I had used this location on my first movie and knew that the owner would let me use it again.

I was describing the character to my friend when Dennis looked around and was intrigued by what he was hearing.

Dennis seemed like a nice guy working hard and taking time to allow for a joke. For some reason he said he wanted to play this character and right away I knew he was perfect. I said “The character supposedly does not speak any English”.  His reply was quick and witty, “That’s okay, and neither do I”.

I went out and immediately got him his costume in his size. I made sure, as he was the visual and verbal punch line to the movie itself that whatever I could do to make him the best he could be, but something surprising happened, actually many surprising things happened with Dennis.

Dennis came to the set on the first day of shooting jumped into his costume and became Jose. Not just during takes. Mind you, that he was not an actor, but he loved playing the character so much that he became this man Jose. He would speak Spanish every time and made his character so real so visceral. He would have suggestions for his character and every single time I went with it.

At the very last minute, I decided to end the movie at an earlier point than I first scripted it. I ended it at the point where Jack’s brother asks “Who’s Jose?” and was going to leave it there for the viewer to decide what happened to Jose. After showing it to my test group (friends who I showed the movie to) it was determined that the ending was needed to clarify that Jose did get away with the money. So I called Dennis and asked him if he wouldn’t mind going out to the beach and shooting the ending.

Dennis was ecstatic and met me at Picnic Island in Tampa to film the last sequence. He was a trooper also because we had to go to my studio (A.K.A. my house) to re-do the audio as it was windy at the beach and all the vocals got washed out.

I was happy to have Dennis in my movie and to know him. He was a funny man and loved to live life. Although he was never technically an actor, he made my movie shine.

For me he will always live on as the guy who brought my movie to life.

You can watch the movie here.

In response to an open letter from Doc Brown to Marty McFly

This letter came to me:

Dear Doc,

I received your letter and believe that it deserves a response, even though I feel like Captain Kirk and want to kick your face into a crevasse.

I can understand that you may feel that I let you down. Only going back ten minutes was a terrible mistake on my part but I also feel that maybe you are not thinking of the big picture.

First thing first, if you hadn’t stolen the plutonium from terrorists in the first place maybe all this crap wouldn’t have come to fruition – however I will give you that one as I did have the ability to straighten out my incompetent father. , I’m lucky that I didn’t get shot by the terrorists, whom YOU provoked by the way; they came after me with a FUCKING rocket launcher. Hey, Uncle Fester couldn’t you have gotten the plutonium either legally or figure out some other less lethal way to get the flux capacitor to do the time travel shit. My HAIR had completely fallen out at 25 and I am now sterile ASSHOLE.

I spent numerous times trying to explain to your freaky ass 1955 self that you were going to be shot by terrorists. But NOOO, you didn’t want to hear it. All this talk about the space time continuum and paradox’s my ass. If you would have just listened to me at that point, (which by the way you were the one who tore up that piece of paper that I wrote) we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Finally, you used a Delorean that you knew had grounding problems. Ten minutes would have been enough time if that compensation for your penis wouldn’t have stalled. I can’t believe that you could get the thing up to 88 mph let alone getting time travel to work, but hell Judge Doom, it fucking stalled.

In conclusion, after all you put me through; the only thing I have to revel in was watching you get shot twice. You would have to go back to 1985 to TAP that skinny bitch, as you refer to my wife, as the only thing heavy these days is her ass.

Thanks for fucking up my life,

Marty McFly

PS - Gigawatt is pronounced with a soft g asshole.

2008 was a interesting year indeed. I was going to leave for California and didn’t. I am not all that unhappy as I believe 2009 will be a great year.

I am currently working on a new script, High Bridge. It seems to be flowing right into the word processor very easily. I have very high hopes for this project and I can see it becoming a great movie for people to love.

There are many things to consider for this year and I don’t know whether pursuing a move to California is in the cards or not. For the first six months I am writing and will develop High Bridge. I also plan a trip to Florida for the Sarasota Film Festival after that we will see.

I am writing this while watching “The Last Dragon” (1985). This movie is wonderfully cheesy and has so many pretty 80s colors, themes and music.

My brother is right, the new Knight Rider sucks. Well at least he agrees with the ratings the show is getting. I like the show. Not that I don’t use the dvr to record it because my favorite show is on at the same time.

The show is getting a do-over. Not many shows get a chance like that and a few just get the ax even though they are pretty good (I know, Firefly is on the top of my list too). I only bring all this up as I was wanting to write a spec script for it to have in my pile o’ scripts. Now I will just have to wait to see how the new “Method of Operation” is so that I don’t have something in there that is not suppose to be in there.

In other interesting news. I am finishing up my outline for Myron - the video blog which actually is a mini-adventure online series. You can view the teaser trailer here. I retooled the series to make it more funny, cause we all can use more funny.

Have a good week everyone.

When I was ten years old I had this dream that I was in that was so vivid and clear that when I woke up I remember thinking how strange it was, how much I felt a part of that dream.

I couldn’t fathom that it would cause me to be where I am today, but it sure did cause some of my life choices early on.

I had just started taking clarinet lessons at school and was in love (well what I thought was love) with a girl named Katie. She had long curly blonde hair and the deepest blue eyes. She played the flute and would be in my lessons at the same time I was. I never thought the clarinet was that cool, but it got me in to the whole music thing which I thought was cool.

The night I had the dream was like any other night (although thinking about it, I may have eaten just before my bedtime, which would cause some weirdness in my dreams).

The world started to change to this strange place where music was blasting through the hallways of this castle type structure which was warmly lit, and almost felt welcoming. I was running, to where I don’t know. There were at least three other people with me ( they had no real identity to me). I kept running until I got to this stage where I jumped up on and started to sing. I remember the lyrics to this day and like my dad said of music of the day, it was always repeating the same damn rhythm.

From that day forward, I felt like it was my destiny to become a rock star. I went back the next day and told Katie that I was going to be a rock star. I told everyone from that day until I was thirty that I was going to be a rock star.

In a brief 20 year period I took voice lessons, joined bands, formed bands and wrote lyrics to songs that to some were rememberable, if not only for repeating the same damn rhythm.

At thirty I had a life changing event, I will tell you about someday. I still wanted to write, but for me I felt that the days of me rocking were over. It sounds depressing but it wasn’t. I was opening a new door to my life and that made more sense than a silly dream or did it?

I was in my mid 30s and working on my first movie. I decided to place a piece of music from one of the songs from my band in it. It made me reminisce back to the dream. “What about that dream, was it wrong?” I remember asking myself.

No it wasn’t wrong, you see I left out details of that dream. Before I started running, I had to make sure that the people running with me were going in the direction that I wanted them to. The warmly lit room was because I made people turn on the lights and the fact that we were running was an idea I had to make it more presentable to the crowd that was there watching the show. (Plus there were monsters that were there, but I still haven’t figured out what that was about, but again eating late does not help).

To me at this point in my life, I do not believe in dream theories, or that they are the signs of things to come or that they are repressed memories from some previous life. I do believe however that this particular dream did have some effect on my life because I let it.

Would I have become a director without this dream? Would I have been a singer without this dream? Would Katie still remember me without this dream? (Hell she probably doesn’t even know who I am now anyways). Who knows. What I do know is that I am leading the life I want. This little dream when I was 10 is now 32 years old and somehow it still exists as a reminder that my dreams can come true.

Knowing when to give up on a goal is a hard realization. (Not really giving up, but I am postponing it indefinitely.)

There were several factors that led me to this decision. Not one of them, I believe, were of the “chickening out” type.

1. There just wasn’t enough money

I believe that 3 months salary was what I was shooting for. I could have come up with about a month. If I knew I had enough income once I got to California, then this would not be a problem, but nothing was 100%

2. My demo reel was lacking

The demo reel I had was over two years old and I couldn’t get a job off of it. It is kind of sad as I know that I could make a really great demo with some time.

3. The economy is really unstable (duh)

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that the economy has tanked. We as a people haven’t seen it hit us… yet. (Is this what they ment by trickle down economics?)

So as these things may have prevented me from going to California, they have not stopped me from my dreams. I intend to sink deep into my writing over the winter and would like to emerge with a few screenplays and shoot one of them in the spring.

Also, I had been approached to direct a music video. I am really, really looking forward to this.

I appreciate everyones support and believe me I can stil use the wtgs and OMGWTFs as I continue to embark on my filmmaking journey.

Have a great week and I will update soon.

Eddie

One of the coolest things in the world today is being able to share your dreams, goals and eventual adventures with the Internet -

Meet Dereck a guy that has decided to pack his bags and tour around the southeast this winter by bike, gather sponsors for the trip and donate money to charity. This he calls C.U.B.E.

Like most goal seekers (like me) he has had to modify his goal slightly to make this work.

He also needs your help to make this happen.

Please view his website and if you feel like I do, please give consideration.

Is there a time when you are so content with your life that you stop challenging yourself?

I hope there is never a time in my life that this question gets a yes answer.

Of course you want to stop and smell the roses. You want to take in the beauty around you and develop a peace within yourself that makes you content with life at the moment. Never do you want to relax so much that you dwell on previous accomplishments that you have no ambition to plant new seeds to smell the roses in the next spring.

My life has been a series of events that have led me from one path to another. Each new adventure has it’s own story and amazing moments that define who I am today. Without the lost loves, broken hearts, and curiously incredible mistakes. I would never had the ability to experience the beautiful sunsets,  wonderful people, and <insert special secret moment here>

I believe, for the most part, that I strive for happiness everyday. Realistically actually achieving happiness every single day is improbable. Life should have it’s up and downs. Some of the downs just suck. There is nothing you can do about it.

I am going to end this here with this note: If you cannot accomplish nothing else, breath. live. Now. and repeat as often as possible.