Using WNET for my own nefarious schemes PT. 1

Making stripboards/breaking down scripts.



More to come.

Producing and Misplaced Voices

I woke up this morning feeling sicker than the past few days I had felt sick so I e-mailed in to PBS letting them know I wasn't feeling well and I should probably stay home so I don't get anyone else sick. I got an e-mail back telling me to get better, which was nice.

In all honesty I probably felt functional enough to get up and go into the city but, again, I don't think that the people at PBS needed me so desperately to do something that they wouldn't mind getting sick in the process.

Aside from that, I slept all day and tried to get better, although I was given dreams of pirate ships and zombies... I think...

The four days prior to today I was picking up equipment, shooting and then returning equipment. Somewhere in the middle of those four days I misplaced my voice and just now I've managed to find enough pieces of it to reassemble enough of it to not sound ridiculous.

All of this, however, means that we shot Aprile Ruha's film and now that's all finally done and in the can, which is a wonderful thing because I can now stop worrying about it.

The shoot, overall, went quite well and quite smoothly, despite my mad driving in a 15 Passenger Van at 70 to 90 mph to set when we were late. Yea, that was dangerous and quite scary, I've scared myself quite a few times, especially since the guy at the rental place told me to keep it at 50. Note, these cars are quite easy to flip over apparently, not that I experienced that myself, quite actually, despite the fear that I spread to the little freshmen PA's , I'd like to think that I actually drove quite well, considering the fact that we all got to set and back each day safe and sound.

The shoot itself, however, was really smooth, considering the rough time we had during preproduction, but then again, I guess a rough pre production should signal a smooth production, if not then you're doing something wrong.

On Friday, somewhere amist all the pick-ups and planning I managed to grab a few hours where I could take a friend with me to see the New York premier of PBS' Joan Baez film, "Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound," which came out quite well. Afterwards my friend tagged along as I grabbed our cargo van and headed over to pick up more equipment and then handed off the filled cargo van to Aprile's uncle, who drove the van over to Long Island, where we were shooting.

Jessica, (my, until now unnamed friend) and I then grabbed some food and then I drove her home in the 15 Passenger van because the trains were being stupid. I found out she lives really close to my grandma.

Business Letters

I got about half way through sending out licensing request letters to companies via e-mail and fax before I realized, I'm sending things to corporations, i.e. actual professionals. Additionally, I'm not a student anymore and even though this is for a student film, if I wanna be taken seriously I need to send this letter looking nice and professional and starting off with the letter looking like it did (just Dear Sir or Madam at the top and nothing else) wasn't gonna cut it.

Anyway, thank GOD for the internet because I would not have remembered correctly how to write a business letter otherwise.

Here's what my original letters looked like:


Here's what a proper business letter should look like:


I was about to start praying that I still had my Writers Express or my Write Source 2000 books. Actually, it kind of makes me wonder if I still do have those books...

Arizona Overview

Two weeks ago I thought about an upcoming trip to Arizona with just my parents and my grandma and I cringed. A week in the middle of the desert with parental units? Sounds horrible; a week full of nagging, boredom and ruined moments as I'm forced to "appreciate" the beautiful nature around me.

Tonight is my last night in Arizona and I can't say I had a bad time. I've found myself rolling my eyes a lot but at the same time I've managed to find moments to myself to appreciate my surroundings. I was also probably too busy working on producing F.a.N.G. over the phone (and internet) to really be annoyed.

All in all I had a good time and got to see some beautiful sights as well as spend a lot of time in a car driving from town to town. I have to rate Arizona pretty positively (aside from their love of the traffic circle, those I just don't quite understand their obsession with). Arizona is definately a nice break from the fast-paced environment of Manhattan.

The music video seems to be going alright as well. Not quite smoothly (actually, a lot of hiccups), but it's going, which is good to hear. We'll see how everything turns out tomorrow.

Additionally, I now have a cowboy hat.

Here are some more pictures I've taken.

Montezuma's Castle --

After a while all these Sinagua houses begin to look the same, this one is just different because it's high up in the side of a mountain.

They were clearly preparead for my coming:

Prickly Pears and their fruits (the purple budding thing) are edible apparently: