Posts Tagged weather
Nice Weather
Finally, we got some awesome weather today. It was up to 74 or so here in Western NY which was amazing after the long winter and slow start to spring. Right now it’s almost 1am and it’s still 66 outside with a mild breeze…gorgeous.
I have a busy week ahead of me with some serious deadlines I have to meet. These two DVD covers I’m working on (7-Disc Roy Rogers Set, and another kids program) are barely started. It’s so hard to get started from scratch on these things when graphic elements are few and you’re basically making it all from scratch. There’s always that first couple hours you spend making something that’s total trash, and then you hope you realize it and start over with something that works. With all the covers I’ve done in the last number of months, I’ve always had this issue. I’m always nervous and not confident I can make it look good or I don’t have enough images to work with, or I’m just a hack who can’t design then eventually I pull myself together and knock it out quickly after picking at it reluctantly for a long time. I always seem to get into a rut with these kinds of jobs, and these two covers specifically are a departure from my typical style which doesn’t help. It’ll grow me in my abilities but man am I going to get frustrated this week LOL. I can see it coming already tomorrow morning as I stare at my computer screen with nothing but a white cover template and black and white photos of Roy Rogers…clueless.
Next week three days are eaten up as Denise and I head to the American Family Association headquarters to see Courageous. I’m excited! Can’t wait to see my buddy Randall again and enjoy some time away from home if only for a day or so.
Dramatic Shot of Denise (one of my only decent ones)
With the nice weather I tried to take my new AF100 out for a spin at a local park. It was basically a disaster. I realized later it was likely my camera settings, but I couldn’t expose anything properly and we’re in that ugly in-between seasonally where the weather is nice, grass is there, but everything else still looks dead. There wasn’t anything interesting to look at really. I only got a decent shot or two and even those were sorta crappy since I was having a hard time exposing Denise’s face properly (due to my settings I think), and I was a doofus and didn’t adjust my white balance to be in line with the fact it was major hour. Overall a lame experience, but I got to watch the sun set with my wife so it wasn’t so bad. The worst part of the little excursion being these jerks outside their house that called out some choice things as we walked by. I held my tongue but the worst part was having to walk by the house again to get to the car. Why do people have to be so ridiculous? It just makes my blood boil and all I want to do is give them a talking to with my knuckles. Some of that old rage shows back up in my head and it isn’t pretty. By God’s Grace they didn’t say a word as we walked by a second time…thanks Lord. For some reason I was really discouraged when I left, not sure why. The weekend hasn’t been the greatest I guess. Long story…just plenty to repent of, and leave behind I suppose. It happens…
Looking forward to this week getting officially started tomorrow and the decent weather this week will be refreshing (mid 50s at a minimum this week). The more I think about it, the more I’ll miss NY. Can’t wait to go all around the area this Spring/Summer and shoot whatever I can.
One Year Ago Today…
On May 24th, 2009…my best friend Mike Cooper passed away. It was a shot to be sure, and only days before I was supposed to move to California for a job I was offered. He died one day before his birthday, the 25th. He was such an awesome man of God, and had no shame in showing it. There are few I would consider a really great friend, and Cooper was all aces. See you in Glory Coop, I miss you man… 
Today was an OK day, nothing I would call ground breaking. It was HOT…high 70s, maybe 80 or so. With the computer on, and the monitors I have, it can get up to like 80-90 in my bedroom. I woke up a few hours earlier than I wanted to this morning because of the heat, I was just too sweaty and sticky. I figured I would feel like crap later because this was supposed to be my day to sleep in after a long weekend…but that didn’t work out. So I just got to work on some things but it wasn’t long before I started feeling ill. The last week has been very odd. Since last Tuesday everything I eat isn’t settling well, I’m tired and fatigued, etc. Today was worse though because it combined all that with dizziness and such. I’ve been trying to drink a lot of water, as I’m sure the heat isn’t helping. I had to take a nap, because my eyes were hurting pretty bad. Thankfully I was able to fall asleep for 2 hours. I NEVER take naps because my body normally doesn’t let me. After I got up I worked on some things for a little while longer and a friend invited me to a bonfire so I spent the night over there. It was good times, but I did occasionally feel like I was gonna either fall over or vomit, which is always a good time.
On a good note, I seemed to get a lot of emails today. They were spammy they were important. People I’ve been speaking to about foreign distribution for Standing Firm and such. We’ll see where we land there, it’s a lot to think about and deal with. I have a few different offers per country that I”m looking at, and it’s difficult to figure out which one offers the best options, and which one is likely to sell more because of their status. I’ll get it figured out sooner or later…it just takes time. Lord willing Standing Firm will release (at a minimum) in Australia/New Zealand, and in South Africa around or on the same day as the US/Canada release.
May is coming to a close soon, my 22nd birthday is on the 2nd of June, and I have a lot of work to do. June is going to be an insane month. Lots of things to mail off and work will finally (hopefully) be picking up in regards to the movie, and normal paying jobs. It’s really difficult to know where I”m going to be in the next few years. The biggest challenge for someone like myself is how to make enough money to provide for a family when your not apart of some sort of organization, or protected under some sort of special law, or your in a system that makes sure you get paid, etc. It’s all about you being your own boss, dealing with your own crap, finding your own clients…just a lot more involved. I really hope the proceeds from the film for this year can help me into next and the majority can be kept in the bank. It’ll give me a very good foothold on the future I think, by letting me get ahead by a good amount (compared to my monthly intake/expenses). That’ll be good because next year is a total ? mark.
I look forward to taking more work once this movie is in the can and things get moving in the sales arena. I can take work that’s out of state or on a set for instance (which I had to turn down for Ace Wonder unfortunately). I’ll have more freedom. I’ve had many ask me when I’ll make another film and honestly, I don’t know. The soonest I will is probably 2012. I doubt I’ll always be pumping out another film one after another, because I’m not entirely sure how to go about making another where I currently live. I’ll need to spend some time writing it as well, and really concentrate on what’s important. The goal here with these blogs, twitter accounts, the marketing and web work, and all that jazz is to make a career that can survive outside of making films. What I do is still very much in the filmmaking arena, but I can’t make films for a living right now. I need to finish this one first, and show that I can actually make something that can make a profit, because no investor will touch me if that isn’t the case. I can’t make another film without being able to pay myself for it, because next time around it’ll be a much faster and efficient process, but I’ll also need to give it my full attention, and that can’t be done unless I can be paid to do it. A chunk of the budget has to go to myself. That’s fair I think, lol…given how many jobs I’ll likely do in the future even if I remove some of the on-set jobs…the post ones will probably stay in my court. It saves me THOUSANDS in the long run, because I don’t have to pay myself what I would probably have to pay a hired individual to say…edit my film.
I’m looking forward to the future…
Just Chillin
Vance at the Beach
Today was a saturday, and like all saturdays they found me doing nothing much but bumming around and relaxing. I got up at like noon today, since I went to bed around 2am and I had been up early all week. I enjoyed the sleep, very much. When I got up I had some breakfast really fast and just hung out for the morning. I took some pictures of some video/sound gear I no longer use and put them up online for sale. Hopefully I sell them quickly, I could use the money and since they just sit around…there is no need to hang onto them. I went to Subway for lunch (mmm) today 
and enjoyed it very much. I called Vance to see what he was up to later. I went over at about 4-5 I can’t remember and we just sat around, played some video games, and watched Die Hard 3. He hadn’t seen it so it was a good choice from my little DVD library.
While I was there I got a phone call from David Evans that lasted for quite a while. I’m helping him with the website and graphics work on their film to be shot this fall. We have had some excellent conversation on the phone in the past, and I was supposed to stop and meet Dave on my way to CA but never got the chance. We talked the previous day about what they might need help with on set when the time comes, and today we talked about that further. I really feel like this is a yes for me. I’ve been hoping for an opportunity like this for a long time, but not only that it gives me a direction to go in. The more we talk, the more I realize how much help David might need down there. From experience on Standing Firm I know that doing too many jobs at once can be detrimental to either your film, your health, or both. On set David really needs to just concentrate on directing, something he agrees with. That means he needs someone to help manage behind the scenes and on set to make sure he can do his job properly without needing to fix problems that might be occurring. We had talked at first about being possibly 1st AD or 2nd AD (assistant director) and I think that will probably be the case but at the same time I realize the need for another producer. Someone to work directly with him to prepare and complete the project. This means I’ll probably (if this happens) will be down there a month BEFORE they start shooting at a minimum to help complete and get settled into the pre-production and get things really ready for the shoot. This would be a really big responsibility but one that I’m excited about. I would be producing and being AD on set most of the time. Helping push things along and move all the resources into a steady flow so David can make the best film possible.
Ice Cream...mmm
This takes care of the month gap I had mentioned in a previous entry. I was told they were to shoot in October which is still true, so finishing out my 90 day internship at PureFlix puts me at the end of August with a month of absolutely nothing…that was until I talked to Dave on the phone today. Coming a month early takes care of that, and really I need to be there early to do a good job. I think I’ll be technically moving to Memphis from the sounds of it (that’s where the production is), because what is the sense of keeping my room here when it’ll cost me 1700 bucks just to have it sit empty? I still have a film to work on and finish! I need to pretty much take everything with me. So I’ll be packing my car again and shoving off to a new location. I don’t mind that at all honestly. I’m going to go where God tells me to, and Memphis is starting to feel like it’s the place. That’s about 2.5 hours outside of Nashville where Provident Films is. Not a bad distance away from the company I intend to pitch our film to. 
I’ll be 15 hours from home, and 6-8 hours away from where my parents will be all summer and where my father will be for a long time (Georgia). Crazy how quickly things turn around isn’t it? Granted none of this is for sure, but it looks like things are very positive. I hope I can get an answer on this worked out in the next month so I can just shoot for that goal and move along into the next location. It will also give me about 2.25 months to work on Standing Firm every night if I have to and get it into good working order. No excuses Please pray for this opportunity that it would be what God wants and if not that I would know. Also pray for this films production whether or not I’m apart of it, because they really have the potential (when it comes to the story, resources, people, etc.) to do something very good over there. I look forward to it, whether I’m on the team or not.
After I got off the phone we weren’t really sure what to do after that and eventually just went down to the beach. I hadn’t walked barefoot in the sand for a long time. The waves were unusually big and we just stood there watching them crash onto the beach. Some folks were running around in them and dashing away when the big ones came around. On our way back to his place we took a detour to just….walk. There was this ice cream place that had homemade ice cream. It was by far the best ice cream place ever, with flavors you can’t imagine and it was VERY GOOD. Every flavor was amazing, and I had a hard time choosing. On the way back to the apartment we stopped in a grocery store and Vance got a few things. He grabbed Veggie chips of all things. It was nothing but Call of Duty until I left later in the day. I like playing that game and haven’t in months. I’m not a fan of playing on counsel’s though like PS3, Xbox, etc. I like having a mouse and keyboard to shoot and move around. Either way it was a fun time.
The drive home was relaxing, I just sorta thought about some of the events of the day and played some music. It seems I’m more relaxed when I’m driving than any other time. Odd for around here I’m sure, but I really like to just go for a drive. I suspect tomorrow will have me enjoying that again as I head to church and back home.
