October 15, 2002

Tommorrow the initial schedule for the Deep Ellum Film Festival is announced. I'm getting kind of anxious, and I'm also forcing myself to think that I'm setting myself up for some sort of let down.

I started two new scripts, which I'll try to finish by the end of the year but probably won't, seeing as how I'm only about one page into each. One is a continuation of that rocketship screenplay, which I decided to have another go at. The other is a horror movie involving clay. And to my anonymous critic below, only one of these new scripts is personal! So there. I've got to start sending letters to agents again; I need to make some money off all this writing.

I saw the trailer for Spike Lee's 'The 25th Hour,' which is both stunning and rather conventional. I'm hoping the film itself leans towards the latter. And that reminds me, I'll be heading off to New York City this weekend, mainly to recharge my batteries, but also because I've been meaning to go for quite a long time. I hope it's really, really cold there, in that bright, autumnal sort of way. I can't wait.

October 8, 2002

Wow, it's actually cold this morning.

The other day I recieved the following e-mail:

You really need to consider screenplays from other people. I think it would be great step for your career. You need to focus on directing/filmmaking until you hone your story writing skills. I read your synopsis of the Tall Blue Girl and it sounds boring just like Still and Lullaby. Your writing is contrived and sophomoric. It appears that you create catchy titles and pretentious stories to vent your own personal problems. Your stories talk too much and go no where. You can't solve your personal problems or embellish the mistakes you've made by creating a "you win"/climatic ending for yourself. You're trying to be a filmmaker for the wrong reason.

Although I obviously disagree with a few points, after thinking about it, I realized whoever wrote this kinda has my number. I tried to respond to the e-mail, but apparently the address does not exist. How mysterious.

...or maybe not.

Ah, I've had three cloudy drinks and a cloudy mind soon followed.

The new CD by Beck, 'Sea Change,' is perhaps the most incredible album since...I don't know. I get pretty enthusiastic about things I love. It's on its fifth spin right now, and it's so sad and beautiful, and when has that combination never really worked? I didn't think it could get any better than the first track, but it does. It sounds like Nick Drake in outer space, but I then I hate comparisons like that. Go buy it. Just look for that wistful pink cover.

Rejected by The Austin Film Festival. But the tides are turning, I think, I hope, I feel...

20 pages gone. 20 more to go.

September 23, 2002

Hey, the first official day of fall! That is so great. Cold weather is so inspiring. What's not so great is that I'm going to rewrite 'Tall Blue Girl' again. I went through it with a highlighter and crossed out everything that I'm going to get rid of and/or change. Gone is the lengthy scene building to the first kiss, which is somewhere else now; gone is the fistfight climax; gone is all that and a lot of other stuff, which was all fine and good but which made the script unwieldly and dull (I think). It'll be a whole lot better when I'm done this time, and about 40 pages shorter. I really need to get the script in tip top shape before I devote any more time to actually making it.

Of course, all these things won't make much sense to those of you who haven't read the script.

I also finished 'Death Comes To Charles Tulliver' last week. I'm not going to post it up here, though, at least not yet. Gotta get it registered and all first. It turned out kinda like M. Night Shyamlan by way of David Lynch, with a touch of the Coen Brothers...but I hate comparisons like that.

So that's three screenplays finished so far this year, which was my goal. I wonder if I could exceed that and get two more done by the end of December. Time to get to work, then, with my new 'Punch-Drunk Love' poster shining down from above.

September 19, 2002

I guess it's kinda par for course to be depressed after you finish a movie, even if it turned out well and you're happy with it. I guess you just don't have the movie to distract you from everything else anymore. So now, in the future, I can plan my schedule like this: 9 months making a movie, 3 months feeling down, angry, slightly suicidal, etcetera, until I start on a new project. Nice and simple.

I wonder if that would happen if I wasn't paying for the movie myself and had a decent chance of distribution...I'm sure an entirely new set of problems would arise in that scenario.

Well, luckily for me, the 'Monsters Inc.' DVD came out! It has something like 300 hours of extra features on it, which should keep me entertained for quite a while. What a terrific movie. I challenge anyone to find a better closing shot.

September 8, 2002

Today was absolutely gorgeous, relatively speaking. A gray, rainy 79 degrees.

I came up with an additional last scene for 'Tall Blue Girl,' just a short little addendum but one that I think makes quite a bit of difference. Now if I can just consolidate other pages...but I'm taking a break from that for a while. I need some to look at it with refreshed clarity. I've been working on my other script ('Death Comes To Charles Tulliver'). Not quite at the three pages a day rate I started at, but it's about sixty pages in length right now, so it's almost done. I hate the way screenplays are measured by number of pages, rather than solely by content. 'Eraserhead' was a twenty page script, and that easily stretched to feature length.

September 7, 2002

I went to a bar the other night to see a friend's band play. It being a bar, I had a few drinks, which prompted a few trips (three, to be exact) to the restroom. After some time had passed, my casual observations of the place revealed to me that I had, in fact, been using the women's restroom.

Rather than be embarassed by this, I decided it was a matter of pride. I follow no one's rules but my own. Sometimes.

Two quotes waying heavily on my mind...

"Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind,"
'Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday,' the Rolling Stones.'

The other's from a book, but I can't find it at the moment.

September 1, 2002

Summer's over! Kind of.

So now I think I do have an all time favorite book. 'Mrs. Dalloway' completely left me stunned. As soon as I took it back to the library, I went out and bought a copy and am about to read it again. What an experience. I also saw the trailer for 'The Hours,' which involves Virgina Woolf's efforts to write the novel, and it certainly looks to be one of the best movies of the year -- or at least one of the best trailers. And speaking of trailers, if they were clear indicators of the movies they advertised, then the best movies of the year would be 'Punch Drunk Love,' 'The Hours' and '8 Mile.'

My feelings towards 'Still' have overturned once more and now I love it again, which makes me confident that it will get into at least one festival in my lifetime.

And speaking of my lifetieme, for the first time in its duration, I've had more than three pairs of shoes in my possession. It makes me feel like such a high roller.

There's this new Levi's commercial starring Gael Garica Bernal (from 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' and 'Ammores Perros'), with Air's 'Playground Love' on the soundtrack. It's awesome. There are some great commercials coming out these days. And they really work; all of a sudden, I find myself in desperate need of some Gap clothes and a Volkswagen. And some Levis.

I just finished reading Tarantino's script for 'Kill Bill.' While I normally am not a fan of excess, I think I can forgive it in this case. It's so crazy over the top, if he can sustain the pace of the movie as well as he does for the 222 page duration of the screenplay, then it should be awesome...although I have a feeling a lot of people are going to hate it. It's pretty hardcore. Between reading this and watching all the old trailers for Pam Grier exploiation films on the 'Jackie Brown' DVD, it really made me want to finish writing 'Kung Fu Zombies In Love.' Maybe someday I will.

August 21, 2002

I e-mailed Mark Cuban on a whim to see if he'd be interested in giving us money to make a movie. He wrote back, politely saying no. Too bad, but at least I have an e-mail from one of the richest guys in America. I finished the rough schedule; I couldn't fit it in any less than seven weeks, so I think I'll go for eight weeks when I work on the budget.

Now I'm immersing myself in the new 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Jackie Brown' DVDs. I was such a Tarantino nut back in the day. I'd have to say the best feature on the 'Pulp' disc is the Siskel & Ebert episode about the whole phenomenon. I taped that back when it first aired and must have watched it like fifty times. I guess I was 13 at the time. So it's nice to have it preserved on DVD now.

I'm reworking 'Still' a little bit; working on the sound, the placement of the music. I'm trying to make it a little colder. I've got plenty of time to play with it...no public showings in the near future.

And I normally don't delete history...but I had to get rid of that 'Country Bears' review. I put it up kinda as a joke, but just the fact that I watched that movie was too embarassing to live down.

I'm currently working on an initial schedule for Tall Blue Girl, for budgeting purposes. I spent the whole evening doing a rudimentary breakdown -- by hand. This included listing each scene, the location, and the characters in the scenes. I finished that, and was preparing to go through the script and divide each page into eighths -- again by hand, with a ruler and pencil.

All of a sudden, almost by chance, I opened up my screenwriting program and realized that it would print complete breakdowns, by scene or in order of the script or whatever I wanted, complete with scene length in eighths. So now the eleven page breakdown is printing out, and I am sitting here, very relaxed and happy.

All right, let's see. The longest scene in the script would be (consults breakdown) scene 92. And it's 14 and 6/8 pages long. Hmmm. Well, it's shorter than it was in the first draft, that's for sure.

August 15, 2002

I think that before I recieve another festival rejection and am forced to swallow previous words, there are a few statements I need to make.

As far as 'Still' goes, my directing methodology could use some work, and the type of direction I gave the actors resulted in some uneven performances; the score may not work; the cinematography, while lovely and perfectly competent, is not as evocative as I had wanted; there are few reasons why the production had to cost as much as it ended up costing, a number which I'm not even sure of. And as for the film itself, it's pretty good, but not extraordinary or groundbreaking in any way.

August 12, 2002

I'm reading Michael Chabon's 'Wonder Boys' right now, which is fantastic and in my opinion even a little better than his subsequent Pulitzer prize winning effort, 'The Adventures Of Kavalier and Clay.' I sent him an e-mail yesterday, and he actually responded -- albeit with a two sentence message. But it made me feel somewhat special anyway, and working off that particular high I finished my somewhat extensive new rewrite of 'Tall Blue Girl.' Which now leaves the page count at 139. Damn. It's better than it was before, though (among other changes -- inspired slightly by the work which I quoted directly below, I imbued the titular character with a few subdued Holly Golightly-isms).

I methodically, almost pragmatically, am continuing along with that other script I mentioned a few entries ago, at the steady rate of three pages a day. I'm quite pleased with it so far, even if it doesn't end up as anything but a nice exercise. But then again, the last time I wrote something I was completely unemotionally involved with, I came up with 'Still,' and that's clearly taken up a bit more time than I had initally intended.

August 5, 2002

'"See?" she shouted? "It's great!"

And suddenly it was. Suddenly, watching the tangled colors of Holly's hair flash in the red-yellow leaf light, I loved her enough to forget myself, my self-pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen.'

Truman Capote, 'Breakfast At Tiffany's.'

August 4, 2002

'Tall Blue Girl' is currently 135 pages. There are 21 speaking roles and 38 locations. The budget I'm currently putting together is for a six week shoot, and that's stretching it; I wonder what I'm digging myself into?

I wonder, if I can't get it off the ground, if I'll just shoot it low budget on digital. I don't want to do that ever again. I also don't want to stop making movies. Interesting dilemma. Someone give me money.

I got the first rejection letter (or e-mail, to be more exact) from a film festival; this one was from the Chicago Underground Film Fest, which was the first one I submitted 'Still' to. I figure that, since it was a rough cut that I barely got in before the deadline, it's no real surprise that it didn't get in. As long as I'm not telling myself that same thing six months/thirty more entries from now.

James and I finally finished the first cut of 'Mere Acquaintance' today. I think we've been working on it for almost exactly six months...six months of editing one or two days a week, usually every other week, because we've been too unenthusiastic about the project to tear through it like we should have. But now the first cut is done, and it's pretty close to a final cut (kind of). It's a little slow, but quite a bit better than you'd guess from reading the script.

Okay, so it didn't take a week to get the trailer up after all. I think this is the first time I've ever been ahead of schedule, as far as this website is concerned.

I always forget, when ever things are looking down, all I need to do is put on the 'Hedwig' soundtrack, and suddenly I'm running uphill again. Or walking, or crawling; but at least not moving down.

July 30, 2002

I spent the last five days being sick with a cold, which prevented me from going running each day, which made me want to smoke for the first time in a few months. It was a strange (and luckily resistable) sensation. It also made me hate this heat all the more, and long for the chill of the coming months.

The new trailer for 'Still' turned out quite well, what with the original score and all...I think I succesfully avoided giving away what the movie was about in it. Unfortunately, I can't upload it to the site yet because of my stupid CD burner, which suddenly has chosen not to be recognized by my G4, so I can't get it onto my PC, wherefrom I do all my web work. I have a plan, though, and it should be online within the week...

I started yet another new screenplay, this one a departure from my usual themes (no love story, no music). The title is 'Death Comes To Charles Tullvier.' It is a misleading title. I based it loosely on a dream I had the other day, and it'll be something to fall back on while I'm working on 'Tall Blue Girl.' Speaking of that, I called SAG today to get the contact info for whichever agency represents April Grace. That was easy enough. Now I actually have to think of what to say to the agent, and that part is what scares me.

Meanwhile, that untitled Rocketship script I started some time (six months!) ago...it's a bit too close to reality, and so I'll let it rest for a while. The first fifteen pages are some of the best stuff I've written, I think, or maybe I just think that because I dropped almost all pretenses of it being a ficition and stuck closely, painfully, to the facts.

I've been reading a lot lately, and thinking about what my favorite book might be, and one of the title I am close to settling on is Graham Greene's 'The End Of The Affair.' It's one of those rare stories that leave you feeling as if the author eavesdropped on your own thoughts. I wish I could post here the last sentence from the book, but without the affect of all the sentences that come before it I think it's power would be diminished. And of course I wouldn't want to ruin it for anyone.

So what I'm saying is, go buy it.

Man, that 'Punch-Drunk Love' trailer is just...well, I imagine a lot of people will be confused by it, but it was just completely stunning and invigorating and almost tearjerking, even.

It was definitely the highlight of the weekend, which I spent primarily in middle-finger-to-everything mode once again. Too much sleep, although I managed to be awake at all those odd hours when rain would randomly begin to fall.

July 11, 2002

I just awoke from the most beautiful dream I think I've ever had. I can't say what it is, but I'm leaving myself a reminder here so that I never forget it. I can already feel it fading, but I don't want to lose it completely.

July 10, 2002

I was on my way to the 'Road To Perdition' screening last night when my tire blew out on the freeway. So I changed it, which, having never changed a tire before, left me with unparalleled feelings of machismo and self satisfaction. This quickly gave way to frustration because I was going to miss the movie. I guess I'll just have to wait until Thursday to see it.

Brian Satterwhite sent me a rough version of the score for 'Still' the other day. It was great, although often a bit more melodramatic than I had wanted (he was already planning on toning it down, though). Overall it's a fantastic score that sounds like a real movie score, all orchestral and shiznit. Brian told me a great story a while back about a horrifying incident that happened to him while he was getting his musical degree that I incorporated into 'Tall Blue Girl.'

So John Frankenheimer died, and now Rod Steiger. All these old greats are expiring. Makes you remember that time is actually passing.

The 4th of July is now cemented as my least favorite holiday of the year. I hate it. It's one of those days you can feel coming like a freight train and can't stop, that makes everything seem worthless, so it's best just to stay in bed and wait for it to pass. Except that never works.

But it's over and over, and after a weekend spent largely in unconsiousness it's time to stop wasting time.

I started working on a webpage for Tall Blue Girl. I miss having Adobe Illustrator. After messing around with various handmade designs for the past three hours, I finally gave up. I have something I think I can work with, but I want to put a bit more content up (synopsis, business plan, etc.) before I make it available to the world.

I've been reworking the script ever so slightly (it's down to 130 pages, but about to go up again). I really like it, and am in danger of loving it. It's worked its way closer to me than I had expected it to. I hope others feel likewise. I'm quite set on making it now, one way or another. I would even shoot it on HD if I had to. After seeing 'Lovely And Amazing' (which the title describes perfectly) and not even realizing that it was digital, I think I could probably pull it off.

I went on another CD shopping spree. The new 'Wilco' album sure is good, but I also picked up a copy of The Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds' and have found myself listening to that a bit more than anything else. 'God Only Knows' is definitely one of the greatest pieces of music ever written.

This page has become far more ventricular than I originally intended -- but does that word actually work in this sentence?

July 1, 2002

Walking outside the movie theater, past a girl and a guy laughing as they run between rain drops. Catch a whiff of her perfume and it reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on what.

I just finished reading Salinger's '9 Stories.' He always portrays women the same way in all his works; most of them come off as dim witted floozies. I wonder what gave him that impression. I always think it's interesting to try and determine what gave a writer a particular point of view. Like Thomas Hardy, for example -- it's pretty obvious that some girl broke his heart and he never forgave her.

I'm sure people would be able to find similar similarities in all my work as well.

I also just read Philip K. Dick's 'A Scanner Darkly,' which was great. I'd love to make a movie version of that -- it'd be like 'Blade Runner' meets 'Requiem For A Dream.' I wonder if Richard Linklater is still attached to it; if he is, I think he should make it 'Waking Life' style. There was a really beautiful passage in the book that I was going to quote here -- except I took it back to the library tonight without thinking.

June 12, 2002

7:57am. I was intending to spend the night writing, but I got caught up in the behind the scenes footage from 'Still.' James shot about ten hours of stuff, and I never really looked at any of it until now. Watching it was completely invigorating; it was like watching someone else make a movie. Until suddenly I realized, hey, I made that movie. It was a marvelous moment of self-empowerment. It also really made me miss being on set with all my friends.

It's all really good, though. It'll be tough to edit it down to an hour or so for the documentary...but when it's done, it should be the definitive behind-the-scenes doc for indie filmmaking. Hopefully.

Well, my 'Monster's Ball' DVD should be delivered within a few hours. I guess I'll try to get that writing done until then.

Today I wrote my segment for that 'Dead Room' project I mentioned some time ago (the one that Yen and James and I are working on -- and Nick's since become the fourth filmmaker onboard). It's basically going to be a feature made up of four short films, each one being a conversation between two people -- the conceit of the project being that it's a living person talking to someone who's dead, with no explanation or anything. My piece ended up being 22 pages...we want to leave plenty of room for improvisation. It's the first time I've ever really tried to write a comedy. I think it turned out pretty funny. My dream cast for my script is Holly Hunter and Will Ferrel, who I basically wrote the parts for.

Combined, the two stories of 'Tall Blue Girl' make 137 pages. It'll probably stay about that length, as I add scenes and cut others to make the pacing work. I realized today that the ending is EXACTLY (and I mean EXACTLY) like the ending of 'Lullaby' -- well, at least the way it ended in the script. Almost verbatim. So I've got to change that up a bit.

The final copy of 'Still' with timecode and credits has been shipped off to Brian Satterwhite in Austin. So hopefully the score will be ready to go soon. I haven't gotten tired of watching the movie yet, strangely enough, but once it has music in it I imagine it will be even more endlessly fascinating to me.

Um. That's all for now.

May 29, 2002

I finished the second half of 'Tall Blue Girl' last night. I'm really happy with it. It might be too romantic, though. Now I have to take the two halves and intercut them...which may prove to be a daunting task, since I'll probably have to do a bit of rewriting to make the pacing work. But I think it will turn out. It ends with this intricate musical montage of several different musical performances that will either be breathtaking on screen or a complete disaster. I'm hoping for the former. Of course, I'm hoping that it ends up on screen, period.

I always use the completion of a script as a legit excuse to buy some new CDs (I also have plenty of non-legit excuses that I often use); but I didn't realize CD Warehouse closed so early, so I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow. I did pick up some new literature, though...9 Stories and Fanny And Zooey by J.D. Salinger; I was rereading my copy of The Catcher In The Rye the other day, and I rememebed how when I first read it, I was 17, the same age as Holden Caulfield, and the character annoyed me so much that I decided I'd have wait until I was a bit older to appreciate it. I was right. I also picked up Toni Morrison's 'Sula,' because 'Jazz' was so damn good.

I've been a feeling bit more heavy-handed, though. Must be this summer weather. Makes me want to sleep. I wish...for quite a few things. Including the ability to not have to go to work every day, so I could just stay home and write...but who doesn't wish for that.

I just got back from the midnight screening of 'Attack Of The Clones.' My review will be up in the next day or so, but for now let me just say...

I feel so incredibly happy. I'd say I feel like a little kid except that I don't...I feel like me, 21 years old, and I AM a little kid. 'Star Wars' is why I make movies, and sometimes I forget that. Tonight it all came back, back with more force than I could have imagined.

May 14, 2002

Man, that 24 hour film festival was a blast. The only people to make it for the full duration were Curtis, James and myself. But the rest of the crew hung in there and did admirably, and probably maintained a safer level of sanity. By the time we all crashed, we'd been up for more than 40 hours straight. Without a wink of sleep.

One of my most vivid memories was when Allison and I went to the store to buy fake blood ingredients and kept forgetting what we were there for. And we also got stuck behind an old lady and her shopping cart, the combination of which was moving at about an inch per minute. I think we'd been up for 22 hours at that point, and working on the film for 14, and it was the closest I came to spontaneously combusting.

The weekend before, James and I went to see the premiere of Yen Tan's film, 'Happy Birthday.' I'd seen an earlier cut of the film back in September. It was good but quite flawed. However, the version he showed to the cast and crew last Saturday was stunning. A truly beautiful film. I think pretty much everyone in the audience was moved to tears, probably even the people that kept getting up and running out over and over again, to the consternation of everyone else in the theater. It kind of made my films feel a little insignificant...especially since Yen played the trailer for 'Still,' 'Mere Acquaintance' and 'Wedded Bliss' beforehand. I'm quite honored to have my name anywhere on the film (I have an approximately 4-frame cameo as a DP on a porn film).

So Yen, if you read this by any chance...please allow me to rub in the fact that you made an incredible movie.

Only one more day until Star Wars! I can't believe it's finally here. I was still in high school when Episode 1 came out...I hadn't even bought my XL-1 yet. I had just finished writing 'Lullaby,' in fact. It actually feels a lot longer than three years, when I think about it.

I could actually probably see it tonight, but I'd rather see it in the company of friends on Wednesday at midnight. But to temper my excitement for that film is the arrival of this review on AICN...for PTA's new film, 'Punch Drunk Love.' I really wish I was in Cannes all of a sudden.

I've been drinking a lot of Chai tea lately...in fact, that's pretty much all I've been drinking. So I thought I'd write a little song about it.

Where is the song? I deleted it, because I was afraid it might be used for blackmail purposes in the future. Sorry.

May 4, 2002

I finished a scene in 'Tall Blue Girl' just now that has left me feeling like I'm floating. I feel like I'm in love and maybe that's what made the scene turn out the way it did, or maybe the scene is making me feel like this, I can't quite tell. There's something behind the emotion in the scene, and I don't know if what I wrote is good or not -- it may in fact not be -- but it feels like the best thing in the world right now because it just...I don't know. I have to be at work in three hours and I can't sleep.

April 28, 2002

So 'Memoirs Of A Geisha' ended up being pretty bad towards the end. Just a lame romance novel. I'm cleansing my palette now with Toni Morrisson's 'Jazz,' which is just great. She's one of the most ecstatically imaginative writers I've ever had the pleasure to read. Reading her words is kind of like drowning, in a good way.

I made a few nicks and cuts to 'Still,' and I think I'm about ready to lock the picture. Now I just have to do that little bit of ADR and Foley, which we had scheduled to do on Thursday. But unfortunately, on Wednesday, I was driving out to the first pre-production meeting for these new scripts of mine, and suddenly my car decided to throw the first kink my way and die right there in the middle of rush hour traffic. Perhaps it is a sign that these movies were not meant to be...I don't think so, though. I don't believe in fate anyway. Or maybe I do, but that's another story.

Anyway, I wasn't able to make it to the ADR sessions, so I canceled them. My car is fixed now, so it shouldn't be too long. Then I just have to get the score and voila, I'll be done. Well, then I have to get the negative conformed and prints made and all the sound put on an optical track and shit like that, but that's all for when I have more money. I'll be applying, as per usual, for the Texas Filmmaker's Production Fund this year. This time, I'll make sure I put all the materials in the envelope.

I'm about twenty something pages into 'Tall Blue Girl.' Should be done by the end of May. Man, I really hope I can get these projects off the ground. If not, maybe I'll have to break down and go to college. I so do not want to do that.