Between Tuesday, July 15th, and Saturday, July 19th, 2008

So the week off has been a busy week off, and it hasn’t been a busy week off. Like so much else that has happened this week, it’s pretty confusing.

I know that the people that read this probably don’t know me very well, if at all. That’s fine. The people that do know me though, I’m sure will tell you that I don’t go around telling everyone if shit is going on in my life or not and how it’s affecting me. It’s just something I don’t do. If something is going on in my personal life, even the people closest to me would never know it, unless it pertains to them. It’s just the way I am.

That bad day seemed to stretch to the majority of this week, and I’m not sure if the people I’m working with really know how bad it was/ is. Just trust me if I say I had a bad day, then it was pretty fucking bad, leave it at that, and leave it alone.

I don’t think it was until Wednesday that, for the most part, I started picking the pieces back up and putting my life back together, and started making sense of the whole thing that happened. Even now as I write this on early Saturday morning, I’m not sure if I have the whole thing figured out yet, but at least I know I’m on a forward path with it again, and that’s a good sign.

The only person I told about this at all is Bill, who was amazed that I was able to keep it quiet for as long as I did. The only reason he even heard about it was because he called at the wrong time, and I more or less exploded into the receiver. It was nice to get it off my chest though, and get an outside view on things. Guy’s always there when you need him. Unless you piss him off, then just get out of the way.

That’s enough of that, on to the weather.

So that’s done. Unfortunately, dealing with that has prevented me from putting as much work into Episode 4 as I would have liked. I did manage to go over the script one last time, changing a few lines of dialogue, writing in a location that was needed, locking the script, writing up breakdown sheets, and sending all that to Bill, Alicia, and Steve. I would’ve liked to have scheduled the fucker, but I just couldn’t get around to it.

I think the break was needed as I believe the stress was starting to get to people. I wanted to chill out myself, and I caught up on some movie watching. What else does someone do with time off when they’re in love with movies? I managed to get my hands on Redbelt, which I was looking forward to ever since Bob sent me the trailer oh so long ago. My favorite film writer David Mamet helmed this flick, and I would’ve went and peeped this bitch opening night if it came around here, but I think the closest it was playing was like, Toronto or something. Yes, distribute that Vegas movie with Kelso everywhere, but keep quality films like Redbelt out of sight.

Keith also sent me a bunch of 80’s horror movies, so I also watched Silent Night, Deadly Night, which has a few similarities to Santa’s List, which we plan on shooting later this year. I’m thinking about lending it to Bill as he’s helming that flick, to see if he wants to draw inspiration from it. I mentioned to him about cheesy 80’s slasher films as an influence for Santa’s List, and he was never really into horror movies. This movie might be too cheesy for him though.

I also watched another one Keith sent me, which was Mother’s Day. The drain-o scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Speaking of Keith, he sent me quite a nice message during this week, and also filled me in on stuff regarding the epic feature I would like to do. It turns out he mentioned the flick to someone he knows who might be able to help us out with it. This is some very good news indeed because to do this picture properly, we’re going to need money, and now getting the money to do it might be just a bit easier.

The message Keith sent me was world class, and just proves my point that he’s one of the best people walking the Earth. You need a motivational speaker or a pick me up, you give Keith a ring and he’ll set you up right.

The last film I was able to check out was The Ruins, which I kind of dug. I think it worked kind of like The Mist, in that the psychological states of the characters are much scarier than any being or force that you have to contend with. That’s also why The Thing is so effective, and remains one of my top films of all time. My top 5 movies probably have close to 50 movies on it.

I also went out and grabbed a terabyte hard-drive as I’ve once again run out of space on my computer for all the projects on here. I have a system worked out in my head now about how shit’s going to go; I just have to implement it.

Also, it seems like Bob is going to walk me through how to take over the website as it expires very soon, and the server space is in his name right now. If I can find the time to get this done, hopefully the website won’t be down at all, and once it’s all in my name, I can hand it over to a webbernetz guy, who Kyle might have lined up for us. I’m really hoping this shit works out.

During the shoot so far, the Brevis has been acting up a little bit. I’m not going to get into how the whole 35mm adapter thing works, but basically the unit vibrates to make it work right. During the shoot, a clicking sound developed and continued to get louder and louder, and it wasn’t the normal vibrating sound. At one point during the shoot, it sounded like a hyperactive cricket was in the corner of the room.

I wrote on the message board on Cinevate’s website about my problem, and I got back an answer as to what to do to fix the problem, which was to take it apart, and gently move a wire or two that was believed to be contacting the carbon fiber tube. On Thursday, I took it all apart, turned it on, and the clicking sound was still there.

I trouble-shooted my way through it, and every step as I narrowed down the problem, I wrote it on the message board. Eventually, my dad and I found the problem, and we’re positive it’s the source of the problem, and I wrote it down on the message board, also explaining that I have a shoot on Sunday that I would like this thing fixed for.

Later that night, Dennis Wood, the owner of the company, told me to call him in the morning because it sounds like something they’d like to look at.

On Friday morning, I’m woken by a phone call from someone at Cinevate. I tell them the problem, and the person on the other end offers solutions, which I tell him I’ve already tried. He’s going to talk to some people there and hit me back.

A few hours go by and I don’t hear anything, so I leave a message on their board and call and leave a message. Now this is how awesome this company is.

I get an email from FedEx telling me the tracking number for a package that’s coming to me from Cinevate. Shortly after that, I get a phone call from Cinevate, who tells me they’re shipping me a new base unit to replace my faulty one. They’re over-nighting it, and since FedEx doesn’t deliver on Saturdays, I can go pick it up at the depot in St. Catharines at 8am, to have it for my shoot on Sunday (which for some reason they think is Saturday). They would just like me to send back my old base unit when I get a chance. I’m hoping pretty hard that this new unit doesn’t have a cricket living inside it too.

I think I would be amazed at this level of customer service regardless, but after all the shit I went through with Henry at 4videoequipment, this is really blowing my mind. I would drive up to Cinevate just to shake their hands if they weren’t 18 hours away from me. Top notch, world class people up there in Thunder Bay I can’t recommend them enough.

The rest of the day on Friday, I kind of get ready for the wedding Bill and I are shooting with Dave tomorrow. I bust out the new suit, which Sue irons the shirt for me as I replace the counter balance spring in my tripod (since I won’t be using the Brevis tomorrow, the weight of my camera is significantly lighter, requiring the use of the lighter set counter balance spring), put the release plate on the camera from the rails, and recharge the batteries for my camera. I just hope I remember to take the tape out of the camera before I head out tomorrow. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had two “elaborate rehearsals?”

Right now, I can’t wait for Sunday when we start shooting again. The time off has been nice, but I’ve been chomping at the bit to be on set again. Hopefully, by then, Alicia made it work with the actors for the remaining schedule and we can wrap this puppy, and then move on to Episode 4.