Saturday, April 26, 2008

woody allen land

yay! dave gets back tonite. i'm going all the way to the Upper West Side or "WHERE WOODY ALLEN LIVES!" just to record an awsering machine. wtf. no one has landlines or answering machines anymore - i'm not writing them into scripts again.
yay! esther gets into town tonite too! sf reunions are the best.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

squeeky

TIP CITY is my new mix tape for you guys. its kind of a test run full of old regulars.

i really miss mix tapes so this is a small substitute for the hours i spent when i was 12 rewinding and recording and using scented markers to decorate the outside. gretta, my friend from la who i never see anymore, used to make the best ones. they were each little pieces of art.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

american pyscho

i'm showing my rough cut to Mary Harron tomorrow. Escary. She's very blunt about what she thinks. She's taken over my directing class because my prior teacher got really sick.
Mary Harron said that she hates student films because they always have an epiphany in the end and that they lack the texture of real life. For example, you put a black guy from the hood with a jewish guy from the upper east side and a an old man from michigan together in brooklyn and they all talk the same.
I thought that was pretty funny. I really like her films though and respect her style - thats one thing that makes her even more intimidating. She directed American Pyscho and I Shot Andy Warhol, which I saw when I like 13, and I guess most recently she directed the Notorious Betty Paige which I have yet to see.

Tonight David Mamet is coming to talk to us. The thing is I don't really know that much about him but everyones shitting their pants about it.

Its warm here in NYC and I CANT WAIT FOR SUMMER TIME. I have to get a job asap. I'm leaving for Peru in late May and then I have to get a job - anyone?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

new desert

I just got back from Tucson. I guess things have really changed there. All the adobe houses have been torn down and its just a strip mall after strip mall. But then, when you get out into the desert a little more you realize why people fall in love with it. It was incredibly still and clean and everything was blossoming, all the cacti and little bushes full of yellow and red flowers.
We had a ceremony for my great grandmother so we could finally bury her ashes. She died in 1996, actually. But I think my grandmother just has been too involved and also perhaps a little attached to having her mom around. So we had a ceremony at this weird old cemetery. A huge highway basically cut right through it. The pastor never knew anyone from our family and my uncle kept calling him chester the molester because he was really like a Flanders or something. Then the funeral director was bizaar. He had No Personality. He just stood there with his arms crossed under this tree and stared. The weirdest part about it all was that my great grandfather, whom we were supposed to be burying my great grandmother with, didn't have any type of marker. He was just "there" as the funeral director said he was. He regrets to inform us that no marker was ever placed, that in fact, my great grandmother wanted a Valle Verde tree planted there but they never did that and now its Not Allowed. He still has no personality as he's saying this.
We were all kinda leaving the ceremony a little bit weirded out. Suddenly, my grandmother grabbed her ashes and said she wasn't leaving her mom here. We were all like "Yea! I don't think she'd like it here anyways!"
So, Grandma Ruth came with us everywhere we went. We went to Lunch and she was there. We went to Dinner, and she was there. Whats odd is that even though we didn't ask for an extra seat at the table, there always was one, by accident.
The desert can make you feel crazy. I started sleep walking every night I was there. The first night I got out of bed 3 times thinking I was on set. I kept turning on lights and saying "striking". My poor aunt, who I was sharing a room with, was like "why are you turning on the light again?" The next night I got up and stood over and shook her saying "We have to take the ashses!"
Jesus. I haven't slept walked since I was like 12 and that was in Mexico when I ended up in my best friends parents bedroom and sleeping in their bed. That means I walked up a flight of stairs. So very crazy... but come to think of it, that area was kind of a desert too.
The last night we were there we all piled into two cars and drove out to the Sabino Canyon, a state park. We had Grandma Ruth with us and we found a nice old Saguaro cactus and Valle Verde tree for her and sprinkled her ashes there.

I think she would have loved it - she was an eccentric person who truly loved the desert and even though she was religious, I think ultimately this was a far more religious experience than the cemetery and that pastor.






Thursday, April 3, 2008

so how was the war

I just finished my little adaptation - well - finished shooting it. We wrapped last Sunday actually but I seriously needed like 4 days to recover from it. Its crazy how I live completely on adrenalin while I'm directing. I don't get tired, I just get wired and weird.
Right now we're in day 2 of shooting my DP's film. Its a bigger production, with lots of locations, and a crazy camera, but its a great script and I have a feeling its going to be a good one. I'm assistant camera on it which is good - learning tons.
My film worked out pretty good. This time I decided to let go of being so controlling over the shots. I set the frame and trusted my dp to do it which allowed me to focus completely on the actors. SUCH A BETTER EXPERIENCE when you decide to hand over control to someone else. I think I checked the frame like 8 times total in the 2 days we shot - which is a record....
One thing I learned the most about is the importance of casting. I kinda wasnt too stoked on how things turned out with my actor, but it is what it is. It was rushed in the end.
I've been listening to bon iver kindof religiously lately. I would recommend it highly.. skinny love