Birthday Blog entry
I was just informed by George Caleodis that I have arrived. A new plateau has been reached by Sonnyboo Productions and my personal film career. He was shopping at a local used video game store, which in most cases also sell DVD's, and there on the shelf, sat a "BEST OF SONNYBOO" DVD for sale, USED. I can now join the ranks of Stephen Sommers' VAN HELSING, Patrick Swayze's ROADHOUSE, and Nicholas Cage's CITY OF ANGELS and all the movies that permeate the Used bins of home videos. Sadly, it was for sale for more than I sell it for. I guess it was bound to happen with 199 sold & counting. Strangely, one of the coolest things to happen in my film career is to know that my movies are good enough to buy and sell used.
Picture edit is coming to a close on C. Alec Rossel's movie THE WARNING. I've started taking a slightly more active role, mostly on a consulting level and some minor tweaking (with permission of course). It's shaping into a really great piece. It's over 20 minutes, which is against my own personal beliefs of "short films", but it ain't mine so I'm not judgey that way. For example - this movie couldn't be told any shorter. Alec is a great filmmaker who will probably succeed in no time. He is egoless and easy to work with.
A new contender for the name of 2005 just came in courtesy of Noreen Compton. "THE SON OF THE YEAR OF ROSS". I like it. A cool ring to it and relates to the sequel naming idea. THE SON OF THE YEAR OF ROSS sees one of my longest standing short film sites, Underground Film kicking off ALL SONNYBOO WEEK, beginning with a favorite movie of mine - SHERMAN & GEORGE: OXYMORONS. Every day this week, they will premiere a new piece or two from the world of Sonnyboo or Friends of Boo.
Today is my birthday. As I told my nephews this morning, I'm not 33, I'm more like 3 eleven year olds. When am I supposed to dread getting older? I think the secret is simply finding out what you want to do and spend the rest of your life doing it. For me that's attending Rushmore Academy. Well, aside from that end part of the quote, Owen & Wes hit it pretty straight on. I love what I do and I have a good time. I do what I love to do and I scrape by, so what more is there? Making movies has become the most important thing I do. Everyday I get validations via phone call or email. I get "Thank You's" for the music or the downloads or the articles, all telling me how cool it is what I'm doing for the filmmaking community at large. Of course there are the detractors, but they are pretty heavily outweighed by the pats on the back. Let's face it, the detractor's are mostly indicative of jealousy (see listing for Bo), or from people to whom I had prior relations with (see 5(M)orons) and can't see past the relations versus the work itself. So far, I'm very happy with how things are going in my life and the ship is still headed in the direction of Happiness.
Next week I'm heading to New York to meet with investors for Horrors of War. While there, I'm going to help one of my editing class students hold an audition in Manhattan. Now for the Acolytes of Boo, most people will know this is the first time I've set foot in the Big Apple since September 11th, 2001. I was there for the semi-scammy New York Internation Independet Film & Video Pay $300-$500 to Get Your Movie Played Film Festival when the movie I worked on (co-produced/co-wrote but did NOT direct) was set to play at 11:AM on September 11th. Low & behold, fate intervened to make it more of a life altering experience to see history change before your very eyes. In an even more odd twist of fate, my free trip entails taking a train into Penn Station, the very place I arrived & left Manhattan on that tragic day. I have mixed emotions. For most people September 11th was purely a broadcast, watched-it-on-TV experience. For me it was reality and surreality.The image I found most disturbing was the way Manhattan shut down midday and walking back to the train station only to see the streets empty, the stores closed and no cars or people. Only in science fiction has there been a Manhattan bereft of the very vibrancy it's most known for. Now I am returning for the first time in years, all in the hopes of making my first feature film. A strange circle is completing.
Gearing up for the Horrors of War storyboarding, I've been reviewing my own personal favorite "modern movie classics". I made it through DIE HARD, but I've seen this one so many times, I was pretty much analytical from start to finish. Which is perfectly acceptable given the purpose of viewing it. Coming up soon will be the continuity perfection known as BACK TO THE FUTURE, and the Spielbergian orgy of film known as RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the one that got nominated for Oscars before bastardized by sequels. I've turned into a fundraising machine. I've focussed all my energies to that for now. The latest compromise-everyone's-as-happy-as-they-can-be draft aka "3rd draft" has been handed off to our Executive Producer and we eagerly await the notes. Aside from minor dialogue and arrangements, I don't think we're gonna change this draft too much. It may cost us Exec Producer fundraising, but we, as the artists making the movie, will be happier with the final movie. It just means I have a helluva lot more fundraising work to do. Thank God for real estate moguls that want to be involved with filmmaking. Much like Sam Raimi's dentally assisted first feature, it seems Real Esate is going to fund our first venture.
The other night we did a combo birthday dinner as we celebrated Holly Magnininininini, Brandy Seymour-Butts, and my birthday. It was fun, but the weather and other factors had a low key affair. Lucky for us, THE DEREK showed up! What an honor! THE DEREK HIMSELF made a personal appearance. Derek took a break from editing his feature length documentary and made all the girls crazy.
Something happened the other day. I was at Best Buy with my sexy girlfriend Veronica, shopping for domesticated materials. Someone recognized her from the official Veronica Website, and talked to her. In the interest of continuing to price dishwashers, she asked the guy if he wanted to talk to me. So I talked with this guy, Shawn, to whom I had never met. A really cool guy with a few leads on makup effects and other production help on Horrors of War. Now, he wasn't a psycho or freakish in any way, but it seemed to me that he felt like he knew me. Now for a shock - this is pretty far from the first time this has happened to me. I get recognized by people a lot. It doesn't go to my head, at least not in the way you'd think. I have never gotten comfortable with people I don't know talking to me like we're old army buddies. Just because you read my blog doesn't mean we're pals. Now, again, this guy at Best Buy was pretty cool, and I'd hang with him, but sometimes I get the other kind, the spooky-wierd kind. I'm not a celebrity, I shouldn't be treated as one. When discussing this with Veronica, she asked, "what does a celebrity have that you don't?" and I simply replied "Money. I've never heard of a poverty stricken celebrity." Veronica smiled, in her inimitable way...
That's it for now. Your faithful narrator has to get the fabled '91 Mustang from Pep Boy & pray that it survives this horrid winter. It will, or else this wouldn't be THE SON OF THE YEAR OF ROSS!
