Friday Janaury 25th, 2007
POST BIRTHDAY BLOG
Seven years ago this month, my life changed. I met one of my idols, Richard Linklater (dir: School of Rock, Slacker, Dazed & Confused, A Scanner Darkly). I went from wanting to be a filmmaker to actually making movies within 2 weeks of that January night. Now I am a full time filmmaker because of meeting Rick and the things he said to me, one on one.
Another year has come & gone. I have grown older miraculously by acquiring grey hair and gaining weight. I'm not too sentimental for birthdays. They don't mean much to me. I've taken to heart a lesson learned from a fictional character, FBI special agent Dale Cooper when he told Harry S. Truman "Every day give yourself a present. It could be a new shirt from the men's store, it could be a catnap in the office, or a fresh cup of coffee, but every day give yourself a present." Ever since 1990, I found the logic in this to be more and more important. There's a little bit of Xmas in every day now. No need for a special occasion to treat yourself right.
I treated myself to changing over my whole edit systems in the house. I am now editing on two 19" widescreen monitors and moved the precious 30" monitor/HDTV into the basement with full 5.1 Dolby Surround ™ where movie & television watching is less bothersome to the neighbors and to My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica™. Rossdonia cooks with finger grease now. I've got Premiere/Avid keyboards on both editing systems. There's 2 features editing on my machines for the next 2 months as well as an epic documentary project for another feature length movie, plus my cable show, so Rossdonia also is overbooked and kicking with work. I started off January worried about no work on the horizon, now I'm inundated, but it's good. I prefer to stay busy.
Micah started doing more work on the long, almost forgotten feature from a few years ago. I'll withhold the title until we at least have a rough cut done. Many eyes seek to know about that project, but until there's substantial progress, it's better left unsaid.
My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ wanted a change in Rossdonia, so we re-arranged the entire place. Since the basement was such a success, we moved around the spare bedroom, the kitchen, the living room, and even closets. Since I'm stuck here more often of late, it's better to re-invent the environment and keep things fresh. By moving all my TV/Movie watching into the basement, I surf the web a lot less, subsequently I'm sitting on my ass less since I'm always going up and down 2 flights of stairs all day, as opposed to having it all in one room and I can just roll a chair and do everything.
I even switched desks for my laptop/internet computer. I find that with a laptop, I prefer a flat desk with no hutch, plus a wider, empty desk space to work on. Since I had a spare monitor lying around, I put it to use as a 2nd monitor on the laptop. It will be hard to ever go back to a single. I have my email open on the left, Internet on the right. When using Adobe Photoshop ©, it's on the left and thumbnails are on the right. God it's more convenient. I love to multitask so the 2 monitor setup really works for me.
Last night I went to dinner with a few friends. Since My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ and I were moving furniture all day, and I got the coveted all night spooning session I've waited to get for years which yielded a night of uncomfortable positions and limbs falling asleep – I was not 100% "on". It was still a good time.
The dark comedy script is holding steady. I'm happy but still tweaking & paying a little bit at a time. It's set for an August shoot at this point, but that's okay. Time to raise money and do things with a bigger name cast always take more.
There's another script idea fermenting in my head and has made its way to 3x5 cards. I had never used those before the dark comedy, and now I see that they work great for communicating with other people. I don't really want to be a screenwriter at all, but more a producer/director that originates a story but collaborates with writers. I think the best work comes from working with other people. My favorite two cohorts on a movie are the Director of Photography and the actors. This is where I like to give more control to other people. In the script & story, I am more domineering, but I guess I want something more specific. I'm recalling a great quote of one of my heroes Stanly Kubrick to Matthew Modine on Full Metal Jacket – "There is no such thing as bad ideas, only better ones."
I will rip through 99 suggestions waiting for the 100th (or more) one that is "right". No clue what that is until I hear/read it sometimes. This makes for tough collaboration sometimes. A lot of writers are just not prepared to hear "No" and "That's not right" for 2-3 days until something lights up as the right fit. Especially not unpaid writers. I'm not in a position where I can pay a writer for spec projects. The one thing I can offer is that if I say it's going to happen, it most likely will. My track record is very good for completing projects I set out to do. I'm not 100%, but if I set my mind to it, say it will happen, far more often than not, it does get done. Then I think it's safe to say I'll promote the hell out of said project. Anyone interested in being a screenwriter should take note that a produced screenplay is the key to opening the door to future work & sales of additional material.
The Mighty "V" dominates poor Cousette. His fur matches his personality. He's mostly black & dark with a white underside. He attacks relentlessly, knocks stuff down, breaks things, claws at feet, bites skin, chews on cables, and then he gets a little tired and becomes the sweetest, most affectionate creature on the planet. He's a conundrum, but I love the little guy. Cousette seems pretty miserable, and yet doesn't cry as much as she used to, even when her brother Spaz was alive. I'm not sure what goes on in the mind of the felines, but I know that these terrorist insurgencies must end some time. Our new congress in Rossdonia perhaps can make some headway and give something to the people in these United States of Awesome.
Well, my little break from editing is coming to a close. I'm in the midst of a fine cut on a feature film. I agree with the great & powerful Walter Murch that you have to have the kind of mindset that likes minutiae to be an editor. It's the tedious and repetitive nature of looking at shots and frames and finding the sculpture within the marble.
Large & In Charge,
Peter John Ross
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DRINK IT UP! www.Sonnyboo.com
Friday Janaury 12th, 2007
ON THE LOT OF AMBIGUITY
There’s a new reality TV show on the horizon for filmmakers. It’s called “ON THE LOT”. It's from the producers of SURVIVOR and THE APPRENTICE teamed with Steven Spielberg. Project Greenlight meets American Idol.... making short films each week and people getting voted off the show by the public. I'm very cynical about the whole thing, but submitted because I would rather take the chance than not at all.
I've known about this for close to a year, and never intended to submit until one of the producers emailed me & asked me to last week. It's a little weird. After Project Greenlight 3 disqualified me for being a "professional", meaning I had been paid for directing and also had distribution for short films, I assumed I would never be able to get in on this show, but their rules are mighty different.
Then the email came… I was asked by one of the producers to submit. I would have thought they have plenty of submissions, probably in excess of a hundred thousand. I know of at least 25 (literal number) of submissions from people in Ohio. Why me? What am I doing that’s so special? I was perfectly happy NOT submitting and not even watching the show. Why get my hopes up at all? This is why it fills me with cynicism towards the show. When I filled out my application, I was completely ridiculous in my answers because I have nothing to lose and have no inhibitions about saying whatever. Venom spewed onto the page and I hope at least it makes someone laugh while reading pleadings from wannabes with the “what I did last summer” tone in their ABOUT ME section.
I picked BITTER OLD MAN to represent my skill set, even though it’s one of my oldest short films. Then there was a 5 minute limit, so then I had to pick something else. I stopped making short films 2 years ago, so everything I’ve learned (and learned NOT to do) will not be represented. It’s all pretty futile anyway.
I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting on this show. I feel this weird pressure now that I uploaded a movie. I have had movies on short film sites for 7 years now. This shouldn't feel like this, but I guess Project Greenlight left me sour. I assumed since I make a living (by my own meager definition) at this filmmaking business, I just figured I wouldn't qualify at all.
Apparently it's not against the rules here. Regardless, just looking at the odds, I'd say my snowball is already melting. This is a one in about three million chance. Even less likely now that I'm about to turn 35 years old in a little over a week. Combine that with reality televisions penchant for good looking folks, and I'll be about as likely to be on TV as Jack Bauer is going to have a normal 24 hour day. Now there's something I'd like to see. The redneck equivalent to "24". Keifer Sutherland as a beer guzzling, wife beating cowboy watching Hee Haw until 4 in the morning. Now THAT's my idea of reality television. But I digress... I imagine no one wants to see my fat ugly face on national television, nor was this ever a dream of mine. I want MY MOVIES to be on TV, but not me. I have no interest in being a personality or anything. I’d rather be a Kubrick; making movies and living in seclusion where Internet stalkers can’t find me.
I can assure you, it's not "nervousness". It's more a feeling of futility. I'm usually very UP, but not when it comes to contests. Maybe it's the fact that this is a competition. I don't feel like art & competition belong together. I get along with my fellow artists. That's why my site (www.sonnyboo.com) is all about giving what few secrets I have away for free. Art is SUBJECTIVE, so to have the public determine success for me rubs me wrong too.
I'll be eagerly awaiting my rejection email that I can print out and continue to wall paper my bedroom with rejections. Regardless, keep at it though. No great success story started with "I quit and then everything worked out great for my dreams!"
In Other News…
I have several edit jobs I’m doing. I’ve got some BEHIND THE SCENES documentaries for a feature I did not work on, an edit job for an entire DV feature I was not involved in, and then a 2nd feature film I did not participate with (16mm feature), plus additional episodes of my 30 minute education show called MAKING MOVIES IN OHIO. Let’s just say that there are a LOT of projects on my plate and somehow I’m still squeaking in time to watch every single episode of FX’s NIP/TUCK show. I had never seen it, but I went from 0 to season 3 in about 6 weeks thanks to NetFlix.com
The TV show has started airing in Dayton already, Cleveland, and Cincinnati are next, and finally Columbus. This starts me on a rant I don’t think I’ve written about, but had stated numerous times in person. There is no Public Access/Cable Access television in Columbus Ohio. It’s quite criminal, but because of 2-3 people who pushed the limits of censorship by doing cable access shows with cursing, nudity, and somewhat vulgar acts (eating a girl’s bloody dildo, etc.) the entire channel was banished as more trouble than it was worth in the eyes of the city. Now, because of cheese-dick morons like these, EVERYONE ELSE has to lose out on the opportunity and have since December 3rd, 2002.
It’s not fair, but when there’s no being paid to give a hoot, and no one complaining that the city rakes in over $7 million a YEAR from the cable franchise fees, but no one gets the education or opportunity to put a show on the air – then nothing changes. It doesn’t help that Columbus is so conservative they think George W. Bush is a liberal pinko hippie. The vast majority of the populace of this pretend metropolitan area would prefer to sacrifice freedom of speech as long as our lord Jesus is dictated to us weekly… even if you’re Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Agnostic or even Atheist.
My only option in my own hometown is to work with the Education Channel to try to get my work seen. Since a majority of my interest lies in educational and informative material these days, it’s a mutually beneficial outlet for the work and has made a show bent on demystifying the moviemaking process. Isn’t it sad that I can get a show on TV in 3 other cities before my own?
I successfully shot & edited in HDV with the JVD HD110 and like the results. I’m sure that this camera has more to it than I experience too, but it was good. I’m looking forward to doing more in HD, especially with the Panasonic Varicam ™ with all its bells & whistles. Perhaps a feature or two will be shot this year in HD… perhaps.
I’m in the midst of a revision on the dark comedy script, and this other feature idea will not leave me alone either. Once I get this draft done of the dark comedy, I’ll have to visit this other feature idea too and see if anything comes of it. I find writing these days is like seducing a bitchy girlfriend. I have to see if we’re both in the mood to poke. My muse sometimes comes & goes like a cheap tramp when the Navy comes to port.
Hence the NIP/TUCK festival. I’m just filling my mind with gunk and enjoying every minute of it. The show does not suck at all, but just like my fascination with ENTOURAGE, it’s about people, lives, and interests that have little to no relatability to who I am today. In some ways, I was a better artist when I was alone & miserable because I understood what everyone else felt like. I’m happy doing what I’m doing now, so it’s harder to relate to that insatiable desire to find out what fulfills me. Luckily, it’s not impossible, and there are things I still strive for and I go for it.
ROSSDONIA REPORT
Recently, the parliament of Rossdonia reconvened after our most recent elections this past November. I proposed a new plan to get more troops to quell the insurgency of roaches, but the kitties feel that we need to just let them be. They don’t understand that I don’t just want more troops to do the same things, but I want to try all new techniques. I want to live in 20 or so base-huts with the cockroaches and try to police them from the streets themselves. I fired my whole staff, and so that should show them I’m serious, but all they want is milk and string to play with. My parliament is easily amused…
I got in Season 3, disc 3 of NIP/TUCK, so I want to spend my Friday night watching beautiful thin people with lots of money have sex and surgery, so I’m going to get back at that. Then as soon as all 3 episodes are devoured I can return to the many edit jobs awaiting my attention.
Stay pretty on the outside my sweet acolytes,
XXooXXoo
PJR
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DRINK IT UP! www.Sonnyboo.com
Monday January 1st, 2007
Sanctimonious Soliloquy
Well, we rang in the New Year last night at a party with some friends. Again, this year, I’m not too into the Holiday spirit, but playing poker & chatting for a few hours with some people I genuinely like made a big difference. My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ had to work this morning so we also had to bolt right away after Dick Clark miscounted down the seconds into the New Year.
When we got home, I was obsessed with hearing Jimi Hendrix & the Band of Gypsies perform Auld Lang Syne from January 1st, 1970 & I did. I love that it started with the concert promoter playing a .45 of the song & Jimi not taking that well, so he performed the traditional song in his own inimitable way.
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And now the semi-annual New Year Blog tradition…
Year End Stats for Sonnyboo:
40,000 hits a day average, 2,000 unique visitors a day average
shorts, trailers, and other videos combined from all sites hosting Sonnyboo movie had a combined # of views exceeding 275,000 in 2006 alone, which is an all time high for Sonnyboo.
Horrors of War played 20 cities across the U.S. + saw the North American DVD rights sold to Maverick Entertainment & the Japanese and several European DVD releases. This added many new passes and badges for the Tut-Ankh-Amon head I have on my book shelf collection of such things in the past 6 years.
The Boo is pleased, but not as interested in compiling stats beyond that.
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So the editing on my new MOVIEMAKER TECHNIQUES videos goes well. They are short, under 3 minutes each videos that I’m making for a Canadian distributor who thinks he can get us funding to do a DVD series of these videos in this style for sale to educational institutions.
So far, I’m very happy with the videos. If I get to do them over again, I’ll probably keep the exact same footage for the examples, but re-shoot the intros as I’m still looking quite fat on camera. I wanted to use an actor as a “Host”, but I was talked out of it by a close friend who really liked the way I did the Q&A’s for Horrors of War.
There is nothing more painful than editing me on video. I can’t stand the way I look or how I sound, as this is a common thing for most people, but then again, they don’t have to spend hours staring at themselves poorly delivering scripted educational bits for complete noobs. I asked My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ to do a preliminary edit of the intros so it would lessen the pain & she graciously accepted. This generous act made the videos get done.
I feel I’ve been slack on my promotions of late. This will be a shock to many, but I don’t think I’ve given it my all lately and I need to up my game in terms of promotion of the Sonnyboo product. Taking the more educational bent, I approached Channel 25, the Education Access station here in Columbus and submitted a show for airing. It takes a bunch of BEHIND THE SCENES clips, and MAKING OF docs, as well as INDIE FILM TECH TIPS from Scott Spears, and even now some of my new demo videos, and combined them to make 11 – 30 minute shows, and that’s just in 4 days of editing.
I miss Public Access. I liked having my movies and videos play on TV. I was getting my hair cut a year ago and the hairdresser started describing to me a show she saw on cable a few years before and she eloquently described my wretched movie NEW WORLD. I told her I made that movie and she freaked. It was a warm & fuzzy feeling. People are channel surfers and people stop for a second on a lot of programs. Might as well throw your hat in the ring. Since Public Access is illegally removed from the Columbus cable companies, the next best thing is EDUCATION ACCESS, channel 25. That means the material can’t really be short films alone, but if there is a true educational bent to showing HOW you made the movie, then it might be acceptable.
While dubbing out the master tapes of these many shows, I researched a few other outlets, and have joined DATV, the Dayton Public Access, and have reached out for Cleveland Public Access, and Cincinnati’s Education Access. This new show should be on at least 7 channels before the end of February statewide. I call the show “Making Movies in Ohio”. Only 2-3 people responded to my call for entries on material, but I imagine that will increase when the show starts to air and they want to know how to get on it.
In this New Year 2007, the world of Rossdonia has many projects lined up already. There is my dark comedy set now for an AUGUST shoot date, editing on a 16mm feature, making a series of WebDocs for another feature (not mine), and another possible feature this year, nonetheless the afore mentioned TV series and Educational Videos.
‘Twill be a most busy time in the world of Rossdonia. Part of my preparation was to use my Xmas gift cards to make ready for the new workflows & environment. I spent a considerable amount of money & time preparing the basement for an influx of INTERNS and PROJECTS. I’m going to hit up ever school with a media program and try to get at least 3-4 interns in a week to do editing on projects. I have AVID and ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2.0 setup on both of my editing machines, a new 250 gig internal drive (already filling with 17 hours of raw footage as I type), a borrowed 250 gig portable drive, and the recent techie upgrades will soon be put to task.
As much as I love my 30” widescreen monitor, I think for editing purposes, I’m going to make the switch to two 19” widescreen monitors with a higher screen resolution. This means that the main editing station will remain in the living room of Rossdonia, but the 30” and surround sound will migrate to the basement. That also means that Assistant Editors and Interns will be working on the beloved 30” widescreen to edit. My Sexy Girlfriend ™ will be happier to have some more separation between the 5.1 surround mixes and her work room anyways…
There exists many more hours of HORRORS OF WAR Behind the Scenes footage, interviews, and B-Roll that has never seen the light of day and I would like it to. I’m too burned out on it, but I feel I owe it to the people who took time to film interviews, be interviewed, and helped out on the project to NOT see it find some kind of life, even if it is a Public Access show or Internet video. Sounds like the perfect opportunity for Interns who don’t want to be gofers at Mills-James that actually want to have a great deal of creative control and actually EDIT something, plus get class credit for it.
ROSSDONIA REPORT
Cousette & “V” continue their ongoing geopolitical strife. The sectarian violence includes escape attempts by “V” hiding in my backpack when I try to leave. We had a hanging of the roach magistrate and this caused some celebrating and fear of reprisals that never came from the Shiite-led roach community.
One of the few Xmas presents I got that intrigued me was getting the “RIDDICK TRILOGY” starring Vin Diesel. I was not ever a huge fan of PITCH BLACK or CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, but I thought they were okay. I didn’t hate the movies enough to trade in the DVD’s either. I watched this, including the heretofore unseen DVD Anime Featurette called DARK FURY. I liked these movies a lot better this time, not only because it was free, but I just kicked back & enjoyed it. One of the recurring themes in popular culture that continues to fascinate me is these intermediate Medias like the ANIME Featurette.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I really like the new way of creating additional material in one form or another to expand the fictional universes and storylines for the people who want something additional. We saw similar things with STAR WARS – CLONE WARS cartoons, more recently with the TV series 24 and their prequel videos on the bonus disk of DVD’s for the previous season released weeks before the new season and the multiple episode series of WEBISODES of Battlestar Galactica online that featured secondary characters and played out storylines in between the 2nd and 3rd season. Even the U.S. comedy THE OFFICE did the exact same thing with secondary characters & web videos (both THE OFFICE and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA are NBC-UNIVERSAL series). Unfortunately because of these being “alternate media”, they aren’t union gigs and the studios are not paying out to Directors, Actors, or Writers any residuals or standard rates for these jobs, thus making them less likely to continue until resolved.
Our weather is unusually warm, as in 60 degree weather in late December & early January in Ohio is very odd. This also puts a complete crimp in the plan to produce the short SNOWMAN for my long time friend and crewmember John Fromes. I’m no meteorologist, but I think the weather has to be colder in order for snow to occur. I’ll try to assuage his grief, but sometimes John is unreasonable.
I got several new pages from George Caleodis on his script and it’s coming along well. Another seed of a movie idea occurred to me a while ago, and it’s sprouting on its own. I’m letting it freeform in my trusty notepad and letting things just happen with it. It’s that whole fermenting process that’s happening with a script or story idea. As I’ve learned from harsh lessons, I will not shoot a movie until the script is done baking in my mind, hence the no new productions from Sonnyboo in 2006. I have elevated my expectations of quality from myself and will NOT shoot until I feel I’ve got the script/story at 100%.
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DRINK IT UP! www.Sonnyboo.com
