New Project, New Ideas, Old Habits

Now that the house moving and renovation has settled a bit (kinda), I have resolved to start blogging a bit more regularly about another feature I'm working on. Right now, it's a black comedy (why do I keep gravitating to these things!!) about three sisters and their old ex-porn star dad. I have other ideas in the works, as usual, but resources and time and life's realities make this most likely to be the best option for me right now. Not that I'm complaining, this is a really fantastic idea and when I talk about it to others, it always gets a good chuckle.

I started the initial idea while drinking wine after a late night catering shift almost a year ago. I was alone in my apartment. Things were pleasantly quiet as I typed away on my old Mac laptop. I started it as a fiction project, but it soon became something more than that. With some occasional revisits this last year, I have decided tonight to begin looking it over again after this several month "house-hiatus" I like to call it. My challenge as always is to put everything aside and give myself uninterrupted time (no kitties on laps, no text messaging, no checking email, no rendering something on some other film project) to truly focus on this exploratory phase. What is this story about? Who is it about? Why am I telling it?

My mind keeps wandering to method and technique as opposed to what I should be writing about. I tend to do that as a director and filmmaker, probably because most of my filmmaking time is using technology to capture and create things, rather than just raw story telling without the use of a computer. I will be crafting story over the next few months, working with actors who don't mind being part of the development process and me showing a cheap camera in their faces to capture the scenes we shoot together. Reading a script is one thing. Seeing it even on a crappy camera is another thing entirely, but provides invaluable insight into what is and isn't working.

I do know this: this is like athletic training. One has to give focused immediate attention and effort now, even after a long hard day's work, even when tired after taking care of all your other domestic and work chores, even when everything else in the world is competing for your attention. Finding those silent quiet moments when the rest of the world is asleep is sometimes I feel the reason I still wake up in the morning.

So, the spring breeze blows cool through my new studio room where my cats are fast asleep, the red wine flows, my script is open, my notes are before me, the white board clean and empty, note cards at hand...it's time to dive, and dive deeply.