Long Time

Been a long time since I blogged (or Rocked and Rolled). So it's now February and I haven't written anything on here. Let's see, I went back to Washington to see the three families (not quite five but we're getting there). Then Cara and I went back home for awhile only to go back up to the bay area in mid-January to shoot a movie with our buddy Peter Lindsey. That was fun.  

Now that that's over and the semester has started at SDSU I've slowly and steadily been chipping away at a lot of things, my debt, my film projects and a $10,000 Fred Rogers scholarship, which would be huge (fingers crossed). My classes are Directing, Screenwriting and Film Production. That's a hum-dinger of a semester if I don't say so myself. That directing class is essentially why I'm still in school. 

As of this writing I am finally cleaning up Grandma Shoes and getting it ready to submit to festivals. It's been a long time coming for me and I'd like to get the film out there and see what people think of it. I'm proud of it for a few reasons, I like the message, the humor and that it only cost me about $200 to make. It's pretty cool, this process. Coming back to it after it has chilled for awhile. You re-look at the footage and you find stuff you didn't see the first time. I just feel like a big manipulator. It's all lies really. The audio from one take is used over another clip while you listen to fake birds and car sounds to smooth over the cuts because the clips were all shot out of sequence and at different times of the day. It might've taken so long because I hate editing, maybe just my own stuff, but it's sort of the equivalent to editing your own novel, it just doesn't work. You've sat and worked with the script, found your actors, got your locations, shot the movie, heck, you did your best. Now the coolest feeling would be to hand all that hard work over to someone else, but no, for low-budget dudes, it's you and you alone man. Staying up 'til all hours hacking away at the footage and putting it together so that it hopefully makes some sense to people.  

Anyway, I just wrote a 2 page letter to my Dad that I thought might help serve the purposes of this blog, which is just to inform folks what's going on in the lives of Cara and I. 

Here it is: 

A fellow grad student here just won the short film prize at Sundance, which kind of re-enforces to me that I'm in the right place. It was a good film, about a bunch of at-risk kids at a rehabilitation center. Also I got some good news that my buddy's film is in the running for SJSU's feature film project this summer. It's Super Hero Party Clown the feature. If he gets it he wants me to be his producer, which is a big responsibility. I would be in charge of the budget, which is currently something like $20,000. Which sounds like a lot but for a 90 minute feature film that's trying to compete with multi-million dollar productions, it's going to be tight. It feeds the crew for 30 days, pays for props and wardrobe, transportation and camera rental. 

San Diego is a beautiful city with lots to do. So far Cara and I have been to the hotel Del Coronado which is where Billy Wilder filmed Some Like it Hot. Last night we went bowling and I started off with two strikes and ended up bowling a 148, which is my top score of all time I'm pretty sure. Lately we've been going to SDSU basketball games. They're really good, and free for me. So far SDSU is 16-5 and the #1 team in the Mountain West Conference. 

Work is good. I've been up at the bar three shifts a week now which means more money. We decided to have Cara quit her job at Gordon Beirsch because it just wasn't working out the way we had hoped for her there. I like Red Robin for what it is and they've treated us really well through the years...401k, scholarship, and a request off book that allows you the freedom to shoot a movie when you need to. yes!

Well, that's all for now, love ya!

Phil