I've been sleeping poorly. These days it seems that no matter how much I sleep, or where I am, I am not rested in the morning. Maybe I'm leading a double life ala "fight club", or dreaming about fighting aliens. I know that recently I've been doing some things that I feel are very rewarding. For example.
I participated in the 48 hour film festival. I was tapped, for unknown reasons, as Post Produciton Supervisor which means I kept post production on schedule. Evidently I did a better job at this than was expected and that makes me happy. I enjoyed this enough that I'm already stoked about next years, although it may be a touch more difficult for me to participate next year, I think I will.
I have a new position at my job. I have moved from electronice techincian II to Computer repair technician, to Computer Consultant II, and am currently a Computer Consultant III. That is a series of nice moves, the last two coming within a few months of each other. I also have my sights set on another job that hasn't opened up yet. If everything goes well I may wind up a project manager at the university which could be really cool. I've just dumped 500 bucks on the off chance that it is cool and something I want to do with my life.
I have been playing Guild Wars. This has not helped me with my sleeping problem. I really enjoy playing GW and tend to play it longer than I should. That and my addiction to the internet can occasionally keep me up until after 2 on a work night. That coupled with Oakel's waking up occasionally and you can have several low sleep nights in a row. SUCKAGE.
All that rolled up with the fact that Mayumi is three months pregnant and I guess I have a lot going on. I have a pair of friends that are about five months now so I suppose mystery baby will have some friends to play with. That coupled with the other family's oldest child being old enough to play with Oakel could mean lots of bonding with these friends. hmmmmmm.. maybe we could start a semi-regular play date. Just throwing that out there.
I dreamt last night after playing some Guild Wars. We were at my parent's house filming the next 48 hour film project. Our previous project was a prequel to this one and it just so happened that we could continue it with the genera (dunno) dialogue (eehhh) and the prop (I think it was a ball). Anyhow we were out in the pier, which was the old pier we had before Floyd which went out about a hundred yards with a high pier, then had ladders going to down to two lower piers, one out front, and one to the side where the boat house used to be. We had already filmed the scene where I was sliding down a temple entrance into the lower part of the temple and were filming the line of dialogue scene. Woody noticed a storm brewing and commented that it was supposed to be quite a strong storm and jumped into the water from the higher pier. The seas got very rough, luckily there was no equipment out on the pier and people were just hanging on or trying to run back to shore. I went to the lower pier to look for Woody, who was standing on the lift for the boat, made some comment about the storm and did the nesT plunge into the now white capping rolling water. I noticed what appeared to be a WWII fighter flipping through the turbulent air and land in front of the cottage, then turned my attention to not getting blown off the pier. Once everything calmed down I gathered folks and went back to the house, not the cottage. In the house some discussion about how Jeanie's house, which at one time was behind the house, and more recently had been beside the house, was no longer there. I walked outside and there was a WWII bomber (albeit small) sitting in front of the cottage with people in fairly modern designed camo getting out. Somehow I knew they were German. The person in the tail gun appeared to be dead, everyone else was staggering around and I was trying to help them. The guy in the tail gun woke and was missing an arm and a leg. I helped him into my parent’s house, fed him, and he drowned himself in the sink. I went back outside and one German was trying to set up a campsite, two were rushing around bewildered. I noticed a flash across the sound by PCS and then saw the shockwave start across the water. As it progressed smoke began to rise around PCS which had suddenly taken on a larger, more techy looking appearance. I heard a boom but not like I expected. I looked over at the German's and some were being swept up into the air and blown away. One German screamed and began running away from the cottage lot over to my parent's lot. I started crawling towards their house as I had dropped to the ground to try to avoid being blown away. I noticed a line of shadow moving from the cottage towards my parent's house and knew this had something to do with the guys being blown away.
the 48 Hour Film Project for Greensboro is finished for 2005.
This year was much more solid than last year, and I think we as a film making community can make it better. There has been some squabbling since the project ended about people's opinions and a little bickering, but overall this has been a positive step for Greensboro's film making community. Perhaps next year, prior to the project, some of us who have participated before and who have strong skill sets could meet with some of the less experienced groups and help them. I can only imagine how much better some of these groups could have been had they been given some instruction in some basic areas. Perhaps we could have an "adopt the beginners" big brother type program a month or two before the project.
Maybe some of us with blogs could start posting helpful instruction for those out there who could use a little helpful instruction. All of us in the 48 aren't film students and may not have the time to read a stack of books to get some basic rules of movie making. My skills do not lie within the "technical" side of movie making so I am not a resource for this.
Now for my thoughts.
The films have been reviewed in several locations. I don't feel the need to review them yet again. I was glad about a few of the awards and I'll post my opinion here. I was happiest that "super best buds" won best use of prop. These guys were teenagers who got together and made a good tongue-in-cheek movie that entertained me more than most of the other entries. "The Gift" won best sound and best special effects. I was part of this team and I am glad that their talent was recognized. There were some very tough choices for the judges and I'm glad I was not one of them. I really hope that everyone next year can get something in on time because the feeling you get when your team comes together and makes it in under the wire is such a rush. I will try to get some sort of timeline together as a rough idea of how to spend your time to hopefully help out the folks who didn't make it this year. I wonder if anyone involved in the 48 might know a way to convince one of the groups that own a large multi-level buildings to donate space for base camps. It would be nice for folks from out of town to be able to have a place to plop down equipment and work from.