Help Holding It Up

This is kind of random buy I got bit by a feral kitten last night. Molly and I were driving home and I saw an undercover cop cuffing a hooker. I told molly and she turned to look and when she turned back to the road we hit a cat running across the road. I turned around and saw the cat run off to the side of the road so we pulled over to see if anything was wrong. When we got to where the cat had been there was only this lone little kitten meowing. I don't think we hit him but we may have hit his mom. This stretch of road was really bad. Lots of traffic and construction, no place for an 8 week old kitten. Molly and I approached him and he ran around a corner. We followed and for a bit couldn't find him but started to here him crying again. I found him hiding up in a small tree. I reached up to and pulled a branch down and was able to pet him alright. He didn't hiss or anything. Molly told me to pick him up by the neck so I did. He didn't like that to much. As I was lowering him to the ground he struggled in my grip and was able to bite my right thumb and index finger with all his might. Writing this post is gonna be hard cause I know it's gonna be long. Anyway. We wrapped him in molly's shirt and took him to my apartment complex and let him loose there. Lots of people feed strays there and there's a big pool full of water. It’s a walled community and it's really safe. I named the cat little scrapper. Hopefully I’ll see him around. Little scrapper. Sheesh. Little bastard.

I met with Miguel on Tuesday. I went over to his office and he just happened to be there so we sat and talked for about an hour. We talked about locations on campus and reslife and the police and he's gonna do some administrative battling this summer and wants me to wait on campus locations till late July early august. That makes me extremely nervous. As of 3 days ago we're exactly 4 months out from shooting and I like to have my locations locked as soon as possible. There were also some issues with selling a product made for a class commercially. But these things will be worked out later. We also talked about getting credit for some of the other key students involved in the project. I'm excited about this because it boosts moral in the crew cause they're getting something more than nothing out of it, and also it kind of holds them to the production. So they have more at stake. These things help prevent no shows on the day of shooting ;)

I talked to facman today about the shooting date, location scout, and run through that I want to do and my contact was just full of yeses and oks. I’m so excited that this part of the production seems to be going off so far with out a hitch. Basically what I told him was that I wanted to do one more location scout. Then I wanted to sit with my crew and pick the exact locations for each and every shot/scene of the tunnels portion of the screenplay. Then we’d do a mock run through and go to every location so that when we actually film the crew that will be down there will be completely prepared for what needs to happen. I also talked to him about when we’d actually be shooting down there and everything looks cool. We’re even gonna keep working with the same guys that took us down before. They’ll be there for all three times we go in. they were awesome on the location scout so I’m really happy about it.

The elevator people emailed me Tuesday. it was a flat out no. in the email they sent was copy and pasted text from laws and stuff about only certified people entering elevator shafts and that the school wasn't willing to certify us or take the risk. I talked to the Miguel and the production team about it and they were cool. We came up with some alternative options.

I talked to Frankie and he's definitely interested he's gonna talk to the other guy, JJ, that did the bunny movie with him. I’m excited that their interested. They’ll officially sign on if they read the script. Hopefully they'll like it.

I haven't done much on the script since my last post. I’ve been super busy. But things are calm today and tomorrow and I’m planning on getting a lot done.

I had an epiphany the other day for who to use as a sound guy. I think I’m gonna ask the guy that did ADR for LOTD. I've got to do some ADR for some other shorts and I’m gonna email him to set that up. During the session I’ll mention to him that I’m making a film and looking for crew. I’ll try and use the same tactic I did with Dan Dredger. Try and get Andy to offer to help rather than ask him flat out.

Linnaea came to the meeting yesterday and it was great to see her. I gave her some old prop and vehicle lists so she can get started. I told her she can build her own team and I think she's gonna bring her son on board. She sent me stuff for her bio on the website. I’ll put it up this weekend

Auditions are filling up nicely and consistently.

Last night's production meeting went very very well. It also went an hour over. It was great though. Everyone showed up but Brandon. At the meeting I couldn't remember why he wasn't there but today I talked to him and he reminded me he had told me it was his girl friends birthday. So we talked about everything I just posted, except for the tunnels. I’ll tell them on Sunday if they don't read this. We also set some more dates. We backed storyboards to July 28th 2006. We want to make sure we have enough time to do it right. Posters and similar promotional materials are due February 1st 2007 and the official trailer’s due February 13th 2007. I feel really great about the team I have. I was just telling molly yesterday before the meeting that I was feeling stressed about the movie because we're only 4 months away. The meeting totally lifted that stress. I don't feel like the whole weight of the film is no my shoulders. I feel more like I’ve got 10 people helping me hold it up.