The Movie is a Harsh Mistress

Well, this has been an interesting week. Aaron (who plays Andy in the film) was in town with his buddy Steve looking for apartments. They're planning on moving out here in August to pursue their acting careers. At least, that was their excuse to come out to LA and party for a solid week. Not that I'm complaining, mind you...

I sorta rushed to get the rough cut done in time for their visit. We got together with Crystal (who plays Riley), her husband Loren, and Monica (official film groupie and occasional make-up artist) for a showing. They all seemed to like it, which I thought was a good sign. I've been showing the rough cut to some other people this week, and so far most people are saying the same stuff, which I consider a good sign. The most consistent comment I get is that what makes it a decent movie is that it has a good script. I find that very flattering. I hope it's true.

Now that this rough cut's done, there's still a lot of work to do. I have already decided on a few changes to make, mostly little stuff here and there. I also need to head back to Abq at some point to get a few shots to plug in. I need a good "Sandias at sunset" shot for sure. I also need an establishing shot of Anodyne, and maybe a couple establishing shots of the house. Only trouble is, I don't know when I'll be getting back to Abq, which brings me to my next bit of news...

I've been hired on as an electrician/grip for an independent horror flick called Killing Ariel. The pay sucks, but it is a paying gig, and it'll provide me with some much-needed experience in lighting and grip work. Plus it's a good chance to meet people, and of course I just plain love making movies. The script is pretty cool, about a sex demon who traps a guy in a creepy house for thirty years. The house we're filming at is a 100-year old run-down house in Pasadena somewhere, and definately looks the part. I haven't been there yet, only seen test footage, but supposedly the whole place smells like cat urine. I doubt that'll come through on film, though.

So anyway this job starts on my last day of school and runs for about a month. This means I won't be getting back to Albuquerque until mid-July or so at the earliest. I won't be making it back for my birthday; we'll be filming in an office building on Hollywood Blvd. that day. The good news is, it's a Saturday, and we get Sundays off, and it's a daytime shoot, so after the shoot it will be party time in downtown Hollywood. Oh yeah.

I'm still hoping to have Land of Entrapment done by September, but it's gonna be close. There's just a heck of a lot of work to be done. And while I'm working on Killing Ariel I'm going to be too busy to do much as far as editing goes. I think what I'm going to try to do is now that we have a rough cut, I'll try to get some of our sound guys going on foley work, songs, score, and that kind of thing. Hopefully some of that can get done before I head back to Abq in mid to late July.

One other random note. While we were wandering through downtown Pasadena on Thursday night, Aaron, Steve and I checked out a high-class cigar store (at the corner of deLacey and Green). You know, the kind that has a lot of comfy chairs and some chess boards so you can relax and enjoy a good cigar. There we ran into Bill Cobbs. Cool guy, very laid back. We also saw a locker with Mark Geragos' name on it. So yeah, this is probably a good place to hang out and meet cool people. It's only taken me two years, but I finally have a favorite cigar store out here! It's not too far from where we'll be filming in Pasadena, either, so I plan to stop by there a bit in the near future...