Tuesday, March 29, 2005

A Date

September 12th. That's the projected shoot date. We'll either be in Georgia or North Carolina September 12th. Word came from the producers via email late last night. They're going to send us preliminary budgets and location stuff today. And so it seems like the pieces are being put into position.

Strange to have an actual date. It makes it sort of real. You can circle it on the calendar. The 12th. That's really only a couple of months from now. Four days before my birthday. I'd turn 32 on set. Celebrate my birthday with grips and gaffers and catering people.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Big News

So the big news is that I'm sick again, the third time in about nine weeks. I think maybe I'm dying. I gotta think the whole thing is cancer related, or at least the early stages of that disease where you freeze in one position for years at a time. Like in that Oliver Sachs book. I'm doomed. I gotta go to the doctor tomorrow for the official diagnosis. Probable scenario: "Plague, son. You have Bubonic Plague."

A few things have been going on here in LaLa town. The most significant is that the film is starting to take the shape of one of those hurricane reports. Certain meteorilogical phenomenon are unfolding off the coast of South America and everyone down at the National Weather Service is keeping an eye on things as they develop. It's too early to predict a path or a place of direct impact, but it all has the air of inevitability. Soon charts will be drawn up and computer models will animate courses and trajectories and The National Guard will mobilize and take appropriate evacuation measures.

The producers have hired a line producer, basically a nuts-and-bolts money guy, to draw up a budget; various film commissions have been notified of our intent to shoot this thing, and as a result are courting us for our business; and the director is back from shooting a pilot and is set to retool the script (if he hasn't already begun). The pieces are falling into place. Nothing is really happening to me, per se, but the production is more than ever seeming to take on a life of its own.

Me, I'm doing a little more work for that production company in New York, the one that does all the Food Network stuff. I'm also waiting for the official word on a job my writing partner and I pitched for. It's a improv show on Comedy Central that is loosely described as Reno 911 in a crappy San Diego hospital. We haven't heard no, but we haven't heard yes. In a way, we're not out, we're just not in.

Misc:

Tonight NBC's version of "The Office" premieres. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

I do not pretend to have discovered this excellent web radio station, but I am giving it my full-hearted endorsement. If you care at all about good music, tune in and rejoice.

God bless Tylenol PM