Busy as a Bee

I've been quite busy. In addition to my day job I was busy rewriting and sending a feature script called "Welcome To Akron" to a wide variety of contests, fellowships, agents and managers. I've also been taking an advanced cinematography class, working on a new feature script, brainstorming ideas and writing treatments for a pitches to an interested producing partner, doing some event photography (which I don't really like doing, but it was a favor), and working on two short films. One of the shorts is a "making of" documentary for another short film (this weekend I think I finally re-focused on the idea that "cracked" the making of project in terms of making it not be as boring as most other making of docs), and the other is the next installment of a Noir comedy serial that I've developed with my friends Bill Zahn and Jason Topolski (and am creating with help from a whole bunch of friends). Here are a couple production stills:

Me and Bill Zahn, my directing and writing partner, on location trying to figure out
what the heck to do about the zillion production problems that cropped-up
in that grove of trees (the smiles came after we accepted compromise).

Jason Topolski, our star, looking noir as all get-out.

However, we won't be setting-up the site and releasing the first webisode until some time later this year. The plan is to have at least 3 (I'd prefer 4) in the can before we start releasing them. Thanks to a fantastic crew, we managed to get through some really rough patches and get most of our shooting done. We will do a pick-up day, but given the ambition of some of our set-ups, that was probably to be expected.

I've also been preparing for a trip to Poland next week. To cap it all off Sim, one of our cats, got very sick with Pyothorax (a potentially fatal condition). $4000 in vet bills later he is on the road to recovery, but Anu has now been laid off by yet another non-profit arts institution going down the path to destitution and cultural irrelevance (the timing of which, coming on the heels of such a large and unexpected expense, was doubly inauspicious).

I did have a couple minutes to "write" this review of Denon's absurd $500 ethernet cable (which some of you will recognizes as a riff on the Turbo Encabulator meme, with a few changes to fit the application), so I guess the chaos is subsiding a wee bit.