matchesmalone's posterous

Sometimes, A Well Timed Heckle is all You've Got

Those that know me, truly know me, in all but The Biblical sense will attest to the following: I've made my living by heckling. In fact, if I were a supervillain, I'd probably be, The Heckler!!! As we know, I'm Batman. Sshhh!!! Don't tell anyone. It's a secret. I read this and had to respond.

Why, you ask? Or maybe you didn't. I don't know. Maybe you haven't even read this far. If you have, three reasons come to mind for a well timed heckle:

  1. To get a laugh
  2. To speed up the proceedings, and finally
  3. editorial commentary

Maybe that last one covers the other two, I don't know. Having performed stand up comedy for most of my life, I can tell you, it's not good when you allow a heckler on a roll. You have to shut them down immediately. Fortunately, as most of you know, I'm able to do that, too. Picking your spots, and using a heckle on an occasional basis, is okay sometimes. You may heckle me by replying, or leaving a comment below. Or a tweet. Unless you see this on Facebook, in which case, you should Like this, really. Like this, like this!!! ;)

 

Yes, That's Right...

I have no time to do all the things I'm getting paid to do. In addition, I'm creating new work for myself, that will at some point generate income. Therefore, to those of you that may read this as a tweet, or a post, or whatever, do know that I will get to everything within the next 12 hours, whether or not you've hired me to do it. Thanks!!!

3 Takeaways from this year's 168 Film Festival

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Or, why I haven't posted lately :)

I may have said some of this before, either here or elsewhere, however, put simply, I've been busy. Or, I haven't gotten enough computer time, as it's always a negotiation here, or maybe, it always has been, however, I never realized it before.

As I hope you know by now, Black Friday screened appropriately, on Friday, March 26th, 2010 as part of The 168 Film Festival, which is the culmination of what started out as Untitled 168 Project Team #13 2010 edition. It was a long and winding road, with many forks and spoons, wherein I came away with three things that may effect my future participation.

  • You can't always fix it in post
  • Working in a "Christian" environment is no different than working anywhere else, and finally
  • The 168 Project is a year round ministry
Well, at least for me. I discovered that one filmmaker that made the top 20 this year raised $31K, or thirty one thousand dollars for the right handed people. I didn't even have a tenth of that going in, and not to make this a plea for money, however, I do have some expenses that have yet to be met, and by now you know where the donate button is :) In any case, I felt I did quite well in a year that I originally decided not to participate.

I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'm a filmmaker, therefore, I should be making films. I've got this nice Flip Mini that I won from the fine folks at Gate6 Inc, simply for tweeting. Most of you know that I tweet constantly, so that should come as no surprise. YouTube will now be my new best friend. I'm not really going to be posting anything spectacular, as those of you that may have already seen Makin' Coffee or Cats!!! will attest. I'm going to start a new Word Press blog, that will be setup shortly, and I'll move all 168 related activities over there. This site will return to its original intent, which is to promote Watchmaker, a film about Intelligent Design, and the surrounding controversy.

I will hopefully continue to post with more frequency on the above two subjects, as it seems that everyone thinks that blogging everyday is a good idea. I'm not so sure on that, as I don't actually have that much to say, most of the time. In addition, I'll continue to post elsewhere, on a variety of topics that interest me. I've even received a small paying gig for one of those. Small meaning, not my usual article rate, and not my usual frequency of writing said articles, meaning not enough to support me, my family or this ministry.

That's why I need you. Thank you in advance for your support, both financially and spiritually. I hope you'll enjoy the ride.

I'll come up with an appropriate catch phrase later. Leave a comment, and let me know that I'm crazy :)

Update: This may be a response to this; simply so I don't have to type all of the above twice :) There will also be a site redesign in my future. And yours. Stay tuned.

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The Making of Black Friday

As I'm sure most of you, or at least some of you know, Black Friday premieres tomorrow night at the Hope Theatre in San Fernando. That should be enough info for Google maps to tell you how to get there, if you feel so inclined. What you may not know, is that the behind the scenes video diary I shot, was also supposed to premiere tomorrow.

Of course, 168 being what it is, in my rush to get that film turned in on time, I apparently didn't use the correct specs to export it from iMovie, which is what I used to edit. Therefore, Triskaidekaphobia won't be shown tomorrow on the big screen.

The good news is, that means that I can now post it online, for all to see. I might get more viewers this way, who knows???? :)

Anyway, here is it for your enjoyment. Let me know what you think.

3 New Things I Learned During This Year's 168 Project

As opposed to last year, when I experienced 168 Madness, after which came, 168 Clarity, I give you the following:
  1. In moviemaking, money gives you time.
  2. Time is fixed in this competition, therefore
  3. It doesn't matter how much money you spend.
And that last one goes in either direction, meaning, it is possible to spend almost no money in making a 168, beyond the aforementioned entry fees. If indeed I have mentioned them before.

Time is Money

A cliche I'm sure you've all heard before, which leads to the following syllogism: Time is money. Money is power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Therefore, man is inherently evil. As money approaches zero, and your time is running out, it's necessary to think creatively, and quickly. We had a situation where we didn't have a boom. Was borrowing the mic, but we didn't have the needed boom pole to go with it. Had we had the budget for it, I would've probably purchased one myself. However, we did have a C stand. Or two. Problem solved.

Let's "Fix it in Post!"

Well, almost. Turns out we had some buzz on the cable, that made it to the editing process. As I couldn't afford a sound guy, complete with boom, mic, and mixing box included, we plugged the mic directly into the camera. I did this last year on Three of Clubs, with no problems. Probably because I had a guy that had his own boom and cables. Not so this time. Prayed. Made a few phone calls. Prayed some more. The writer called in a favor. We were indeed able to fix it in post, however, not without a lot of headaches, and stress.

Money, Money, Money!!!

In conclusion, I do always wish that projects like the 168 could be filmed for next to nothing, however, we did indeed incur some expenses. Without boring you with the details, my friend was wrong. You may remember before this whole thing started, that I posted that I had two naysayers. I probably had more, however, only two were vocal about it. One was right, but for the wrong reason. I wasn't able to make a movie for $4400. Had I had that much, I probably could've made at least three, and had some money left over for a great wrap party. I'm reminded of an oft misquoted verse in The Bible, which I'm sure you're aware of, as most will tell you, "Money is the root of all evil." Wrong. Read the entire verse, which I shall quote here, and link to: For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. I Timothy 6:10, from the King James Version, to be exact. Other translations read slightly different, and I ask you to compare and contrast, to get the gist.


In any case, well, really specifically this one, Having a million dollars would've been a good thing, however unnecessary. Maybe next year....

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.


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The Real First Rule of 168

Prayer. Simple, and succinct. One word, and I've got about 495 to go, therefore, I'll ramble on into general incoherence, which can only lead to one thing: Specific incoherence.

I once heard a talk where the speaker said, "Every once in awhile, God will do something to show that he's God of your life, and not you." Dr Larry Poulan is the name I remember, but I'm probably spelling it wrong. He spoke at the first Campus Crusade for Christ Christmas Conference (try saying that three times fast) I ever attended. The year was 1980, so, someone that knows how to search for things online can go look it up. Or, I could, but I may not have the time :)

Why won't I have the time? Well, we're on final countdown to turn in for our 168 Project film, Black Friday. I have other stuff to do, however, I figured I'd come here and blog a prayer request that no one will read, simply because I may have time to do that. Oh, about 29 and a half hours before the clock hits zero as I type this sentence, in case you were wondering.

Today was suppose to be my free day, as the plan was to turn the film in yesterday. The phrase, "Man plans, God laughs" comes to mind, as all did not go according to plan. At least mine. This may be some sort of great plan for me that to my knowledge, God hasn't let me in on yet. But that's probably an entirely different guest blog post that I have as yet been not asked to write.

To continue, or maybe your question is, what went wrong? Well, it would seem that my sound quality of the film that was beautifully shot by my DP is not up to snuff, to the point where my post production sound mixer doesn't want to put his name on it. this is the aforementioned thing that God did to show me. Or not. I don't truly know. What I do know is this: all of our hard work will have been wasted, if we can't fix the quality of the audio. What I do know is, I need prayer for what some would consider to be a miracle, however, I feel confident in my team's ability to pull it off.

This has been a Link Free Blog Post™. Thanks for reading this far, and praying for my team.

72 and sunny in Redondo Beach.

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I forgot the first rule of 168...

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Which is simply this: Don't try to stay awake all 168 hours. You can't do it. Or, maybe you can, however, I know I can't. My record is 43. And that was in college a lifetime ago. As result, I'm too tired to properly compose this entry. So, sleep is a good thing.

I like the new Apple keyboard, as it allows me to tap my fingers on the keys without actually typing. Impressive. When attempting to pad one's word count, it is ok to embellish with random facts. As you can see, I've degraded into random incoherence. Which may be redundant. And as you know, in the dictionary under redundant it says, "See, redundant."

I could talk about how we wrapped principle photography at approximately 337pm PST yesterday, however, that might not be entirely true, as, it was closer to 4pm. I just like the number 337. Don't know why, I just do. Actually, it's when I looked at my cellphone before we got the last shot.

So, for me now comes the hurry up and wait process of filmmaking. I have music cues to listen to, so that the composer can do his thing, while I wait for the editor to do her thing, after which the post production sound mixer will do his thing. Then they all get put together into an 11 minute short film, based on the verse I drew what, two weeks ago? Then more waiting, after I turn it in to the festival, to see how it's received.

So, I could attempt to get some sleep, but I made arrangements to discuss things with the editor in a couple of hours, and my fear is, I won't be in any condition to take the call whether or not I get some much needed sleep, as I may have made a mistake when I got up at two in the morning....

It will be 72 and sunny in Redondo Beach, but not for awhile.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.


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Black Friday

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Image via Wikipedia

Or, 168 Project Team #13 2010 Edition Day 1. Of shooting, not day one of the competition, as I spent yesterday putting all the final elements into place, and prepping my shot list. Which I need to complete before I get ready for the longest day of the shoot, which will of course, be today. What's wrong with this picture? Why am I blogging instead of continuing to prep? Simple.

It's been said that every once in awhile, God will do something to prove that he's the God of your life, and not you. Currently, this boils downto, Final Draft not working on my computer. Now, I understand that you may not know what that means, however, in 25 words or less, I opened up the script this morning, and am still waiting on the template move I just did. That's right, going on ten minutes now, and the beach ball is still spinning. For those of you that just joined us, I'm on a Mac.

I'm thinking faster than I'm typing, and I really should get back to it, so, to review, pray that God will allow us to successfully complete a film that will glorify Him. Please, Retweet.

Sun's not up yet in Redondo Beach.

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

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