It sucks so bad. It makes me cry.

My new “serious” project idea is a documentary about homelessness in Florida. I’m blogging progress for that project in it’s own blog called Mean Florida.

The Apple Store was cool enough to install iMovie 6 for me. I haven’t played with it much. Just been making some short family videos and video podcasts. I have an idea for my next “serious” project and another short film I’d LOVE to do but requires more time and resources than I have so it’ll have to be the “serious” one if anything.

The aforementioned laptop didn’t have a firewire port! After lots of searching and research, I found a USB to Firewire Adapter but, as awesome as this holy grail was, it still didn’t help me because my camera is a Sony and it absolutely will not work with anything but a bone fide iLink cable. Fortunately, usbfirewire.com has a risk-free money-back guarantee. From beginning to end, their customer service was awesome.

So I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my eMac. Installed 2 GB of RAM, bought 1 TB of storage and upgraded the OS to Leopard. Sadly, the latest version of iMovie needs an intel processor but I’m happy just finally be able to edit some video. Eventually, I’ll get me some Final Cut Express.

Got a new computer. A laptop with the software and power to edit video. It’s only MS MovieMaker but it’s better – way better – than nothing!

And it’s been even longer since I wrote a relevant, interesting post.

A couple nights ago I read about the First Annual Village of the Arts Short Shorts Film Festival. Deadline is January 24, 2009. Right here in Bradenton, FL.

Here we go, again.

My first thought was to pick up Buscar but my time limit is 10 minutes. Madre is exactly ten minutes but I want to make something new and I want to film it in Bradenton.

I returned all but two of those horror movie books. I’ve set down the book by Roger Corman but I’ll pick it up once I’m done with the Lloyd Kaufman book which really grabbed me and I’m absolutely loving. All the others were just some guy or girl making a list of movies and giving their opinion. Seriously, who wants to read that? I can sit around with my friends (if I had any) and do that. The Roger Corman didn’t grab me as quickly because there’s a bunch of bio in the beginning I really wasn’t that interested in (except – did you know he’s from Detroit?!) but the Kaufman book dives right into the how-to stuff. Very detailed, very made for the very poor and/or beginning filmmaker. I’ve read some really good books on the subject and this is easily the best. I thought it would be interesting and entertaining. I had no idea how informative and educational it would be. Here’s a list of my favorite “young filmmaker” books besides Make Your Own Damn Movie (buy all of them and you don’t need any others):

• Rebel Without A Crew by Robert Rodriguez
• Digital Filmmaking 101 by Dale Newton

I also remember enjoying What They Don’t Tell You In Film School by Camille Landau but I don’t include that in “required buying” for no other reason than I can’t remember anything specific I read in it. That’s not a criticism … I’ve read plenty of books on independent filmmaking that I’m not bother to list here at all. Newton’s book not only goes step by step (but not with all the examples, lessons, alternatives, etc. that Kaufman gives) but provides examples of budgets, contracts, and oodles of other things that you need and might have no idea that you need or where to get. It’s an invaluable companion to Kaufman’s book. Rebel Without A Crew is Rodriguez’ journal from the moment he decided to make a feature through pre-production on his next (first), “big studio” picture. That’s the sit-back-and-be-inspired book, the others are sit-back-and-learn books. Since everyone now has a DV cam, and you have a lot more competition than Rodriguez did … you REALLY need the instruction of the other two.

My confidence has been almost non-existent for a long time now. A lot of it has to do with the systematic stomping of it by Little Caesars over a couple years and showing my work to people who are just … well, the wrong people. I make every effort to not try being funny because I’m afraid of looking stupid. There are a few people… I hear their voices in my head no matter what I’m writing or doing and they’re all telling me that whatever I’m working on sucks for whatever reason. I’m afraid to write anything meaningful because I’m afraid of some a–hole saying it seems kneejerk or shallow because of my political or religious beliefs in which case I think whatever I’m doing is just a waste of time.

There’s that and the fact that I beg people to read stuff I write and no one has any interest. I beg my teenage daughter to share her stories and poetry with me and she has no interest in letting me see it. I should have known better than to have girls – just more of them around me to reject me.

However, the “school” script I’m working on … that – and the cadet I exchanged some emails with – really lifted me up and I keep getting great feedback on something else I wrote. I wrote this stupid little post on my Facebook “blog” and sent it out as a mass email about something that happened the other day and people keep telling me how funny it is. Marci Karp, a girl who was in many of the early movies I did for Little Caesars (none of hers are on here – not for any particular reason, they just aren’t), told me I should write “or something.” She wasn’t the only one … but … it’s all been nice to hear.

I’ve been succumbing to repeated thoughts that Florida will be just another place I’ll fail but today is a bit better (I just woke up, though, so who knows). Maybe my wife is right, maybe the sunshine will make me feel better.

Got some groovy books from la biblioteca esta noche:

• The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films
• Horror Movies by Tom Powers
• Fangoria’s 101 Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen
• The Horror Film: An Introduction by Rick Worland
• The Rough Guide to Horror Movies by Alan Jones
• Horror Movie Stars by Michael R. Pitts
• I Was A Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror Filmmakers
• How I Made a Hundred Movies and Never Lost a Dime by Roger Corman
• Make Your Own Damn Movie by Lloyd Kaufman

For the second time, shows he’s the best Oscar host ever.