Today's the day

“I hate people. Do you hate people?”
“I don't hate people. I just like it a lot better when they're not around.”

Name that movie. *

Today was one of those days where I just wanted to work. Just work, be left alone. Thank you very much.
The actual outline for the day went some - thing - like - this.

• Modem acts funny.


• Goes down.


• Damn it!


• Call the cable company (on the land line which I haven’t quite disconnected yet)


• Talk to them for a while.


• Stump them.


• Damn it!


• A service guy will be there between 1:00 and 7:00.


• Be thankful that it’s not Monday instead.

In the meantime, try to work.
No, because:

• Time for a meeting.


• Damn it!


• Cable guy eventually shows up.


• Can’t figure out the problem


• Finally gets cable limping along.


• Schedules a lineman for Monday.


• Cable guy leaves.


• Try to work.


• FIRE ENGINE pulls in front of my house, lights flashing, horns HOWLING – followed by EMT truck doing the same.


• WHAT THE---?


• Watch all the goings-ons through the window because really – what else are you going to do when THAT happens?


• I guess someone with an overly reactive 911 trigger finger made a call -- as the gurney was wheeled out of the house as empty as it went in. That’s a good thing.


• Visit from another filmmaker in town for a festival.


• She leaves and I can sit down to hopefully write.


• Call from another very angry filmmaker seeking advice about crooked distributors and what to do about them.


• Dinner Date.

And so was my day. I wrote one goddamn line of story. Oh, and I had already written that one line about fifty times before.

I’m hoping tomorrow will be better.

I now have a stat counter hooked into this blog. I’m amazed by how many people are reading it. Hundreds, thousands. Well, not really, but more then ten people, I guess. It’s nice, but now I feel this pressure to perform.

So, in order not to completely disappoint, I present a bit of trivial news you can use if you’re up for risking twenty bucks:
I finally got my copy of “The American Astronaut”. I saw this movie at a festival in North Carolina a couple years ago. It blew me away and in scan/checking the DVD, I see it will be as great on second viewing. If you’re looking for the coolest, weirdest movie to blow THOSE friends away - you know, the ones that think they know everything cool before you do - this is the movie with which to knock them out. They will be humbled and see you as the finder of odd, cool movies.
Imagine you’re the one who discovered Eraserhead and was the first to show it to your friends.

Trust me on it.

*

Hunting at Night

Over the last several years, I’ve gotten bunches of email regarding my movies -- fan mail, hate mail, questions, psychos, even a stalker who is now doing jail time, for real.
For every ten fan mails or good reviews, one bad one can really kill you. You develop a thick skin after a while, and the more mass there is to the overall review pool, the less each one matters.

Something I really tend never to do is respond to hate mail, just delete it.

However - Today I got the coolest hate mail yet. So cool, in fact – that here’s the link to the guys who sent it. http://www.myspace.com/theenemies
Check out “The Enemies” theme. Pretty good tune. Bit of a “Ramones” knock off, but hey, better than a lot of stuff I hear today.

It’s not everyday that a punk band writes a song about how much you suck and how much they hate you. It’s even rarer when the hatred of you is cited as an actual influence for the band.

Wow.

Lest someone else think that innovative hate mail is going to impress me… it won’t. It’s the uniqueness of this one that caused me stop, laugh, and acknowledge it.


My rewrite of Diamond Road continues. Like a bad taco, the plot holes are slowly being squeezed through the second act. I’m hoping for them to vanish before act three or this is going to be a painful month. I also hope that it ends with the story feeling better, rather than just leaving a stench to be fanned away.

No matter what, I am determined to make the mistakes on paper, work each and every bug out before I hit the road to production. It’s a slow, frustrating time. I re-remember now, why movies get pushed towards production. It’s easier to see progress then. You’re spending money, the wheels are in motion, people are producing.

Got an interesting Press Release forwarded to me from composer, Vincent Gillioz.

news: October 2005
Shore's 'King Kong' rejected:
Howard Shore's score for King Kong has been rejected and will be replaced by a score from James Newton Howard. The shocking news was confirmed by Universal Studios in a press release today.Peter Jackson, the film's director and producer, says in a statement: ""I have greatly enjoyed my collaborations with Howard Shore, whose musical themes made immeasurable contributions to 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy. During the last few weeks, Howard and I came to realize that we had differing creative aspirations for the score of King Kong. Rather than waste time arguing with a friend and trying to unify our points of view, we decided amicably to let another composer score the film. I'm looking forward to working with James Newton Howard, a composer whose work I've long admired, and I thank Howard Shore, whose talent is surpassed only by his graciousness."Howard Shore had already recorded large portions of his score in New Zealand. The new score by James Newton Howard will, reportedly, be recorded in Los Angeles and has to be written at a very fast pace. The film will open on 14 December.



That’s the kind of thing that sends shivers down any composer’s spine. It’s also yet another reminder that no movie is made without hitches worries and fears about how it’s going.

Here’s one final tidbit to put a different light on things – Howard Shore is no stranger to film scores that are rejected. He was hired at the last minute to replace Elmer Bernstein’s score for Gangs of New York.

VOIP DAY 01

The Packet8 box arrived. Installation was as painless as hooking up a phone. Plug in the box and go. Nice. However, a strange thing happened with my DLINK Router - the wireless portion of it vanished. It required shutting down, waiting, rebooting, to get it to reappear. I hope this was just a hiccup because the last time this happened, the fix required exchanging the router. Don’t think it was coincidence; something about plugging into a packet8 box adapter messed with its head.

So far, the voip phone thing has been working - pretty well. There are the occasional strange digital hits. I upgraded the firmware, so we’ll see if that fixes it in any way. The most novel thing that I have noticed is that caller ID now works on the phone. It’s cool to see your handset suddenly tell you something new.

It’s been a good day of writing (re-re-re-writing) thus far. I’ve been playing with “the big board” again, which means that I’m breaking the story down into plot elements yet again.
For those of you who write or are planning to write, you probably know what “the big board” is. If not, try it – it’s a super tool, and better than anything you can do in front of a computer.

Snippets of paper on a cork board. Some people recommend 3x5 cards. Personally, I think they’re too big for what I do. I cut tiny pieces out of scrap paper. Anyway, time after time, I have found it to be a more effective way of organizing stories than any software solution.

So why am I blogging about 3x5 cards on a supposedly good day of “real” writing?

Because I’m procrastinating!

Today (because of The Big Board), I’m writing inside. I’ve been out on the patio for the past week. Lately though, the birds in the trees have given me pause. In a way, the fears being presented on the news are a bit more insidious than anything presented in that ole Hitchcock film, aren’t they? A Bird Flu case here, one there… all the special reports on CNN describing what could happen. No question, it is scary. Somehow though, with all the orange alerts, and all the “threats” we’ve been warned about over the past several years, I’m getting a bit suspicious.
What exactly is in it for the government if we’re all afraid of birds?
Hmm.

Hopefully, this will vanish like so much SARS.

VOIP

We’re giving it a try. Enough of my friends are using it, and enough annoyance with the phone company has transpired.

After a bit of research and talking to users, I decided to go with Packet8.net. Hopefully my experience will be a good one. Common among reviews (online and from friends) is that their support stinks, but the service is good. Well, that’s okay, I guess. I’m usually a DIY kinda guy, so calling support tends to be a last ditch effort, usually ending with stumping the Indian on the other side, and getting an RMA number issued. I’d rather the product be good then the support. A ‘Maytag” man philosophy, one might say. I ordered it last Wednesday and finally today (Monday) got an email confirming the product and info had shipped. FedEx – two days… One week to get it from Santa Jose, Ca. – about five hours from here. Maybe not the greatest start, but eh… we’ll see. For the moment, we’re using a temporary phone number. If we like it, we’ll ‘LNP’ our land line phone number. That’s “Line Number Portability” for those of you who haven’t had to go through the hell of switching cell phone providers while keeping your phone number.

I’ll report on the status of my VOIP experience.

Talked to a friend at length in Argentina via Skype. That system works pretty darn well – especially, considering the price of the call. HEHE. Since I’m talking into my computer though, I am more accepting of the occasional garble. We’re so used to perfect land lines, that VOIP has a bit of an uphill battle.

We live in interesting times. As I’ve pondered before – the technology is wonderful, allowing us to do things never before possible. It’s also becoming fascinating to see how some companies are making fortunes while others are finding it tougher to continue to make fortunes. Change happens. Nothing you can do about it. Dinosaurs grumble, but will go extinct if they don’t evolve.
The record industry, the telephone industry – change is happening, whether you like it or not.

Next up – the motion picture industry.

In 2000, I had a conversation with Michael Shamberg of Jersey Films – brief, but I pitched him an idea. Let the public see a version – a complete version of a movie before it’s made. For free – give it away on the net. Build hype early. There was a lot more to it, but that was the essence of it. My argument was if you saw a comic book version (or animatic) of a cool movie, you’d want to see the movie when it came out. Conversely, if you saw a comic book of a crappy movie, you wouldn’t waste money to see the real thing. It could allow movies to “test screen” before being made, to evolve in a bigger way. It could lead to much higher quality movies actually being made, and a higher percentage of profitable movies. One could gather so much information, business and artistic, that it’d redefine movie making.

He thought it was a bold, but risky. At least that’s what he told me – he might have thought the idea was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. He went on to say that he didn’t think it would go far.  I paraphrase, “The movie industry is a mature and extremely slow moving industry”. That was the end of it – and end of my hopes of having a professional relationship with an extremely cool company and person.  At that point in time, he was, most likely, right.  Now, five years later, Peter Jackson has done a very similar thing with his web site for King Kong. Of course it will work now. The movie will do gangbusters – A. because the story is a classic, and being done by a great filmmaker, and B. because the hype is going to be incredible.

The studios don’t know what to do. They fear marketing differently. They fear releasing movies differently. Heck, they still don’t want to do things digitally. Now Mark Cuban is quickly becoming their biggest pain in the ass.

He’ll be a bit harder to ignore than me.

I have maintained now for five years, that there’s gotta be a way how to give movies away for free, legally and still make a ton of money.

Think about it for a while.

Connected

High Speed Internet is fully operational.
And there was much rejoicing.

I know how reliant I am upon the Internet. It is disconcerting how reliant upon high speed Internet I am. It’s a part of my computer, my computer is a part of my life, hence –

Maybe you’ve already heard of this. I had, but never played with it until a friend called me to tell me about it.

Well, if you’re prepared to have your mind blown, and if you’re ready to lose a few hours of your life, and if you have broadband…
You’ve been warned…

Download this toy from Google.
http://earth.google.com/

(Sorry MAC users. It’s not available for you yet.)

See you in a couple hours.

We live in the future. That’s all I can say. I love technology, I just love it. I wish we as humans, could advance ¼ as much as the technology we are creating.

So ends this quick and useless entry.

Rebroadcasting

Talked to Lance. He alerted me of a rumor. I googled, I checked. I confirmed.

Robert Altman’s newest movie, “The Prairie Home Companion”, has been tentatively re-titled. What’s the new title, you ask?

Take a guess.

“The Last Broadcast.”

Really. No kidding.

So, journey with me to a potential future typical conversation at a potential future typical party.

“So what do you do”.
“I’m a writer-director.”
“Oh, what have you made?”
“Well, my first movie was “The Game”.
“Really? You know Michael Douglas”?”
“It wasn’t that “The Game” it was another – made a couple years before”.
“Oh. What else?”
“I co-directed a movie called “The Last Broadcast”.
“Really? So you know Woody Harrelson and Garrison Keillor?”
“No, not that “The Last Broadcast”. Mine was about these people who go into the woods with video cameras and die and then a year later the footage is found and a documentary is made…”
“That sounds like –“
“Yes, I know. Mine was made a year before… say, I’m going to go get another drink”.

A few years ago a British band called “The Doves” put out an album called “The Last Broadcast”. That same year, Sheryl Crow put out an album with a song on it called “Diamond Road”. I registered that screenplay way back in 1994.

So, what does it all mean? Eh, probably not much. Just that I need to wrap the tin foil around my head a bit tighter.

Start up

Start up.

Today, I am sitting under the new Pergola and – writing!!
I am back to work, which feels like a relief in many ways. The weather has turned absolutely beautiful, and the area which I built is doing its job well – creating a bucolic environment within to write.

The problem may be that pleasant environments are not good ones in which to write. I think it may be a misconception – created by hopeful writers and composers.

Does great need a level of discomfort? Certainly invention does, and writing, painting, sculpture – all of it – are inventions.
It would be interesting to study the environments of great creators. I do know that Paul Simon stands in front of a large white wall, and throws a ball at it.

Maybe I need to build a big wall with which to bounce a ball from. Ha. Of course not because in the end, it’s the person doing the throwing, not the wall. I’m guessing that Paul Simon has come up with great lyrics while cleaning his garage.

I think that the Achilles heal of today’s creative world is the accoutrements  – the best synths, the best computers. More time is spent collecting software and hardware than actually using it. I know supposed filmmakers who spend so much time talking about what camera they’re going to use, what formats are good and bad, that they have yet to make a movie!
I don’t think that journalists and novelists go as crazy, but I do know that many ‘wannabe’ screenwriters spend an inordinate amount of time discussing what software to use to write their opus. More often than not, they never get past page ten. Lawrence Kasdan writes with a pencil. Says something, doesn’t it?

I spent an awful lot of time buying this latest computer, and building my latest office – outside office and inside office. My house is clean and ready.

The moment of truth is now.

(picture of hands tentatively above keyboard)

BTW – I use Final Draft for screenwriting.

Still building

As the tempered glass for the DVD shelf was being made, I built a pergola.
Like the DVD shelf, I designed and built it first in a 3D world and then again in the real world.




This, not being fine furniture, was more a matter of brute force, than fine workmanship. It came together relatively painlessly, and will provide hours of enjoyment. We’re calling it the Mojito Hut though we have yet to put it to use for anything other than escaping from the merciless sun.

Though the air is pretty dead right now, we’re in the midst of Santa Ana winds. It’s brutal. I feel for my friends east of me – Pasadena and further. Here, at 5:20 PM, the temperature reads 95.9 F.
The office needs an air conditioner. Outside, the smell of smoke has grown stronger throughout the day – for the last couple days, forest fires have raged in Chatsworth, forty miles away – and now the smell of smoke as arrived. It’s creepy.

I put the tempered glass shelves into the DVD thing and can now call it complete. Sure, I’ll continue to work on improving the finish – sanding here, varnish there, but I really gotta do other things – like get back to work on movie related things, you know – my job. There are also still boxes that need unpacking and outside, the backyard and patio needs to be cleaned up – post pergola construction. Oh, and that needs to be treated for insects and weather.

As I write this entry, I am on hold, waiting for a representative to help me with my lack of DSL. The ‘on hold’ music is particularly awful; music that the word insipid describes perfectly. Who really listens to this stuff? Who is BUYING it? Someone has to be, for it continues to be produced. I wonder if I’ll ever see a collection of this stuff in one of my friends CD collections? It is also music I have never heard before. It’s like an alternate universe. Are there cocktail parties somewhere where this music is played in the background?

Or is it designed to create a certain percentage of ‘on hold’ attrition – people who just can’t take it anymore? To help tech support from being completely overwhelmed?

I’ve had a lot of response to the question of where the good music is. Thanks. Keep it coming.

As I was cutting 2x8’ boards I’ve was also thinking about the script. Good work -- multitasking is good. Just don’t lose a finger. Now, outside, the office window, I see that the hedges need cutting. It’s something I better do before I attempt to get back to real work, lest it distract me further down the line.

Oop – A representative is going to help me now, I hope.

Question of the day –

What kind of a tree is this?

Pay to be frustrated

Minwax Polyshades suck!
Minwax polyshade crap!
Terrible experience with Minwax polyshade.

There, let google find that and dutifully archive, database and store it.

I’m hoping that I can save someone else from the disappointment and frustration that has been my weekend. See, after looking at a lot of DVD shelves, and not seeing what we were looking for, I decided to build one myself. I designed it in 3d, found out that tempered glass is not too expensive, and researched all kinds of wood, to find what would be the best method of building it. We wanted it to match what we have going on in our “home theater” part of the living room, so Cherry was the color we were looking for.
I decided to go with Poplar – cheap, hard, but easy to use. The thing built quickly – and looked just like my 3d design.  Finishing time, more research – but not enough. I decided to go with Minwax Polyshade Cherry – in order to get the stain and top coat done in one job. Big mistake. The stuff is impossible to work with if you have anything but a flat surface. It takes the worst properties of both varnish and stain and combines them. Basically, if you have an area that is uneven at all, you can’t rub it out like a stain and it WILL darken – like a stain. The stuff drips like varnish, but doesn’t dry like varnish. Basically, it’s like molasses. If you go over it more than twice, it becomes a sticky, mess.
How did this stuff leave the lab?

UGGH!
So, I’m writing this blog as I wait for the stripper to do its job. Meanwhile, an old fashioned can of stain awaits its destination.

There, let Google database that!

So, why is Stefan Avalos, filmmaker, writing about making bookshelves? Well, because I like to. Sometimes I think that the filmmaking process is a means to an end – I need to create, to build, and making movies allows me to do that on many levels. It’s a “jack of all trades” art form.

Lousy Minwax polyshade stain not withstanding, the house continues to come together. I have actually had a chance to start thinking about writing again. I couple new ideas have been floating around, but for now they’ll stay notes, as I work on getting Diamond Road to the next level.

If you found this blog to be boring, please realize, it’s a public service – for anyone who intends to use Minwax Polyshades and does a little research first, I will hopefully have saved them incredible frustration.

A New Place

We’ve moved.
Off the hill, onto the next chapter in our life.

It is one of the reasons that I haven’t updated this blog in quite some time. I simply haven’t been in front of a computer. Me. Can you imagine?

The past several weeks have been spent in a world of boxes and questions about where to put things. As moves go, it was about as easy as one could hope for. That said, they always suck.

I also have no DSL at the moment, which is killing me. I was able to get the satellite up and running, rewire some telephone lines to the office, and get the theater set up. These things make me feel more in touch, however, with no internet, I am truly lost. I wonder what my email will be like when I finally get back on it?


The Crawl Space

This new house has a crawl space that goes under the entire house. I was pleased to find this because it meant that running cables and wires would be easier. Squatting at the entrance though, with my halogen light shining into the depths, I was reminded that I really don’t like spelunking, or caving – whichever word you like - and this was going to be pretty similar – approximately three feet of height to crawl around in, extremely powdery dirt floor, and the remains of thousands of spiders hanging above. After about ten minutes of staring at this, psyching myself up and trying to figure out the best way to find an audio cable I had dropped through the living room floor, somewhere down here - I started in. Even though the temperature was cool, it still got hot fast. As I crawled deeper into the space, the three foot height became two, and criss-crossing pipes caused me to have to figure a route out. I pulled myself along on my stomach at some points, hoping I wouldn’t have to back out. Without much problem though, I did find the wire I had run through the wood floor above me. The modern cable was easy to spot in this otherwise dusty world. Then, as I swung the light around to go back, something caught my eye. An area of the crawl space about twelve feet away seemed to be walled with old packing crate wood. I pulled myself toward it with the work-light and as I neared, saw the dirt ground drop off into what looked like an old cellar. With the bright work light casting harsh shadows, and my face being only two feet from the ground, I couldn’t see the floor of the old room, so I had no idea whether it was two feet or ten feet deep. Several old cast iron water pipes prevented me from getting any closer, but I figured that with a different route, I could get there. Having inhaled dirt for about twenty minutes, I was getting in desperate need of fresh air, so I turned toward the distant entrance. As I swung the light away, I caught a glimpse of one of the inner walls of the ancient cellar. Hanging from them were several art deco paintings - women, in ethereal settings, wearing little clothes.

I crawled back to the entrance and sunlight and was very happy to stand up and stretch my back.

Later, I told Marianne about the mysterious room I had discovered underground, and immediately she wanted to see it. Moments later, we left the sunny day, entering the crawl space entrance and the dusty underbelly of the house.

We edged toward the area and figured out a route that would not be blocked by pipes. The bottom of the cellar slowly became visible as I got closer with the light, and finally I was able to see that it was about five feet deep. I crawled over the edge and jumped down. Marianne followed. In the cellar, we were able to stand with no problem, and thus were able to examine it at leisure. It was not large, maybe ten feet across. An old wooden staircase led up to where the office now was. A light switch was mounted to a beam and the old wire led to a fixture hanging from the ceiling, complete with an old bulb. And the pictures -- It was now possible to look at them closely. When touching them, it was plain to see how old and fragile they were. The coolness of the ground had preserved them, but they were still ready to turn to dust.
Some had fallen from the wall to the floor, which we gingerly picked up. After studying the space for a while, the dusty air started to get to us. We climbed up the ledge and then began the crawl back, following the extension cable as our return path to fresh air and sunlight.

With us, came the pictures that had fallen to the floor. We left the rest below for someone in the future to discover. I think we’re going to frame them. It’ll make for fun conversation. In the meantime – here they are.






































It is interesting. Even though this house is new on the surface – recently redone, it has already exhibited a more interesting past then the one in which we made a ghost story.

Sometime, I’ll tell you the story of the devil-dog statue I found when I was in high school.

Now, I must unpack some more boxes, or perhaps try to clear some more brush out of the backyard.