"Week" Sauce: Monday / Tuesday

Man, I really need to stop making blog promises, or "blogasises", I just can't seem to keep to 'em.

But, got a pretty good reason - last night I didn't get to post cuz I was a bit wiped from attending the 2nd annual Chicago-LA Link event: a little shindig for entertainment industry-types in LA with hometown roots in Chicago. I got to go last year and it was pretty awesome; year two did not disappoint.

Lou Malnatti's, Portillos and Eli's Cheesecake were just a few of the food highlights I had the pleasure to sample. Oh, and a number of notable and slightly more"under-the-radar" Chicago peeps were there. Without going into too much detail - had a few drinks, met a couple of new friends / contacts, and had a perfectly valid excuse to blow off my Monday classes!

Anyway, not much else to report on RE Monday since I kinda took the day off besides the event...not to be confused with "THE EVENT", NBC's "We pretend this is the next LOST but secretly hopes it just lasts slightly longer than HEROES".

Tuesday kicks off with screne writing class in the AM, a class where we only work on different types of scenes rather than focus on a whole script.

Its fun , easy, and requires a minimum of commitment.... so its essentially like a one-night stand of screenwriting.

Tuesday night is usually something really great b/c I've got Advanced Producing class, which is taught be a current vice president of Development at Fox Searchlight - a company that is pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to indie films.

Bottom line: if you've seen a movie with an equal amount of sadness and humor with great acting performances and a notable lack of fighting space robots and fat-guy-in -a-waterslide jokes, that's Fox Searchlight.

Anyway, our guest tonight was Shonda Rhimes, a screenwriter that is best known for creating a hit show on ABC...not LOST (2nd refernence in one post? I really do have to go baaaaaack".)

No, she created a show that actually got higher ratings than LOST and is still on the air- Grey's Anatomy.

Now, I've got to come clean and say I've never seen more than 5 minutes of Grey's pilot BUT Shondra was amazing to listen to. I've made no secret for my love of the wonderful world of television and gotta say there was nothing better than listen to the creator / exec producer of one a top show recount her path and experience which included an MFA from good ole USC!

Always happy to see an alum that doesn't have to worry about student loan payments!

That'll be it for now, had a late-night webisode meeting at a bar and have an early morning webisode writing sesh at a coffeehouse.

After listening to Shondra recount her 18 hour days I will say I don't mind them at all, I just can't wait for the day to get PAID for 'em.

Or just free movie channels....I'd....I'd settle.

Week in the Life: SUNDAY

Hey, so in an attempt to try and keep bloggin with a bit more regularity, kind of like writers' Metamucil, I'm going to try and go through a week and do a blog post every day.

They're gonna be quick. Sometimes I get so set on trying to write some brilliant piece of prose and it takes an hour or whatever and then I end up taking three weeks off cuz i dont want to spend an hour writing this each day, but I figure if I start timing myself I may just get a decent update out without having to channel my inner Steinbeck.

Anyway, here goes....

Busy Sunday - the biggest time hog today was for a webisode that I'm going to be working on for a, wait for it, webisode class.

Its a new thing at USC, finally getting on to that "Internet" thing, only took a decade or two.

I guess the big delay on offering a class with web-centric content is that USC was wondering if web shows are "good enough" for their often hi-falootin' curriculum.

While, I've had my doubts about how good it really is to be successful when it comes to web series - ever heard of Clark and Michael? Chad Vader? The Office: The Mentor? - if so, kudos, because that's more webisode knowledge than I ever had before googling the whole notion for research.

BUT, I do think it can be a good way to make a name or get noticed or produce something that can show off some talent. It can also be a way to make money.

$! $! $$$$$$$$!

Maybe. If you get Old Spice to sponsor it, or something.

Anyway, the webisode that I am creating, writing, producing, etc with some classmates is tentatively entitled "THE SIN BIN".

Its about a Chicago Blackhawks fan who sells his soul to see the Hawks win the Cup. When they do, a sexy demon from hell takes his cute girlfriend away, and the fan must team up with another sexy demon to rescue his girlfriend before its too late, defeating all kinds of zombies and vampires and such along the way!

So, its like DAMN YANKEES meets ZOMBIELAND meets DANTES INFERNO. Meets the NHL NETWORK.

Pretty fun stuff.

We're going to be shooting the last two weekends in October, and I spent 4 hours in auditions today, plus a production meeting to figure out how we're going to bring these crazy ideas to the fruition in just two weeks.....

After all that, decided to "unwind" by going to ESPN Zone in downtown LA to watch the BEARS. Two problems - ESPN Zone is a overpriced, overhyped, money-grubbing excuse for a sports bar (made worse by being in LA) AND the BEARS were absolutely horrible...that o-line was so disgusting to look at I'm surprised the FCC didn't make NBC blur those sacks out...children could have been watching!

Well, thats it. Already been writing for + 20 minutes. Trying to keep it short and sweet. I wish I didn't have to be so long win-

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times: BIRTHDAY EDITION

So I thought it might be fun, since today is my something-somethingth birthday, to share a brief look back at what I can pretty well point to my "Best" and "Worst" birthdays.

I do mean best and worst actual days, not "parties near or around", which puts OKTOBERFEST out of the running.

THE BEST

Unilaterally, unquestionably, September 27, 2003 - my 19th birthday. I attended a double header at Wrigley Field in which the Chicago Cubs played the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was me, my dad, and Mike and Rob. The Cubs won both games of the double header which, combined with a LOSS by the Houston Astros, made the Cubs Central Division Champs.

The sun came out just as it was setting (it'd been a partly cloudy day) and the team ran around the field, spraying champagne on the bleacher bums. We cheered. They cheered.

It was my birthday. It was perfect. Hopes were higher than the Sears Tower.

Then we beat the Braves and played the Marlins and some shit went down that I don't want to talk about.

Which is actually a perfect segue to the.....

THE WORST

I don't know exactly what year it was, how old I was turning... I know it was one of the first few years we moved onto Montclair. So, 5 to 7 range I'm guessing.

My parents - wonderful, generous, loving people that they are - secured a dragon-shaped moon walk (big bouncy thing) for my birthday party. It was going to be awesome.

The guys came that morning and blew it up for the party that was to occur later that afternoon. Once finished, it was beautiful.... a sight to behold. A whole jumpy-dragon thing, all for me.

Too excited to wait, me and I believe some neighbors, guessing Dietzler, decided to preemptively go for a jump. And we did. And it was fun.

I was having the time of life, laughing and jumping - what a fun party this would be!

However, I started jumping a bit close to the entrance (a thin screen veil) and before you know it I was airborne and clear of the dragon.

I hit the lawn hard and, I think for the first time in my life, blacked out.

When I came to, I had the wind knocked out of me and was scared beyond belief.

As soon as friends and family came to my attention and made sure I was okay, I got as far away from that f#%*ing dragon as possible.

I think I stayed in Joey's room throughout the whole party, so that I could watch all my friends have fun on the dragon that nearly took my life.

Only came out for cake.

Miserable.



Oh well. Happy Birthday!


(to me)

Playing Catch Up

Yes, much like the slowly fading White Sox in the AL Central, I am finding myself in the unfortunate position of having to make up for many weeks of blog-neglect.

But the Twitter feed is kinda cool, right? Kind of like little blog' d'oeuvres before the main course?

(I am really enjoying this Twitter thing, BTW, and I'll explain why later this or another post)

I guess I've been procrastinating for so long mostly because there's SO MUCH to talk about and I wanted to make sure I could devote some significant time to at least graze what I've been up to.

Like I mentioned before, the big, monstrous project that cast a giant shadow over my summer like a spaceship from my favorite blockbuster ever was THE LEPIDOCTOR. The graduate thesis film that shot for ten days, had over 30 people on set everyday, and had a budget over $30,000. Compared to all the other projects I've done, this was Godzilla coming ashore.

Not to that it was a bad thing, just that it was big. This thesis film I produced this summer was one of the largest projects I've ever been a part of, and by far the biggest and most complex I've ever produced. I learned a semester's worth of information in less than one month - and not just the specific stuff like "How to Get a Film Permit in Pasadena" or "Where Do you park the cars of over 50 cast, crew and extras on a campus while 8,000 college freshman move in?"....that was an especially fun one.

But I definitely learned a lot about planning and managing a large scale production. I also became familiar behind the wheel of some rather large cargo vans and trucks. You learn very quickly why the TEAMSTERS are such a big part of the movie industry - because you've got all these trucks, carrying lighting gear, props, tables and chairs, etc and SOMEBODY has to drive them. Of course, in a student film, it ends up being the producer who is insured ie: me. I must say, though, I did enjoy my temporary time as a transo-guy. Definitely could have been a trucker in another life....or later in this one.

But yeah, overall THE LEPIDOCTOR taught me about problem solving, management, expecting the unexpected, endurance, and - perhaps most revealing - how many McGriddles it takes to keep a producer waking up at 5 am or earlier during a shoot. [The answer is FIVE McGriddles over a 10-day shoot - and I'm still alive!]

I also worked with and met a lot of great people, made new friends, and might have made an enemy with a USC film school alum from 1948.

Reminds me...I have an apology card to write.....

Anyway, barely got to breathe after we wrapped because we were already one day into the first week of classes when we had our last day. The first week is always a mess because I'm in some classes I don't want to be in and am waitlisted for other classes and all everybody does when you see them is want to go drinking.

Then I had a wedding in Ohio.

So for the past two weeks I've been doing essentially what I've done in this post now: catching up. Paying parking tickets from before the Blackhawks won the cup and cleaning new species of mold out of the neglected regions of our apartment (don't worry - everything is clean now).

There's also been some ch-ch-ch-changes: the apartment has a new roommate [Joe], USC has a new campus center, and I have a new pair of socks.


Okay, I may also have a brand new kick-ass completely awesome computer with complete HD editing capacity and a spectacular 1080i screen....but we'll get into that later.

But hey, after being on my feet for what seemed like the entire month of August, those socks were DAMN comfortable. Like my toes were drinking scotch or something....

Back .....and Better than Ever?

So, yes: I completely missed August.

But hey: I wasn't just sitting around playing Chutes and Ladders and eating Skittles - I had a tiny little 10-day thesis shoot to produce.

Plus register and start classes.

Plus go to Ohio for a wedding.

Plus end all major combat operations in Iraq.


Okay, that last one I had very little to do with BUT STILL.

Anyway, school's back and when classes start up I'm usually a bit better at keeping this up-to-date. I've got some fun stories from the thesis shoot I hope to share.

In the meantime, I have added a super hip (for 2008) new feature for the blog:

MY TWITTER ACCOUNT!

Now, I only just reactivated my account today after not having used it for a year, but I'm thinking the twitter updates [TOP LEFT] --------->

can provide little "mini-blogs" for when I don't have time to sit down and write a more complete and competent composition.

So, yes: MORE TO FOLLOW! ENJOY TWITTER IN THE MEANTIME!

mjk

one. post. per. month.

its a new idea i'm toying with...kind of a retro-throwback to the Civil War days when information was exchanged by monthly letters written in long-winded colloquial, shockingly violent and unintentionally racist language...

"Dear Momma,

Today we ran amuck on a collection of two-hundred Confederate soldiers and gutted most of thiem like chickens on Flag Day. We had so many bodies that we couldn't cross the bridge, so I asked some strong-muscled field-working negroes help us push the tattered corpses into the river. The Injuns who lived down stream got angry, but we told 'em we would fill our canteens with their children's blood if they didn't let us proceed on to, God-willing, win this Civil War. Hope the family is well; give Chipper a carrot for me!

Love, Billy"

Those were the days.

But yes, I have fallen into my usual summer trap of neglecting the blog. I suppose I could talk all about the thesis film that I am co-producing. Its the directing thesis of a USC student who's a few semesters ahead of me - he's actually the DP who made my Coke commercial look oh-so gorgeous back in '09. Its a fun project and learning a lot about what it takes to put a bigger-scale project together. Budget of over $30K, semi-professional crew that will number over twenty people, 10 days of shooting.

Needless to say it has pretty much been munching up most of my time.

I could go into more detail about the film...OR I could be lazy and just direct you to our website - - - - - > www.thelepidoctor.com

I've also been working a bunch to earn a little bit more green this summer. I'm continuing to work at the production office but also been assisting for a summer class - Music Video Production.

Now, as most will know, especially if you've read certain blog posts, I've never been an encyclopedia of musical expertise. But I took this job just so I could expand the musical horizons and learn a thing or two about the making a good music video.

Its been fantastic, because I essentially get to take the class without that added burden of making something in a very short time and I actually get paid to watch music videos and have video directors come in and talk.

Seen some great vids and its really made me want to try and shoot one next semester. Even though the one thing that I've heard consistantly is that you really can't make a career as a music video director, but its a great calling card and just a sh*tload of fun to do. You can pretty much do whatever you want in a music video and if it works - great!

Kind of like film school....

Anyway, as always, will try to keep updating this ol' thing. I guess right now have been so focused on figuring out how to move beyond film school that reporting on the details of still being in film school is starting to feel like old news.

HOPEFULLY I will start to have really exciting stuff to write endlessly about soon but in the meantime I'll pass along the more interesting points of still being in the Trojan Army as often as possible.

From Classic to Cup

So, while watching the past 72 hours unfold via phone, TV, and internet, I've had a lot of time to bemoan my current location in sunny California and decided I should try and turn my self-pity into something pithy and share a bit about why I'm so happy the Hawks are Stanley Cup Champions, even though, I will OPENLY ADMIT, the Mark of five years ago might not have felt as I do now. It's been a crazy story spanning a few years years, lots of games, and three time zones in which I think I have changed and grown, as have many Chicagoans, to be a true fan of hockey and the Chicago Blackhawks.

It was while driving on one of many trips between Glen Ellyn and Chicago while shooting "The Station" in the fall of 2007 that I heard one of my favorite Chicago sports radio personalities, Dan McNeil - of "Mac, Jurko, and Harry" - take time out from talkin' Cubs' playoff prospects to discuss for a few moments his feelings about the death of Bill Wirtz.

It was crazy, because the Cubs were playing pretty good baseball, and all Mac could do was barely contain his joy about the fact that the long-time owner of the Chicago Blackhawks was dead. "Sorry for the family, happy for the city" pretty well summed up his feelings.

I remembered that moment as the weeks went by (and the Cubs, as they're prone to do, lost in a humiliating sweep) and I saw the winds of change blow around Madison Avenue, just as Mac had predicted. Rocky Wirtz took control and a new marketing campaign - RED RISING - pushed a new image for the Hawks and the team's new stars, Kane and Toews, and became the PERFECT analogy for what would be a massive change in Chicago sports.

It was the start of a big change for me, a guy who answered "Couldn't care less" when a 2004 ESPN.com poll question asked "Do you miss the NHL?" during the NHL lockout.

I cringe thinking of that now... how young and stupid I was! But can you blame me? Mac was right - Bill Wirtz was a TERRIBLE owner and the Blackhawks often found themselves listed as one of the worst pro sports franchises on the continent. And, as a kid growing up in Chicago in the 1990s, I wonder what sports team / figure was going to capture my imagination?

Hint: NOT Curtis Enis....




CUT TO 2008, Cubs Marketing guru McDonough is named President of the Blackhawks and the Hawks are tapped to face the rival Red Wings in the Winter Classic, which would be my own magnificent introduction to live Blackhawks hockey. (I'd been to a game or two before, but that was the "Couldn't Care Less" Era)

But, seriously, how's this for a way to kick off a fan-team relationship: Wrigley Field, New Year's Day 2009, a rooftop with all the beer and mashed potatoes a man could want - and at center stage an age old rivalry between the Red Wings and the mighty Blackhawks. It was an amazing time, one that I didn't really cover here on the blog because it was during the "Dark Ages" of blogdom that happen when I go back to Chicago.

It was PERFECT - (sans for the final score, 6-4 Detroit) - the cold weather and the fun, boozy, sports-crazed atmosphere of Wrigleyville acted as the ideal cure for my maLAise from the City of Angles - notoriously "too cool" for real sports fandom or daytime highs below 50 degrees.





As 2009 got going I strove to become a better fan. I attended a Kings-Hawks game at Staples with some USC buddies and we started to form our own West Coast Hockey Club as a bit of anti-LA rebellion. Is there anything less "LA" than hockey? It's cold, the players are usually far from pretty (mullets, scars, and missing teeth) and with the so much drama happening in the last period its really hard to "Dodger" the end of the game.



The Hawks lost to the Kings, but it was a blast to watch and I was proud to be representin' CHI in a whole new way than just wearing my Cubs hat to Angels games.

Watched as much of the 2009 Playoffs as time would allow and saw the Hawks disappointing fall to the Red Wings, but all could agree that the team had played exceptionally well considering where they were coming from. Red was rising. Chicago took note.

As a Winter Classic took priority in Boston in 2010, the Blackhawks were rolling beautifully along. Got to see the Hawks in-person just once this season, but it was a great game. With seats just a few rows off the glass on Marian Hossa bobble-head night, dad, my brothers and I got to see a great game between the Hawks and Anaheim Ducks in which Hossa scored 2...falling just short of a hat trick on his own bobble-head night but player of the game nonetheless.



After the games we headed through some blistering cold to the warming glow of the Billy Goat Tavern for beers, cheeseburgers, and hopeful talk about how great the team is and what could lie ahead for the exciting young team.

Returning to LA, the hopes got even higher as I watched the Hawks split up and play for national pride in the Olympics with my ever-growing West Coast Hockey Club. After watching the amazing two USA-Canada games and eventually suffering some American defeat, I couldn't help but feel more civic than national pride, as I knew two of the best players in the Medal games would be returning to Chicago to seek a different type of hardware than a mere gold or metal disc...the CUP was all that was left for Toews, Kane and the rest.

With a little bit more free time this semester end than last, I got to follow the Hawks through every series, and even made it back to Chicago for the victory against San Jose.

Chicago was great, and no moment summed up my own grown-up Blackhawks fandom and the complete transformation of Chicago to HAWKeytown, than heading to the Billy Goat for Game 2 of the Finals in hopes of getting a ticket.

Tickets were as scarce as Cubs playoff victories, and my buddy and I were S.O.L., but it was such a testament to how hockey-crazy the city had gone. So we sat at the bar, pounding Old Styles and cheeseburgers, cheering on the Madmen from Madison Street, and I couldn't help but think back to when we went to the Billy Goat after the Ducks-Hawks game that winter and how far the team, the city, and myself had come.

Now that the Cup has come to Chicago - and I won't even pretend that my little LA-based party of one is even 1/1000000th the good time that is being had in the City of Champions right now - I decided the best way I could spend my time was to look back and track the amazing ride that I've had in just two years to get to this point now - getting choked up like JR and streaming CHI sports radio for so long I'm hearing SportsCenter updates every twenty minutes in my head at night.

Its been a one-of-a-kind journey from Classic to Cup for myself and the Hawks, and even though I haven't been able to witness the bulk of it in person in Chicago, I've been able to enjoy this ride in my own, strange, transcontinental way. Even with my family and friend Hawks fans back home, I don't know if I'd be quite the Blackhawks fan - and I do believe that even after just two years I can call myself a true fan - without my West Coast Hockey buddies to watch and talk shop with out here on LaLa Land.

I'd like to say I wouldn't have it any other way but that might not be entirely true.... but I've already got the perfect solution.

Let's just do this again next year!

I'll make sure to plan more accordingly next time.

CONGRATULATIONS CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS - STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!