Okay, lets just do this quickly: it has been almost two and a half months since I last posted on the blog. Very lame. But, I've got some excuses....for starters....I got a little busy directing a Coca-Cola commercial. Finally got around to putting some pics up....
The top pic is of the crew, and without the crew literally nothing would have happened. The best thing about the whole Coke experience is that because its such a cool opportunity you get to meet and work with some of the best people who just bring everything together. Pre-production for the commercial was crazy. We had a very ambitious project and not a lot of time AND I had some already-planned trips to Chicago that made casting and location scouting very tricky.
But the three weeks of hellish pre-pro were followed by three days of heavenly production. Everyone in the cast and crew was spectacular. We had a lot of stuff to pull off and we got everything that we needed everyday, and it looked fantastic.
(BTW: the fella behind the camera in pic #3 is our cinematographer, a USC grad student a few semesters ahead of me who did an amazing job)
Anyway, thats excuse #1. Coke ended in mid-December...why no posts? Well, excuse #2 is that I spent that time in the greatest city in the world.
CHICAGO!!!!!!
So, yeah, between Christmas, New Years, a hunting trip, a Chicago-winter sports tri-fecta, and a (fantastically, amazingly, unbelievable) fun WEDDING...the posts were few and far between. Or, more accurately, totally non-existent.
Now, though, I am back in L.A., finally have my classes figured out, and am ready to take on what I'm betting is gonna be big year: TWENYTEN.
I'm very excited for 2010. I think we can all agree that, for the most part, 2009 was not the "fun" year. It was more like "the year that started out kinda fun but became more and more of an asshole and got really tiresome by the end". Now we got a whole new decade and I've got a good feeling about the lead-off year.
Actually, 2010 may very well be my last year at USC and so I kinda HAVE to make it a big year, lest I falter and end up as the only shelf-restocker at Blockbuster with an M.F.A.
In the spirit of my final year as a film student, me and a bunch of my classmates went on the USC trip to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Here's a glimpse at what the last 4 days have roughly been:
It was AWESOME. I love a good Irish coffee.
Sundance was just people who make movies and love movies coming together in the cold and snow to watch movies and talk movies and do their damndest to get drunk despite the sneaky 2% alcohol content of some of the beers there.
I had a real blast, but was also really inspired by the spirit of the whole thing. Usually, I'm kinda pro big budget Hollywood and a little wary of things that are "hipster" or "indie" but I drank some of that organic, gluten-free, environmental-friendly Kool-aid and kinda liked it. No: loved it.
Best example is there was this great movie by these brothers who are the super-low budget rock stars of Sundance, who first got in the fest in 2004 with a short film that cost $3.
Their names are Jay and Mark Duplass and they had this film called "Cyrus" that we got into the premiere of(Pic #3). It stars John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill (who, by the way, was on our tiny flight from LAX to Salt Lake City and I sat a row behind...NO BIG DEAL......it really wasnt..i didnt talk to him at all) AND Marisa Tomei, who continues to be so sexy and lovable on screen. Really cool cast.
The thing is: these guys went from a couple of brothers with some ideas and a camera who got into the short competition 6 years ago and now they've got a really funny movie that stays true to their sense of humor that's crammed with good Hollywood actors. If that's not inspiring I don't know what is.
Also, just to sum up the whole "vibe" of the festival, there was this series of shorts that they played before the movies and the one called "Tell Your Own Story" is a must see: http://www.buck.tv/work/sundance/tell-your-own-story.
All in all, a great kick-off to the semester, really got me interested in making movies again...which sounds stupid but film school, with all its "critical studies analysis of films" and "learning the craft of camera movement to tell the story" can kinda distract you from just making a f*ckin movie.
I am pumped, revitalized, re-invigorated, and ready for 2010, and keeping the blog going is gonna be a big part of that. I'm gonna try and play with things a bit more and maybe re-design it a bit...find for ways to get more photos and content and such.
But, as the great Cab Calloway said in The Blues Brothers: "Your lazy butts are in this too". Meaning, I'm going to continue to whine and starve for attention and interaction, like Tiger Woods outside of a Women's Workout World. But, instead of sex all I want is pithy comments every so often to let me know y'all are out there. Texts and FB posts are swell, but keep it on the MGH so everyone can enjoy.
Also, to feed my voracious ego, there's now a "followers" option at the bottom where you can sign up with your google or twitter or whatever and be a part of the world-wide-web party on the blog.
Stay tuned for more posts...this was, by the way, post #99, and I'm going to try and sync up post #100 (woo-hoo!) with the Coke commercial finally getting online, but I've heard that Coke's a little slow at times about keeping to their own deadlines. We'll see...
Great to be back at it....gonna keep these things coming...hopefully they'll get funnier...its has been a while and I'm a little rusty. Whatever, maybe if my comedy writing got really bad and shitty enough I could get a job working for Jay Leno.
I really do hate that man. And Jeff Zucker. Screw the 'Cock.
Its been sad, but the night is always darkest just before the dawn. Only brightness lies ahead. It's gonna be a big year. For me. For CoCo. For EVERYBODY.
T W E N T Y T E N !
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