C I R C L E S C I R C L E S C I R C L E S

this weekend was entirely too short. i had a bit of a moment earlier today when i realised that i was going back to work at kcet tomorrow. its the same old same old... on one hand its great, but on the other... its not work i want to be doing. i just have to stay positive or else im gonna do my head in.

so yeah, jose and i caught the lollipop girls in hard candy on friday. honestly, i didnt know it was going to be HARDcore... i mean, it only had one x... despite being tired and seeing colors after, it was pretty damn fun.

jose and i have resolved to collaborate on something after i finish this draft of marathon. he's leaning toward sci-fi, but ill have to see what he considers "sci-fi." whatever the deal, it should be... interesting.

saturdays have a tendency of ending much too early, especially when youre in good company and/or sneaking through backyards.

lots of weird dreams lately. thats it. thats all im going into on that issue.

i need to do something. i need to direct something. im going crazy.

jane, get me off this crazy thing called... limbo (?)

H A !

told ya suckas id do it.

as promuised to myself and (i guess) others, i finished the second draft of my romantic dramedy only some two years after starting it again for the third time (long story... dont ask)... suffice to say it started off as an overreaching melodrama about teen angst and drugs... yes, i was a teen when i wrote it.

now? well now its an overreaching pretentious romantic dramedy about love, lies, passion, and art. BOX OFFICE GOLD.

as you might have read earlier, i was tooling around trying to change the title.

back in the day (the teen angst days) it was called:

children don't breathe underwater

when it changed to a romantic dramedy, i appropriately dropped the "children" and kept the "underwater"... as there are several references to the ocean, being in over your head, etc, etc.

well, nine or ten years later, i was beginning to feel that it really didnt fit the tone anymore. it isnt loose or selfeffacing or absurd as the script now kinda lies...

so, the new title (with some thanks to christian) is... and no, i dont give a shit what you mutha fuckers think of it...

the self portrait of a pretentious bastard

oh well, ill probably hate it in the morning.

be that as it may, the important part is that ive finished a draft, and im actually happy with it. well, happy enough to show it to people and possibly have it represent me out there...

so, tomorrow i crack open the files again and pull out the last draft of marathon (to be retitled as well...).

until then, ill catch all y'all on the flip side.

(time for some geometry wars and bioshock, tee-hee)

-jrh

U M . . . S C O R E ? ( ! ! ! )

ok, so... im just gonna start off by letting you know im tired. i really dont know why im up at the moment. well, i know why im up, but i dont know if thats the best thing for me right now... expect incoherence... like this...

jesus, im rambling.

n-e-way.

woke up dizamn early after a pretty kick ass night. lots of good friends [new and not seen in quite a while (my awesome "psychic" abilities amazed and creeped us out a few times...)], good food, and good music... and what?! ... i danced?

long story short(er); late(ish) night, early morning.

woke up at 6? no, lets be honest, 6:30 to be at margo's by 7:30 to help her clan move from silverlake to south pas. i was called in black-ops like to handle THE office. (michael, margo's husband is a photographer, and he has an office in the garage with tons of computer stuff and lots of odds and ends).

it was supposed to be pretty quick, but yeah, took the whole day. despite the heat, it was quite a bit of fun. no sunset junction... but fun (sorry, i didnt flake, i passed out when i got home for an hour and have been zombie-ing around the apartment ever since).

toward the end of packing up, margo found a box of old film critique magazines (pictured above). she cherry picked a couple and passed me about 30 kick ass issues of '50s/'60s awesomeness (more on those in other blogs... frickin' sweet).

almost right after that, michael found a box with these:


a beautiful slr minolta with three pristine prime lenses (28mm, 55mm, and 200mm) and 10-15 mixed filters. im back in motha-fuckin'-analog-business. its been almost 9 years since ive had a working FILM camera.

expect a LOT of photos from me again :)

and expect to see them here.

ok, enough dilly-dallying here, gotta do at least a couple of pages on dont breathe underwater.

good night and sweetest dreams.

-jrh

U P F O R A I R

dont breathe underwater

the script's a mess.

shambles.

incoherent.

but in a good way. i feel like ive finally torn it apart enough to get at the sinew. cutting away the bullshit. this just might work if i dont over think it (if i dont over fuck it).

i think my initial problem was that i got too detailed to soon. i didnt keep it loose (as an outline/general story), and now ive had to jumble it all up and get my hands dirty. draw out a spine and ribs and hips to rest it all on (last comes the head with all the "ideas" -- "larger" metaphysical bullshit... but thats much later... kinda, always balance, ALWAYS).

im getting there. im finding my process. its in here somewhere. now that im done with the notes, i've set a deadline (for this and for marathon)

ive got to get this stuff together so i can get out there. im in the jeep and its heading for the cliff. ive got to undo these handcuffs and JUMP THE FUCK OUT.

mark it on your calendar:

august 22: dont breathe underwater draft due
august 31: marathon draft due

watched the da vinci code (2006) last night. jesus (haha), it would have been painful if it wasnt for audrey tautou and sir ian mckellen. i almost forgot how important it is to watch bad films as it is to watch good ones... but really? THAT was a huge novel? sigh... americans...


(im gonna fill in the rest of my moleskine with drawings and sketches.)

C I N E M O R T I S

it turned out to be a damn good weekend. friday, i met up with jose over at the nuart to catch some godard. the more and more i see of his films, the more i think he was one of the closest to achieving true art in cinema. anyway, jose and i hit up cafe 50s right after for a little later night gorging (mmm, onion rings...). ive also started reading a biography on godard. i keep remembering that i dont know NEARLY enough about my art/craft.

saturday... well saturday was spent surrounded by dead people (or at least former people) at the hollywood forever cemetery under the tutelage and wisdom of travis bickle [note to self: not everyone (apparently) loves chocolate as much as i do...]. it was probably the most fun... no, it was the most fun ive had in a cemetery (sorry jose). it was a great night under the stars and city, but the company might have made it the best... maybe.

yeah, this definitely isnt my best passage of writing, but i am a bit tired. im gonna try and watch marie antoinette before i pass out and wake up to call back production companies in the morning... little scared about that, oh well. im an impatient bastard and i dont want to slip through the cracks.

'night.

I N L I M B O

IVE finally finished putting my reel together, called all the production companies... and tomorrow... i mail em out.

im stressed.

ive been told i have a fair amount of confidence... probably more like cockiness. and i supposedly possess it in spades. even so, im more than a little worried. what if i dont get any work out of this? what if no one even calls back to tell me im a hack? was all this effort and drama for nothing? what then? what do i do?

this isnt a joke. im not angling for ego massage (i get plenty... thanks chris ;) i am seriously concerned. this kinda is my future after all...

bit of a step here.

i guess i just do what ive always kinda done. keep calm and carry on.

i still have the scripts (dont breathe underwater and marathon)... but not getting work as a director would be a bit of a set back at the moment. demoralising moments have a tendency to wear on you...

oh well. be that as it may... im working on dont breathe at the moment... well, not THIS moment... but im working on it instead of marathon, and now that ive gotten dont breathe more or less straightened out it feels... right. finally. im not sure how much longer its going to take to get it completely together, but i am making progress... and its honestly been tough. like ive said a million times, its always so hard to write about something so close to home... but finishing this is turning into a way of getting on i guess... i just hope its funny. i think it is. the best thing to do in a comedy is punish the shit out the main character isnt it? mission accomplished then :)

im watching shizukanaru ketto (the quiet duel, 1949) directed by kurosawa akira. its fucking amazing. only six years into his career and he was already producing master level works... christ. i mean, its not perfect (the premise is quite far fetched) but the story is told with such a deft hand... im simply in love with every frame. and to think that they had pretty terrible equipment in japan at the time... i really dont know how they did it. its a shame too few people have been exposed to japanese cinema (or just asian cinema in general). i mean, i have no illusions, i know i havent seen NEARLY enough... but, jesus, what ive seen so far... i cant even explain it. its just beautiful.

alright, ive gotta go fold resumes and print shipping labels. see you soon.

-jrh

ps. listen to some feist will ya?