flaming mops / ice chunks

this is what my driveway looks like today. crusty, dirty, partially melted snow muck. i thought this particular bit of it was intriguing.

i've been more or less a workaholic the last week, preparing to purchase the building that will become, in part, the movie studio. the prior owners have mostly cleared it out and it's looking mighty tasty. i can't wait to get my hands on it. i'm not sleeping all that well, worrying about all the little details that have to be attended to before the sale can close.

on top of all that, there was a fire in my big building. thank goodness a friend happened to be in the space when it started and managed to put it out before it did much damage (not much means around $10,000 to $20,000!). it's amazing what a little fire burning for about two minutes can do. crazy. advice: do not store mops anywhere near hot water heaters.

i've continued my home-brew-film-school, watching at least one movie a night and consuming yet more movie-making books. as the date nears for the studio to be mine, i'm seriously contemplating what exactly it is that i will make. i've never quite had this opportunity before, and i'm very excited to allow my creative endeavor to expand in my 3000 or so square feet. i'm also particularly interested in what other people might be interested in doing in the space.

get real

houses, studios, babies, faeries, films

in less than two weeks i'll be purchasing the future studio building for dreamland, the vision for which has shifted dramatically over the past year but now seems to be stabilizing in the form of a filmmaking soundstage that can be used for events as well. this weekend, the radical faeries are coming up to white river junction for their annual meeting and will be staying at our place. gabriel and i have been working hard the past few days to get our shower project done. we tiled all weekend. we started the project a year ago! tomorrow, gabriel and i are travelling to boston to see the moms and the boys and catch a matinée (and maybe get a couch). meanwhile, other projects are on hold, such as the house i was trying to buy and the purchase of the land across the street, both of which have been tangled up variously. i am working on drawings for my parent's house in california, which is a simple but dramatic reworking of the windows and some interior partitions. i'm also working on a house for two friends in new hampshire. and soon, very soon, i'll be working on the graphics for white river indie films, which will be showing fourteen independent films at the tip top at the end of april. it looks like a great slate this year.

winner

the results are in. people like the facade design pictured here. i concur. i like the large areas of color. the next step is to figure out how to make those areas of color happen. they could be made of stained natural wood, or untreated wood of various species (it wouldn't be so vibrant), or possibly cement-fiber board, which is durable. i saw a building in los angeles that was done with fiber-board. it's pictured here, too.

dreamland design

before


after

i've been working this weekend on new designs for the dreamland theater and office building. my business partner and i already went through a round of design and permitting but we decided the project was too ambitious, with a third floor, an extension off the front, and significant rehab of the interior. so, we're now playing with a less ambitious scheme, and i'm finding it's a lot of fun to work with just what you have. limits are the source of so much creativity.

so, the top picture is how the building looks today. the bottom is a model i've been playing with. because our budget is limited, our radical move is going to be to re-skin the front facade and change the shape somewhat. i'm leaning toward bright colors. power poles are ubiquitous in white river junction, so we decided to use them for decoration as opposed to spending near $100,000 to have the power buried.

i'm curious what you think. there are 27 different and flavors of this in a web gallery located here. take a look. let me know what you like.

if you're curious about the materials, we're thinking we will strip the vinyl exterior and replace it with additional insulation sealed with a rainscreen over which will go decorative natural wood, stained or untreated, or alternatively painted or stained cement-board. the first floor street level will be mostly glass curtain wall for retail or public-oriented businesses. the theater/soundstage is out back, down an alley. haven't got to designing that yet.

dreamland website

for anyone interested in staying abreast of developments at dreamland, i've just put up a really simple website. eventually, it will list events and describe what and how you'll be able to use dreamland. you can also sign up to be on an email list.

www.dreamlandwrj.com.

soundstage

i had a great meeting today with jane applegate, who will be the executive producer for dreamland. the concept for dreamland has developed in an exciting new direction, just minutes ago. time will tell if it sticks, but we were thinking about the decor for the theater, what kind of theme it might evoke, and how it might operate not only as a theater but as an event space. and then it occurred to me, partly because i'd been thinking about where i might be able to shoot scenes with sets the past couple days, why not make the space a bona-fide mini-soundstage? most of the elements would be more or less there anyway: lighting, sound, video projection, some staging, and a big open floor with tall ceilings. so, i'm running with this idea. the picture is not the space, just inspiration. lovely, naked, functional space.

i've always had a feeling that white river could be home to some small independent film production. a number of filmmakers live and work in the area. it also serves my desire to have the space be a creative place, rather than a consumer driven thing. so, coming to dreamland will invite you participate, create, join in, and experience. when you enter, you'll be not only witnessing some kind of show or event, you'll be in a space that's infused with creative energy and tools. i think this is pretty cool. it will also allow me to spend money i would have otherwise dedicated to decor on better lighting and other studio gear because the decor will be "soundstage." the bar will be "kraft service."

camera envy

i've been drewling over this camera for the last month, ever since having used one to shoot documentary footage for a friend in new orleans. i'm promising myself i will not even think about buying one until i have a project worthy of the price. it's not a super expensive camera, as they go, but more than pocket change. you could buy a decent used car for the price.

the picture quality is stunning. having worked with standard video for years now, my first shoot with this camera knocked my socks off. i'm used to what is now called standard video, in which approximately 480 horizontal lines of picture make up each frame. by comparison, 35mm film, which is what is used to shoot most motion pictures today, can resolve in the range of 2000 to 3000 lines (however, according to a paper i just read, by the time it's printed and projected in a theater the resolution drops to somewhere in the 700-800 line range). this camera, the sony pmw-ex1, resolves about 1000 lines, which by comparison is apparently better than what you'll see at most movie theaters. hot damn! the color quality is half that of more expensive broadcast cameras and a quarter that of the most expensive (as in $200,000!), but if you're in a situation where you need higher color fidelity, the camera can output it via cable to a recorder or computer, a really nice feature.

i'm also used to video looking, in my opinion, like hell, especially when outdoors in high contrast situations. back when i shot film in my still camera, super-8 and 16mm cameras, i could usually manage to keep the sky, faces, even shadows, within the range of the film, meaning each of those areas would have some tone. with video, i've always grimaced at having to choose what to let go, shadows or highlights. this is mainly because i use cheap video cameras, and don't spend much time with lighting, but it's also partly the result of the narrow range of electronic image gathering. this new camera, to my delight, had adjustable response curves and several presets that allow you to set up the camera to respond much more like film so that the sunny side of a face, for instance, doesn't bleach out but maintains tone at the same time the bicycle in the shadows of a tree is still visible. hot damn, again.

okay, one more thing: this camera seems to have a real lens. what i mean is that the usual three controls, focus, iris and zoom, each have physical rings that you can turn to adjust manually, which makes shooting, for me anyway, so much more enjoyable. i'm not a fan of automatic.

there are a number of other manufacturers making similar cameras today. i can't vouch for any of them, but from what i've read and seen on sites comparing them, this camera has lots to offer for very low budget independent filmmakers. now, if i can crank out a script that i feel is worth shooting, maybe i'll get one.

dreamland

soon, downtown white river junction will have a new venue for movies, music and other laudable entertainments (no, not the wrap, our infamous strip club that burned down a while back). this is the back door, soon to be the stage door. in about a month, i will be purchasing, along with a business partner, a downtown building and converting the back 3000 square feet into the dreamland theater. the plans are by no means set in stone, but the concept is to create a space in which almost anything can happen that requires projection, amplification, lighting and an audience, all of which excite me! i'm hoping for lots of experimentation. i'm very excited to be able to use the space myself for projection of my movies and god knows what all else, maybe even some performance. there will be a bar that will serve a variety of beverages and food so that coming to dreamland will be sort of like going to a giant living room with creature comforts and all your friends. i've been scheming with a variety of people about producing programs at dreamland which will vary from indie film to indie music to indie theater. indie seems to be the key word. the space will be able to hold about 130 people sitting and more standing. during the day i'm hoping the space will be used as a community auditorium where lectures and presentations can be made. we are sorely lacking a place for this kind of thing in downtown. the rest of the building will be renovated as office space, some of which is already leased and some of which is available. talk to me!

ideas

over the weekend i took time to re-read a couple screenplay writing books i've had for years. the curious thing about every screenplay book i've picked up is that they all describe the same structure for narrative films, which is: 30 pages of act one, 60 pages of act two, and 30 pages of act three, each page corresponding to roughly one minute on screen. act one and act two are punctuated by "plot points" near their end which turn the movie in a new direction, either towards conflict in act one or resolution in act two. i remember the first time i saw this formula and how i thought, "that is so lame." i couldn't believe that all my beloved feature films followed this structure. but, in fact, almost all of them do. apparently this structure derives from vaudeville, which early films imitated, and is partially what we expect and love when we go to see a feature film.

feeling rich with possibility from sucking up so much advice over the weekend, last night i suddenly felt overwhelmed. i was thinking things like, "how do you even start?" "where do the ideas come from?" i ought to know by now, having created my whole life, but it seems i'm forever susceptible to this "blank canvas" panic. perhaps one just has to get used to it. but, this morning i thought, wait, i take notes all the time with my camera. it's kind of my idea catcher. so, voila, a hundred ideas poured into my head. fear is the gatekeeper.

this way

although i am supposed to be doing other things, i have been obsessing on filmmaking. it's my pattern to do this. the only downside to my habit is that i tend to overdose and flame out which means i attend to my interests sporadically as recovery permits! it would be nice to nurture a smoother approach, but, it may just not be in my cards. i also tend to obsess on details but only those that are easy to reach, such as things on the internet or things that i can manipulate in my mind.

it occurred to me today that much of what makes people seem old is the weight of their aspirations. the older one gets, the more one may have aspired to this and that and the more you aspire, especially if you aspire unrealistically, the more you don't get done, so life starts to seem like a long list of unaccomplishments. this may be just my take, but i feel my energy surge when i keep my goals clear and simple, and specifically focus on one thing. as a teenager, with the structure of my life defined for me (and little past to ponder), focusing was easy. as an adult, i think it's possible to maintain a similar focus, but it requires discipline to keep minutiae from taking over. for example, it's easier to sit around and answer email and surf the web than to actually create something. like any good story, i think life requires structure in order to succeed.