wild abandonment

previously published by me elsewhere:

After the last time I posted here I was starting to feel that I had no real interest in continuing rambling on about my life and moderate mental goings-on. After all, the last thing I needed was another distraction.

You know, sometimes most on-line journals feel to me like commentary tracks on any given DVD. No matter how bad the film turned out, the one thing the filmmakers avoid presenting over the course of those two hours of esoteric humor, vocalized pauses, and ego stroking is some much needed self-flagellation or honesty about the temperamental nature of creation.

I guess this is because flaws and human error can be the difference between having a career and not having a career in the entertainment business. That is unless you attain the mythical status of "celebrity".

It seems that the more flawed a celebrity, the more human they become to the rest of us mortals. Together we can all bond over our collective need for rehab, don'tcha know?

Not so with a filmmaker. Flaws mean you are incapable of "delivering". Nobody wants to know that you are a procrastinator, or frequently late, or impulsive with money, or legally blind. None of these things look very good to an outsider, but they are all the sort of weaknesses we all share.

In an extreme way, it goes back to what I'll call the Michael Jackson/Woody Allen Syndrome, which I view as the inability to separate the human being from the artistic creation.

One perspective would have it that the two are inseparable and therefore the judgment of one dictates the quality of the other, and another could conclude that the artist is merely a vessel through which the art flows and nothing more, thereby making the creation the only thing of note regardless of how it arrived.

Since the last time I posted here several very intense, physically and psychologically taxing weeks of shooting occurred on the most recent horror flick. The clock was ticking, and our deadline to wrap was July 12th. Unfortunately we didn't make it, and we are left with an incomplete movie, and an uncertain occasion to attempt a re-group to pull together the remaining scenes.

Our cinematographer hopped a flight out of town to spend a bit of time in front of the camera, our make-up specialist focused his attention on getting a gig with Halloween Horror Nights, and who knows what has become of several others.

My nature demands a fair balance of space and company. I have pulled away from it all a bit, back into my shell, back into the woodwork of Gainesville, uncertain whether any post-production activities are taking place.

I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately, tearing through several old layers of flesh and really getting into a several month late personal spring cleaning.

I have finally gotten back to work on my own scripts, which is something I never like to be too far away from. It's a blessing and a curse to be your own boss, and to manage your own time, and to demand everything of yourself. There's also a huge freedom in holding the reins over the creation of it all.

Well, unless of course I'm merely a vessel.