I've been spending most of my spare time these days to working on a side job- that'll hopefully allow me to buy a Canon HV-30- and in getting my health checked out.  About three weeks ago I did do a comedy shoot.  I've still to edit it though I have to get it done before the 15th if I want to submit it to the local festival.  Though the cholesterol and pain medicine I take in the evening make it nearly impossible to stay up late.  Even now I'm staying at my computer wondering how I'm going to stay up another couple of hours to get something workable out for this client.

        

Did my second big shoot today.  I was stressed out a lot last night and this morning but it ended up going pretty good.  Hot muggy rooms are never fun from all the lights and people, but I think it still went well.  I think the two biggest reasons:  I had a list of shots I needed, I had a checklist of all the items I needed for the shoot, and I DID NOT ACT.  I really don't know how some do it, except that they have like thousands of people behind them to make their job easier so they can pop in front of the camera.  There was four actors and three crew- including me- and then one extra.  I was hoping to make two quick vids but by the time we finished filming Out of Air we only had like twenty minutes left and the lead for the next vid had another gig at 3.  But I hope next time I can figure out how to do multiple sketches  in less than four hours.  

        

        

Today is day one of vacation and so far I've spent this morning working on my latest sketch.  Of course it's been full of time wasters from the get go.  I setup my light bulb explosion contraption.  Wrap foil around the top of the fixture and then tape some ice in there so the water will drop on to the hot light bulb.  Onlyyyyyyy, I couldn't find one of my 100 watt light bulbs.  I only had a 60 watt one.  So first time the ice took forever to melt but no explosion!  However while setting up the other lights, one of my tungsten 120w flood lights blew up.  Maybe there are ghosts!  Wasn't too much velocity, looked like the big end of the bulb just decided to detach and it feel to the ground to a million pieces.  

        

I'm incredibly excited for the rest of the week.  I'm taking off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to work on my best commercial script concept.  I'll finally be able to use that 11am caffeine high.  Even better today, the numbness hasn't come back.  At least nothing more than normal.  Still not sure what caused it.  Haven't taken any Alleve or inhaler this morning.  Though from looking on wrongdiagnosis.com it quickly becomes apparent how many people have spent thousands of dollars on medical tests only to not find any result.  That's the main thing that bugs me with the House show.  Thanks Dr. House for saving my life.  I could've died and left my family with a 100k life insurance plan but now I can stay alive with 500k in debt. 

I'm going to film another Malmood tonight, but then I have to switch to more girly humor.  No more dick jokes!  The main difference between guy humor and girl humor is girl humor is usually situational and guy humor is usually debasing one liners.  Guys are interseted in demeaning the status of others.  Girls are interested in getting a status guy.  So it's about the obstacles and clumsy luck they come across in that pursuit.  If you read most embarassing moments in a Seventeen magazine, it's all about silly things they did to a guy they wanted to impress or on a first date.

I've got a new drug I'm on, Concerta.  I'm hoping this will help me stay focused.  I've already noticed some improvements this week.  If I can become a superman worker again through drugs, I've got no problem with that Tom Cruise.  Better than having to rely 100% on caffeine for energy and oomph.  I'd rather not have to drink caffeine ever again, but we'll see if that ever happens.  Maybe if I start exercising since the caffeine is mainly a crutch for the high sugars.

        

This week has been interesting.  While I have hopes of developing some ideas and getting some stuff down, the focus and attention isn't there.  But especially over the last couple of months the attention problems have gotten really bad.  It's a major challenge to get any type of productive work done, writing or regular.

        

I've been sort of lazy the last couple of weeks.  At least got another video out this week to keep my howtobeterrorist.com channel going and have been trying to secure a location for another comedy series idea I got.  But I decided I need to work up some money to be able to at least pay for a camera man.  I negotiated with a friend and got an after hours assignment that will pay me enough to buy a Canon HV30 when I complete that.  The camera quality looks awesome and you can get kits on ebay that include the aluminum case and wide angle lens amongst other things.  When I think about getting that camera it motivates me to work.  I'm not sure how I can restructure that for my day job.  It's sad but somehow imagining my kids homeless isn't as inspiring as having a high quality HD camcorder.  Maybe I can imagine my kids holding HD cameras?

But I also scheduled some vacation to see if I can spend some dedicated time on a commercial script.  I know I can sell a story and I have awesome creative power.  I just need to get the bleepin script written.  Well, back to work.

        

Went to a local promotion last night for Jesse Borrego and Danny De La Paz.  I think in the long run film making is just about setting social networks and connections.  My assignment's producer, Yolanda, was there.  She introduced me to Jesse and othes there.  She's always been real good about that.  Here she is standing in for a picture with Jesse and Danny.  Jesse's latest role was on Dexter as "The Skinner" or George King.  Of course, is it really appropriate to tell another person, "Hey, you were a great serial killer!"  Then Danny De La Paz has been on many films, but most memorable for his roles in cult classics American Me and Boulevard Nights. 

        

I think this week and last week I've made myself severely sleep deprived.  And then when it comes to controlling my temper and paranoia, I think all my inhibition goes out of the window.  I swear I'm likely to turn into my cousin Woody, who believes the democratic primaries were rigged to push out Dennis Kucinich as a contender.  I'm not really sure how I would fair on an eighteen day shoot.  I'm sure it would be one hundred percent madness.  Maybe I'll see if I can go see a movie.  

        

Organizing a script reading on Saturday at 1pm.  I'm hoping to this time get most of the direction out of the way on characters so everyone can be prepared for the next film shoot.

Tested the laser pen out yesterday.  Seeing what type of effects can be created when the laser is diffused across various surfaces.  One cool thing, if I shoot the green laser through yellow oil it appears red in the oil. 

I think the Vietnam story assignment is pretty much over.  Weird to move on to the next project now.  Now if I can keep the focus of giving one night a week to the screenwriting.