Touching base

Sorry I haven't updated this week. I've had other duties to attend to.

Anyone following my Twitter feed knows some of this already, but I'll go for it anyway.

Firstly, I've officially wire-transferred the money to pay for the RED camera and all the accessories. In my previous post on the tripod I meant to mention this, but if you live in California and your main source of income is TV or film production/postproduction, the California State Board of Equalization is your friend. Specifically, Regulation 1532, and most specifically, Section 6378.

What is Section 6378? It is a form you fill out and present when making a purchase of any equipment that you will use more than 50% of the time for "teleproduction". It is a sales tax exemption of 5.25% -- meaning that instead of 8.25%, you pay 3% in sales tax for said equipment/products. Tripods, computers, cameras, accessories...aaaalllll gooooood.

Considering the size of the purchases I've been making, that one little form has saved me nearly $3000 in sales tax. Which means I have a cushion for making payments AND a little extra for accessories I didn't know about before.

The wire transfer takes a few days, they'll probably ship by the end of next week and it'll probably be in a week or so after that. Then we play.

Next bit of news. I finished and submitted my latest draft of The Descendants. Everyone liked the script in general and hated Act 2 in particular.

I don't blame them. Act 2 is fucked. Act 2 is always fucked. It's probably the hardest part of any script -- at least for me. Usually I'll generally know the beginning, generally know where I want to get to at the end, and it's bridging the middle bit that's the nightmare.

But I think it's almost there. I give the middle section a bit more purpose and we're ready to take it to the next step. I got some really great notes from the producers and some readers and I think this next draft might really be the one.

I've read for a few friends in return, one script and one treatment. Luckily both by good writers. Both stories have potential, and I like wrestling with other peoples' ideas, seeing what I can do to make them more interesting to me. Giving notes is always a subjective thing, so I just focus on what I think would fascinate me and get me talking after a film.

Good stuff all around but a lot of writing (especially the giving notes part; I try to be thorough), so my writing muscles needed a rest from the blog.

I'll probably go light this weekend, but I've got a few YouTube vids to share so that should make up for my silence this week.