And now for something completely WordPress

I officially shifted the blog to WordPress hosting -- which you'd know if you were checking it via DorkmanScott.com! For shame.

Anyway, that's where I plan to post new posts from here on. All posts and their comments to date have been transferred over, so it'll be like nothing changed, aside from the look. See you there!

New Job Joys

So as a brief note, I've landed a full-time visual effects gig for the next couple of months with Digiscope. I can't say yet what I'm working on, I'm afraid, but I think I will be able to by the time the trailer hits.

This isn't my first experience with working at an FX house. I had a brief stint at Glowgun at the end of last year working on Feast 3 (which I assume is safe for me to say since they've already added it to my IMDB profile). But this is the first time working on a high-budget, high-profile movie that will see a wide theatrical release. But again, I can't say more than that right now.

I've got a ten-hour workday and I've still got a bunch of personal projects that need my attention in the off-hours, so while I'm not suspending blog activity, I'm going to shift the focus for a little while. Instead of the longer, more opinion-driven posts, it'll probably be more re-blogging. YouTube videos, news articles, stuff like that, with maybe a very brief commentary. That's aside from Secular Sunday posts, which will still be relatively comprehensive.

So I'll still be posting with frequency, and possibly even more frequency than before since the posts will be brief. And stay tuned for when I can actually say what I'm doing here!

DorkmanScott.com -- Your Source for Whatever This Is

I've gone a long time coasting by without the professional accoutrements -- no website, no business cards, I haven't even bothered to put my professional reel together until just recently (and still haven't posted it online).

But no more! I'm working on getting my act together, and the first step is my registration of dorkmanscott.com as my official site address.¹ As of now, if you type that in, you will just be forwarded back here. But over time I hope to build it up to be more of a site with a portfolio and all that jazz.

It's worth updating your bookmarks and/or muscle memory, as I may also shift the blog from Blogspot to Wordpress at some point. Haven't had major problems with Blogspot, but Wordpress seems to be more customizable and have more reliable servers, both of which may matter if things start to pick up. If you get used to using the dorkmanscott.com portal, then the switch from one to the other will be relatively seamless for you if/when it occurs.

---

1. Dorkman.com is being squatted on, MichaelScott.com is some country western singer, and Michael-Scott.com is porn (NSFW!). Straight porn, no less.↩

My thoughts on Fan Films

So I've had some people actually asking me where I've been, why I haven't been updating my blog as much. Which is a little silly, seeing as how I frequently check in and explain, and the story never changes. However, while I'm sure it sounds like I've got a lot on my plate -- and I do -- one project in particular is the focal point of my time, around which the rest of the work I'm doing currently orbits. That project is the fan film, Sandrima Rising.

I know that I've been vague and avoided mentioning it too much until now, to the extent that it's more than likely sounded like a project happening somewhere in the background. The main reason being that I've seen too many fan films get destroyed by long-term hype, so I advised the producers that it would be good to wait until we're fairly far along into post before we start talking about it. But we're getting pretty deep into the final stages of post, and I've been given the go-ahead to talk a little about the project.

So I'm going to do so -- in my next post. Before that, though, I'd like to talk a little about fan films in general.

As I write this, I am counting down the days until Comic Con, and the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge, formerly the Star Wars Fan Film Awards. I don't know why they changed the name, but they revamp the contest just about every time. As part of the contest, George Lucas himself views all the finalists and selects his favorite for a special award. RvD2 is entered in the competition as a finalist, and so whatever happens, we know for certain that by 8:30 PM on July 24, 2008, George Lucas has seen RvD2 at least once.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm not going to get into the broad history of fan films, because I don't know it. If you're interested in up-to-date as well as retrospective fan film news and postings, check out Clive Young's site Fan Cinema Today, as well as his upcoming book, Homemade Hollywood.

What I plan to talk about, instead, is how I wound up getting into fan films, and why I think they're important.

To some extent I've always been interested in filmmaking, although prior to the digital revolution it seemed totally inaccessible to the average person, and so the idea of becoming a filmmaker myself never actively entered my mind. Even when the modern breed of fan films first came along, with Troops, I didn't really think "Hey, I could do that." It wasn't until I saw my first fan-made lightsaber fight that I sat up and took notice.

As I mentioned back when I wrote my love letter to Ghostbusters, my first feature-length script was a fan script for Ghostbusters 3. After watching The Phantom Menace, I began to write another fan script, this one in the Star Wars milieu.¹

Like Ghostbusters 3, it was only intended to be a script. Some stories want to be told as short stories, some as novels, and some want to be screenplays. This one wanted to be a screenplay. Regardless, it never really occurred to me to make the film myself.

Until, that is, I saw "The New World," a lightsaber fight by the original saber master, Clay Kronke. To be more precise, what I saw was the effects test that preceded "The New World", which for some reason was called the "Matrix Test". I say for some reason because it bore no resemblance to The Matrix, other than I guess it was two guys sparring. The choreography was ripped directly off of Phantom Menace, the music was "Duel of the Fates", and it was sped up in post.

But the lightsabers looked awesome.

And it was at that moment that I realized: this script didn't have to stay a script. I could make this movie.

I won't bore you with the gory details of my ill-fated feature-length fan film -- another blog another day, perhaps -- but suffice it to say that by the time production folded indefinitely, I had spent money intended to buy a car on a camera², and racked up another $10,000 or so in debt besides, which I only recently paid off with the help of the next project I have said I will be discussing in my next post. I spent half of my high school and all of my college experience frequently sitting in front of a computer, more often than not rotoscoping lightsabers. There were points where I wouldn't -- months at a time -- but eventually I would get back to it. Not just the abandoned feature, but numerous other fan film projects with which I was involved.

And all in all, I think it was worth it.

The obvious reason for that would be RvD and RvD2, but this goes back beyond those films. What working on fan films did for me was to awaken in me the desire to make films -- and the understanding that I could make films. I didn't need anyone's permission. I didn't need anyone's money. Both things help, of course, but as long as I have a camera and a computer, I have a movie.

The fact of working within Star Wars specifically instilled me with (probably altogether too much) confidence. Here you have a world that hundreds of people spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars to create -- and I'm doing it from home. The scope is more limited, perhaps, and the effects not quite as polished, but the movie's getting made. The story is getting told.

RvD and RvD2 have gotten attention, and that attention has gotten both myself and Ryan careers doing what we want to do (mine admittedly a slower burn than his -- he was nominated for another Emmy this last week!), but I really count the less concrete impact of the confidence I mentioned earlier as the most important thing I have gained from working in fan films.

Now, as to why I believe that fan films are important just in general.

For one thing, they act as cinematic training wheels. The blank page can be daunting when attempting to write a script (or anything else --a blog post for instance). To have to create a world with its own internal rules, characters with history, situations, alliances and enmities...it all stacks up until one would rather just give up and go play Rock Band. But when the rules and designs and locations and broad-stroke characters are already defined for you, well then you're ahead of the curve. You can mold the clay without having to have dug it up yourself.

You still have to create new material -- conflict, new characters -- but you can do so in familiar territory. One doesn't want to spend an entire career doing this kind of thing, but as a start? A golden opportunity to start experimenting creatively. You've got boundaries that prevent you from screwing up too much, and you start to understand, if you decide you must break an established rule, why that rule is there and what purpose breaking it serves.

I've heard it said that if you want to learn to write well, sit down and copy a book you like. I did that when I was learning to write short stories (a few times unethically, as I believe my grade-school teachers suspected but could never confirm) and, ethical quandaries aside, I do believe it helped me out when I finally came to flying off on my own with my own writing. You learn by doing. Even without consciously thinking about it you get a sense of why things work when they are structured a certain way, why they ring hollow when structured another. It, to sound like a hippie for a moment, expands your mind.³

And that's what I believe fan films can accomplish for a filmmaker. Play with what already exists, get an understanding of why things are done the way they are. Make mistakes in a creatively "safe" environment. And learn, and grow.

We talk about fan films like they're some new, crazy, Web 2.0, Age of You Tube thing, but it seems to me like this has already always been the case. How many filmmakers talk about how they saw [movie that influenced them] and ran home and picked up the Super-8 camera and shot themselves and their little brother as Batman/Sam Spade/James Bond/Blob Victim #3/whatever? Sure, those projects were never widely shared in the pre-internet age, and probably long since have disappeared from the face of the Earth. But the fact is that it starts with imitation. Then it moves to innovation.

On top of that, fan films, quite frankly, make good business sense. You've got people who are so damned enthralled -- obsessed, even -- with something you've made that they have thrown their passion into creating an homage, into extending and engaging with your creation. That's publicity if it's nothing else. That's people being reminded of your product.

Some businesses don't get this. They send Cease and Desist orders to stop Little Jimmy from playing at Spider-Man (on camera) in his backyard.

But George Lucas, whatever else he may be, is a shrewd businessman. He knows fan films are out there, and he knows that they help him, not hurt him. He was the first to "officially" recognize them, initially only the safe-under-fair-use parodies, but recently even then infringement-grey-area "serious fan fiction" films. He could C&D -- even sue -- any one of them if he really wanted to. But you catch more flies with honey...

In fact, Lucasfilm even made an unprecedented move earlier this year in SUPPORTING, essentially, infringement of their copyright. Lucasfilm discovered that material from Hyperspace -- the official site's "Exclusive Content" subscription service -- had been posted to YouTube. They asked YouTube to remove said content, and YouTube, in a fit of pique brought on by way too many other active or threatened lawsuits circling at the time, proceeded to remove all content that had anything at all to do with Star Wars. The outcry from fans was massive -- and Lucasfilm actually stepped up and said "No no, only the Hyperspace stuff. The rest is okay. Put it back."

Say what you will about Lucas the filmmaker (as I have been known to do), but he "gets it" when it comes to fan films. Although I do think there is still a line.

Which will bring us, tomorrow, to Sandrima Rising.

---

1. As one of the regulars over at TheForce.net recently posted: "I was just asked an interesting question - "What film changed your life?". The answer horrifies me - the film that has quite literally changed my life is The Phantom Menace." I, too, am horrified that any interview for the rest of my career that asks me that question, that's how I'll have to answer, and then spend five minutes making it clear that I do not in any way consider it a good movie, nor one that actively influences my filmmaking. ↩
2. I got in an accident and the car was written off as totalled. I got $7000 from the insurance company. $5500 went to a PAL-standard Canon XL-1, in order to get close to a 24p image (this was about a year before the DVX100 hit the market), $1500 went to a death-trap of a car that nonetheless lasted me about 5 years before eventually the engine fell out on the freeway.↩
3. Even still, I find that if I am stuck for writing, I will pick up a book whose prose I admire and just copy the text from page to processor. I will of course immediately erase it all, but it gets the juices flowing without expending creative energy ramming up against a wall.↩

Lots to mention...

Been hard at work on everything in the world these last few weeks, seems like. Some of the highlights:

Kung Fu Red: The first of many collaborations to come between myself and Anthony, we shot this the very first weekend we got our brand-spankin-new RED camera. I wanted to shoot a fight scene and he obliged. It was originally just supposed to be a camera test but we wound up liking the edit so much that we finished it out with sound, music, and color grading.

I've embedded the YouTube for your convenience and viewing pleasure. If you want to see it in higher quality, check it out on Vimeo.



The Descendants: Turned in the latest, and IMO greatest, draft. I'm super happy with it, I'm waiting on Dark Horse to see what they have to say.

Sandrima Rising: Working with the Dastolis and churning out finals. Some of the CG work in this is really top-notch. There's a "city chase" sequence in the middle that I think will knock people's socks off. My hat's off to those guys.

fxphd: I've mentioned fxphd in the past, but this time around it's even more special: Ryan and I are teaching a course this term! So if you can afford it (and for the level of training phd offers, aside from us, it's an amazing deal), come sign up and we'll drop some knowledge on you.

48 Hour Film Project: Already kind of addressed this. We really wound up liking the film we made, with the exception of the opening scene. We re-shot the scene and will be posting the revised version on YouTube probably in a couple weeks (I have too much going on to finish it right now). We will also probably post the 48 Hour version after that, just for comparison.

Troika: This is a project that Anthony wrote and directed a selection of scenes from in order to pitch it to financiers. As a writer I'm super-critical of my own work, and that of others, and there's not a lot of scripts that really entertain or interest me. I like reading good scripts, but a lot of scripts just don't cut it.

I have to say, Troika is a great script.

Among the scenes shot are a fight scene, a dialogue scene, and a car chase. The car chase was shot on greenscreen, and there are plusses and minuses to that. On the plus side, the fact that they were shooting green is the reason Anthony called me to be on-set, and that led me to being on-set for all of the subsequent shoots, and ultimately concluding that not only did I want to make movies with those guys, I didn't want to make movies without them.

On the minus side, it was my first day on-set and I wasn't totally committed to the project, or to them, at that point, so I came on board as a consultant for the first half of the day and then buggered out. I did have something else to do, but I can't remember what it was and it doesn't matter; I should have stayed there all day. So while I consulted and gave them advice, once I was gone they were on their own in a foreign land, and mistakes were made. Now, in between Sandrima renders, I'm working on the car chase stuff, and its difficulty is my punishment for leaving that day. Karma!

Still, it's nice to have something that isn't lightsabers to put on my reel.

He's also written another script that he's working on developing and may shoot in the next few months, and which I also think is great.

So that's where I've been the last few weeks and why my posts have been scarce, and will probably continue to be scarce through July. I am still active on Twitter, and will be getting more active back here once all of these projects -- which have bottlenecked into July -- are completed.

Oh, also, Ryan and I will be at Comic Con this year, as is swiftly becoming traditional. If you see us, do say hi.

Out of town...

I'll be in Florida Tues-Thurs shooting some VFX plates for Sandrima Rising, the Star Wars project for which I am doing the visual effects. I'll be back Thursday night but won't have time to blog in the meantime (I will probably do some Twittering).

I wanted to post a review of Redbelt, which I saw this weekend, but I have too much to say and not enough time to write it down. Go watch it and we'll talk about it when I get back on Friday, because I thought it was amazing.

I now pronounce you...

So great non-filmmaking news today: the Supreme Court of the state of California (where I live) has just overturned the standing ban on gay marriage, declaring it "unconstitutional".

Now, I'm not looking to get married any time soon, but it's seven flavors of bullshit to have that option refused to me. So it's great that the state Supreme Court sees it the same way. But of course, there are the jackasses who now want to change the state constitution to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples.

First of all, it always astonishes me that these people insist that the proponents of gay marriage are attempting to "redefine" what marriage is, when in fact they are the ones changing laws and amending constitutions in an attempt to -- say it with me -- redefine marriage to fit into their small-brained, bigoted worldview.

I have yet to have a single person give me a valid reason that "marriage" should be restricted to opposite-sex couples. Hint: "The Bible says" automatically invalidates your reason, because the Bible isn't the basis of American law. But that's a digression I'm in no particular mood for, because cooler heads have prevailed today.

In a surprising turn of events, Governor Schwarzenegger, who has repeatedly vetoed attempts to legalize gay marriage, has stated: "I respect the court's decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this [ruling]."

Indeed, although he has not supported gay marriage, citing Proposition 22, he has supported domestic partnerships, declaring that the Supreme Court and the voters were the ones who needed to decide about gay marriage. Prop 22 is out and it sounds like he plans to stick to his word. Maybe I need to take back some of the things I've said about him.

Original story here.

The future has landed...

Still pretty tired for a long weekend, but I had to share that this morning I received a call from FedEx informing me that I had four packages from "RED.com" awaiting me at the local depot. The whole drive back home I was giddy with equal parts anticipation and sleep deprivation (hell of a shoot this weekend).

And now, in my hands is RED ONE #1028. We shot a short "unbox" video of me cutting open the cardboard and getting my hands on the cam that I will either post or forget all about, we'll see.

RED users have established a tradition of giving their cameras names, which started with the codenames RED gave their own early prototype cameras. It's not mandatory, but I like the idea. This first run of REDs is something of a "limited edition" and I enjoy the notion of having a camera that is more personal than just a serial number.

I'm a massive Lovecraft fan and I really feel like the camera should have a Lovecraftian name, but I think "Cthulhu" or "Yog-Sothoth" would be a little too over-the-top for the RED ONE camera¹, and "Pickman" and "Carter" are a little too generic as names (although Carter, being a master of dreams, is probably the most appropriate if you know the lore). I also don't want to name the camera after a story or character I might actually shoot someday, since that's a little self-referential and weird, which is another reason those are out.

So, I've settled on "Alhazred;" the character was a madman who had wild visions, and although you never see him, his presence, as author of the Necronomicon, is felt behind every story Lovecraft wrote. I think it's an appropriate moniker for a camera. Plus who can resist the fact that the name includes the syllable "red".

So yeah, short post, and we haven't shot anything with it yet (a few more missing pieces have to make their way to my doorstep), but it's coming, people. Oh, is it coming.

---

1. Although if we upgrade to an Epic, I think I could be justified in having that camera take the name of a Great Old One or an Outer God.
   
   "Azathoth" has a great ring to it.↩

Busy week again

Been fixing Descendants. The script was "about 80% there" (the producers' words, and I agree), so the last couple weeks have been about that last 20%. Like anything else, the bulk of the work is the "easy" part; it's the last 10-20% that separates "alright" and "outstanding", and which takes the most work.

Additionally, in partnering with Wade/OIP, we inherited their future slate of projects, and vice-versa, as productions on our own slate. That was part of the deal -- and part of the appeal. But although I have about a dozen feature film ideas to develop post-Descendants, they have a half-dozen feature scripts already written. Besides lighting a fire under my ass to step up and get on the ball, it's also meant scripts to be read and thoughts to be shared on them. All of which conspires to take up all my writing energy for the week.

I had a mix-up in my schedule where I thought I would be out of town on a shoot next weekend -- but it turns out that the shoot is actually this weekend. So I've been scrambling a bit to sort that out.

On top of that, Ryan and I had a last-minute call to cameo in a music video by a prominent band. I hate being all vague and industry-talk about it, and I haven't signed an NDA, but it's a cool opportunity and I don't want to piss them off by blogging about it if they didn't want the news to get out. The shoot is tomorrow morning (call time 6:30 AM) and I've had to do some more rescheduling to fit that and the other, pre-existing shoot together. I'll post more specifics when I'm sure that I can.

So this is another brief "here's my excuse for not posting" post. Like I said, I'm out of town this weekend, but I'll try to write at least one in-depth theoretical post if I have some downtime.

Blinding Light in Partnership with Wade Val'iant/One Inch Punch

So we're not big enough to be making any headlines in Variety or Hollywood Reporter, but still, this is a big deal for us, and all our respective fanbases, so here's a pseduo-press release.

As of today, Blinding Light Productions is officially in partnership with Wade Val'iant and One Inch Punch Productions for all future film projects.

Wade Val'iant and One Inch Punch are, respectively, the production companies of Ski-ter Jones and Anthony Alba, two gentlemen who do outstanding work, with the recently-mentioned Animus as a great example.

I've worked with a lot of folks¹ in the nine years (god, nine years -- time flew so I must be having fun) that I've been doing film and visual effects stuff. I've made friends with a number of them, made "call me if you're working on something" connections with many, but prior to today the only person I've made the "if you're on board, I'm on board" partnership with has been Ryan². But working with Ski-ter and Anthony has changed that.

Filmmaking is like fighting a war (I still owe you folks a blog on that), and in war you want people you know have your back when the shit inevitably starts coming down around your ears. Until recently the only person I had that I knew could handle the battles with me was Ryan, but I know that I can trust Anthony and Ski-ter, because they've been doing it too.

As I said in my post on Animus, I was a fan of Anthony's work before I met him, and I've become a fan of him since. He's a great collaborator, very positive and passionate, and I click with him the way I click with Ryan. And similarly to the way Ryan and I work, where you get Anthony, you get Ski-ter, and I couldn't be happier. Ski-ter brings an attitude that reminds me why I love doing what we do.

I've been crewing a concept shoot for their feature, and last weekend we shot a fight scene. It was outdoors, it was hot, it was tiring, it was miserable, and I couldn't wait to do it again. There's an energy you get when everyone's moving in the same direction, with the same goals in mind, egos put aside and everyone focused on what's best for the project. It's the energy I get with Ryan, and it's the energy I get with Ski-ter and Anthony. It's a joy to work with all of them.

The last few weeks we've talked casually about the future, about us working together, but yesterday we sat down and officially discussed it. We all agreed that it seemed like a great idea, and now we are officially producing all each others' projects.

I'm thrilled, proud, and honored to have them on our team, and to be welcomed as a part of theirs. If you've thought the stuff we've done to date has been good, you ain't seen nothing yet.

---

1. Most of the industry has a habit of using the noun "cats" to refer to the general filmmaking populace -- often with a subtle negative connotation. I'm still fighting the compulsion, but I have to admit that I almost did it just then.↩


2. We do also essentially have this with Travis, but he's in Texas so there's an inherent degree of separation there where we can't really do anything besides post work.↩

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.

My Technology > Yours

So, as those following me on Twitter ( [dead-eyed shell of a man] JOIN US [/shell] ) will already know, I have just today been approved for a loan in the amount of approximately $55,000 in order to purchase my RED ONE digital cinema camera.

Two things about this:

1) Fucking
2) Sweet.

How do I feel right now? Some gut-churning combination of "euphoric" and "terrified". I've never had a responsibility for that much money at a go in my entire life. My biggest debt -- the one that took me five years to pay off -- was $10,000. This is five times that, and my repayment term is three years. There's a lot of pressure to make a success of this, but hopefully I find that I thrive that way.

Anyway, got a script to finish and then I've got three days in Vegas for NAB. Won't be blogging, will be Twittering.

Fucking Twitter

Alright, I gave in and got a Twitter account because I'm a connectivity whore.

What is Twitter? It's like blog-lite. Any time anything I think even remotely interesting goes down, I can post an update to Twitter and you can see it. As they say on the site:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

As I understand it, either Facebook or Friendster has a similar function available. So it's like Facebook-lite, too. It would seem that there is a Facebook client for Twitter, through which your Twitter updates, and those of your friends, can be followed directly from your Facebook page.

Why did I get a Twitter account? Besides the aforementioned whoredom, it struck me this evening, when I came home a good five hours later than I expected to, that perhaps my roommates might be interested in keeping up with where I am and what I'm doing.

But I imagine when I do something interesting -- such as going to NAB next week, or when I'm on location of a production -- occasional updates might be notable.

You can find my page at twitter.com/DorkmanScott. If you're already a Twitter member, let's "follow" each other. And if you're not, come hop on the bandwagon.

And we're back

Did you have a good March? Mine was pretty good. Admittedly I didn't get as much done in my "time off" here as I planned to, but it helped to decompress a little.

So now I'm back and I'll be posting again. Yaaaaaaay.

It's my party, and I'll post if I want to

So I'm 25 today. I know I said I wasn't going to post until April, but this is a fluff post anyhow. It's my special goddamn day, I'll post if I want to.

And how special IS it?

Well!

Here's a list of some famous people who share my birthday:

Kiera Knightley -- Right on
Amy Smart -- She's fun too
Martin Short -- Don't hold it against me
Steven Tyler -- [INSERT WIDE-MOUTH SCREAMING AEROSMITH LYRIC OF CHOICE]
James Caan -- He's pretty cool, what I've seen
Alan Arkin -- Same
Leonard Nimoy -- I win
Duncan Hines -- Yep, the cake guy
Tennessee Williams -- I got a couple awards doing a monologue from Glass Menagerie my Senior year
Richard Dawkins -- SHIT YEAH BITCHES
Joseph Campbell -- THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS! I WIN!

Ahem.

/composure

Also on this day in history, the Heaven's Gate cult killed themselves (1997), James Dobson founded the anti-gay organization Focus on the Family (1977), and Auschwitz received its first female prisoners (1942). And Beethoven died (1827).

At the same time, Jonas Salk publically announced his successful creation of the polio vaccine (1953), the U.S. secured Iwo Jima (1945), the hippies did some shit in NYC (1967), and, oh yeah, I WAS BORN (1983), so I think it tips the scales of the day from "balanced out" to "fucking awesome".

And if that's not enough, I got Dawkins AND Campbell. Go ahead and TRY to beat that.

Whadda YOU got, December 5? Frankie Muniz and Ray Comfort? Fuck off. Also, you killed Mozart.

...Fuck. You've also got Fritz Lang and Walt Disney.

Well...

...uh...

...how about July 28?

Yeah. Yeah. That's more like it. Best you got is Jim Davis and Lori Loughlin, TV's "Rebecca" on Full House. And Britain got its first potato. Whoopdee-do. We also have you to blame for Soulja Boy.

December 18? Sure, you've got Spielberg and Brad Pitt. You've also got Stalin and Katie Holmes.

That's right. Katie Holmes. You monsters.

And you killed Chris Farley.

...but really, I'm sure they're all great birthdays. It's just mine is the BEST. I brought cake, Spock, and the Hero's Journey. Stick THAT up your first potato, Britain.

Think your birthday rules? Check it out on Wikipedia, and make your case.

Busy Month, Back in April

Okay, so I've been meaning to blog a whole bunch lately -- I saw a bunch of movies this weekend that I wanted to talk about (short version: Funny Games was eh, Horton Hears a Who was way funnier than I expected and worth seeing, Monster -- the low-budget direct-to-DVD Cloverfield ripoff, not the Charlize Theron Oscar winner -- was horrific in a bad way, and Murder Party was fun B-movie schlock, especially if you pretend it was made in the 80s) and just generally have wanted to keep up.

BUT, I've got a lot of work to do on Sandrima, and I also need to be writing the Descendants script because we need to be ready to shoot when Ray's off G.I. Joe. Between that and my birthday coming up next week, and some folks coming in from out of town, I'm not going to have a lot of time to write the helpful and informative posts you've all come to know and skim.

Instead of checking my blog every day until you conclude I will never update again and you might as well stop checking, I wanted you to know that I will be taking a blog sabbatical until April. So come on back on April 1. I will post something, at least brief, to let you know that I made it through and will be back to blogness-as-usual.

And don't worry, I don't do April Fool's jokes.

Be not afraid

Last week I spent three posts describing the origins of my disbelief in the existence of a God, and the reasons that the idea of a God, and especially the Christian God, are completely unsatisfactory in the face of any rational consideration.

One thing that no one said but a few people hinted at was along the lines of "Look, it may not make sense. It may not be even true. But it helps people live better lives, so why not just let them have it?"

And my answer is: because it doesn't. What religion does is make people live in fear.

In many cases, it's fear of Hell. People live their lives stifling perfectly natural and healthy impulses and desires because they've been taught that they are engaging in "sin". They flagellate themselves -- sometimes literally -- with guilt when they commit some act that they have been taught is sinful or immoral for no good reason. They deprive themselves of joy in this life on the promise of another life after this, yet still always have the gnawing fear that they may have done something wrong or aren't quite good ENOUGH to curry God's favor so they won't be cast into the flames. This is not the way to live a better life.

It manifests in fear of others. Other people whose customs present a threat to your belief system and your sense of morality. If people were killing each other over whether Mother Goose or the Brothers Grimm were the true authority on morality, it would be madness. But when it's "real" religion, suddenly it's more serious and deserves more respect than that. Nothing that leads to fear and hatred deserves respect. That is not the way to live a better life.

It becomes a fear of new ideas. Every truth that you discover about the world, the universe, the nature of reality itself is almost certainly in contradiction to something that you are supposed to believe -- you should believe that the sun revolves around the Earth, that insects have four legs, that all animals were created and lived simultaneously up until the flood. People are dying because of religious opposition to stem cell research. A potential human has, in some cases, more rights than an actual human.

Any idea that contradicts the "perfect Word of God" cannot be accepted and must be rejected out of hand, lest "Satan" take hold of one's mind and draw someone away from the fold.

And ultimately, this boils down to fear of being insignificant. Fear that this is all there is. Fear that we are not worth anything unless someone else tells us so.

I have a friend, who I will not name, who once admitted to me that she knows that she is dependent on other people for her own sense of self-worth, that she is nothing without validation from people who care about her.

On another occasion, we were discussing religion (she's a believer), and she said "Even if there was all the evidence that there was no God, and I knew logically that there wasn't, I would still believe in God. And I'm not sure why."

A loving presence that , despite being tasked with keeping the whole Universe running at once, cares about you individually and tells you that you matter in the grand scheme of things. The God-as-Santa that many people today "believe in". And it seems obvious why it's so important to her that God exist.

Put back-to-back like that, it seems obvious; but these conversations were weeks apart, and unless she reads this blog she may not make the connection at all.

When pressed, anyone who calls him or herself a believer cannot come up with logical reasons or evidence for believing as they do, they just believe it. When pressed further, the revealing word that starts to show up is "want".

"I wouldn't want to think that the people I love who die are gone forever."

"I don't want to feel like we're alone in the universe."

"I want to believe that there's a higher power with a plan for all this stuff."

Well, I'm sorry to say this but here's a truth in life, truer than anything else: What you want, has no bearing on what is.

Read that again and make sure you understand it.

The fact that it dismays you to think that this is all there is doesn't change the fact, if it is fact, that this is indeed all there is. And frankly, that shouldn't dismay you. It should be a source of freedom.

If this is all there is then it's idiotic to live one's life trying to build credit for the next one. It's here, and now, that's important.

Religion takes away from the beauty and wonder of life by turning it into something manufactured, planned, understood even if not by us. If God created us, then we're not really that special all-in-all; we're a toy in his sandbox.

But if nothing created us, if we just came to be, then, to paraphrase Richard Dawkins, the fact that we have come to exist, and to exist at such a level as to question our own existence, when all the odds are stacked against us, is such a profound, moving realization, and one to instill such a deep appreciation and meaning into every precious moment of our fleeting time on Earth.

One of the most egregious faults of religion is taking credit away from humanity. People who suffer through illness, and credit God for their recovery are selling themselves short, selling all of humanity short when it is science, it is the beautiful brilliance that is human knowledge, that saved them.

People who throw off the shackles of an addiction and credit it to God are demeaning themselves. If there is no God interested and involved in human affairs -- and there is no reason to believe that there is -- then THEY broke the spell of their addiction. THEY had the strength and the will and the power to do it. When people give all the power to God they fail to recognize the power in themselves. It holds them back as individuals, and it holds us back as a species.

I went off on a long and very specific rant about the problem of amputees, and how if God existed he would answer the prayers of amputees, even if only occasionally, and we would have cases of people spontaneously re-growing limbs. But they don't, because humans aren't salamanders.

But then there's this:



Humans DO have the capacity, in our genetic code, to regenerate limbs. We can do it when we're young and if we were funding stem cell research -- which the RELIGIOUS people are blocking funding to, remember -- we could have that capacity. And it's only a matter of time before the science gets there, U.S. government funding or not.

God didn't do it. We did. To give up the praise for God, or to decide that you WILL pray for your arm to grow back now that Alan Russell has figured it out -- but it won't work without God's intervention -- is total bullshit. It's a travesty of logic, and it completely misses the real miracle: WE did this. WE are figuring this out. WE are learning to understand, and may even learn to control, the very forces of the universe itself.

And if WE don't learn to master our fear, and let go of the idea that someone smarter and more powerful than us will swoop in at the nick of time, show us how to do it right, and save us from ourselves, we will destroy ourselves.

Even on the off chance that God exists, we are coming to an age of power and technology where the true morality will be found only if we assume that he does not.

There are people who are unwilling to help stop global warming -- not because they don't believe it's happening, but they believe that God put us in dominion over the Earth, that God wouldn't let it get to the point that we wouldn't survive because he promised us he wouldn't, or that God will bring the Judgement Day before we get to that point.

We cannot live under the assumption that God will fix it, that God is in control. We must accept that nothing and no one is in control, and do our part to take control and make things work.

I picked global warming for my example but you see it time, after time, after time. There is too much at stake and the world is changing too fast to let first century mythologies inform twenty-first century humanity. Think of all the things we know today that we didn't know even two years ago. And we're supposed to believe that people TWO THOUSAND years ago knew jack-shit about the universe?

I'm begging you, WAKE UP.

Listen, I have no problem with people taking a philosophical stance on religion. If the Christ you were taught in Sunday school is an example you want to live up to, more power to you. That Christ isn't Biblical -- Christ was a mean, petty, misogynistic guy if you actually read the Gospels -- but he's a great role model. So is Luke Skywalker. Or maybe Frodo Baggins is your thing.

I understand the power and the value of mythology and fiction and storytelling. It helps us understand our own experience by watching someone else's, even if they're fictitious. I'm devoting my life to creating and wrestling with and understanding it.

But there is a reality, too. It's easy to say "Well, Jesus was God, so of course he was good. No mere human could get there." But we've had Martin Luther King, we've had Gandhi, we've had hundreds of people who could be true heroes and role models, and the idea that they are human and their strength comes from them -- and the same strength lives in you -- should lift you up beyond the fear and weakness of submitting yourself to the will of a fickle God.

You are beautiful. Life is beautiful. And you don't need anything else but this life, right here and now, to have meaning.

A friend of mine who stopped believing in God recently, after a whole life of faith, confided in me that he is now afraid of death. This seems genuinely incomprehensible to me. If death is the end, then it is nothing to fear. It can't harm you, it can't bring you pain. As Mark Twain said, "I do not fear death, as I was dead for millions of years before I was born and have not suffered the slightest inconvenience for it."

Death is nothing to fear; if there is anything to fear, it is not living life the to the happiest and fullest extent. Do not postpone joy. Happiness is a choice, and I urge you to make it right now, and for the rest of your life.

All of this has been a primer towards the subject of living free of the self-oppression that is religious thought and devotion. Other, smarter men have gone a lot farther into it than I, and I have used their arguments among my own. It is not my intention to plagiarize anything and I apologize if I have said anything that I have not properly credited, but my intention is more to get the ideas out there than to claim them as my own.

One of the reasons I did this myself was to get a broad overview, and potentially interest some people reading the blog to read further about a point I have made. It's also to introduce the ideas outside of a context which might appear hostile -- for example, you can find an expansion of some of my points in Dawkins' The God Delusion, but the title may be offputting, and without an interest in the subject matter may never be read.

Some other resources to continue this "path to truth" for yourself:

Read the Bible: The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is the full text of the KJV Bible, annotated and correlated to note all of the points that don't make sense on their own, contradict other parts of the Bible, or are just plain abhorrent to common-sense morality, destroying the claim the morality comes from God/the Bible. I guarantee that the quickest path to apostasy is actually reading the "Good News". You can also find some strong anti-apologetics, using the Bible as an indictment of religion, at Evil Bible.com

Check out some other blogs: The guy who compiled the SAB also runs a blog, Dwindling in Unbelief, highlighting particularly interesting (read: disturbing or absurd) Bible verses that most people don't know because they've never actually read the Bible. There's also The Godless Bastard, who is a lot less respectful than I've been (which should tell you something) but makes a lot of good points, at much greater length and detail than I have in this handful of posts on the subject.

And then, of course, there's always the straightforward proofs at God Is Imaginary.

Please feel free to comment or e-mail me with other points of view, critiques of my argument, or good ol' fashioned debate points. As for the blog, it'll be going back to the "lighter" fare for a while.

Whence Atheism?

On a few occasions here and there, I've mentioned the fact that I am an Atheist, who used to be a Christian. I said when I started this blog that I did not expect to get up on a soapbox about it, but I'm starting to feel like maybe that will change. I think Atheist rationality needs to be professed, and the unbelievers need to be louder and prouder in their unbelief, because with technology and the global community moving forward exponentially, these comforting fairy tales can have disastrous results. Our world is maturing, and it's time we all matured with it.

There have been people I know that have left their professed faith in God, possibly due in part to my own apostasy. I feel I owe those people something, to help them get acclimated to a worldview that is perhaps frightening on first glance.

So this week I'll be talking about "Whence Atheism"; where it comes from, why it makes sense, and what it means to a person living a life with no God.

I've had people ask me about my reasons for converting to Atheism; if I am to discuss what I have come to believe about religion and theism, that has caused me to reject both of them, I think it is important to understand why.

What a Christian will often assume when I say that I am an Atheist who was formerly a Christian, is that I do in fact believe in God, but I'm angry with him. Some kind of horrible event happened to be that put my faith to the test, and my faith failed. That I am hurt, and broken, and if I would only open my heart to God I could be healed and filled with the Holy Spirit.

A popular theory, if the person happens to know that I am gay, is that I'm angry at God with regard to my sexuality. But I needn't be, they explain; depending on the side of the aisle they stand on, they either tell me that renouncing my urges is GOOD for me, and God can help and make me whole again, or that God himself never actually said anything anti-homosexual -- at least not in the RELEVANT parts of the Bible -- and I shouldn't be angry at God for the actions of man.

I can't blame people for making those assumptions. They are the assumptions/arguments I myself would have made as a Christian. But that doesn't make them correct (as I suppose I'm going to argue, that's part of what makes them incorrect).

I'm going to try to keep this short but I can't make any guarantees. I want to make sure it's all very clear. We'll start with how I became a Christian.

I was born in America. My parents took me to Sunday school, I was baptized when I was five, I went to a Lutheran grade school from 5th-8th grade, and a Catholic high school. The story of Jesus was as much a part of my life, and the view of history that I accepted, as the story of Washington and the cherry tree. It wasn't a matter of fundamentalism where I INSISTED that the story was fact against all contradictory evidence. Until I was in high school, it never occurred to me to even question it.

Come high school I started suffering from some heavy-duty depression. Some things were really bad, some things just seemed bad, and everything was hard to deal with. It was genuinely a clinical depression I was suffering with. It would come and go with no particular cause, and when I was depressed life just crushed me.

One particularly bad night I was crying in my bed, as I did with unfortunate frequency. I thought of what I had been taught my whole life about God, and Christ, and how all you needed to do was open your heart and they would be there. Even though I was a "Christian" all growing up, I had always believed in the truth of Jesus' existence and how he loved us all, I had never actually called out to God in time of need. But I did so that night. And my tone was accusatory.

"I was taught that you would be there for me!" I said -- and yes, I did say all of this aloud. "But I've never felt you! Please help me! I need you, why haven't you been with me?"

And suddenly, I felt God. I was suddenly comforted, I felt warm and unafraid, like someone strong and kind had taken me in their arms and was holding me. And I sensed an answer to my question; it wasn't a voice, and it wasn't words, but somehow I still understood: "You've never asked me before."

Well, that was it. God was real and was revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. I was in it for the long haul.

Anyone who knows me knows that I was fully devout in my beliefs. I TOTALLY believed in Christianity. I COMPLETELY accepted the existence of God and Jesus Christ -- not only accepted, but felt I had a deep and profoundly moving personal relationship with him/them/however it works.

I was never a fundamentalist, though, and I never accepted things on blind faith. God didn't give us the capacity for logic to ignore it. So if something didn't make sense, I had to find an answer. I wasn't afraid that the answer would make me lose my faith -- for one thing, I knew that the truth was what it was, and so there was no way anything else was going to derail that. And if it turned out to NOT be the truth, well, it would be good to find that out. I was not afraid to question. And in most cases, I had an answer.

To make a brief example, I believed, and had strong arguments for the case, that the Bible was NOT anti-gay. I read the Bible, researched the three verses that address it, did the whole nine. I could tell you, logically, with proof, that the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality was introduced by human translators. Not that proof and logic mattered to the people who really wanted to believe that the Bible gave them free rein to hate.

I DEBATED for the side of Christianity, with some serious dyed-in-the-wool Atheists. I could come back and respond to anything they said, and God help me (pardon the expression), my arguments made sense to me at the time.

I loved God so much, and felt his love for me so powerfully, that worship services regularly moved me to tears.

So. What the hell happened?

Whatever else I may believe in, I believe in Joseph Campbell and the Monomyth. I believe that an understanding of mythology, as a storyteller, is essential if I am ever going to have anything of value to say. So in the midst of my holy rolling, I read up; some mythology books but mostly his analyses. There's "The Hero With a Thousand Faces", of course, but there's also the lesser-known (a pity, since it's his magnum opus) "The Masks of God", a four-volume discussion of the evolution of religion/mythology. 

At one point in one of his books -- I forget which one -- Campbell mentions an anecdote about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein. I don't remember the specifics -- which is sad, since it turned out to be momentous for me personally -- but essentially they had a conversation about how so many religions shared the same basic structures, values, and intentions, and what made Christianity so special? Tolkein responded with, paraphrased, "It just is."¹

But I had to think about that. Having read so much, put so eloquently and lovingly by Campbell (who believed in none of the religions but was a joyful disciple to all of them), I had to ask myself: is there anything about Christianity that makes it, objectively and intrinsically, more valid than any other religion? 

Never one to shy away from a question like that, I put it to the test. I looked at the criteria by which I had dismissed -- out of hand, for the most part -- all the other religions and mythologies of the world. I no more believed in Allah or the savior-less Yahweh of the Torah than I did Thor or Zeus. Fairly put to the same criteria by which I had rejected the other faiths, did Christianity rise above and prove itself as distinct, and obviously true? 

Intellectual honesty forced me to admit: the answer was no. 

This turns out to be a quote by one Stephen Roberts, a very famous one and a conclusion I reached independently, but would have stated less eloquently:

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

But, I had FELT God's presence! He had come to me and comforted me! How could that have not been true?

I realized: I had attributed that response to the Christian God only because that was the God I had culturally been raised in. If I had been raised a Muslim, I would surely have been certain Allah had spoken to me. Etc. Because it wasn't a moment of faith, just an encompassing feeling of well-being. I chose to assign its source; no such source was revealed to me. 

Around the same time as I was wrestling with this stuff, I had been reading up on Scientology and discovered that one of the reasons they are successful in brainwashing people into what is CLEARLY an insane cult is that their "auditing" process can successfully trigger that kind of profound, so-called "religious" experience. Buddhist monks are capable of triggering it through deep meditation. 

Surely such an experience could not be intented to validate the faith of the person experiencing it -- because people who held totally contradictory (and in some cases, clearly fabricated) beliefs were all prone to experience it. So what did it mean? 

Well, it meant it was something inside us that did it, it was us transcending ourselves and getting a glimpse of something more. I don't really know what that "something more" could be, but when I had that thought, I had another religious experience. I had basically managed to bring one on willingly. So one led me in, and the other led me out.² 

I'm willing to be convinced. I was able to be convinced, albeit indirectly, that my faith was misplaced, and I am perfectly open to being convinced that there is, in fact, a God. But to date I have neither found nor been given any compelling evidence to suggest that this is the case. 

All the seams seem clear to me when the story seemed airtight before. It's interesting to me to enter conversations on this subject from "the other side" now, and see the same arguments that I know I used to use, and see so clearly the flaws that I never saw before. I take it as a challenge to see if I can get that person to see them too. 

That's the challenge I will be undertaking in my next few posts.

I hope that this has been clear and interesting. If anyone has any questions, or rebuttals, please don't hesitate to e-mail me or post them in the comments.

---

1. I may be mistaken, but I believe it was this exchange that inspired C.S. Lewis to go into his career of apologetics. If you have any information on this exchange or if it was related to Lewis' ministry, let me know.↩


2. As it turns out, some neurologists have even been able to find and stimulate the part of the brain that regulates these religious experiences. Their "God Helmet" has created a very real and moving experience in their experimental subjects. This doesn't disprove the existence of God, but like the rest, it destroys any notion of certainty or necessity.↩

One Year of RvD2, Five Years of RvD

One year ago, on March 1, 2007, Ryan and I released RvD2: Ryan vs. Dorkman 2 on YouTube. As of this writing YouTube counts 2,618,867 views of the film, and new people continue to find and comment on it on a daily basis.

Five years ago, March 1 2003, Ryan and I released the original Ryan vs Dorkman, having no idea what it would get us, besides bragging rights on a message board. From its sudden YouTube popularity in March/April 2006, we got industry contacts -- including my manager -- worldwide attention, and the kick in the pants we needed to go make RvD2, which set off a brand new round of fun and attention.

So, with the anniversary of both films -- a year of RvD2, and a full half-decade of RvD -- I thought it was a good opportunity to chat about what we've been up to this year.

RvD2 DVDs

Immediately after the release of the film we started taking pre-orders for the Behind-the-Scenes DVDs. We had been running a camera pretty much the whole time we were working on RvD2, and we planned to cut it together, with a few additional features, for fans and others who were interested in what went into producing the film.

What we didn't realize was that the DVDs were going to be a much more difficult project than the film itself. It seems like an obvious thing, really -- we were looking at a good 2 hours of content (it wound up being 5 hours) compared to a 10-minute film. But for some reason the DVD seemed like the "easy part". As such we gave ourselves an unrealistic deadline/shipping date, and wound up completing the project 6 months later than we thought we would. It's only in looking back that I realize that the film was the "easy part", and the DVDs were the "Real Project".

But after many sleepless nights and hair-pulling, the project IS done; we have shipped to our purchasers and are fulfilling our promise to our donors to get them all copies; the demand has exceeded our expectations and we ran out of stock, but we have a huge order coming in from the replicators that will probably carry us through until the world loses interest completely.

So if you're thinking of grabbing one for yourself or a friend, you can get them through the site.

/plug

Sandrima Rising

Since starting this blog, and in a few other places I frequent around the web, I've mentioned a fan film that I shot over last summer. I was hired initially as a fight choreographer, but ultimately was choreographer, director of photography, actor, visual effects supervisor, visual effects artist, and editor on the project. And probably other stuff I don't remember.

The project's full title is The Renaissance Chronicles: Sandrima Rising; it's generally referred to by the people involved as Sandrima Rising, or simply Sandrima. Originally the gig was going to be for myself and Ryan both, but Ryan couldn't afford to take the time off of work, so I wound up flying solo.

I'm not going to go too much into it in this post, it's best saved for sometime in the future, but suffice it to say that Sandrima is what really made me realize that making a movie is like fighting a war. And I'll definitely make a post about THAT sometime down the line.

It was a very difficult, trying shoot. But it had its upsides. For one thing, it actually paid, which fan films don't usually do. So well, in fact, that I've been able to get out of the debt I've been in since my failed attempt to shoot my own fan film.

Much like fighting a war, I wound up bonding with some members of my "platoon". Robert, who I mentioned yesterday as the guy who introduced me to the Garfield is Dead meme, was one of the lead actors and we have become very close. They also flew out Travis, cameraman for RvD2 and cohost of (the one episode of) Shooting the Bull, and sharing the experience of shooting Sandrima brought us closer together as well.

Heck, I still get random calls from some of the other actors, and even one of the grips on the film. It really is like veterans who have been through some kind of hell together, and want to stick together because "nobody else understands".

Sandrima Rising also represents my retirement from fan films. I calculated the lightsaber work I've done through my 8-year "career" in the subculture and I'm pretty sure that I have done more lightsaber-related effects work than any other individual in the world, and that includes ILM artists.

I'm not sure because I haven't done a minute-to-minute comparison, but I may have worked on more lightsabers, screen-time-wise, than even the actual films.

So, I'm done with them until a) we do RvD3, or b) Lucasfilm hires me to work on the TV series. And in the case of b), it would still depend on how well they were paying.

Currently, I'm working on the visual effects for Sandrima. With fingers crossed, it will be done on schedule at the end of July; with fingers continuing to be crossed, it will be just in time for...

The Descendants

I'll need to write up a whole post about this, which I'll do when it's a "go picture". But RvD2 led to contact with Dark Horse Entertainment, which looks like it will probably lead to my directing a for-real feature film by year's end. Like I said, this is a topic for its own post and really a series of posts more likely.

My expectation that Descendants was going to get up and running soon was one of the reasons I decided to start this blog in the first place. So hopefully, this will get back on track a bit in that sense fairly soon.

Misc

Before I finish up here, Ryan also won an Emmy. That's not directly related to the release of RvD2 but it does bear mentioning as a major career-related event in the last year.

I suppose it also bears mentioning that my friendship with Ryan is as strong as its ever been. It's not just professionally that the RvD films have had a huge positive impact on my life.

So all in all, a busy and productive year. My father thought that 2007 was going to be "my year", but it seems like it was more of a prelude, setting the stage. I'm working full-time on film projects now -- I quit my job to work on Sandrima -- and with any luck, I'll never have to go back.

Over the years a lot of people have contacted us to let us know how much they enjoyed the RvD films. I know I speak for both myself and Ryan when I say it means a lot. We're both very proud of what they are, and what they've done for us. And we can't wait to show you how much more we can do.

Wii Would Like To Play

When news started leaking about a new Nintendo console, it was codenamed "Revolution". I liked the ring of "Nintendo Revolution", and I was excited about many of the features that were being kicked around as possibilities -- like the ability to buy legacy games online and play them on the console.

Then they made the official announcement...and they called it the Wii. And I thought that was the dumbest name I had ever heard. It's not even a word! I proclaimed that, regardless of its official name, I was going to continue calling it the Revolution.

Well, that didn't even last a month. Revolution is harder to say, and harder to type, so I gave in and went with Wii. Admittedly the name has grown on me. The tagline (see post title) is clever and so is the "the two 'i's are people -- it's about playing together!" design thing. Plus the Wii has been out for two years, and laughing at the name is passe.

So, we had our XBOX 360. We got a PS3 around Christmas. The only console we needed to complete our Next-Gen collection was a Wii -- and EVERYWHERE was sold out.

Brian got a bunch of gift cards to Target for Christmas -- literally just enough for a Wii. So since Christmas, we (by which I mean Katie) have been calling Target at 8 AM to see if they got any shipments. At first it was just Sunday mornings at the local Target. Then it was every morning at the local Target (apparently they get daily shipments). Then it was every morning at every Target within 20 miles. It was getting to the point that the calling took an hour of her day and she was starting to seriously demand some money for the gig. Having worked in retail myself, I'm sure that the Target employees didn't enjoy it any more than we did.

On Friday we had a cock-block (I tried to come up with an amusing equivalent that started and rhymed with "Wii" but I couldn't do it): our local Target had a Wii in stock! I raced out there and got there five minutes after the store opened -- and discovered that they had only had one, and some woman had been there AT OPENING and snagged it. That put a damper on the whole day.

Then yesterday, Saturday, Brian and I are both awakened by Katie, who frantically informs us that a Target in Culver City has 20 Wiis in stock, and the guy said if we get there in the next hour we have a shot at getting one.

So we all rush down to Culver City (a 40 minute drive) and come back, at last, triumphant owners of a Nintendo Wii. We spent the rest of the day playing Super Mario Galaxy. Fun game so far, although all of Mario's grunts and exclamations make it sound like whatever drugs he takes to get to the Mushroom Kingdom (I guess I just answered my own question) are starting to take a toll on his sanity.

I was also excited about being able to play Super Mario World. Even though I had a Super NES, the SNES did not come packaged with Mario World and I never wound up getting a copy. I played it a little bit at my cousins' house, but they wouldn't let me play for long because watching someone play is boring and they wanted to go hit wasp nests with sticks. So I'm finally getting to play it.

My In Bruges review is forthcoming -- short version, go see the flick!