I went to Chicago for a day

…sort of. I spent a day on the set of City Lights Theater Company’s production of CHICAGO, directed by Donna Scheer. What was I doing on set, you ask? Well, not acting, unfortunately. I was contracted to shoot/edit some of the supplementary video that’ll be part of the show. I guess that makes me the…

Another day, another Crush

That’s the title of another short we shot this past weekend: CRUSH. It’s written by Richard Gali and we spent a little bit of time workshopping the dialogue. It’s another ambitious piece as it sits at a whooping ten pages! That’s exactly the page count for JUST LKE THAT. We approached this one more like…

Shooting Diary – Day 1, an overview

The day has arrived. The first (of two) shooting day. I woke up at 4:30am from my starchy motel bed with modest relief from the thoughts that bombarded me all night. Across from me, Richard is up too. He’s managed to prop himself upright and concerns himself with the act of waking up; So far…

Just Like That, a week before the first day

It’s exactly a week before the first (of two) day of shooting Just Like That. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done before I can call “Action”. In fact, I shouldn’t even be blogging –but because I think you’re an important element to this equation called movie making, let me share…

Goldilocks-ian Locations

*Goldilocks-ian isn’t an actual word. But read on, you’ll see what I mean. I thought I was entirely clever for having written a story that takes place in one location. I thought, well hey, that should be easy enough to lock down ONE place. Right? Well, yes and no. If the story took place in…

The other side of the casting table

Auditions. A time to play, to have fun, to explore –at least, that’s how I feel about it when I got to auditions these days. But what of the other side of that table? That area has been a mystery to me…until this past weekend. If you recall in my previous entry, I’ve fast tracked…

Just like that

Subtext: “You can’t do that, you don’t know how…” And just like that, I’m spurned into action. It felt like a throw down, a challenge that needed to be met. It felt like an invitation to compete, and I couldn’t turn it down. I’m talking about why I’ve embarked on directing a short film I…

Move over nine to five

8am to 10p is the new 9-5. When you’re on most (if not all) movie sets, big or small –you can expect to put in more hours than you thought, or planned to. If you’re not terribly into that idea, don’t worry, it’ll show and you probably won’t be coming back. Luckily for me, I…

That’s a novel idea

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything close to resembling a narrative novel. But I’m in the process of developing this short movie idea I’ve had poking around in my mind and I thought I’d approach it by first, writing a short story then adapting it for screen… Here’s a short sample: “YOUR SHIPMENT…

Adding venture to Square Marden

Richard and I spent the day exercising our imaginations. If you don’t already know who Richard is, he’s a good friend of mine I met through an audition he posted on Craigslist. Long story short, we’ve been buds since that faithful meeting (2006). We’re currently co-founders (2 of 4) to a media production company called…

A fella can get used to this

Today was one of those days where everything I did, planned and unplanned, tickled me! The day started with another Red Ladder workshop at the San Jose Repertory Theatre. It’s the last workshop for a few weeks. We had a special guest drop by today (unexpectedly). His name was Vincent Kartheiser and he’s on Mad…

Nibbles

We celebrated my boss’ birthday today at work. There was an impromptu disco dance party and lots of nibbles. Happy Birthday Margaret! I love how festive her side of the room is. Look at those festive cookies! There were strawberries too. Also -champagne and apple cider! I settled for several helpings of what you’d consider…