Or so I hope.  After spending about four of the first seven days of Winter Break in the editing room, Open Mike Night is on its way to the AFI Dallas Film Festival, Houston WorldFest, and the Vail Film Festival.  And it looks good, ladies and germs.  Sound Sweetening by David A. Frost, some good underscoring by Tull Rea, and lots of work to clean everything up by yours truly.  It's been a long road from the very rough cut everyone saw last May to the clean version we're sending out now, but hopefully it will all pay off in festival viewings.

As the Good Book says, "A time to reap, a time to sow..."  I think it's time to sow, especially 'cause all this stress has made me a little sick.  So really, maybe it's time to sleep.  G'night, y'all.

Okay, it's definitely been a while since I've added anything to this blog, so I've got a few pieces of fun news.   For "Open Mike Night," I have begun working on the editing again.  It was so hard to start after so long, but it has to get finished.  Although I don't think we have a snowball's chance in hell, I want to enter it in the AFI Dallas Festival.  James Faust, who's helped transform the Deep Ellum Film Festival into the AFI Internation Festival, says that he wants to continue supporting Texas filmmakers with this new festival, although it will open up avenues to bring more name stars and movies to the Dallas area.  Will they accept a small project completed almost entirely by a high school?  I don't know, but they should.  It's amazing that what we've done looks so good on the screen.  I'm very proud of everyone behind the project.

Next, we come to the "Tinkerbell" script.  It's final draft is finished, at least until the thing is cast, when we may make other changes.  We had a reading at KD Studios in October with producer Jim Wingard and director Joel Rosensweig and his beautiful wife, Joan Murphy.  Everyone enjoyed the reading and offered some good suggestions on how to make the script stronger, which have been added to this version of the script.  I'm very proud of the project and hope that Jim really can get the funding.  I believe this could be a theatrical release.  It's a PG family movie with a real message; how many of those do you get?  It would be wonderful if it could be a Christmas release next year, but that will depend on how quickly the funding comes in.

So, that's a catch up for now.  I'm working on several other scripts that will be available for perusal soon, and I'm now considering whether or not to enter the "On the Lot" television series competition.  Talk about a snowball's chance in hell...but if I was accepted?!!  Anyway, God bless everyone this holiday season, and I'll add to this when there's more news of any kind!

Thank the good Lord in heaven!

The first draft of "For Whom the Tinkerbell Tolls" is finished.  I adapted the screenplay from a Ray Sheers play published by Heuer.  It seemed to take forever, even though I did a thirty-five page synopsis to begin with.  It's difficult to sit down and write a comedy when you've got relatives in the hospital, a wedding to plan, and a movie in pre-production.

At least it's finished, even though at 112 pages, I need to cut probably a tenth of it.  Yay!

Every story begins somewhere, and seldom does it begin dramatically.  Art may imitate life, but when audiences expect life in 90 minute-long Slurpee-sized gulps, only a section of anything approximating life will ever make it into anything we know in today's society as Art.  John Wilkes Booth was born, grew up, learned Latin and Shakespeare, sang in a church choir, loved and was loved, and at some point, decided to kill one of the most influential presidents in the history of the United States.  When we look for a representation of his life, we will mostly ignore the birth and growing up, studies, singing, give some time to the love (especially if we can work in a sexual angle), and focus mostly on the moments leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the aftermath.  So Art does not imitate Life; Art imitates the small portion of life for which we believe consumers will buy a ticket.

Well...I was born in Idaho, adopted by my grandparents, one of whom died in a hospital due to lifelong complications from an injury sustained in World War II, the other in a violent car wreck that I had the displeasure to witness from inside the car.  I moved back with my mom and dad to Texas, met a fun kid named Darrin who became my lifelong friend, fell in love with a girl named Beth and told her after four years to be given a "you're just a good friend" brush-off that left me reeling, made love for the first time at 17 with my first real girlfriend L__, who betrayed me with more guys than I can count, graduated in the top of my class with honors, dropped out of college, got married and had a son, divorced and returned to college to become a teacher, taught for fifteen years, got married and divorced again, became engaged again, and all the while, continued with my neverending quest to write, be published, sell a film script, and direct movies.  All of that is the real beginning.  Not art...just life.

Now I feel that Art has  begun. I have made my first movie--it's in the process of a final edit, whereupon it will be submitted to festivals in the coming year.  I am starting a new project with my best friend, Tom, which we will direct together in a few weeks, a low-budget horror that is smart in its approach to its own genre.  This is the beginning, Art-wise.  In the film of my life, the one edited for  the interesting parts, I have finally arrived at the opening scene.  Although I'll enjoy every minute--every tear, every laugh, every moment that I fear I will vomit because of all the tension due to some interpersonal crossroads--you will probably only see the Slurpee version.  Just take me in small doses...I don't want you to get Brain Freeze.

I glanced down at the ground, for once, and thought I stepped on a sparrow.  I started to look back, but then thought,

            “Why?”

            I looked back anyway, as I walked on.

            Now, I grieve.