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Relatively full week, to the extent that it all started piling up and every time I sat down to write it was too much and then I waited and it was more too much, and eventually the effort got to the point where I felt I'd be placing too much emphasis on any given thing to write it down so late.
I try not to talk to much about the nature of my journal in my journal. For the most part I dislike it when writers express self-doubt about their writing. It reverses the polarity of author-audience, like giving someone a gift you hope they'll use on you. It's particularly ridiculous in a journal which is ostensibly mainly for my own consumption - at that point, what am I trying to get from whom? The whole thing echo chambers almost immediately. It gets postmodern in the worst way.
Nevertheless, it does often feel to me that I'm more likely to write when I have nothing much of consequence to say than when something happens that I might want to read about later, particularly now that I have so little time free. I think I still haven't written anything much about the film shoot or more-than-a-year-ago wedding. Not that "Easter happened! Also I went to a party!" is anywhere near that category. I think I might have to resign myself to the idea that although the journals I like to read are often funny and about the lives of the writers, I myself tend toward either "I ate this it was good" or brief essays that are often a bit ranty, and am much more likely to write when I am a bit bored and have no one nearby to tell the clever opinion I've just decided on. I do try to keep a journal, though.
Last Saturday, I went to a wonderful book exchange party with a lot of game designers and spec fic authors, critics, and booksellers, and consequently Ciro and I came home with a lot of great old SciFi and Horror anthologies. Then we went up to the church for a candlelight Easter vigil with bonfires and tambourines and lamb and hummus - a tradition of the early church, one of the oldest Christian traditions. It was also Dad's birthday, and everyone toasted him, especially since he spent a lot of time behind the scenes putting the whole thing together. (He's probably where I get my producer leanings and talents. Not that Mom hasn't produced her fair share of shows and concerts. They're both pretty logistical.)
In a nice surprise, my friend Sylvana was there; she's been ill since about the time I got up to Boston, ill enough she didn't feel up to receiving visitors, so it's the first time I've seen her in almost a year. She and the doctors may have finally figured out what's wrong, so fingers crossed.
For Easter, we dyed eggs, and as usual I managed to keep my hands mostly dye-free and Mom managed to turn hers green. Given that she has enthusiastically forgotten about the persistence of egg dye every year since she was a small child, this can be counted as one of our family's Easter traditions. Another is coconut. I don't know why exactly; I think it's just that we like coconut. So we had coconut cream pie, and many Mounds bars were given out. Also Cadbury eggs (at least partly to terrorize Ciro) and Peeps (to terrorize everyone).
The weather has finally turned nice, although unstable, so we've been able to open windows to let fresh air in, and to go for walks and admire the many well-tended gardens in the area. Hayseeds has achieved picture lock, which in layman's terms means the edit is "finished." It of course isn't finished at all, because all of the sound work has to happen, the music has to be added, the graphics for the credits have to be designed, the whole thing has to be conformed to the right resolution, and then all that has to be mixed and graded (the equivalent of mastering the sound and properly developing the photography instead of using a rush print). There's still another two or three months of work to be done, with the involvement of a lot more people and a lot more money.
But with picture lock done, a huge amount of the pressure is off me as a director; I can see at this point what the film is going to be, and all the major decisions have been made. I can still protest if I don't like some of the music or graphics choices, and I'm still executive producer, which means sending e-mails to people I want to get involved, or making calls on whether certain services are worth certain amounts. But producorial decisions of that sort aren't a source of stress for me, really; not now that I know it is possible for the film to be, at base, watchable. Most of the stress I think now goes to Ciro, the producer.
(Executive producer sounds stressful, since they're the boss of the producer, but it's pretty hands off most of the time, which is why someone can executive produce a dozen films at a time but a real producer only has time for one. Being able to produce is more impressive than being able to executive produce, but then again being executive producer is at least partly about lending the weight of your prestige to the project. Not that I have a ton of prestige.)
I'm also nearly through with the manuscript edit for Drollerie, so it's possible that in the future I will actually have time to paint a room or write something. (I still have to edit that music video, but Ciro's going to need to use his computer intensively for a week or two, which blocks my access to editing software.)
Anyway, to a certain extent I'm free. I still have to set up looping (re-recording lines where the sound is inaudible or distorted, of which there are a lot because it was outdoors and windy) and various post-production processing, and I have to write up all the festival submission materials, and it's entirely possible I'll do some of the scoring because although we know lots of musicians, surprise surprise the tone of my music is closest to the tone of my writing and directing. Go figure. But all that's easy compared to what's already done.
I try not to talk to much about the nature of my journal in my journal. For the most part I dislike it when writers express self-doubt about their writing. It reverses the polarity of author-audience, like giving someone a gift you hope they'll use on you. It's particularly ridiculous in a journal which is ostensibly mainly for my own consumption - at that point, what am I trying to get from whom? The whole thing echo chambers almost immediately. It gets postmodern in the worst way.
Nevertheless, it does often feel to me that I'm more likely to write when I have nothing much of consequence to say than when something happens that I might want to read about later, particularly now that I have so little time free. I think I still haven't written anything much about the film shoot or more-than-a-year-ago wedding. Not that "Easter happened! Also I went to a party!" is anywhere near that category. I think I might have to resign myself to the idea that although the journals I like to read are often funny and about the lives of the writers, I myself tend toward either "I ate this it was good" or brief essays that are often a bit ranty, and am much more likely to write when I am a bit bored and have no one nearby to tell the clever opinion I've just decided on. I do try to keep a journal, though.
Last Saturday, I went to a wonderful book exchange party with a lot of game designers and spec fic authors, critics, and booksellers, and consequently Ciro and I came home with a lot of great old SciFi and Horror anthologies. Then we went up to the church for a candlelight Easter vigil with bonfires and tambourines and lamb and hummus - a tradition of the early church, one of the oldest Christian traditions. It was also Dad's birthday, and everyone toasted him, especially since he spent a lot of time behind the scenes putting the whole thing together. (He's probably where I get my producer leanings and talents. Not that Mom hasn't produced her fair share of shows and concerts. They're both pretty logistical.)
In a nice surprise, my friend Sylvana was there; she's been ill since about the time I got up to Boston, ill enough she didn't feel up to receiving visitors, so it's the first time I've seen her in almost a year. She and the doctors may have finally figured out what's wrong, so fingers crossed.
For Easter, we dyed eggs, and as usual I managed to keep my hands mostly dye-free and Mom managed to turn hers green. Given that she has enthusiastically forgotten about the persistence of egg dye every year since she was a small child, this can be counted as one of our family's Easter traditions. Another is coconut. I don't know why exactly; I think it's just that we like coconut. So we had coconut cream pie, and many Mounds bars were given out. Also Cadbury eggs (at least partly to terrorize Ciro) and Peeps (to terrorize everyone).
The weather has finally turned nice, although unstable, so we've been able to open windows to let fresh air in, and to go for walks and admire the many well-tended gardens in the area. Hayseeds has achieved picture lock, which in layman's terms means the edit is "finished." It of course isn't finished at all, because all of the sound work has to happen, the music has to be added, the graphics for the credits have to be designed, the whole thing has to be conformed to the right resolution, and then all that has to be mixed and graded (the equivalent of mastering the sound and properly developing the photography instead of using a rush print). There's still another two or three months of work to be done, with the involvement of a lot more people and a lot more money.
But with picture lock done, a huge amount of the pressure is off me as a director; I can see at this point what the film is going to be, and all the major decisions have been made. I can still protest if I don't like some of the music or graphics choices, and I'm still executive producer, which means sending e-mails to people I want to get involved, or making calls on whether certain services are worth certain amounts. But producorial decisions of that sort aren't a source of stress for me, really; not now that I know it is possible for the film to be, at base, watchable. Most of the stress I think now goes to Ciro, the producer.
(Executive producer sounds stressful, since they're the boss of the producer, but it's pretty hands off most of the time, which is why someone can executive produce a dozen films at a time but a real producer only has time for one. Being able to produce is more impressive than being able to executive produce, but then again being executive producer is at least partly about lending the weight of your prestige to the project. Not that I have a ton of prestige.)
I'm also nearly through with the manuscript edit for Drollerie, so it's possible that in the future I will actually have time to paint a room or write something. (I still have to edit that music video, but Ciro's going to need to use his computer intensively for a week or two, which blocks my access to editing software.)
Anyway, to a certain extent I'm free. I still have to set up looping (re-recording lines where the sound is inaudible or distorted, of which there are a lot because it was outdoors and windy) and various post-production processing, and I have to write up all the festival submission materials, and it's entirely possible I'll do some of the scoring because although we know lots of musicians, surprise surprise the tone of my music is closest to the tone of my writing and directing. Go figure. But all that's easy compared to what's already done.
