Merry Christmas From the End of the World

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Love, Rod and Ray

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Kurosawa - 30 in 30

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Kurosawa 30 in 30 - Plus Bonus Supercut It has been a long time since I had much to talk about in regards to any personal creative efforts. I've got all the amateur excuses lined up. But that's a topic for another day, and rest assured, I have been writing again. BUT today is about Akira Kurosawa. To most film fans and filmmakers he is a a familiar name. I'm not here to argue if he's the best or if Ozu's better (they were friends so I'm not sure they would have cared for the argument) because how can we really determine that. I simply wanted to make a super cut that paid a little tribute to a filmmaker who has a significant impact on me. That's it. I admire him and his very frequent collaborators (both cast and crew!) a great deal and this was a fun way to show them off. I highly recommend his autobiography, Something Like an Autobiography and Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies With Akira Kurosawa by Teruyo Nogami. The second book is equal p...
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IT'S ALIVE!!!

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Ok. So, the western didn't happen. We kept kicking that can down the road, trying to scrape together enough money. Didn't happen. Once I finally found out what the insurance was going to cost, I had to make a tough choice. Either, a) Delay again with no set shoot date this time or b) shoot something else. "A" wasn't good because I hated to lose the rapport and excitement that had built up amongst the cast and major crew members. It also meant that it might not happen ever. Not with this group anyway. That's just were my personal life is now, this is the last shoot for awhile. So we chose, "B". And what an adventure that was. In mid/late December, we pulled the plug and I wrote a new short based on an old short/feature idea. It was boring. A week later I began working on a comedy: Gotham, TX. Here's your tagline: "Gotham is a small town in Texas where nothing every happens...But it has a masked vigilante anyway. More to come. The shoo...
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Remember To Be Interesting

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I over explain. I often over explain what I'm explaining with a four or five interruptions to spit out caveats, pre-qualifiers, and explanations to explain what I'm explaining. I try to head off every possible questions someone's going to have or to put to rest any misconception, doubt, or disagreement they may have about what I'm going to say before I say it.  I'm sort of doing that now. And it usually backfires. Because after I'm done, the poor listener has had to follow me down five different paths and they're understandably lost after I stop to take a breath. Then we start over and figure it out or, unfortunately, they're put off and don't care to understand by that point. Somewhere along the way, I learned to avoid the questions. The thing is, there's a beauty in getting the chance to express yourself. To let something unfold. Often, my best explanation of something has happened when someone has asked me a question and I have to stop ...
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