general memo.

So, it's not that I haven't been on the internet or anything. It's just that I haven't been on the internet HERE.

In Spitting Distance Pictures news: Indus and I wrapped shooting on our next short, "timePod" this month. We're now in various stages of post-production for both "timePod" and "False Alarm".

We also set up a MySpace page for ourselves. I'd like to get a real website up and off the ground, but until I can teach myself anything beyond basic introductory HTML, I'm not sure that's possible. But check out Spitting Distance Pictures here. And, hey, friend us, will ya? And if you have any CSS in your past and you wanna make our MySpace page look cooler, I'd be interested in your help.

In other news, I've been playing a lot of Ninja Ropes.

And I've been microblogging over at my Twitter page. (It's set to private right now, but if you have a Twitter, you can follow me.) Because sometimes 140 characters is all I can manage.

Finally, I spent some serious time yesterday enjoying this excursion into YouTube incarnations of "Fortunate Son". You should, too.

and yet...

A persistent sensation of restlessness hounds me tonight. I can't stop thinking that I need to come up with the next story.

Like, now.

a thorough sense of triumph.

Recently, I've been thinking of those models they talk about in Economics courses in which you input a certain number of resources like labor and capital and raw materials the output is a good or service. It's straight-up. It's mathematical.

Only, people don't think of movies this way. People think of movies as having this magical, supernatural quality. There's something mysterious and alluring about movies that sets them apart from zipper factories in our mental economic models. But Indus and I wrapped production on our film yesterday, and I can't help but feel that that's all one big fatty myth.

No, no, I mean there's definitely artistry involved in making a film, and a certain talent for finesse -- both of which at least Indus has in excess -- but neither of those skills are undefinable or in any way "magical". We input a little money, a lot of running around, and a metric ton of phone calls and emails, and what got output was a (hopefully) beautiful, and (undoubtedly) hilarious short film. Straight up. Mathematical.

It all stems from a stand up effort by every single freakin' wonderful crew and cast member, and it amounts to an inaugural Indus and Britta collaboration to be proud of. We're still working on a good title for our production company; and the title of the film we just finished -- "False Alarm" -- is likely to change; but it looks like our current shared title of "Director" is gonna stick. And that's something to feel thankful for.

good stuff encroaching.

Dang, it's getting all dark. In the past I remember how I used to welcome the winter and the cold and the comforting monotony of rain and clouds and clouds and clouds and rain. But in the past, I didn't make a living walking other people's dogs.

Indus and I are getting all industrious on this short film that we're making, uh, this week. Oh, didn't you hear? I wrote a script; Indus liked it; we cast it, crewed it, scheduled it; and next week we're gonna shoot it. If you're swinging your head around going, "waitaminutewhatdidshesay?" then we're in roughly the same frame of mind.

I'm excited, and so far all the pre-production has actually run smoothly - a relative term, to be sure, so imagine it as, say, the smoothest hurricane ever to hit the coast of Florida. I'm happy with our cast and I'm thrilled at the crew people we have who are graciously donating their time (and in some cases their equipment). It's really amazing how much we're getting done with no money and a lot of smiles.

Here's hoping it don't rain on us.

incredubible.

We're currently showing Religulous at the 'Tune. The correct pronunciation features a soft g. In order of popularity, here are the most common mispronunciations of the movie title:

50% - Religulous (with a hard g)
20% - Religiosity
15% - Religious
10% - Re... Relig... Religi... what is it?
 3% - The Bill Maher movie
 2% - Some cockamamie pronunciation having little to do with the actual
          letters in the title.