It’s November 8th, and I’m bored.
Beyond bored. Like, I feel as though the world has stopped spinning, and my mind is going a thousand miles an hour. But, instead of thinking anything good, it’s all feeling like gibberish, which is awful.
Kelsey and I decided to slow down our editing on Enchantments, instead of rushing the project into a festival. It’s a good move.
But it now leaves me with some free time.
Some = a lot.
I walk dogs. Did I ever tell you that? I do. Well, one dog for now. I took off for a while to shoot the feature and to edit, but this one dog lives across the street and I said I’d walk her.
Two Mondays ago I distinctly remember thinking ‘I don’t want to walk dogs any more.’ The dog is great, I just want to find something else to do that has something to do with filmmaking. Or creativity.
So, that Monday, I was also thinking ‘I can’t wait for it to be Friday, so that I have the weekend off from walking this dog.’ Friday came, and I had an ok weekend.
This past Monday came around and I thought the same thing, about Friday.
Well, Friday is here and on my last walk (I walk the dog twice over the course of a day) I had that thought again. ‘I’m glad it’s the weekend, so I don’t have to walk the dog.’
And the deja vu sense hit me and I said aloud “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, a week passed already?”
I stopped, which was fine with the dog, she hates walking, and I just stood there and said “All I’m doing is wasting my time.”
Not dog walking, but in the monumental “This is all the time we have in the world, and we’re wasting it with this shit,” kind of thought.
Depressing, right? Kind of?
It’s the kind of thought we all have, and it either momentarily inspires us, or makes the day seem worse than normal.
Suffice it to say, I went home and played video games.
The other day I spent some time looking at my ‘writer’ file on my computer. There’s a lot of files in that folder. A lot. Feature length scripts, short scripts, short stories, two novels, some novellas, and one play.
I don’t remember writing a lot of it. So I got to looking.
I have 7 short scripts that I’ve written over the past year, and one brand new web series, with nine episodes written.
Most of those shorts would take $$ to produce. They’re mainly pilots or proof-of-concept shorts, and as much as I’d like to take a crack at them, I’m in the strict position where I have to pick my battles. Because I’m broke.
On Wednesday Kelsey came over and asked to work together again. “I need to act,” she said. “Maybe produce. But not direct. I want to act.” So we got to talking about a story we could put together for her and another actress. Something inexpensive but cute, fun, blah blah.
It’s gotten to the point where I keep writing with my apartment in mind. I’m stuck all day in my apartment, and it’s driving me batshit, but, it’s what I have to work with.
So, we got to talking, and I said I’d give a short film some thought for her and a mutual friend of ours (who we haven’t actually asked yet, so I’m keeping her name out of it for now.)
I got to telling her about a story I had in my head, and she said she liked it, so I wrote it last night. It’s 12 pages, give or take, and would take a day. It’s got a handful of characters, one location, and I think it’d be a good project to work on. It might cost $300 for food and a sound guy.
That means taking on more dogs.
It’s funny, being bored. There’s a lot of people out there who would love to own equipment and be able to film at the drop of a hat. I can do that, but can pretty much only shoot me, and I’m not sure there’s an audience for that kind of thing.
So, I have to figure out something to do in the interim. In January it was 5AM. In December, Julie, Producer Julie, and I will be shooting a short film called Kindness. Should be fun. That shouldn’t cost any more than $150, mainly for props.
That means taking on more dogs.
I was giving some consideration to the NYC Production Assistant training program. It’s 5 weeks of training and then 2 years of job placement assistance. We’ll see. Karen and I are going to Vegas and San Diego in a week or so, so I’ll have to check it out when I get back.
Keep busy.
John
Words From Here 