Chapel on the Hill

Two of my favorite people married at sunset yesterday.

I remember when I flew to Singapore to catch a band in ’06, Kara got left behind because of some passport issue, and Pia and I flew ahead. We were staying with their friends, people I hardly knew then. I knew I’d be all right because Pia and I talked during the whole flight, much to the annoyance of the old man seated in front of us. We talked about the need for personal projects, the benefits of living a part of your young life abroad, and the coolness of kids growing up in another culture. It was easy.

Dino was just, "this guy," in that conversation. Then when she and Dino finally got together, I was really happy that I could talk to someone about the Star Wars Expanded Universe and displaced 80’s music.

It was a really nice wedding, complete with a photographer running into the wind chimes in an untimely moment, and the priest getting lost in his script. I think it was cool compared to a lot of these staged, ultra-managed wedding events.

Also, after the wedding and after dinner, it was like were all just hanging out, making silly jokes. Just like the times before they were married, and we'd go to the movies, get quiet dinners, or talk in the Salcedo parking lot after patintero.

the grind

Working for 2009 officially begins tomorrow. And today, while I sit and do nothing while waiting to attend the wedding of close friends, I can't help but feel antsy about the things I have to do. It's the feeling I get when I know I've procrastinated, even if i haven't. This is like advance guilt. When you think about it (or when I think about it, just to feel better) the holiday hiatus was even productive. I mean, at least I got my archiving done. Last year it took me 'til middle of last year to archive 2007.

Anyway, while I sit here and wait, I might as well make a list of things I want done (or have to do) in the first two working weeks of January. You know, just to get into the right frame of mind.

1. Subtitle Training.

2. Make a list of film festivals, of their requirements, and start sending out subtitled Training.

3. Upgrade my equipment. I'm one year behind on this and the money I put aside for this upgrade went to the short film already. Haha.

4. Redesign my website so I can push my work (see #8). I actually got in touch with the designer before the holidays, and we're set to resume talking about it... around now.

5. Get started on Gray Area stuff. Somebody bought the building and we're not renewing our lease. We have a couple of prospects for a location to move to, including a possible partnership with another studio. I got to set up that meeting and talk to our studio manager about meager months ahead while we're in transition.

6. Talk to my accountant about lowering her fee. I agreed to her high professional fee because I needed help straightening out my tax stuff from 2006-2007. Now that that's done, mostly, I need to keep my own overheads down.

7. Get my own space.

8. Send the folio out and get higher paying jobs to offset everything.

You know, this is why they say that most men live lives of quiet despair.

dirty movie

I saw Zack and Miri Make A Porno before Christmas and I liked it enough to pass on poker last night to sit through another go at this sweet and tender movie. Sweet and tender aren't words I'll usually attach a movie about making an adult movie, but Kevin Smith knows how to squeeze some heart out of the banality of malls, comics, and the mind-numbing day job. So what's getting a little warm, fuzzy feeling out of a porno?

Also, I could sort of relate to a lot of things in the movie. There's Zack (Seth Rogen), not quite a fine specimen of man, yet attempts finds his place in this world... making a porno in a coffee shop. Well, I didn't make a porno, and while the idea is suddenly appealing, I kinda knows what it feels like when Zack has to come with something to shoot, when he has co-workers who look up to him to make decisions, when he wonders if anything he's doing is actually worth it because he just want something better out of life.

Haha. Anyway, so there. Oh, and Elizabeth Banks is cute, Craig Robinson (Darryl from The Office) is funny, and Justin Long has an awesome cameo.

credits

I began this blog over a year ago because I had a then untitled short film I wanted to make. Well, I got it done: I wrote it, directed it, and screened it for friends and family, and somewhere in that time line, I figured out a title.

TRAINING, along with some trips and a certain reunion concert, was a highlight of 2008. I'm so thankful I got it done. I loved the experience of making it and the people I made it with are a big part of my life. Thanks, all of you.

The transition from 2008 to 2009 wasn't as smooth as I wanted. I've come to have mixed feelings about some of my relationships. In the garish lights of the holidays, the inadequacies are ever more glaring. Maybe it's just the holiday blues, but things are always a changing and in some things, I better be changing myself. I'll work it out, no worries.

More seriously, in the past couple of days, I've learned that bad things happened or are happening to people I love. I don't really know what to say about these things. This too, I'm still working out. But I want to say that I love you all, and I just want you to be all right. Somehow I don't say that enough, and I'm changing that.

I'm here now. New obsessions or not, throughout all the adventure and the uncertainty, in the euphoria of pleasure or in the depths of sorrow, I want to keep going. I owned you, 2008. 2009, you're next.

efficiency

I got things done today.

First off, I finished off my shopping. Well, I have two more gifts to get. I just realized, looking at the stuff I bought, I've been buying more for the kids than the adults. That's what they get for begetting kids. But at the same time, I'm not getting anything from my aunts, uncles, and godparents. Maybe because I've become an uncle and godfather too. I've been bumped up and all the good stuff are going to the kids, damnit.

I also got a whole bunch of DVD-Rs. That's for archiving a year's worth of work. That's getting done while I write this thing up. It might take a while though. I think I'm barely one-fifth done.

Been getting a lot of new music lately. Liking MGMT and Silver Jews is up next.

I also finished watching Milk this morning. That was pretty good. It's so easy to make a mediocre biopic. Just get the guy to overcome some hurdle in life, or die trying, then cue the dramatic music. Well Milk does all that but it does it pretty good. Gus Van Sant gets awesome work out of Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch and company. He gets Harris Savides to light it like they're rioting in the 70's again. But at the heart of it, I mean aside from the solid acting, is the really great writing (Dustin Lance Black). I like what was said, how it was pieced together, and how they chose to show the end. It was just good filmmaking by Van Sant.

Just now, between archiving and writing, I set up my brother's laptop so my mother could talk to her sister in LA over Skype. They squealed like high schoolers. They're talking about yesterday's Christmas lunch menu and discussing New Year's menu already.

That's how I'm spent my day-after-Christmas. Very productive. But the two more gifts I have to get are actually for my parents. So I have to hurry up on those.