Make Me Young: Youth Knows No Pain DVD Release!

Ladies and gentlemen- you can finally own a copy of the wonderful anti-aging documentary "Make Me Young: Youth Knows No Pain"

If you need further convincing beyond the fact that I co-wrote and co-produced it...

Watch this trailer:

Promo

Now--- Buy it!!

Whatt'a ya looking at?

I found this photo  today while prepping my grad school apps --
Don't know why I didn't include it in the Lady of Mount Carmel post. That guy is fantastic.

You know you want to...

The Documentary that I co-wrote and co-produced - Make Me Young: Youth Knows No Pain -
comes out on DVD next Tuesday.

You can buy it.

Or... save it to your queue in Netflix so that it will become avail.

Regardless- it's awesome. Just get it, already. 

Upbeat/Downbeat

I like The Weepies a lot.

I think it's because they often pair lyrics of songs with contradictory beats and melodies. i.e. - my current song obsession, "When You Go Away:"



There's something that makes it more poignant because it's not a ballad or something equally slow and sad-- like the lyrics would seem to call for.

Kind of like this scene in Sense and Sensibility- which is totally heartbreaking, because Marianne gets crushing news while dance music is being played. [The 2nd half of this scene is oh so much better, but I can't find it online].



I can't explain why the contradiction works, but-- for me-- it does. Maybe it feels more honest? Really- I have no idea.

Any other examples? Or general thoughts?

I'm curious about why the upbeat music/down beat content resonates.

Things that Make Writing Eas(ier)

I am working on graduate school applications and have, more than ambitiously, decided that I plan on writing 3-5 versions of each "sample scene" we're suppose to submit before I pick the ones to revise.

This Sunday evening, at 7:50pm, this endeavor seems very stupid.

But something made me think of it in the first place-- so I shall plow forward.


In the mean time-- Here's a few things that make writing easier.

1) Homemade Tea consisting of Earl Gray, Lavender flowers and a splash of milk. No honey. No sugar.

2) "Old Country Fairy Tale" by The Appalacian Trio - Mark O'Connor, Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer

3) The following quote that I clipped from an unknown magazine while in college:

"I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel global doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt." -- Richard Bausch

A bad case of fridays

Serious.

Why haven't I been posting more about my short?

Well... It got a little something I will refer to as revision disease.

What is revision disease, you ask?

It's when you start out with something that has a really good spirit, but isn't quite finished. After you show it to too many people and think about it way too much... you slowly start to chip away at everything you think is bad and... it gets all splotchy and feverish and no longer resembles its former self.

Basically, you suck all of the life out of it. This happened to me... around revision #5 1/2.

By #6... well... my screenplay had Gangrene.

The only thing to do once this happens is to step away for a week or a few, let it sit and recover... and then come back to the first draft and start over with that once you feel like it isn't contagious anymore.

So that's what I've been doing. I've been staying away from it and instead I have been throwing myself into grad school apps.

And right now I have a bad case of Fridays- not focusing on writing anything, not focusing on editing photos, not focusing on editing videos-- but instead, focusing on skipping around the internet at a previously unheard of pace.

In case you're curious... here's what I've been looking at--

Orangette - whose book I am reading (it made me cry at lunch today).

This amazingly rich looking video of HDR video shot with two Canon 5D Mark II cameras.

And a very early review of the Panasonic AF-100.



And... in the spirit of tangents....

 A few pictures of my Grandfather, who turned 91 this year (whew), that I took last week.

Something Sunny on a Gray Day

Inspiration Part 1 -- Concept

It's taken me a very long time to finally come up with a short that I want to make. Desperately. Want.

See-- I've always been of the mind that you need to be in love with something you create for it to be really great [especially if you weren't necessarily going to have the money to make it right away... lets say...]. So I kept writing things and not making them because, frankly-- they weren't stories that I loved and wanted to invest my time in.

Then, finally...

Well, ... like all amazing things in life- I think inspiration comes when you lease expect it. When you aren't trying and just let yourself be open to what's around you in the world. When you sit and try and try and try... well - that never works for me.

So, one day, when I was watching "His Girl Friday" for the second night in a row and trying desperately not to think about life, work and everything-- a spark lit up in my brain that I could not ignore.

And... out of the blue... there was an idea that I loved.

"Why not make this movie about bloggers?"

So I thought about it for a few days... and then stopped. I didn't want to out-right remake "His Girl Friday." That's stupid.

But, after a few more days... it lingered. There seemed to be something there, that was akin to the spirit that I see in young people [myself, maybe?] in blogger/self-employed environments... a similar... I'm not sure... Just... something that I can feel around me on occasion.

So, I plowed forward. My first instinct was to start by inverting the male-female roles, and setting it in cafe culture instead of an office...and see where I went.

The end result is not really His Girl Friday... or anything close. I'm afraid that my general obsessions took over. But-- still--

 

I can not do enough to credit that lovely amazing movie [and all those who made it] with getting me to a place where I'm finally excited to make something. Hopefully - the homage won't be over powering and the idea will still seem fresh. But that will be accomplished in the production...

I hope.

And... apparently, you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. How about THAT for progress.


[On a side note. I am not nearly of the mind that every story has been told before and there are no new ideas-- I think there are always new ideas-- but I think they are also always a product of everything that's come before. I think that, especially in film, the way that you tell a story-- the space, the movement, the music, all of the things that color the film are just important as the scene, story, etc. The same story can fit in different place and say complete different things. So don't accuse me of stealing or anything.. yet.]

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