We finished shooting Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day yesterday. The last shot was a producer cameo by Dom who killed some zombies with a croquet mallet. We were all pretty loopy by then, and everything was hilarious to us. After we wrapped at the location, crew went to Big Time to torment Borgia (who had to work right after we finished shooting…poor guy!) and have a celebratory beer. One beer turned to many, Borgia got off work early and we lamented the fact that we had to return to our regular jobs the next day. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves on this shoot. For me, it was a wonderful validation of all the work we did leading up to it. The set was fun and well organized. There were no big problems that we weren't able to find solutions for. We shot an awesome zombie movie for a minuscule amount of money and it's one of the most fun and rewarding things I've ever done in my life. I ache to do more of it. Being back here at my day job is horrible. All I want to do is jump right into post production and get the movie out there. I want everyone to see it. I want the Seattle film scene to stand up and take notice. I want to start working on the feature. I am now POSITIVE that making movies is the only career that will make me happy and I NEED to do anything in my power to make it happen.
Successful transmission
My existence in the film world has been validated. I am on IMDB!!
I can now send in all my updates and get “Terry” up there! (And Snow Day once it premieres somewhere).
nonono!
So I just saw this link with some prototypes of action figures for the upcoming Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie (for which I'm equal parts deliriously excited and pants-pooping terrified). And I noticed (even before I read the text) that Zaphod Beeblebrox is suspiciously one-headed and two-armed. That is 100% unacceptable. I read a rumor a while back that they were saying his second head was in his ear. Here they are saying something about his face flipping up to reveal a second head. Either way, they are wrong wrong wrong!!! Now, I know that it's a book and therefore open to interpretation, to be sure. But Douglas Adams SPECIFICALLY described in extensive detail about how Zaphod has two VERY VISIBLE heads and four arms. Otherwise, why would Zaphod have to wear that elaborate Halloween costume in London where he meets Trillian?! There are countless other gags that will be ruined by this retarded “interpretation” of the character's look. Not to mention the fact that it would be EASY for them to give him a CG head. Just look at what they did in Men In Black II:
Maybe there were budgetary issues, but this seems to me like something that they should be uncompromising on. It's one of the worst things they could have changed. I am not happy. And neither will the millions of rabid Adam's fans be.
The rest of the action figures look great though. Especially the Vogons. But that little Trillian plush thing makes her look like a Bee Gee.
Still no word on whether or not Ford will have an English accent.
PS: Someone give Lara Flynn Boyle a sandwich i.v. stat.
only alarm, but even
A word of warning:
On my way to work downtown this morning, I passed no less than 2 motorcycle cops in 3 blocks giving out tickets to jaywalkers. They are on the warpath. Be careful. Especially my friends from New York to whom jaywalking is second nature.
A very superficial post
I just got on the elevator to go downstairs and was accosted by the most horrible whiff of B.O. There was no one on the elevator so whoever is responsible for the offense had just left. But as I held my breath during the trip, I got to thinking. In our building, you will never be on the elevator for more than 2 minutes. That means Mr. or Ms. Stinkypants is positively SOAKING in this stench. How, in a high class office environment like this, can a person live from day to day smelling like that? I would think that co-workers would complain to the boss, or, at the very least, leave an anonymous gift of speed stick for their odorous colleague. Unless this person was a client, in which case…I don't know. Surely SOMEONE must say something to them. If strangers on the street feel comfortable enough to tell me they like my ass, they surely shouldn't be shy about telling someone else that they need a bath.
I'm just sayin'.
her own door, opened
Somehow I feel like this was rigged. There is NO WAY that I'm 25% Gangsta and 25% Jock. And I only said that other people VIEW me as dark. That doesn't mean that I AM dark! I just wear black because it's slimming people! And a lot people listen to The Cure. Whatever! I'm gonna go read by myself in the corner of a cafe now.
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You scored as Loner.
What's Your High School Stereotype? |
Also, incidentally, having returned
I know you guys are just dying to know how this past weekend went (those of you who weren't actually there). Well, let me tell you.
It was certainly more of a challenge than the weekend before. We only had one location, but we had about twice as many shots to cram into the same amount of time. And speaking of cramming, there were about 40 people packed into a relatively small house.
We needed a lot of zombies so our diligent make-up crew got to work in the zombie factory pretty early on. But as usual, they did an astounding job churning out new and grotesque creatures. It's just incredible how good the zombies look! It's hard to believe they're OUR zombies!!
It was our first time working with extended dialog so we had to make sure the sound and blocking were spot on. We ended up re-working a lot of things in order to get everything done. We also made a lovely little mess of the house we were shooting in. Luckily, the owner left town before he saw the place. Dom, Faye and I went in Monday night and cleaned our arses off. It actually looks better than now than when we found it, but I was definitely worried for a while there. About half the mud in his yard had been transported and ground into his floors. And his yard is another story. It was rain soaked and very muddy and unfortunately, we had to be out there for pretty much all of Sunday tramping around and shooting our fight scenes. So by the end of the day it was a swamp. We purchased some grass seed and hopefully that will revitalize the yard eventually. But for now it is a horrific mess. I wonder how much film crews with money pay people to shoot in their houses.
We watched the footage last night. Everything looks pretty good! Especially the shot where Faye spit blood on an actor's face to simulate a spurting neck wound. I know our actor wasn't too keen on getting spit on, but it really did look amazing. It's actually the one blood effect so far that we don't need to punch up in some way. So thankfully, our actor was a good sport about it. Faye decided that from now on, she just needs to spit blood on everybody. All the shots are there, though and SO FAR it seems we will be able to get everything done in the time we scheduled. We will definitely have to do some ADR though (which is a whole new ball of wax). We will also need to do shoot some blood splatter in front of a green screen this weekend in order to bloody the thing up. (It's apparently harder than you would think to get blood to show up on camera…right now our blood level is at about a PG-13. Not NEARLY bloody enough).
One weekend left to go. It's not going to be an easy one either. It's ALL fight and zombies (which makes it sound really exciting!). We're learning as we go along and we're ready to kick ass!
man, the man seated
I have GOT to stop listening to KEXP while at work. I keep hearing fantastic music that I've never heard before and I find myself going to Amazon.com about 20 times a day. Unfortunately, most of these bands aren't found at the library, so my amazon.com wish list is getting to be pretty long. And every once in a while, I will find a cheap used CD on amazon and just buy it. But cheap stops being so when you buy a LOT of records at once. This didn't happen when I listened to KJR because you can always find Foreigner's Greatest Hits at the library. Curses. Looks like it might be time for me to have another Buddhist Lent. Or else, I could just DEVELOP self control…nah!
bad wife ambrosia
There's a big protest against Bush's inauguration in Westlake Center this afternoon. I really wish I could go but I'll be en route to the doctor at that time. I wonder if anyone in my office thinks that my doctor's appointment was just an ruse to go to the protest.
So much for “Not One Damn Dime Day”. I bought a sandwich because I didn't have any food from home to bring for lunch. I suppose if I was a good liberal I would have just gone hungry. I'm still wearing black though.
with the initials "N.E."
Well, I thought things had calmed down with The Lil'est Dictator. She'll always be demanding and self-centered, but she hadn't been so outwardly vindictive lately so I thought maybe she was getting laid or something. But apparently not because as of yesterday, she is back on my immediate shit list. I'm not going to even pretend to be nice to her anymore. Here's why:
First, let me set up the scene a little bit. In this office, I am officially the bottom of the proverbial shit heap, that is true. But since there are only 4 of us, we are somewhat on equal footing. We have to be in order to run the business. Or so I thought. We all put in extra hours. The others like to stay late. I prefer skipping lunch if I have a lot to do. But lately, it hasn't been as busy so I've been actually TAKING my lunch. Even so, I arrive before EVERYONE almost EVERY MORNING and don't even get me started on all those times I arrived at 7am for our early meeting only to wait 45 minutes before anyone else showed up. In short: If I happen to take an extra 10 minutes on my lunch break ONE DAY, it shouldn't be a big deal. If I have to go to the doctor two weeks in a row because I have a legitimate medical concern, that should be ok. Especially since others in this office will disappear for two hours in the middle of the day and I don't know what they're doing or where they've gone. Does it bother me? No. Because I'm minding my own fucking business and concentrating on doing my job.
So yesterday evening, about 20 minutes to 5, Boss Man called me into his office. The bottom line was that Lil D had complained that earlier that day I was gone for two hours on a lunch break and she didn't know where I was and while I was gone she had to cover the phones. Poor little deary. Well, as it happens, I was only gone for and hour and a half and that half hour was spent in the UPS office mailing a package for my boss. Sure, she didn't know about that, because I didn't think I had to inform her of every little fucking thing I do seeing as how she's not even my direct boss. Isn't it enough that she's 24 and makes twice my salary? Isn't it enough that this is the little princess' first job and that she's never had to do any REAL WORK in her life? (I'd like to see her wash dishes for 8 straight hours in a hot dish room whilst touching other people's food). No, it's not. Apparently, she's been keeping track of my days off and sick days and lunch times, but completely missed the weeks I went without taking ANY lunch breaks because I was so busy. She forgot because she was out taking HER long lunch breaks and taking care of her shit during work hours. One day she disappeared for over 4 hours in the middle of the day to wait for the cable guy. I have lots of fodder like this to use in my defense. I used some of it yesterday and Boss Man definitely saw my side of the issue. He said he knows I work very hard, probably harder than the other two, but that he had to address the issue with me because he had been riding her about her scheduling recently. Then it all made sense. She decided to “rat” on me because she'd just gotten in trouble. What is she, 5 years old? So I'm not in trouble with Boss Man, but I do need to be careful from now on and keep strict track of all my breaks so that if she ever tries to pull this shit again, I can pull out some documentation to put her in her seat. Boss Man even suggested that I email him when I take my breaks so he has a record, all because of the little princess who is threatened by me because…why? Because I make half her salary and am the absolute bottom of the totem pole in the office? Because I am exluded from their little lunch meetings and trips to Vegas? Yeah, I can see why she would feel threatened by me.
I apologize if this entry is disjointed. I am just very angry right now. I'm sick of being nice to her and putting up with all her bullshit only to have it be thrown back in my face. To paraphrase Xander, I'm through being everyone's butt monkey.
UPDATE
I had a meeting with her at 3:00. Apparently she and Boss Man talked this morning and she pretty much reneged on the whole thing! She said she didn't want me to feel like everyone was against me and we need to be a team and that she knows I do good work. She also admitted that she overreacted about yesterday because she didn't have all the information. She was visibly nervous and her face was red and she talked a mile a minute. Meanwhile, I was stone faced and quiet. She even made a few joked to attempt to lighten the mood and I didn't budge. Awesome.
Effed by the Wind 