What's everyone working on?

[ExpendablesFan]

Last week I had my first big spec sale

That is awesome man, congrats. That's no easy feat. What's your spec about?

[Neri]

Right now it's all about stand up for me.  Writing, rewriting, rehearsing.  It's easily the hardest thing I've ever done but it's a lot of fun.  I did an open mic last night actually, and to my pleasant shock and suprise, I KILLED.  The crowd was awesome and the other comics were a lot of fun too.  So that was cool.  I'm gonna keep at it and have some fun with it and see what happens.  

I'm also overhauling my website.  And sort of diddling around with some new song ideas.

[Rich]

Benji, good on you!

I am working on stuff and it is fun.

[Rev. Danny]

I've made it half-way through writing a variety of short stories and reading a couple books, but the summer class I'm taking keeps getting in the way.

There was a point a few months ago when my former roommate was still finishing his personal screenplay, so we weren't doing anything on the dog movie... so I was writing a western that I was really into, and did a bunch of research on, but the screenplay was coming out wrong, until I started writing it as something between a series of short stories and a novel.  Writing short stories is hard -- somehow, no matter what I did, they kept coming out to be three pages (in Word -- I assume that's five or six in a real book).  But I liked it -- writing in prose, not having to worry about shoehorning important backstory into dialogue... writing short stories is actually a lot of fun, isn't it?

It really is. I'm also better at description than dialog.

[sean]

I'm kind of crap at describing characters and locations, but that's a problem in both short stories and screenplays.  But I love being able to just describe the story; you can say, "And then they did this and this and this" instead of having to come up with three different interesting scenes in order to show the characters doing those three different things.  It frees you up to get to the interesting parts quicker.

[Keith]

I'm currently working on a relocation plan.

[nate.3.0]

About the stories vs. screenplay thing, has anyone here ever read Arthur Miller's "screenplay" for THE MISFITS?  It's (in Miller's words) "neither novel, play, nor screenplay... a story conceived as a film, and every word is there for the purpose of telling the camera what to see and the actors what they are to say.  However, it is the kind of tale which the telegraphic, diagramatic manner of screenplay writing cannot convey because its sense depends as much on the nuances of character and place as on the plot."  (why did I type all of that out?)

Anyway... the point is, the narrative is written so interestingly that I want to attempt it some time.  Such a specific visual read.

[Rich]

Isn't that something you'd probably have to be Arthur Miller to get away with?

[Tarrik Dane]

Sean, what kind of location are you looking to shoot it? Is it a residence or a public place? You might be able to skip the insurance. Also, usually on your first insurance quote they include like a commission or some nonsense ont he actual quote its called the "broker fee" that they will remove if you said you had a quote a couple hundred dollars cheaper from somewhere else. I went to loads of places for insurance quotes and these were the cheapest and easiest as far as payment options were concerned. http://www.eqgroup.com/ Some really big points on keeping costs down:

If you are going to have less than 4 people being paid on the crew you do not need workers comp on the insurance policy. At least in Florida but i imagine it is the similar everywhere else. That will save you a few hundred dollars alone.

Try to keep your shooting schedule so that it ends BEFORE midnight because at 12:00AM on the dot you need insurance for a whole day. So if it is a ngiht shoot either plan to start as soon as it gets dark and finish up ebfore midnight or start exactly at midnight and shoot until sunrise.

All of this is fresh in my mind from just going through it all with my airport film. If you need any more pointers on any aspect of the short give me a shout on AIM "Tarrik Dane" or Email matheww19@hotmail.com. I made loads of mistakes that i learned from and hopefully can stop you from making the same ones.

[nate.3.0]

Isn't that something you'd probably have to be Arthur Miller to get away with?

True...

[Tarrik Dane]

I just finished sound editing on my short THE GATE. The very last thing is to get the music for the end credits laid down, which I am doing this weekend. After that I'm ready to start with festival submission.

I started adapting a short story I won the county literary fair with senior year in high school into a screenplay for my next short. I'm anxious to give it another go with everything I learned last time around. Andrea, the female lead from THE GATE, really loved the story and wants to be the lead in this one as well.

[sean]

Sean, what kind of location are you looking to shoot it? Is it a residence or a public place? You might be able to skip the insurance.

I was thinking of that, actually, since it's a private residence, but it boils down to the dog trainer.  If he tells us that we need to get some sort of liability insurance, then we'll get whatever he requires, because it will still be cheaper than finding another trainer who would almost certainly still require insurance and charge us more besides.

Thanks for the tips.  One thing we've had luck with in the past is that, for something really small, you can find production companies who will put you onto their insurance plan.  They charge you more than they're being charged, but it's much, much less than you would be charged (because insurance companies have a minimum amount they'll charge).

[Steve B]

Wow, this is the first time you've started this topic where I really don't have anything exciting going on.  I feel very lame.

Work's ok, we were working on this pretty cool AT&T spot (with Lauren and her boyfriend from THE HILLS).  We where doing this cool endtag but the agency neutered it, now it's pretty lame.

With my house I have to build a deck and finish a basement.  That going to take most of my free time and money for a year or so.  Then maybe I'll get back to the short I want to shoot.  It's a pretty powerful piece about spousal abuse and 9/11.  if I ever get back to it it's going to be a tough one to direct and even tougher to cast.

I guess this is the most creative thing I've done in a while (non work related).  And trust me it ain't much
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOshDCOmtfY

[Tarrik Dane]

Also, if you are not renting the equipment it will save you around $300 on insurance. As far as the dog trainer is concerned, he is worried about being compensated if his/her dog is injured. Now I dont know what you plan on having the dog do, but if it isnt dangerous i dont see why they would be pushing for that. Another tip is if you a very certain nothing is going to go wrong, getting the highest deductible will lower the insurance cost as well.

[Scott Taylor]

I currently have 535 achievement points on GTA IV. I'm hoping to get some more, but, honestly, I may be capped. I was going around trying to meet all the random characters and get all my friends to like me over 90%, but it's annoying.

I also can't bowl three strikes in a row in the game. It sucks. I want those 10 points.