What Do I Do With My Time?

I mean, really? I spend probably half of each day browsing the internet for jobs, which is good - in a proactive, lemming sort of way, and then about 3 or 4 hours a day working on websites for a couple of friends that are both basically paying nothing for a whole lotta work...

Supposedly, these guys have hired me to write, direct and shoot a super-low-budget television pilot for them, which they think is the next "hottest thing," and that it's going to make them superstars by how cool the shit is they build (and it is cool) and they're personalities and lifestyles. I, however, will be shocked if it gets picked up. Not because it might not be a good show - I think we can make a fine and dandy pilot, but the reality of it is that what they build is boring. I can't, at the moment, say exactly what it is - but I will say that Discovery recently had a show that centered around the same topic (with way different product, same vein though) that just got yanked 'cuz the ratings sucked. Soooooo - I can only imagine what this might do.

Anyway, I'll give it my best whirl. Stay tuned, maybe I'll post some promo edits for y'all to do some audience testing on;)

Another Meeting, Another 2 Bottles of Wine

After a 4 hour meeting with two of my business partners, there's been some good outcome in terms of marketing direction for our film "Family."

Oddly enough, probably a third of the conversation had to do more with "how the hell do we make enough money to get OUT of this business and into something more stable and reliable?" And while one of my partners has made significant inroads towards this goal, neither myself nor my other partner have any other way to generate enough income that we can invest in other things, other than to keep doing what we're doing...

Another good note, today I managed to get some time to speak with Jim Moloshok, who's the Sr. VP of Entertainment and Acquisitions for Yahoo! and see if there's any opportunities to do some indie film marketing with Yahoo and our films website, which should launch in February. So we're supposed to speak with him in the third week of January, and perhaps there'll be a way we can work together. It'll be interesting to see.

All of this would be well and good if I was making a salary for doing it - but such as it is, it is good... just not well and good. ;)

Picked Up

OK, so one of the first feeds I put in my email program is the boingboing blog - and today there's a link to this guy's blog who's writing some great shit about creativity and chaos. It's just plain good.

Now, while chaos scares the hell out of me - I like to think there's such a thing as organized chaos, and as long as the chaos doesn't spill over too much into areas that cause things like budgets and schedules to completely implode, then I'll consider it organized:)

Ooops, it IS Tuesday

So, here I am thinking about all the stuff I have to do today, when it occurs to me that I should check my messages - and there's one from a friend over at one of the local film labs asking me if we're still on for lunch. And in my mind, I'm like, "yeah, that'll work for tomorrow" and then the message says we're still on for TODAY, and then it dawns on me that today IS Tomorrow, and there goes all the other stuff I thought I was going to do today.

In the end, it would have dawned on me sooner or later, I'm just glad it was sooner, rather than later.

Damn Technology

I'm too tired to really write anything else this evening, but this whole blogging thing seems to have piqued my interest, and I'm too damn lazy to actually haul myself downstairs to go to bed.

What a conundrum. What a quandry. What a ridiculous problem to have.

Actually - maybe I'm just putting off the whole idea of sleep only because I know that once I go to sleep, that when I awake it will be tomorrow, and tomorrow will not be an apocryphal day, or day of significance in any way.

Eh, fuck it... one day, perhaps it will be.

Good night.

First Post

Well, since the title of the blog is Whatever Comes to Mind, what's coming to mind right now is the awful writing of a book I'm fininishing - that has some interesting content, but.... well, I'm not a dumb guy (usually) but when I need to re-read a sentance three or four times to understand at least some of what the hell the writer is talking about, it's not a good thing.

It's called Autumn of the Moguls: My Misadventures with the Titans, Poseurs, and Money Guys who Mastered and Messed Up Big Media by Michael Wolff.

While the book teeters on the knife edge of being narcissistic, the author fully realizes this and indeed uses it to correlate himself with the objects of his writing - namely the above titled Titans, Poseurs and Money Guys.

It DOES however put frightening (and equally exhilarating) questions on the table about the health, (or lack thereof) of the media business and the business which I myself am a part of.

The frightening part comes from the nagging feeling that I better "get mine" before this whole darn system collapses on itself - and hope that I can do so in time to try some other pursuits that may not pay off as handsomely as filmmaking still can - though may not for much longer.

The exhilarating part comes from the percolation of ideas within my head about what kind of system replaces the current one when the current one does die. Or perhaps it has already died and no one knows it yet.

Hm - on second thought that may be more the case than not - because most of what movie studios are doing is turning out films that cost too much, and perform too little. So their "specialty divisions" run around trying to find films and filmmakers and deals with filmmakers that can make films at a more reasonable cost than they can.

Anyway, I have other thoughts on that - but those are cards I wanna hold for just a bit longer to see what the hell happens.... or what the hell I can make happen:)