It’s that time again where I’m writing from not home, but my self-proclaimed home away from home. I am here in the PNW, the place where I lay my proverbial hat to rest for the next two weeks. I am back, I am back.

Overall, so far, the trip has been well. I didn’t take the beautiful route back, but the more standard fair, but I did break it up a little.

I started at Fresno, then ended up in San Francisco and the Bay Area and now I am back home doing what I do best, sitting, hiking, eating.

Of course Pickles is with me too. That was one reason why I wanted to stop by San Francisco, besides visiting Big Auntie and her family, because I wanted to go exploring San Fran with Pickles. We ended up doing the same “trip” that I did with Hien a few years back, just walking along the piers.

Overall, I had a good time there and I wouldn’t mind doing it again, but this time, being able to explore more.

The drive north was uneventful as always, just your typical I5 driving.

But overall, I got two weeks and the first week for the most part has been all planned out.

101 down to Cannon Beach tomorrow and then Multanomah Falls in Portland and then on Wednesday will be Portland exploration day. Keep Portland Weird! I plan on it.

* * *

It’s been a long time since I have written anything in this dear ol’ friend of mine. A very long time; about two months. I think it is about time that I do it again.

It has just been a little busy since I’ve been able to get any blogging done. It’s just been a very long time since I was able to get any of my thoughts out.

It’s not like that there were anything spectacular that needed to be purge, but there were just things that I would like to jot down and out of my head. Just little things.

My travelings for work is done. Portland was the last office and that is finished. That was an over the weekend trip, so I wasn’t able to do any blogging.

Then there was the short story I had to write for the Ghofran and I finally finished that last week. Overall, I am pretty happy with what I came up with. I think it is good for someone who doesn’t write much prose.

I got some new prompts that I need to focus on. Will I be writing them over this trip? I don’t know, but they are there for me to do if I ever get bored.

Then there was the crazy weekend.

* * *

48 Hour Film Project.

Crazy weekend.

I’m glad that Scott suggested on doing this. I really am because I think that was the creative kick in the ass to get things going again. I think it was definitely needed to get me going through the creative laziness that I was going through. That funk wasn’t going away and having that project with such a short deadline definitely pushed me to create something that I can say that I definitely proud of.

It is definitely the best thing that Scott and I had done. Sure there are faults, but it’s the best thing that we’ve done.

Shouldn’t that be the thing, that each subsequent project that you do is better than the last? We learn something from each one that we do and I know what I need to do. I always known what I needed to do and that is to work with the actors more. To have a clearer vision in my head of what I wanted, especially from the actors.

Overall it was a fun, tiring, and sleepless adventure.

I didn’t write the script, but helped Scott streamline it, poking holes into it. He got sole writing credit, as he should. While he’s writing, as we finished discussing the structure of the script, from story and plot, I was contacting our principals with their roles and what I wanted from them. I contacted our makeup artists and our composer giving them specifics of what is to be expected on the script and what we wanted in terms of the score. It was a very very good process.

We finished writing the script Friday night at about 10:30 and sent it off to everyone. I didn’t get home from Scott’s until close to midnight and stayed up till 1AM dissecting the script, writing notes, and getting a clear idea of what I wanted from each shot and how it should be set up.

By 5 in the morning, I was up, from nerves, to anxiety, to just I couldn’t sleep. I finished the opening slate and got ready to go. I needed to go. I got to Scott’s about 7:30 and I got a text from the main actor. Overall, we had to drop him because he was in the emergency room and we can’t count on him. We thanked him in the end credits, but you know, fuck it.

The day of the shoot went fast. I was constantly moving, thinking, doing the shots. I had to cram a lot of stuff in on our short day. I was able to shoot with available light for the most part, which is great, but there was one scene that stumped me. I couldn’t figure out how to clock it and it shows in the final product. I’m sure if I had more time, it would have been shot differently and maybe a lot better, but I have to deal work with what I had.

The shoot wrapped about 5:30 and after cleaning up, we were on our way and got back to my place at about 6:30. As I was transferring footage to my computer and working on syncing the footage together with the audio, Scott finished up some paperwork and went and got me something to eat. I worked till 2:30 in the morning just syncing up audio. I couldn’t figure out an easier way to put the footage together but by making new sequences per shot. It was a slow slow arduous process, but it worked. I only had a 20 minute nap during that time at around 11pm. From 2:30 till about 6AM I was cutting a rough rough cut.

There was no color correction or sound mixing done. Just here is the footage of how the short is going to look like. I uploaded the file to YouTube for the composer to check out so he can start composing. At 6:30 I went to sleep and woke up at about 8AM, showering and taking Pickles for a walk.

When I was done, let the final edits and post begin. Working on color correction, sound correction, final edits, getting the music and editing it back in. Final final cut was done at 5PM and we started rendering. By 5:30, we were ready to go.

As I was moving the large 9gb file over to the usb drives, it was moving really slow, so I moved it to my external and moved it to Scott’s laptop and we were on our way. I had to reformat the drives for windows and the first one went well. The 2nd one, not so much. It was still formatted in OSX, so I had to find a Best Buy to pick one up.

All in all, we finished moving the movie over at 7pm and it was due at 7:30pm. We made it and turned it in at 7:10. We finished on time.

I was running on practically zero sleep, but it felt good. We were just sitting there, discussing everything, and having our drinks. It was good. It felt good.

So, that was last weekend and it was a crazy weekend that I’ll always remember.

That night, Sunday night, I stayed up late trying to render out a smaller file to upload to YouTube and my Google drive so our crew can take a look at it and download it for their reel.

The screening is this Thursday night, August 15th and I won’t be there.

Looking over the film, I see where the faults were. Where it can definitely be better, where I should edit and shot it a different way, but again, for the time constraint that we had, it turned out to be something that I am definitely proud of.

The look of it was how I imagined all my other shorts should turn out, but ended up being disappointed because of the Panasonic dvx100a’s lens capability. Now, there’s no excuse.

Shooting with the D800, and different glass, I can’t bitch about how the film was shot. I had the creative control there.

Will I do it again? I don’t know, but I definitely want to shoot more shorts. Maybe the musical next. Who knows? But it is definitely the creative push that I needed.

* * *

DineLA.

That is going to kill my bank account, but overall it was worth it.

During this time I was able to get some dinners in and a few lunches. One of them was with Ms. D and another was with B5.

I had a great time with both.

I’m torn between the two, but I do know it is just a matter of wishful thinking that they’ll reciprocate. B5 is so young that she shouldn’t be worming her way into my heart and I can easily let her go.

Ms. D. is an enigma, a tough shell that I need to learn how to crack. I also had a great time with her during the happy hour, talking about her trip.

Sigh.

Heart troubles and heart problems.

But it’ll pass and ultimately I’ll figure things out.

Here’s to hoping.

* * *

Oh, the Traveling ROTC, the Traveling ROTC. That’ll have to wait. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.

Till another day. Till another time.