Summer So Far

Well, I've been off for nearly a month, and I've been pretty much in relax mode, but I do have some stuff going on. I made enough money working at the lab last semester that I've been able to take the month off and still maintain my lifestyle (as in buy a DVD every week or so), as well as the extravagence of social activities like seeing Revenge of the Sith three times and eating at the diner more than once.

I did do some jobs for LMC. I taped an infotainment DVD on haircutting that will get packaged with R*Own haircare products. It was a fairly entertaining shoot and I was paid for it, so that was good times. I hadn't shot anything in a while and it was good to be back behind the camera. I also taped the LMC awards, where we won 'Best Adult Drama' for Tabula Rasa. That adult refers to the age of the people making it, not the content of the film. I was a little disappointed I didn't get to do an acceptance speech, to thank my agent, publicist, personal assitant and of course, God, but alas, that was not to be.

I've also been going around for LMC putting up fliers for our workshop, which starts on July 5. I think the workshop may actually have been my favorite job I've had. I've done a lot of jobs where you do nothing, and this job was actual work, but it was fulfilling. What I did was teach three workshops, one on broadcast news, one on film and one on documentary to a bunch of 12-16 year olds, and at the end we had three pretty solid finished products. The film especially is really entertaining, I was surprised how well that came out, and I think the people had fun making it. To be paid a ton of money to make a movie is the goal of my life, so this is a start.

In coordination with LMC, Jordan and I are running a summer film series at the library here in Mamaroneck. I always like bringing new movies to people so I'm really excited about it, with any luck, some people will turn up and we'll have some solid discussions about the films. It's at the Mamaroneck library community room, by the Emelin, and these are the films we're showing.

June 30: 2001: A Space Odyssey
July 7: Infernal Affairs
July 14: Safe
July 21: Oldboy
July 28: Waking Life
August 4: Fallen Angels
August 11: American Beauty
August 18: Irreversible

They're some of my favorite films, and I think there's a lot of stuff in there that most people won't have seen. There's definitely awkward moment potential with Oldboy and Irreversible, but if others really enjoy it, the awkwardness will be worth it. I don't know who's going to turn up, hopefully some people will, and if not, it's just an excuse to have LMC's projector to watch movies I like.

Speaking of LMC's projector, I've been running a 'screening room' with it in my house for the past couple of weeks. I've been watching a whole bunch of movies, mostly older stuff, because I feel like I've seen most of the stuff I want to see from the 90s and 00s. There's still a few titles out there to discover, but most of the movies that people mention as quality from the era I've already covered, which means it's time to go backwards, and that's what I've been doing. Over this summer, I'm going to try to see all the 60s and 70s American classics that I haven't yet gotten to.