Oh my, where do I begin?

Our days are a million things lately.  My thoughts are swarms of flies.  These last weeks have quite possibly been the hardest parts of the movie so far, I can’t lie.

I mean, of course pre-production and all the anxiety is tough and then filming and keeping your head and vision and dealing with nonstop obstacles is tough – but everything coming together at the exact same time with a very, very set deadline has been surprisingly brutal.  But it’s good!  We’re finishing the movie.

But man, is it a beast.

Just two days lately:  Monday (Labor Day) and Tuesday

Monday:

6:30am – Wake up in a general flurry of thoughts – where will we get an HD projector and a screen?  How much is a keg of beer for the premiere/where we do get it?  We need to buy Compressor so we can crunch this movie down for Vimeo immediately for our folks who can’t make the premiere/film fest submissions (never in a million years did I think we’d be talking so much about file sizes…but of course we are…).  I need more RAM for my computer because it is dying!!!  I post questions on Facebook – how can we show this movie in Door County, and how in LA can we watch our movie on a nice big screen before our premiere?

10:30am – We run to the grocery store and grab crackers and hummus and Oreos because we’re recording the score today!  I’m all packed to spend a day in the studio with my laptop, two external hard drives, and a mouse because my trackpad is barely functional.

11:30am – I get a text from my mom that my childhood home has been sold.  I cry for a while really hard.  Then I tell myself I do not have time for this.  Fifteen minutes later we record a video on my phone while driving, letting everyone know that we’re recording the score today.  Hooray!

12-9pm?? – Chris records the score with our amazing engineer Scotty.  Chris and I have been working on this for weeks – him writing and me making adjustments so that it fits right with the mood of the scenes.  He plays guitar, mandolin, piano, Scotty adds a little light rhythm.  It sounds beautiful.  I’ve never done any of this kind of recording before, and now I see just how hard it is, how specific it is.  It’s a long day and by the end of it, my ears are tired but happy.

All throughout the session I’ve been editing the blooper reel.  I’ve also been texting with a possible new tutoring student who’s contacted me via Craigslist.  She’s in a panic in her freshman year of college and keeps texting me photos of her book and asking if I need to read it in order to help her???!???  Sigh.  We agree to meet the next morning.

10:30pm – We get back home and make some Spongebob Squarepants mac and cheese that was on sale for 88 cents a box and I pass out almost immediately.

Tuesday:

6am – Awake with a buzzing brain again.  Send photos to the newspaper asap!!!  You forgot to invite some people to the premiere!!  How on EARTH can I be more creative running this Indiegogo??  We definitely need to eat some vegetables for dinner at some point!!!   Finish the blooper reel a week ago already!!!!!

I make a character card for my dog and do some Facebook and twitter posts.  Emails.  Texting with Mom about where we’re going to spend Christmas.

I grab a can of tuna and some grapes and almonds and head out for work.

9am – Tutoring at Starbucks.  We talk about what makes a good thesis in a paper, comparing and contrasting, finding themes in pieces of writing.  She looks at me like I’m completely insane and she keeps calling her professor crazy.  Her other friends only have to learn about MLA format citations.  I avoid telling her that they’re not in a good English class then.  I spend a lot of time explaining to her that this is college.  By the end, I think she’ll be okay, though she still looks doubtful.

11am – 3pm – House cleaning.  My steady job five minutes away from where we live.  I listen to two amazing interviews with some directors I really admire on Marc Maron’s WTF – Lynn Shelton and Lake Bell.  (Seriously, check these out, they’re amazing)  I pet the cat.  It meows sweetly, urges me to pet it, then hisses and claws me, drawing blood.  I hate this animal/love this animal.

3-5pm – I come home completely exhausted.  It’s over 100 degrees out today in LA and our air conditioning is broken in the car and we’re told it costs almost $1,000 to fix it, so….we’re not.  I can’t even imagine what it’s like to have a spare $1,000.  I turn on the A/C in our window and search for the dumbest things possible to look at on the internet right now.  I mean, I literally googled “People.”  Ugh.  That’s me tired.  I also look at all five of my credit cards, pay some, organize due dates.  I’m trying not to buckle under this, but there’s no end in sight to how expensive this movie is.

5-10pm – It’s a blur of work on the movie again.  I finish the blooper reel and I’m delighted by it.  These people are hilarious and I love them all.  It’s set to Pure Prairie League’s “Amy” which reminds me of Door County and of my mom’s college records that I used to play in my room as a teenager.  I go through endless footage of me driving around on Logerquist and EE Roads in Door County, looking for just the right shot to make our poster.  I make a big list.  I’ll deal with that tomorrow.  Chris gets back sometime in the middle of all this.  9 maybe?

10pm – There are a million things I didn’t get done today, but we still haven’t had dinner.  Just to get out of the apartment, I go with Chris to Papa Johns.  We get a deal on the pizza and we watch a little bit more of the movie The Drop.  It’s a good movie and takes our minds off things.  Excellent one to reference for bar scenes.  I want our next movie in Door County to be a darker small town thriller, so I’m collecting references these days.  It’s good to think about the future.

The end!