Whatever.

I come back from George W’s utopia and am immediately struck down with lurgy. This means, horror of horrors, that I waste two sick days actually feeling sick and unable to do anything much except sleep, sweat and sup chicken soup. It nourishes me, precious. It nourishes me.

Honestly, I get so hacked off with being sick. It’s such a complete waste of time. And sick days are wasted on being sick when the sun is shining and there’s so much to do.

Two days later, when I come to, I realise that I have one weekend free in the next four when I’m not working and it’s next weekend. And I realise that if I want to get The Car finished, then that’s the weekend when I need to do pick-up shots.

These are shots to replace the ones which have lens flare in them or which don’t cover up nastiness which needs hiding from the public gaze. Nastiness, precious–we hates it. Fears it. Okay, we am not that bothered about it but if we is ever going to wins a prize for film makings it would be better if the nastiness wasn’t there.

I make some calls to check if the actor is available… he is… the location is available? It is… The equipment is available… oh, yes, precious. It is! But at a price. It is now £45 to set up the equipment and £45 to check it in. Plus tax. That’s on top of the £300 hire charge and the £45 extra for using a follow focus rig. And then there’s the insurance.

Yes, precious, they likes their insurances. Bastards. Gollum. That would be another £165, bringing us to a total of £600 just to hire the camera. Cheaply. For one day! Add on tax and we’re at £705. One third of the short film budget. Gollum gollum. No wonders peoples is shootings on videos, precious. They steals the precious budget!

I phone Four Corners, the film workshop who didn’t get back to me before, back in October. Will they are answer the phone this time? Yes. Yes, they do. Wow. I ask about using a camera on Saturday. Yes, standard 16mm. Yes, with a tripod, filters, etc etc. Prime lenses? Please. They say… £100. Guess who I’m hiring a camera from?

So, I’ve done my rough edit on Final Cut Pro and I know roughly what I want and therefore, need. Now I need to assemble the motley crew. But of course, they are all working/sick/abroad/unavailable. How hard can this be? Oh, very very hard. Hahaha. Film making? Just because you have a camera, doesn’t mean you’re making a film, oh no. Hahahahaha.

So far I have an actor, a location, the important stills which we used a prop which is incredibly lucky, a first AD, a cameraman, the car! Hooray! And also the production designer and… well, that’s about it. We have some lights, thanks to Simon (writer) and a camera and some stock but no sound kit or sound recordist, no camera assistant and no loader.

And the actor has broken his sunglasses. And they don’t make that style any more. And he wears them in every shot.

It’s going to be another one of those weeks.

Is it wrong that instead of worrying about what’s not immediately to hand, I think about how nice it would be to have decent catering and I wonder how I can set that up?

Panel 1:
Woke up. Got dressed in superhero costume then regular street clothes over the top.

Panel 2:
Checked email. Transfered money needed to pay credit cards from checking account to savings account.

Panel 3:
Tidied up apartment in a vague way by moving bits of paper from one place to another.

Panel 4:
Lucy came round, watched football and bought some of my furniture in preparation for having the property valued and selling up.

Panel 5:
Went out for fish and chips.

Panel 6:
Marvelled at the special Saturday spectacle of minor celebrities and has-beens embarrassing themselves on national television while other minor celebrities provided mindless commentary.

Panels 7-11:
Went to work and drank Coca Cola, symbol of Free West. Music with a catchy bassline came on in the background. Hordes of dancers appeared out of nowhere and we broke out into a spontaneous performance for five minutes in strongly backlit artificial rain.

Panels 12-20:
Snuck out and saved the city during a pre-recorded item.

Panel 21:
Went home and slept the sleep of The Just.

Panel 22:
Skin tight dreams of superheroines in peril and satisfying out of body experience which editor replaced with angst-filled introspection and a Doctor Strange chapter full of psychic robots in final published book.

Panel 23:
Cool David Bowie soundtrack over end credits.

Fin

Happy Birthday to me!

Wrote my resignation letter this morning. Three copies–one to my line manager, one to head of department and one to head of personel/human resources–all in the post and on their way. They have a three month notice period so I’ll be leaving at the end of May. It feels good. It feels a little bit scary but not much. Yes, I’m that confidant in my own abilities. Still, it’s a step into the unknown.

Bye bye BBC.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Overheard while visiting the shops in St Albans today: “It makes you fink what the sort of fing there is.”

It’s wrong isn’t it? It’s wrong on so many levels. Among other things it says, subtext, that this woman has had no conceivable benefit from an education yet here she is living in St Albans where house prices are £180k for a two bedroom flat and moving rapidly into the £250-£300k bracket for a house. How does she make enough money to afford this while using so little brain? Where am I going wrong?

Hertfordshire County Council sent me a newspaper today. Once I’d finished weeping with joy at their considerateness in keeping me informed about how they’re spending my money by spending more of my money, I glanced at it. “Most people we surveyed,” it baldly stated, “would be happy to pay more local taxes to maintain services.” So they’re putting local taxes up. By at least 15 percent.

The question I have to ask myself is why? Why does it cost the council an extra 15 percent to provide the same services as last year?

Yes, the *same* services. They were clear–“in order to maintain services at the present level we would have to increase council tax by more than 15 percent.” When inflation is around two percent and salary increases are at the same level, why does it cost the local authority such a staggeringly large amount more than it costs everyone else?

“As we went to press we had news of the Government’s provisional funding which left Hertfordshire with one of the lowest grant increases of any county,” wrote the author of this monkeybusiness. Yes, they are getting a massive grant from central government. And it’s being increased. But not increased enough for the wanton wastage which HCC has got in mind.

As the woman said, “It makes you fink what the sort of fing there is.”

I had to buy two large bars of chocolate just to maintain my equilibrium.

2003 will be about art, love and the pursuit of knowledge.

Just going through some of the piles (and piles) of old paperwork which mainly needs trashing. The filing cabinet is now full and the drawers (steel) are literally bulging. Distributing films from a one-bedroom apartment proves to have drawbacks in terms of the mess it creates. But then, the creative process is often messy.

****

Eastern Screen wrote to me a week ago to say Strawberries won’t be getting a grant (boo) but they like the visual style (good) and would I like to go along for a meeting with their development people (excellent). Of course. Arranged for late January. Please to send them anything else I’m working on in the meantime.

I call Lionel (writer) to let him know about this and does he have anything he’d like me to pitch at them for possible funding? Yes, he says, he does. He and Simon have a feature script that’s nearly ready. I need a synopsis and sample scene, although there’s no guarantee Simon and Lionel would want to make it with me anyway. However, I figure it can’t hurt to see what Eastern Screen says.

We go on to discuss generally the three shorts Simon, Lionel and I have made so far–two of them Lionel’s co-written and The Car he did a lot of the design. We think we’re doing well and pat ourselves on the back.

****

Reflection on 2002 #1: among other things, two very concrete goals I set out to achieve this year have been accomplished. Firstly, I finished Fate & Fortune on 35mm. Secondly, I got it shown in the States. Bonus: I shot another short on celluloid, The Car.

****

Christmas, the Winter Solstice, is a time to pause. To look back. To project forward. To be One with the Now.

Maybe I’ll post some more reflections as I think of them. Maybe I’ll just keep them to myself, turning them over in my mind as I look at the lights of the Christmas tree. Lights sparkling on the baubles–each one a memory of years gone by. Reflections in the tinsel spreading the silent magic of the lights. And those rich green pine needles–a reminder of the earth where we live.

****

Reflection on 2002 #2: somehow, no matter what happens, one can still learn all the words to I Was A Teenage Dirtbag well enough to be able to scream them from the back of a pub while the world’s worst cover band plays on Christmas Eve. Okay, the real reflection: rock music. That kind of rock music. That’s part of who I am.

****

Reflection #3: 2002 was the year we coined a phrase for the nineties. It takes three years to coin a phrase for the previous decade. To sum it all up in one neat little “I understood it because I could label it” package. And this year, we got it. We summarized it down to three words. Wooh.

The Slacker Generation.

As usual, we understood very little.

****

Reflection #4: Letting go of someone you love is the hardest thing in the world. When they love you too. It doesn’t mean you don’t care. That’s a big part of what makes it so hard. But sometimes, it’s just not meant to be. Life isn’t like books or movies or anything else anyone has tried to use to package it. Nor is love.

****

Reflection #5: Hanging on to a way of life that doesn’t work for you but satisfies some basic human needs is the easiest thing in the world. Work means nothing. This is your life. But we still forget it. Most days.

****

Reflection #6: Love can come again. Even when you don’t expect it. Even when you’ve just let it go. The universe is a good place. Even when it hurts you, it can love you at the same time. And you can never know where it’s taking you. Home is a feeling, not a place.

****

Reflection #7: When you’re doing what you enjoy, it isn’t work.

****

Reflection #8: Herbie Wise’s inspirational directing masterclass with the Directors’ Guild. This was kind of a turning point this year because it gave me an affirmation that I can direct. If I’m thrown in the deep end, I won’t sink. I’ll get very good results–and excellent results if I’m working with high calibre people.

On the day, we worked with a group of professional actors all of whom had major TV credits and some film work under their belts. Each of us went off to breakdown, rehearse and then perform a scene with two of them. They were excellent. The feedback I got was excellent. The day was great.

I found that what works for me is that directing is about confidence, nurturing a creative, collaborative atmosphere and letting things evolve while keeping a vision in mind. Directing, as far as I’m concerned, is nearly all in the pre-production. On set, it’s about keeping things moving while maintaining the freedom to change the plan.

****

Reflection #9: my first taste of medical treatment in the USA–having my ears syringed. Seems to be similar to UK treatment except they charge more and I’m guessing that’s because they have to carry huge amounts of insurance against being sued. Being able to hear clearly was superb and totally underrated.

Routine checks showed my blood pressure is higher than normal, presumably due to my cake eating, beer drinking slothful existence. Also a lack of karate (oops) and almost complete lack of dancing in 2002 (double oops). Plus there was the whole thing with travelling to work, where it became considerably cheaper to drive than use the train.

Up until this year, I’ve regularly walked twenty to thirty minutes a day to the railway station. However, Thameslink (our rail operator) changed the terms of their discount tickets pushing the price up from £6 to £9 to get into London. Driving costs me less than £5 in diesel so it’s not a difficult choice.

[Sidenote to London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who I know is an avid reader of this board: Ken, you’ve got two hopes of easing the capital’s traffic congestion at these prices. And one of them’s Bob.]

I should have resolved to do something about all of the above in 2003, I suppose, particularly with the reminder of the final bill from the hospital ($209 for ear cleaning!?). However, there’s a stack of candy, cakes, wine and other Christmas goodies to be worked through before then. Still, at least I had my hair cut short.

****

Reflection 10: Something on the radio this morning (January 3rd; I’ve kept adding to this particular blog entry) reminded me of this. Dr Richard Wiseman a doctor at the University of Hertfordshire has spent eight years studying the common characteristics of lucky people–ie. those whose luck is statistically greater than average.

And here’s the four defining things which lucky people do:

1. expect good fortune
2. create, notice and act on opportunities, no matter how small they initially appear
3. listen to gut feelings and act on hunches about people or situations
4. turn negatives into positives by seeing these as a chance to do something better.

That last one reminded me of Jack Wood dropping out from The Car at the last minute. I was so fortunate to get rid of his dead weight and take on a professional in his place. It not only made the whole shoot so much more enjoyable, it also improved the end result immeasurably. The attitude of ‘the show must go on’ actually made it happen.

In the words of Captain Picard, “Make it so!” And it so it is.

Today I bought a cooker. This probably has some weird name in the USA, like range or hob or even hobgoblin. “Welcome to Hobwarts, Mr Potter! Would you like to see our range of goblins?” Yes, that sounds right, doesn’t it? Maybe not. Not even in the shop (or shoppe) where I went today, the Watford Cooker Emporium, although it doesn’t remind me of a joke about gobbling.

As for the not quite random cooker purchase, I blame Pete for this. He doesn’t read these boards so he’s a handy scapegoat. He sent me along to the Watford Cooker Emporium–aka. A&A Refrigerators, which makes even less sense–because they specialise in reconditioned kitchen appliances and he thought I’d get something cheap there. I bought something new for three times as much as I intended to pay. And I’m still not sure it’s what I want.

I’ve been working on the kitchen on and off for a few weeks now and have spent the past few days putting up ceramic tiles. Nice easy job, you might think, and you’d be right except for all the fiddly bits around pipes and electrical outlets and stuff which you have to cut shapes out for. I used an electrical jigsaw and made a lot of dust while spilling gobs and goblins of tile cement around the place.

Something else you might not appreciate about tiles with all these shapes to cut around is that there are no short cuts. You can’t simply whack up the ones which don’t need cutting on the wall and leave the exactly right space for the cut tiles to fit in later. Woah, no. Because when you come back, your new (cut) tiles don’t fit in those spaces. So you have to smash some off with a chisel (loud) or sandpaper tile edges for ages until a fit is possible.

Sandpapering tiles creates an odour akin to being at the dentist, by the way, which apart from being vaguely unpleasant at least confirms that both teeth and tiles are made of the same thing–ceramic. How come you don’t have to bake teeth in a kiln to harden them, though? There’s no need to answer that.

****

Okay, so the kitchen looks great and I’ve procrastinated long enough and it’s time to phone Simon to find out what’s happening with The Car. Plus there’s the whole drama of getting the print of Fate & Fortune shipped from Fort Lauderdale to Michigan for a screening tomorrow. Nothing is ever easy.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The Car. Simon is no longer working on the feature project he’d taken on which, although sad for him that he won’t be earning money for a while, means he’s now free to concentrate on my short as of this week. We yak yak for a while and he promises to take the rushes around to Pete (sound guy) tomorrow to be sync’ed up.

Tomorrow there are festivals to enter, expenses to be mailed out, bills to pay (rather a lot of them) and the stair case needs to be cleared so the nice people can haul this heavy lump of kitchen hardware up to my kitchen. It’s that cleaning part which will probably be the hardest, I suspect.

Then I’ve got to get grout into all those gaps in the tiles and I was going to lay new vinyl tiles on the floor. Hey, presto! Harry Pottery. A reasonably priced kitchen revamp. Even the cooker wasn’t particularly expensive (£240, since you asked) although if I was going for broke, I’d have bought something with six burners and two ovens. “Going for broke” is the right word to use when doing a kitchen, methinks.

Still, the whole point of the exercise is to add value to the property and it should certainly do that. You can’t fool all of your bank managers much of the time, but you can certainly fool a large percentage of the house buying public most of the time. Even if you end up with a few tiles on Diagon Alley [groan]. Anyone for Quidditch?

====

Two days later…

I’ve got to get grout into all those gaps in the tiles

Top Decorating Tip #1: Never work grout into gaps with your fingertips no matter how tempting or simple this procedure may look. You will slice them up on sharp edges and then get grout in the cuts. These will sting painfully and not heal easily because grout–especially waterproof grout–sets and doesn’t wash out of cuts. This hurts to type.

I was going to lay new vinyl tiles on the floor

Top Decorating Tip #2: Measure the floor space *accurately* before buying tiles and then you’ll have enough to finish the job rather than be left with three gaps at the end.

This concludes today’s home improvement course.

– Kit ‘The Toolman’ Taylor

Dear Intel Customer Support,

I bought your camera [a discontinued product line] and it does not work with my computer. It works fine with my friend’s PC but not mine. Here’s how I’ve installed it, here’s my system spec, here’s the self-help procedure I’ve followed from your website. I think it’s the Intel USB chipset because that’s what it says in your self-help guide. Your chipset is incompatible with your camera. Blah blah blah.

Keith [my bold]

=============================

Hello Keith,

Thanks for contacting us!

At this point, if you have gone through the LIVEVID.EXE file with no success, there is little more troubleshooting we can do… [blah blah blah] My suggestion would be to contact our support staff to determine if there is any additional troubleshooting we can do. [some more blah blah here]

Support can be contacted with the information at:
http://support.intel.com/support/9089.htm

Regards,

Jon S.
Intel(R) Technical Support

=============================

Duh. Duh duh duh. But you *are* the support staff. I contacted you. That weblink is the one I followed to contact you and to which you are responding. And your self-help file says that the chipset *you* make can’t communicate properly with the webcam *you* make. Durrrr.

[sound of banging head on wall]

Wandering around the corridors of televisual power this morning, I found a tabloid newspaper–the Daily Mirror–from October 31st. Being mildly interested in who was allegedly giving it to whom and which drugs they were allegedly taking at the time, I picked it up. Scandal, scandal, woe, misery, fear and crime fill the first dozen pages. Speculation, pessimism, coke and sex.

Then we get to the first full colour advert in the paper–this for cheap beer–and on to more crucial matters of what the media dahlings are wearing this week (big yawn) followed by a spectacular NASA image of the plume of smoke from Mount Etna drifting 350 miles across the Mediterranean. That’s a lot of poison soot going up. Surely more devastating to the ozone layer than all the SUV’s in Italy.

Next, two pages of computer adverts tell me I could have a laptop for the price my PC originally cost me over four years ago and it will be nearly six times faster. Then there’s some more starving/sex/death/crime plus a few entrepreneurial success stories sprinkled in like a spoonful of sugar.

‘Car Crime Rises’, ‘Free DVD’ and ‘Teacher Put My Girl’s Face On A Sexy Model’ all clamour for my attention but I ignore this nonsense, turn the pages, blackening my hands in the process, skipping the partially- informed editorials and opinion pieces until I arrive at the features. Today’s topic: teeth.

Soft and dental ‘At last! A painless dental treatment that uses a whiff of ozone to beat tooth decay and banish fear of the dentist’s chair’ promises the headline. I hate getting fillings and want an everlasting mouth full of gleaming white enamel–bleam bleam–so I read. And it’s generating ozone–that stuff we’re always destroying–so it must be good.

The idea appears to be that squirting in high pressure ozone–which is actually highly toxic–can kill off bacteria. A rubber cap fits tightly around each tooth and the gas penetrates decaying tissue, killing 99 percent of bacteria. After treatment, mineral mouthwash and saliva remineralise the tooth and it repairs itself. £300 for a full mouth treatment, £35 for a single tooth. Sign me up right away!

Of course, it’s too good to be true. Never mind the fact that, of course, this won’t regenerate the Earth’s ozone layer, the process is still experimental and a caveat on the next page reads ‘But ozone gas is not without its risks’. Dr Julian Holmes, pioneer of the treatment, warns that breathing too much ozone can tear your lungs and the British Dental Association is calling for more research. Plus you can’t get into tight gaps between the teeth.

Bah. Oh, well. It will come. One day the next generation will look back on us getting dental treatment involving drillings and fillings and think we were living through some kind of dark ages. “They injected you with a needle? How positively medieval!” Until then, I guess we’ll have to wait or take part in an experimental trial.

Now, just a few pages on, the Mirror proclaims ‘Chocolate As Health Food’. Not only does it contain the same chemicals that make you feel good after sex, it can protect your heart, thin the blood, lower your cholesterol and blood pressure–oh, the list is endless… Got me again, I expect, but I’ve seen Chocolat and I’m already a convert.

Now here’s the website you didn’t know you really needed. Okay, so it’s a website operated by Mars Incorporated, a very large candy bar manufacturer, but those people who fill us up with sugar are seriously interested in our health, aren’t they? Really? Please! Too late, I hear it calling… Mmmm… Chocolate.

On to the funny pages…