Turns out there are four kinds of people in this world, my friends. Relators, Socializers, Thinkers and Directors. It all depends where you fall on the ‘guarded-open’ and ‘indirect-direct’ scales. That’s according to Dr Tony Alessandra, who I spent the whole of Wednesday filming at one of his motivation seminars. Gotta tell ya, I feel motivated!

We, the crew, were doubly motivated to go and see a film during a long break between filming sessions. One of the perks of recording in a multiplex. We took in Thai food and went to see Mean Girls. Ah, this would have been a truly great movie… if I’d been 16. However, I’m not 16, so all I can say is that it (and I quote) “had its moments”.

As a bonus, I took home one of the CD’s which the organizers of Tony’s Detroit seminars were giving out as incentives to people who helped them (like by moving into the front rows to be part of the visible video audience). The CD turns out to be by Frank Abagnale, the original ‘Skywayman’ whose exploits inspired Leo and Tom’s Catch Me If You Can.

I played some of Frank’s CD this morning. It’s basically a recording of him relating his life story to a studio audience. And it is truly outrageous. I thought I had the spirit of Badness, but Frank makes me look like a novitiate. Not that I’d want to do what Frank did. But I’m inspired by his sheer audacity. However, Frank isn’t proud of what he did and the CD is actually a well-told moral tale. I’m curious now about his book.

Dr Tony talked a lot in his seminar, by the way. Dr Tony is very good at talking. In fact, he’s one of the top 20 public speakers in the world (it says so on his literature). Among other things, Dr Tony said that possibly the best way to create business is to get referrals from satisfied customers. And not just referrals, you should get apostles. I have three apostles so far I think, with Russ at the Michigan and Deb at Artrain. Russ was wearing an Ascalon Films T-shirt yesterday, so I’m thinking that’s a good thing. Dr Tony says the best number of apostles to get is twelve.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, preparations are underway for a glittering performance of Candide at the Michigan Theater and I’ve been asked to record it on video. Big George’s are dickering over the price of making an advert for them, even though we’d already agreed on a price over a month ago. They’re also dickering over the voiceover of the advert we’ve finished for Home Appliance Mart in Southfield, but that’s okay. They love the visuals.

Our fence was installed the other day. Then they scalloped it with convex curves instead of a concave top edge, so now it’s gone again. Someone called Benji has written to ask if they can be an intern with Ascalon Films for a couple of weeks. Wisely or unwisely, I’ve said yes. We still don’t know if Benji is male or female, but I figure they can do some Cinema Slam admin while they’re here (two weeks time) and track down some film festivals. Who knows, there may even be some filming going on for him/her to see.

At the weekend, we’re off to Cedar Point to ride the rollercoasters. Yay! That’s if it stops raining. We’ve had huge thunderstorms here for a few days and last night’s was a doozy (as Stan Lee used to say). The tornado warning siren at the corner of the street went off at about ten past midnight and after that it was non-stop lightning for about 45 minutes. It looked like one side of the house was having a conversation in light with the other side. Or perhaps like a faulty flourescent tube. Crash. Flicker flicker. Rumble. Flicker flash. Crash!

This morning it seemed to have calmed down and I went to visit Carl Michel, a local composer who I’ve asked to provide some music for the Artrain project. Then this afternoon it started up again. More thunder, more lightning and more high winds. Some of our baby trees are leaning at 30 degrees to the vertical but everything’s stable so far. A tornado was actually spotted in the area and touched down in Chelsea, a small town just a few miles west of us, but it went past A2 without incident.

Okay, I gotta go now. I’ve just got a copy of DVD Studio Pro off ebay and I’m antsy to try it. Plus there’s fresh tea in the pot–we’ve found somewhere that sells loose leaf Earl Grey. Mmmmm. Tea. Bonus.