The Post 48HFP Funky Blog

I’m in a funk, and as a writer the best way for me to get over it is to write it out. So here I am. It’s been a while since I stepped on a ranting soapbox, so here I go.

Maybe I’m in a horrible place because I still am not recovered from lack of sleep, or the fact that my right shoulder is in so much pain from being in one position for eight hours while I removed multitudes of clicks, clips, and blips in an audio track. Maybe it’s a combination of everything.

Bottom line is … I failed. I failed as a writer, filmmaker and team leader. Most of all, I failed myself.

It was the second time in my decade and a half of 48 HFP that I woke up the next day asking myself, what was I thinking? I’ll tell you what it was. I was thinking of making my team happy. Trying to please everyone. Truth is you can’t please everyone especially when in a 48 hour film competition.

The last time it happened, our team was heckled and booed in shame. It was then, as well, I didn’t follow my gut.

We made the wrong film that year. We made the wrong film this weekend.

Period. Not that the film this year is bad, it’s not, it’s just not what it should be. And that’s disappointing.

Before ten pm I had written two comedic scripts. Neither idea was met with overwhelming enthusiasm. I understand they probably didn’t think the ideas were funny, but any filmmaker knows, funny doesn’t translate well on paper. It can’t show the shots, or expressions.

If I’m being honest I wasn’t thrilled about ANY idea I came up with, but I am blessed with a  knack that once on set I can make anything funny.

In previous years no one saw the script until I sent it out, nor did they know my ideas. I should have said what I have said in previous years, “This is what we are doing. I understand you don’t like it or feel it, but can you bring the performance, if not … I’ll get someone else.”

Instead, I wrote a third script. A serious theme. I know that’s what they wanted. But newsflash, I do comedy best. Funny books, funny movies. I don’t do serious well. Last year was a fluke.

The story I wrote was good, but it needed more time and attention than a 48 hour shoot can give.

Maybe I should have offered up those other two scripts to another team. They were done before I bet anyone else had written anything.

But okay, we’re doing 'serious'. Everyone was happy. That was sign one.

Sign two … we got a very late start because of traffic and the loud landscapers. It then took 35 minutes to set a camera (Wasn’t mine), and I couldn’t get the first shot I wanted because the area was too narrow for a tripod, actors, the camera man and boom person. The black magic was  far too heavy and big to be handheld.

Right there, when 90 minutes post start time had passed and I hadn’t called ‘action’, I should have scrapped it and did comedy.

Lighten the mood. But we trudged ahead. Each change of scene requiring yet another 35 minute delay to set the camera. Unknown to my team (Now they do) I timed it. Three hours and thirty-four minutes were spent adjusting camera settings.

Ya know … many make fun of my Canons G30s, both of which east cost me over 1200 brand new. But never once have they taken 35 minutes to set up, never once were they too big or heavy to get the craziest shot, and never once did they deliver a bad, blurry or dark shot. If the shot was bad it was on me.

This year though ….Although EVERYONE worked hard, if it hadn’t been for the superior performance of my cast, I probably wouldn’t have submitted the film.

It was plagued with eighty percent useless footage and audio that … hell, I don’t know what happened.

I blame myself for everything technical.

I should have taken the headphones and listened to the audio.  I should have trusted my eyes instead of the camera’s display, I should have double checked and triple checked the camera person after I yelled ‘action’. It’s not the cameraman or the audio person's fault. It was me.

I’m the team leader.

See, that’s issue with it.

A leader is supposed to consider what’s best to represent the team, not always what makes everyone happy.

If the president’s administration convinces to make a decision and it turns out great, then the entire administration is smiled upon. But if the decision turns out bad, everyone blames the president, because ultimately it’s his final decision.

Same goes with team film making.

If I relent to the wishes of a team member and it turns out good, then the team looks brilliant. If I relent and the project falls … no one remembers the team players, they look at the leader and say ‘what was she thinking’

And the cast and crew will watch it and be polite, then say, “well … maybe if this or that …”

Whatever.

Again, let me reiterate, the CAST saved the film. I can watch the film a hundred times, they can watch it a hundred times, it won’t make it any better.

They worked hard and they are given something far less than they expected.

And to be honest, I really don’t want to hear about the mistakes in the film. I wanted them to have something they could be proud of not embarrassed by.

I’m tired, I lost three days or writing and I am pissed at myself for not standing my ground and following my gut and doing what I as a filmmaker do best.

I don’t do this for awards, I do this to entertain. I don’t do this for others to acknowledge me as a filmmaker and say ‘wow, what a brilliant emotional film.’ I wanna hear, “Oh my god, I couldn’t stop laughing.’

That is an award to me and NEVER have I felt this way after turning in a funny movie, production mistakes or not.

Granted I will pick myself up and make another movie. A funny one. We will laugh during production and post. It may not look like Breathe did, but I can promise …. People will smile. They’ll laugh and in this day and age that is so important.

For now, I step off my soapbox, tuck away this year’s 48 as yet, another learning experience, I thought I was done having at this point in my career.

 

Racing with the 48 Hour Film Project

 

My fifteenth year.

This year will mark the Crystal anniversary of my participation in the 48 Hour Film Project. One would have thought I’d given up by now. I thought about it, but 48HFP is as much of a yearly addiction for me as pickle juice, bourbon and HoHos during the National Novel Writing Month.

I remember in 2018, a young cameraman posted he was looking for a team. After a lengthy FB message exchange over days (Him interviewing me BTW), and a few days of him ghosting me, he declined because he wanted to work with a serious team.

Wait. What?

Ironically that ended up being the year we lost all our footage and the 48 became the 24 when we had to do a second movie.

Anyhow … that exchange and, of course, coming up on a milestone, got me to thinking.

I took the 48 HFP very seriously, however, I realized, no one really took me seriously. At least it seemed that way to me.

Why?

Because for 11 out of fourteen years, we made the audience laugh. Then again, it could have something to do with the one year we tried to be serious and dropped the ball. We were literally booed, heckled and publicly humiliated on social media.

It was so bad, I thought of never doing 48 again. Even though the producer shut that sh*t down, the damage was done.

If that sort of behavior is that of ‘serious’ teams, well, then, I’d rather not be serious. That behavior isn’t what 48 is about.

It’s about making the impossible possible, and yes, at the expense of cutting corners.

My mindset has always been I was going to make a movie that people remembered and do something new. I never go into competition with the mindset I’m entering to win. Maybe that’s why I never won ‘Best Film’. But I have won because I finished the project every year.

I was late one time and it wasn’t because the film wasn’t finished, it was because I sat on the Liberty Bridge for 35 minutes because The Dark Knight Production shut it down. For the record, I refused to see that movie … ever. Yeah, I’m still bitter.

So on this eve of my fifteenth, which is just days away, I thought I’d reflect on  a few things and asked myself if I had to name the three biggest mistakes I have made, what would they be? I came up with these.

 

ONE - SKELETON IDEAS

Technically, thinking of things isn’t really rule-breaking, I mean, how do you stop the creative mind from blasting out an occasional, “Dude, if we pull this, we should do …’ But one of the things I have seen teams come up with a skeleton idea. That is an idea that can be molded in any genre and the character/prop/line can be dropped in. (BTW most of us can spot this within 45 seconds of your film) Anyhow in 2008, I was brought on as a writer for a team. The team wanted one writer … cool. But that wasn’t the case. They needed someone to pen the script.

They had multitudes of meetings beforehand to discuss "ideas", things that could fit multiple genres. When the time came, they told me what to write. I brought up the ethic of it, and they didn’t see it as cheating as long as the ‘script wasn’t written’. We didn’t win anything that year. It made sense to me. Anyhow, the problem with these type of ideas is you get so pigeon holed into doing it, you force it to work a genre and the other required elements. Plus, seriously, it really takes away from the fun and in my opinion … is cheating.

ONE B – SKELETON LOCATION

The same can be said for locations. Find several and don’t set your sights on one really cool location. You end up forcing the story to fit the location. The audience sees and feels that.

TOO AMBITIOUS

We all have visions of grandeur when it comes to our films. But when you only have a limited time, that can be a hinder. Look at your idea … is it ambitious. Will it take too much post production time and side work. One year I spent sixteen hours in post in one position doing special effects. We won special effects, but still …. Erg.

 There are some genres you don’t have a choice, like Musical and Science Fiction. They require those extra steps. But keep it simple and remember this advice, it was the best advice I have ever gotten, ‘Write for the shoot and shoot for the edit’.

LEARN YOUR STUFF

It took me until 2012 to learn this, but as a team leader there should be no aspect of filming you don’t know or can’t do. Writing, filming, editing, music … you, as a leader should be able to do any role required. Even if you don’t do it well, you need to know it.  You never know. The editor may walk out, your sound may be crappy and you don’t’ have countless hours trying to find the best royalty free music selection, because let’s face it … music sets the tone.

I learned this the hard way when I discovered our 2011 editor was editing for another team as well and did theirs first. Yes, he finished ours on time but it was unnerving and came down to the last minute. Never again, I said. Even if I had to use Windows Movie Maker, I’d make sure our film was done hours before drop off.

LASTLY … COMEDY

I know I said three, but this isn’t a mistake I made. It’s what I have done right. I have heard way too many people say, ‘Try not to do comedy’. So let me say this, there is nothing wrong with making a funny film. Again, I repeated. NOTHING WRONG WITH FUNNY. Despite what people say.

Comedy doesn’t win? Bull. Over half the winning films I have seen were comedies and did you know a 48HFP comedy won an award at CANNES in 2016. Not to mention, on set and in post you continuously laugh. I have never had a freak out moment or anxiety when filming comedy.

The ability to make people laugh takes as much talent, if not more, as it does to make them cry or think. It’s a craft and an art and to hear the audience laugh is an amazing reward.

After all these years, I learned … that people remember the things that made them laugh.

If you are participating this year, be safe, good luck … and most of all … have fun. It’s not about winning it’s about making a film.

In Search of Greg Kinnear

 

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking. “Stop with this strange behavior and write”

I will, I do, but first … Greg Kinnear.

He’s always been around. And no, for the record I didn’t just discover the works of actor Greg Kinnear. I remember seeing him in Dear God and thinking, ‘Wow, how awesome is this guy?’ Although I was a fan, I never really set out to conquer his catalog.

Until now.

Call it covid quarantine boredom or obsession, whatever the case I am finding myself watching his movies and only his movies. Well, that is until Kong vs Godzilla comes out.

Okay to be honest, I can’t blame it on my recent quarantine.

My obsession reignited when I saw him in the remake of The Stand. He played Glen Bateman and I have watched each episode three times. I loved the remake, I know I am the minority.

When it was over, I found myself needing to watch more Greg Kinnear. I know, that sounds weird, right? I never claimed to be normal.

Since my quest, I have rewatched, As Good as it Gets, Heaven is for Read (2x) and We Were Soldiers.

For the first time I watched, Stuck on You, Strange but True, Mystery Men, Last Song and  now my new and ABSOLUTE FAVORITE so far, Ghost Town. I’ll probably watch that again.

I know this blog seems weird and blogs serve like a diary, you can look back and see what you were doing or thinking at the time.

You’re probably asking, “why Greg Kinnear”. Well, he’s great but …. Look, if you’re like me and you want to watch something, you can spend as much time looking through Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc as you do watching the movie.

Picking one actor or actress narrows down your search. Try it, whether it be Greg Kinnear or someone else, you’ll spend a lot less time searching than before.

Off to decided which Kinnear movie to watch next.

The Midnight Sky - A Review and End explained (SPOILERS)

 

The bottom of this review contains spoilers and will be accurately marked so you can stop if you haven’t watched The Midnight Sky.

 

It took me two days to watch The Midnight Sky, not because I hated it but because I was watching it with my granddaughter and ten minutes in she said, “Okay, please, enough.”

The ease in which I switched the movie told me it didn’t have my interest either. Yet, I was determined to watch the newly acclaimed movie from Netflix. Directed by George Clooney.

The story was good, it was really good, but it could have been great. Maybe I’ll rewatch it.

The story focuses on two sets. One on the spaceship Aether, one on earth.

Clooney plays a scientist and he is believable. Unlike the movie Geo Storm where Gerard Butler played a scientist and that just pushed my suspension of belief way too far.

In The Midnight Sky an unknown cataclysmic has rendered earth uninhabitable. Clooney, a terminally ill man stays in the arctic where the air is still safe to warn in coming spacecraft not to land. Decades earlier his character discovered K-23 an earth like and possibly livable planet.

Story two is the Aether and the crew. They are returning from K-23, making their way home to deliver the good news. “Yay! We have a new place to colonize.” The crew is likeable and a great cast. The tone and look is a total contrast to earth. They have been gone two years and haven’t a clue what’s going on.

Clooney is trying to reach them unsuccessfully, he isn’t real diligent until he discovers a little girl was left behind when everyone left the arctic. He now has to trek hundreds of miles to a weather station where he knows the radio works.

As I mentioned the story itself is really good. It mixes flashbacks of Clooney’s character’s life, pretty early on letting us know he chooses career over love and at the end of the world regrets it. Maybe ….he doesn’t care about much, but now .. this girl gets to his heart.

There are tense, anxious action moments but the pacing is off because of bad editing.

One of the things that make a good film editor isn’t just the ability to cut scenes together flawlessly, or catch inconsistencies, it is the ability to know what can go and what must stay.

Just because you spent a ton on a set or it looks beautiful doesn’t mean it needs to be in there, especially if it creates a really long sequence and takes away from the tension. Many of beautiful scenes end on the cutting room floor or rather recycle bin. If it doesn’t move the story, take it out.

There’s a scene in particular, this is not spoilery, that they leave the ship to make a repair (You know like every other spaceship movie) that scene is like 8 minutes too long. It took away from the point. The runtime of TMS is two hours, I think it could have been tight at One hour forty.

It has the feel of ‘On the Beach’ only with some hope. I recommend it if you want a movie you can eat a meal while watching. This one affords the ability to glance down at your plate without missing anything.

 

Now … SPOILERS… ending explained.

 

Through the flashbacks, we learn that Clooney has a child with the woman he loved, a little girl he never acknowledged. He chooses a career over love and family and his regrets being alone manifest.

He regrets never meeting the daughter or helping her.

It was pretty obvious from the get go that the little girl, Iris, wasn’t real. That she was a figment of Clooney’s imagination. Certain scenes she isn’t there and not on camera while she should be. Where the filmmakers error is showing the little girls POV when they are outside of a plane crash. Iris is not real so how is she seeing anything. Clooney is inside the plane and has no way of ‘imagining’ what she is doing.

BUT ….weaved with the flashbacks, the second you know he has a daughter, you figure out this imaginary girl is the daughter he never acknowledged, so he is, in his own way being the guidance he never was.

However he actually is. For real.

Once they make it to the weather station he connects with the Aether and Sully (Female) communication specialist. He tells her and the crew about earth and how to solve their problem to get back to space and to K-23. He is their guidance.

She thanks him and when she finds out his name she praises him. Tells him how he was the reason she got into NASA, that her mother was his colleague. And that’s when we learn, her name is Iris and she is his daughter.

Clooney’s character realizes this and gets some resolution. He wasn’t helping the girl get to the weather station to warn Aether. He was getting to the weather station to warn his little girl.

I’m pretty good at picking things up and I did not pick up any clues. But looking back at the progression of Clooney’s story, it was all there. I’ll need to watch the spaceship scenes again to see if they hinted that Clooney was her father. They probably did, but unlike the long tedious outside the spaceship scene, it ended up cut.

Milli Vanillis of the Literary World

 

Milli Vanilli. If you don’t know who they are. Look them up here (Image courtesy of Mental Floss) I’ll wait.

There was a time when being an author was a noble profession. Even with the dawn of eBooks and the ease to digitally publish, people still admired a writer. In fact, there are many who support the Indy writer wholeheartedly. But what if the author you faithfully support wasn’t real? I’m not talking about pen names, I’m talking about an author created to mislead you.

Are they unscrupulous and deceiving or just brilliant business?

For centuries there have been pen names and ghostwriters. I know this, so please don’t toss out defensive examples like Hardy Boys, Patterson, etc. Famous examples don’t make deception acceptable. There are a lot of puppy mills out there, it doesn’t make it less wrong.

Pen names are created to protect the writer’s identity, to say ‘hey, I’m real, I just can’t say who I am’. Those are different. A deceitful variance of such, along with nestling your books under YA when they aren’t … are for another blog. But for now … Milli Vanilli.

The greed of the novelist has made its way into the apocalypse genre with a vengeance.

Today I write about book mills or book packaging companies. There are several types, a couple I dug into, posing as a fake author to get my information. Yep, I played their game.

My focus today is on the ones that buy story ideas, then hire struggling writers to create an absurdly detailed outline for only a couple hundred bucks, then hire another desperate ghostwriter to pen the novel for not much more and they publish it under one of their stock author names. Not real writers that sit for hours and pour their heat and soul onto each page they write. They are manufactured names just like the books.

One in particular company is huge. They call themselves a publisher but they’re producers. But if you look up their titles on Amazon, the publisher isn’t mentioned. These authors are marketed as Indy Authors. Hundreds upon hundreds of books, several genres and a dozen authors.

I saw an ad for one their mill authors., We’ll call her Mary Smith. On the FB ad, people commented that they love her. I wanted badly to tell them she wasn’t real and that book was the work of a half a dozen people who will never get credit for writing a best seller.

They made $300-500 while the producer rakes in the big bucks, and Mary Smith garnishes a fanbase the writer(s) earned in the literary sweatshop.

Just because I ate a steak at Gordan Ramsey’s in Vegas doesn’t mean Gordan made it. He got credit for something another wonderful chef cooked.

Gordan Ramsey is a brand, just like these fake authors. The difference is we know Ramsey’s Restaurant is a brand, readers haven’t a clue who’s real and who is not.

If you’re a writer reading this, and this blog angers you, makes you defensive, or you think I’m writing about you …then perhaps it might be time to reflect. Just sayin’

Never getting credit for creating a best seller you wrote is just as bad as getting credit for writing something you didn’t write.

If your name is on a book you did not write, then in my opinion you’re creating a brand, not a legacy that many of us truly leave behind on the pages of a book.

Milli Vanilli. People were angry, music lovers canceled them because of the deception, readers should be just as angry at these book mills and fake authors.

I was in a band and we had this guy who wanted badly to be a guitar player. He got up there every gig, strummed away, but was never plugged in. Being on stage made him no more a musician than putting your name on a cover makes you an author.

Am I jealous? No, I have my place in this genre and am very content, but there are passionate writers vying for a spot they deserve and will never get because it’s crowded with fake names and wannabe writers all out for the buck.

Am I upset? Sure, I write everything I put my name on. Hundreds of books. Every part of my being goes into my stories. They may not be great, but they’re mine. If my name is on it, I wrote it. There are a lot out there that can not say the same.

Some will call it great business and good for them. Others will call it deception.

Sadly, what can be done? Not much. We as real writers, just have to work harder. We’ll do what our phony counterparts can not do, and that is write books. The fakes will fade, hopefully, like Milli Vanilli, with a tarnished reputation to follow.

New Stand Mini Series Episode 1 Review

 

For years, and I think as far back as ten years, I have been waiting for the remake of The Stand. Not that I didn’t love the one from 1994, but I just loved The Stand. It was a book I read over and over, albeit I skipped a lot of Trash Can man scenes, and the mini series was at least a yearly viewing pleasure. I loved it so much the complete box set was a Valentine's Day gift from my second Husband.

So when it was announced it would be on CBS access, I knew I would finally see that remake. I wanted to not give spoilers, but that’s impossible so SPOILER ALERT.

Spoilers, you say, how can there be spoilers, it’s The Stand. Well …. There is. Things are different.

For starters it doesn’t start at the beginning, like the book or the OG miniseries. It starts about halfway through the book in Boulder. The first episode delivers the plague in flashbacks, at first I was iffy about this, but then I liked it. I finished watching the maiden episode hopeful that we would see more from the book as i goes on than we did in the original mini series.

This episode gives us a hint of Mother Abigail, but not enough to judge Whoopie’s performance and a splash of the Dark Man, hot Alexander Skargard. But it centers on Harold, Stu and Franny and their background stories. Those are rich with information. Although I did think some of the Stu dialogue was contrived. Like forced narrative down our throats. “Yes, I was at the gas station with Hap when that sick military guy Campion drove through after escaping his base and talked about a code red."

Something like that.

It goes into more depth of Harold and Franny more than anything, even more than Stu. But not as deep as the Franny in the book nor is she the same.. The actress is wonderful but … what the hell have they done to Franny? She is so unlikeable, so bitchy, that I didn’t care how depressed she was. I didn’t care about her at all and when they showed her in present day Boulder, they spent so much showing how trivial she was, her present day character is not believable. 

And … SPOILER …. When Harold utters his last line, I nodded and said, “Yeah, please.”

Unless you have seen the episode you won’t know what that means.

And, well, unless you have read the book or seen the original mini series, I’m not convinced the new viewer won’t be confused.

All and all I am still excited for the weekly dive into the apocalypse Stephen King style. And of course, eventually, Greg Kinnear will be on. I am anxious for Larry and Nick

While I think others will be on the fence, I give it a thumbs up and think this Mini Series is gonna be fantastic and meet my expectations.

What did you think?

If the Covid World was actually ,...

 

I write apocalypse fiction and have done so for twenty years. In fact, I wrote apocalypse fiction before it was cool.

I am not a doctor or scientist. I can say I have put thousands of hours of research in. If I only do five hours a week for twenty years that’s 5200 hours of research on various survival, end of the world topics, half of which are viruses. Does that make me an expert? No, but it gives me lots of info that would make me a cool Jeopardy contestant. That being said, I decided to give an Apocalypse Writer’s take on Covid-19.

The reason I write this is because a lot of people don’t think it’s real or think people are overreacting, I just want to offer a ‘what if’.

Keep in mind this is me, an apocalypse writer offering an alternative fiction-like theory.

What if I wrote the novel, Covid-19? What if everything we were experiencing was a novel I was penning. The most hardcore apocalypse reader would probably stop a third of the way through and ask, “What gives? When do things pick up?”

Like in a novel, what if everything happening is all part of a bigger picture?

As so many have done, many people wonder if there is something they aren’t telling us. The reaction and precaution doesn’t match the threat. After all, how many times have you heard people toss out ‘flu’ stats.

What if …

There really is something they aren’t telling us? What if the immediate shut downs, the reaction isn’t just caution, but rather true concern and fear.

What it …

COVID-19 was manmade and/or a retrovirus, an RNA virus that inserts itself into our DNA. The scientific community are unsure of the long term effects and where the mutation inside of us could go, what it could do. What if they see signs of this and therefor delaying things, shutting things down gives them a chance to see what happens to the survivors, without tossing yet another worry object on our plate.

Oh wait … Covid IS an RNA virus. So, heck, that’s already possible.

Yeah, wouldn’t that explain the serious long term effects many people are suffering from now.

We all know it is carried in droplets and airborne, but what if … it’s a vector?

Carried in any insect you could imagine. What if they didn’t let that little fact out. Because that would be impossible to control. Wouldn’t that explain why some people (Like with Zika) don’t get symptoms, or why only some get respiratory and others don’t? The warmer weather, brought more insects, more infections? November is the heaviest lice season. If you consider bugs as major carriers, as they have been in past diseases, wouldn’t it make sense why they shut things down? Limit households mixing? Separate and social distance, especially at schools.

I wrote this theory blog because the writer in me thinks there is more and these answers above are what I say to people who question the virus and the actions to contain it.

I take it to my apocalyptic level and say ‘what if?’

 

*Image courtesy of Texas State University