coast to coast fireworks

Hello.

It's 8pm, dead on. I have not eaten today, I went to bed last night at 4am doing work with a pint of vodka and tonic slowly ebbing from my system, I could use a shower badly, and I'm already a mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion. I'm in San Diego. I flew here on the fourth of july, a late and oft delayed flight due to the thunderstorms which have hovered over New York menacingly all summer long. Of course, friends back there now tell me the day after I left all of a sudden the humidity and sauna like uncomfortable-ness left. Maybe they're trying to tell me something?

It was an incredible flight because I had a window seat and watched fireworks go off across the entire country below us, little sparkling flowers exploding over every skyline. I read a book from cover to cover on the recommendation of a girl I have a crush on. I haven't read a book in one sitting in years - I loved it even though it made me intensely sad - Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami. It was tranquil, and pleasant, and I felt a little less alone because someone told me to read a book. Right now I'm feeling like a kid on Christmas morning waiting for presents combined with a deer in headlights.

Before we start discussing my bad habits, there's a reason I'm not looking after myself so well. This is not typical. Usually during the year I am sort of panda or otter like. At the moment, however, I am here by the Pacific in order to do my occasional job, which is directing music videos. Part of that job is going to hang out with band members late at night when you have a ton of work to do because they're very demanding and charming, and then you end up ordering a vodka tonic that arrives pint sized. And you pay four dollars for it and scratch your head thinking about New York.


this is what production looks like

I am doing a video for The Album Leaf, a wonderful band on Subpop.

Just like the Argo only had 365 days to save the Earth in Star Blazers... I only have 11 days remaining before we turnover our film cameras and start rolling. I've got locations to find in a city I don't know too well, casting to do, and a billion small incidental details that comprise the actuality of filmmaking. I've never been totally comfortable with blogging because I believe a lot of daily writing would be personal in nature, and I'm not one for that. But this gives me a focus and something to share. I hope to write here every day and take you through this entire process.

So hello, and I am so going to go eat something and pass out. Just a second ago, on the way back from a day of location scouting, two girls in the elevator here at the hotel were inside and one asked me jokingly to come visit her room as we stopped on their floor. And then I dropped a cigarette and my room keys and a bundle of papers. They left the elevator with one muttering "hey butterfingers". Such is my personal life, so we won't share that here. But filmmaking, I can bore you to tears with that.