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12-3-00 "Rusty Rich and Captain Screw-Around!"

Day three - we shot the shovel scene at my Uncle's cabin. I'm hoping it'll cut together as nicely as the storyboard looks. We had to adjust angles to compensate for the sun. Some sunlight is alright but too much lens flare might make it just plain annoying. I still haven't figured out how to use all the camera's features yet. The focus is a big area where I'm going to need to concentrate! Jon needed to fall into the snow about five or six times before we had a perfect take. That poor guy was so cold by the time we were finished!! We also had plenty for the blooper real today as Tom had a bit of trouble with lines. He needed to yell at me and he just couldn't get any real volume out. He did manage to give an overall fine performance that will hopefully cut together nicely. Tony again came to help film. He's really got a good eye! Also, I made the cut at Comedy City and get to take four 'gauntlet workshops' that will determine if I get to advance to the professional league. Tonight's workshop was on Music and it was a BLAST!!!

12-4-00 "Zen And The Art of Comedy!!"

Tonight's workshop was on 'Mind focussing'. We did some excersises that make your brain bleed! All the information I'm picking up through these improvisational lessons is helping me a great deal with my own acting and my directing. After workshop Mike E. (the big boss) showed me a clip of a movie he's doing with his own Canon XL-1. It was quite impressive!!! He shot in a bar up in Green Bay and gave it a bit of an antique feel. His movie is ment to have a bit of a film noir feel, and it did! He's still interested in helping me with my movie but I don't want to inconvienience him as our shooting schedule isn't going to be very condusive to anyone's personal schedule. He'd make a great character though so I'm not ruling him out!!

12-5-00 "Play Practice!!"

Got up early for play practice before school as I'm co-directing (with a teacher friend of mine, Jamie Fuge) three short one act plays for our school! We are doing two comedies and one semi-drama. I think we'll pull off a relatively great job as the kids seem to be excited. I'd love to write another play for the kids to do but I'm just too exhausted lately to do much of anything. I would also like to see if we could get 'Twang' (see projects) into some of the high school festival contests as I think it would do quite well (with a little polishing!) After school we had practice with a different group of kids and a different play. All went well. I keep thinking that it would be neat to have a high school comedy sports team. We'll see... ? Finally, my script didn't make it into the top 250 in Project Greenlight. Nor did Cousin Joe's (which had an even better chance than mine did!) Where the heck has Joe been lately? Haven't heard from him since before deerhunting. Anyway, I'm not surprised I didn't make it to round two, my script is a 'shooting script', it's WAY too long, and the humor is simplified and silly. Would it make a good movie? You bet!!!!

12-10-00 "Ice House!!!"

Day four - Jon, Tony, Tom, Jason (remember him?) and I got together to shoot a bit more exterior stuff today. It seemed as though the day was going to be warm and friendly but it turned out to be quite bitter cold. While moving an outhouse into the shot Tom was pinned to the ground and couldn't move. He was unhurt but we all got a good laugh at his expence. Jon is doing an incredible job as our psycho! I also think he's really liking the role. Jason and Tony both took the camera for a while. Tom was dead-on with his lines and he had some pretty tough ones today. We even got to some of the script that I don't have storyboarded as of yet. I think it'll turn out. I wanted to get back down into the swamp but everyone was too cold for me to make them suffer. Man, sometimes I'm just way too nice! Also, workshop three - Mine and Gibberish! Oh ya, did I mention that I just bought a $500.00 upgrade card for my computer so it now runs at 500 megahurtz?! The darn program still isn't running as it should though!!! GRRRRRRR!!!

12-11-00 "Need More Zip!!!!

We had our final Comedy City workshop tonight with Peggy. It always seems that the sessions are way too short! We're all having so much fun that I hate to leave! I also love working with all the people in the workshop but I know we all won't be moving on to the next level. Bummer!! Oh man! Jon was kinda sick tonight, probably from being frozen stiff on Sunday. Sorry sorry sorry Jon!!! Get better!! Dress warm!! Drink plenty of fluids. I'm not sure if we'll be shooting this weekend as a group but I might get down there by myself to redo some of the shotgun scene or perhaps the outhouse and the kid scene?! Need more sleepie!!! Oh ya, We may have found a Cookie?

12-12-00 "The Adventurous!!!!"

I recently recieved two tapes from a fellow Wisconsin filmmaker named Ben Heckendorn. The Wisconsin Film Office lead me in his direction as they thought I might be interested in seeing an effect he did with a truck smashing into a person. Well, the effect was incredible and the movie itself was a BLAST!!!! It reminded me of my old 'Saturn Patrol' days were the hero could find his way out of any predicament. The second film had this great character in it who was a greasy nazi robot. They even had some pretty impressive computer graphics in the film. I'll need to get in contact with these guys to see what they're doing with it!? If anyone gets a chance, check out this film! It's a lot of fun!!! I'll try to post more information later. Perhaps on the 'links page'. While it may not be Academy award winning it has a lot of humor and excitment! Great job Ben and Company!!!! Get ahold of me!

12-15-00 "I Made It, Stage Three!!!"

Finally after three attempts I made it to stage three on the road to being a professional improvisational comedian! I hope Jon made it to the next level... and I hope he's not pissed at me if he didn't. Jon, myself and Garth (another buddy from the workshops) really improved since our last attempt. Garth told me that he didn't make it and I was bummed but he did say he was going to keep trying. Maybe three's the charm, who knows? I hope I can do a decent job now with the practices as I get three of them before they decide to toss me out or not. I've been doing a lot of improvisational things in my classroom and my kids go nuts! They love it!

Alright, here are a few current concerns....

12-22-00 "Bye Bye Kiddies!"

Last day of school and now it's time for a much needed break. The kids were nuts these past few days! Play practice seems to be going well but I'm sure my co-director is getting nervous as the date of our first performance continues to get closer. I'm hoping to get some shooting in over my Christmas break. Am I done with all my shopping? Never! I'll be getting things for my family until Christmas is finally here! Also got notification today that I didn't make it into the final stage for the Herb Kohl teacher's award. This is now the third time I worked on that darn thing and let me tell you that it isn't a quick thing to get done. It requires you to fill out six essay questions (ten when I did it before) and get four people to write up letters of recomendation. It's a pile of work and I am once again shafted!!! I don't have the first clue as to how I can write it better!

12-24-00 "Dreamy Weather!"

Today was snowing lightly. I need to get the dream sequence shot as the snow falls so I ran around like a fool to get the shots done. Wow was it cold! My pants froze solid from my knees down. I had to thaw them to get the darn things off! Did I get any good footage you may ask? Oh ya!!! I was very pleased with what I got! It should work very nicely! When I got all the shots I needed at the graveyard I ran up into the barn to fassion a crude grave stone for Gary. That footage was shot in the field behind our house. I wanted it to seem as though Gary's grave was seperated from the rest of the cemetary.

Here's a bit of a dilema. A friend of our family named Gary P. is buried in the graveyard where I did my shooting. I did not use his grave in my shots nor will I. Gary was very young (not even thirty) when he died in a car accident. He also died well after I had started writing my script. There is no similarity between our Gary that is in the movie and the Gary from real life. I guess I'm just a little worried that I'll offend someone which is not our intention. Maybe I worry too much!

12-27-00 "Comedy City Practice!!"

Tonight is my first practice with the pros up in Green Bay. I'm hoping to get some of my test cuts down on VHS to take up there to share with interested parties. I'm also hoping to catch the new Coen Brother's movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". I did manage to do a little editing on the dream sequence stuff and it looks awesome! I used a lot of fade cuts so it has this real dreamlike quality that seems to work really well. I need to cut it down though as it runs way too long (almost six minutes). I cut it down to about three and a half minutes and it seems pretty good only the audio didn't cut very well at all so I'll need to start from scratch! I'm hoping to get some impressive stuff put down on a tape to drum up some interest in the project. We're almost ready for our group scenes!!

I'm happy with what I've gotten done so far this break (I was out shooting three times) and I'm hoping to get even more done before I return to the grindstone! Oh ya, I guess Tom getting our tee-shirts made up. That'll be about three hundred bucks right there! Ouch!!!

12-28-00 "The Frozen Wienerdog!!!"

The first practice with the Comedy City pros went well. I was very rusty and quite intimidated but everyone did a great job helping me fit in. I went over to Mike's house afterwards and had a blast playing games with the other players. I personally don't feel like I'll be ready to go on stage in two more practices but we'll see. I got a chance to see some of the edited footage of the movie they're making in Green Bay. It looked amazing! They're going to format it with shadowboxes (widescreen). I've thought about doing it that way but am just not sold on the idea yet. I'm not sure but I think Darby is in charge of the cinematography and Mike wrote it. I also very briefly met Dave who I might cast as Cookie or Roger. I'm a bit bummed that I didn't talk with him more, I thought he'd be at Mike's house after practice. I had a frozen dog in one of the skits we did if you're confused about the title.

12-31-00 "Da Tirdy Point Buck!!!"

I can't believe how commited I am to the making of this flick!!! I hauled my brother's full shoulder buck mount (about fifty pounds) a half a mile into the woods. Keep in mind the fields are covered with a not-so-friendly blanket of snow (at least a foot thick). I needed to take it down there without the aid of a snowmobile so I didn't run the risk of disturbing it at all. If it had been ruined my brother would put a stop to my project by killing me!!! Now, why did I exhaust myself by doing all this? Well, so I could get a five second shot of it, of course!! Seriously, by the time I had finally brought all my equipment and the deer head back I was shot!! The footage that I shot today runs about 30 seconds long! Wow! An old school mate of mine drove past as I was carrying all that stuff up the road. I saw him in the bar later that night and asked him what he was thinking. He basically said," I saw who it was and I didn't question it one bit!" I rang in the new year at Bubba's (a local establishment for the drinking impaired) but headed home at about two so I could get some footage shot on New Year's Day!

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