The Year of Archetype: Day 26

Now where were we?

A countdown is rather pointless, since I should concern myself less with counting down numbers than making sure every last detail is in place. Still confirming with a few remaining people and I only had to rejigger the schedule three times, each time rather minutely.

Each day I just try to X off a few items on my actually-named "Big List" of things to do before H-Hour on D-Day. I need to come up with a far better name than that; far too ominous. How about just "February 6, 2010"? Maybe even scratch that, since I'm doing some preliminary shooting this weekend for some TV newscasts, albeit with my old Canon GL2 to make it look kind of grungy. This is the Transmissions-style future, after all. No brands, no consumerism, no flatscreen LCD TVs, no Hummers, no Oreo cookies, ad nauseum.

I am, however, Going Rogue and shooting two guerrilla shots this Thursday all by my lonesome and with my Canon XL H1A, which I haven't touched in over a month.

No lie, though: Every day involves about three hours of e-mail responses, paperwork, and then all other hours spent playing $20 videogames, which I buy on pretty much a weekly basis. Sure, I have some idle, semi-worthwhile thoughts about how videogames are much more cinematic, and how movies are much more like games (case in point, my mom said she liked Avatar because it was like being in a videogame - I responded that I can have this experience without spending $250-$400 million dollars). Archetype, however, is far too restrained and without the requisite action to provide further commentary on this thrilling topic.

I suppose I can let everyone peek behind the veil. Today I e-mailed my AD to call two people who've yet to respond to my e-mail query about availability. Then I called Justin and asked the same thing. Probably after this blog post I'm going to the grocery store to get a $100 bill (as a "prop" for the gun sales), some grape or cranberry juice to serve as "prop wine," orange juice for "prop orange juice" for the duration of the film, and some spaghetti and sauce for the one scene as "prop dinner."

Little things like this that, were this production budgeted about a hundred-thousand times more than it is now, I'd have some lowly PA to do it. But here I am, about to back out my car on the shoveled-by-myself driveway and brave the still-icy roads to do some menial work. But I'm used to it. Right now, director/producer/overlord or not, it's my job.