An Enormous Agenda

Yes, I said it.  I have an enormous agenda.  It woke me up early this morning, and it's kept me busy all day (as well as generating a large number of Facebook comments).

After pulling out of the holiday wreckage, I was finally able to get a meeting with my production peeps about three projects currently filling the queue: 1) The Duo Issue #0 shorts, 2) the Ordinary Angels series pitch, and 3) a bid on a PSA gig for a non-profit.

Results of said meeting:

1) Jessie has offered to have a cut of Chapter One ready to screen with his latest film next month.  We also strategized about how best to finish the last chapter, with Trish's impending labor (which will take Dan largely out of commission for actual face time on set).  The feature pitch is also being put in front of a local producer whose background is in corporate marketing.  We'll see what she has to say.

2) Still working on the basic plots for the first season episodes, and honing the pitch.  We've given ourselves a six-month deadline, then we're shopping that bitch.

3) Can't really talk too much about this, except to say that we don't have the gig yet, and we do have some strong concepts for it.


In other agenda-related news, I sent Gavin the manuscript for Arrowflight 2nd Edition (or AF2e) after tinkering with it for a week, altering the archaic DEEP system remnants to fall in line with XPG system procedures.  Steve Hartley has been working on new interior art, and the cover is coming right along.  After Gavin adds some material, I will take it back for more tinkering and formatting into playtest document form.

Hurray for a new year, an enormous agenda, and the will to work it!

Same Hell, Different Day

No, that's not me being down or pessimistic.  That's a statement about hearing lots of people over the New Year weekend mention how awful 2009 was.  In general, yeah.  It was a high stress year.  A lot happened in the world and closer to home.  In our family, there were challenges in the child-rearing, house-selling, house-buying arenas, coupled with various health issues and scares.  Couples splintered apart.  One close friend was diagnosed with (and apparently beat) lung cancer.  My grandmother was in and out of the hospital.  It was kinda rough.

But here's some perspective:

• The planet is still rotating, and revolving around the sun.
• Climate change hasn't killed us off yet.
• I got married (W00t!)

Honestly, there will always be dark clouds and silver linings to any year.  If I look at my own 2005-2009, I can see rough years of Biblical proportion: death of wife, death of father, flood, fire, locusts... Actually, there weren't locusts.  But we joked about it, because at the time if I didn't laugh, I would have curled into the fetal position and sobbed my ass off.  Come to think of it, I did that anyway.  Just not in public.  But in the midst of that maelstrom of awfulness there were deep friendships formed, the discovery of strength I didn't know I had, and an outpouring of love and support from my community.  I released an award-winning short film and made lots of valuable contacts in the film arena.  I also released a tribute CD for Samantha, which directly put Raechelle in my path.  Now THAT eats my mind every time I think about it.

The point being, it's fine and dandy to say, "2009 sucked - 2010 will be better!"  Heck, it may be true for you.  But there are always ups and downs to any 365-day period, and an arbitrary date on a calendar isn't going to make that any different.  2010, for me, holds the promise of progress on the film front, of creative collaboration with my wife, and of finally releasing the long-delayed second edition of Deep7's first premium fantasy RPG, Arrowflight.  All good things.

And while all of this is happening, an old friend of mine is dying of cancer.  Shura is one of my oldest friends in the area, as Sam & I lived with her and her then-boyfriend Garth when we first moved to Seattle in 1991.  I recently got reconnected with Garth, who got me reconnected with Shura just in time to find out not only had she battled breast cancer for years, but that it had metastasized to her bones and liver.  And she's now quite literally on her deathbed.  Seeing pictures of her taken within the last 48 hours was a huge flashback for me, and I beat my tiny fists against the massive chest of cancer once more, railing impotently from the mountaintop of Facebook.  Time may mute the immediate pain, but watching a loved one die far too young from cancer never becomes more okay.  Godspeed, Shura.  Much love.

On top of that, Raechelle's mom had a heart attack over last weekend, and was hospitalized with stents in her arteries.  I know she doesn't like it when people make a fuss, but we were preparing for some very hard news.  Thank goodness that doesn't appear to be the case! 

So my New Year kicks off with the impending death of an old friend and a health scare for my mother-in-law, and yet -- what a great gift to be reminded of life's finite nature, to be given renewed impetus to fulfill my own potential and not waste a single moment.

To that end, the woman and I are getting back in shape, and I've made appointments with a new head doc (to keep the emotional gears and cogs moving smoothly) as well as my meat doc (for that "You're over 40 - bend over!" physical). And as soon as we receive the report from UW, we'll be getting Tyler's situation sorted out as well.

And with that, here we go...

Last Post of 2009

Apologies for the lack of enthusiastic posts in recent weeks.  It's been a sort of crappy end to a year of extremes - the highs of a new marriage to the letting go of the only home two kids had ever known.  The buying and selling of homes in a down market, the challenges of promoting artistic projects in a slow economy, the hand-wringing and hair-pulling of raising a couple of highly-intelligent and often challenging teens, and integrating a new maternal influence into their lives.

It's all been a lot to absorb, much less report on with any sort of regularity.

Safe to say, things are settling down on the home front, just in time for things to get busy on the career front.  There is movement on the horizon, and I look forward to writing about it next year.

So, until tomorrow...

Happy Gregorian New Year!

'Tis the Something

I've polled several of my friends and family, and I'm not alone in thinking this holiday season has been more crabby, bitchy and altogether more grrr than in recent memory.  Everywhere I go, people have their blinders on, sometimes even walking right into me - imagine missing a 6'4" 250lb linebacker - with only a surprised look and not so much as a "pardon me".  On the roads, it's worse.  People stealing parking spots, ignoring basic traffic rules and no concept of common courtesy.

I know that Mars AND Mercury are both in retrograde and the economic environment is dodgy at best, but relax, people.  Just be aware of your surroundings and maybe cut your fellow man some slack this particularly rough holiday season.  Isn't that what it's all about anyway?

Peace.

Havacar and "Avatar".

As previously mentioned, The Wife was in a car accident last month and her poor Ruby was totaled.  Well, not that either of us wanted to be car shopping the week before Christmas, but she ended up with a very nice replacement.  Her blog post is here.

People seem shocked that she's not very enthusiastic about this new vehicle.  I told her the other night that it made me sad, but that I understood.  I told her that people used to ask if I just LOVED my rebuilt home, and I would tell them I didn't really want the old one to burn down, but if something was going to come at such a high personal cost, then a rebuilt home with upgrades was better than the charred, blackened version.

Same with the car.  She didn't want to total Ruby, but if she had to lose Ruby, this is a darn fine vehicle to drive in her stead.

*     *     *

In other news, I took Kayleigh to see James Cameron's Avatar in 3D IMAX today, and it rocked my world.  It pretty much rocked Kayleigh's too.  I can see that I'm cultivating an appreciation in her for things like cinematography, sound design and production design.

There's a lot of hype surrounding this film.  It's James Cameron, after all, and if he's good at one thing, it's generating hype.  I avoided watching Titanic for years just because of the overmarketing and endless hype.  But as a guy who builds sand castles and sandboxes for a living (meaning worldbuilding for narrative and interactive media), the moment I saw teen-foot-tall blue aliens riding quasi-pteranodons through a bioluminescent primeval world, I was hooked.  I simply HAD to see it.  They had me at "flying lizard".

First, let me say that nobody is going to win any acting awards from their work on this film, which I actually find sad.  It's got to be brutal to have to work your craft wearing a green bodysuit in a green room with ping pong balls as reference points.  But this movie isn't about breakthrough performances.  Sometimes, "acting" just gets in the way of the story and takes me out of the setting.  That said, Sam Worthington (Macbeth, Terminator Salvation and the upcoming Clash of the Titans) is completely credible in the lead role, and the supporting cast is made up of talented newbies and journeymen actors alike.  Giovanni Ribisi is a really great corporate whore, Stephen Lang is menacing (if a bit two-dimensional) as the jarhead Colonel, and the main Na'vi characters are brought to life by some fine talent, including Wes Studi as the chieftain, CCH Pounder as the shaman, and Zoe Saldana as the love interest.  Sigourney Weaver's performance was surprisingly wooden.

Keep in mind, some of the criticism Avatar has faced (lackluster acting, simplistic story) was also thrown at a certain sci-fi blockbuster in 1977 - which spawned an entire media empire and popular subculture.

Minor performance quibbles aside, Avatar is important, and I'll tell you why.  On the technical side, it has changed the way blockbuster movies are made.  And whenever technological advances are made in Hollywood-scale cinema, that technology trickles down to the indie guys, who make better, more creative use of it more cheaply.  On the story side, as much as it is an archetype (see Dances With Wolves or Heart of Darkness), it is a really serious look at our own world through the lens of sci-fi escapist entertainment, sort of what the original Star Trek series did.

The basic premise (no spoilers) is that an invading population wants a resource that the native population considers sacred, and that the invaders de-humanize the natives to justify their removal and, if necessary, their genocide.  It is our own American history, our broken treaties with the native populations, our strip mining, gold rushes, our smallpox-laced blankets.  It is our shame as a nation, and unfortunately we are not alone.  It is Belgium in Rwanda, Spain in South America, France in Southeast Asia, Britain everywhere they put down stakes, Australia's treatment of the aborigines.  And yet at the same time, you forget you are seeing our own history and maybe learning something because you are watching compelling science fiction.

It always makes me happy when a movie transports me into its world and makes me feel any sort of emotion; it means the film is doing its job.  Avatar is very good at placing the viewer in the world.  3D IMAX may have helped in that regard, but more than anything I think it was just a really well-designed world.  The ecosystem made sense.  There wasn't anything that felt out of place or just there for the hell of it.  Even my 12-year-old daughter remarked afterward, "I really felt like I was there."  And the sociopolitical message wasn't lost on her either.

I felt it was a good film, both in technical polish and in message.  Recommended viewing, on the big screen.

Buwwets

• Last week was pretty much a loss, energy-wise, and this week has not started so well either.  We're keeping busy around the house.  The granite countertop finally came in, so now the section of kitchen by the stove looks more or less like the rest of the kitchen.  So there's that.

• Christmas cards have been pouring in, along with prezzies from the family.  A couple boxes showed up from the new in-laws last night.  Mrs. D. and I each got to open one (not all the way, just to get the wrapped presents out), and I stowed the wrapped packages neatly under the tree.  I'm taking bets on how long the bows stay on, since under the tree is where Elvis and Tom like to wrestle, lie about, and gnaw on whatever they can find.

• Work has begun in earnest on Arrowflight Second Edition.  Deep7 fans have only been demanding it for about five years now, and I need to bolster the company bottom line with some new product.  Steve Hartley will be the go-to illustrator, and we've already been in Skype conference mode.  Next week will include a couple face-to-face art meetings.  I learned a lot on RADZ, and I intend to put that to work to benefit Arrowflight.  Happy with it so far.

• Although we managed to knock out most of our Christmas shopping last weekend, I still have a few more things to pick up, and some errands to run (including a Christmas Card drop at the post office).  Better hit that before the weather goes all wonky again.
  

That's all I got.

One Year Ago...

On this day last year, on the very day an arctic front blew in and started Snowmageddon '08, I took Raechelle to Alki Beach and asked her to be my wife.

Three guesses what the answer was (and the first two don't count).

Where did this last year go??  I guess we've been keeping busy.

Mrs. D. and I went Christmas shopping yesterday and just about knocked it all out.  I got my second wind about 4PM, which is odd, because I'm usually wanting a nap around that time.  We went up to a musician friend's birthday celebration/jam, and we brought Kayleigh with us.  She was a big hit, singing songs into the mic and whacking away at the tambourine.  I got to strum, Raechelle got to sing.  A fun evening for all.

Today consists of a meeting with Ron, some football, and a film screening this afternoon.  Seems like even when we don't plan out a weekend, it ends up cramming itself full anyway.