172 days left

After a slight weekend delay - due to a faulty package barcode - the mac mini has finally arrived at my door.

It happens to be "one of those" mini's that have been quietly upgraded a bit. Instead of running at 1.4 GHz, it's at 1.5, which isn't anything to brag about, but every little bit helps. And also, I haven't tested it out, but apparently it's suppose to burn at 8x, instead of just 4x.

But, all technical-talk aside, I can't even begin to explain how excited I got when I opened up Final Cut and it flew thru clip after clip with out a moment's hesitation. No more lagging. No more freezing up. No more ten minutes of rendering just to skim through a 45 second clip. It's been too long, I've missed editing so much... more than I realized, and I thought I missed it a lot to begin with.

I've been keeping an eye on a handful of AG-DVC30s on ebay recently. I'm hoping to purchase one before heading off to Michigan for the holidays - a friend in Ypsi has asked me to film a Zombie Clause event in Ann Arbor on the 16th... which, to me, sounds very, very strange and therefor... interesting.


I've been sitting here debating back and forth whether or not I should even discuss this kind of topic here on the blog for the whole world to read... I realize that last sentence is very "huh?" - to explain: I recently mailed out a stack of fundraising letters to, mostly, family members. Well, the other morning, I received a call from someone in my family - whom I did not send a letter to (mostly because this person is near me in age, and since I'm fairly broke on a consistent basis, "well, you know")... The "well, you know" line was an impersonation of Ritter in 'Noises Off', a movie that is hilarious on a level I can't fully get into at this point in time. I'm getting side-tracked.

Where was I? As some of you might remember from this post - in a later section of the letter, I proposed that two or four people invest $2,000 to $4,000 in the film. To me, this was a comfortable amount, and I am very uncomfortable talking about money, period, but as much as it could be, it was a comfortable amount of money for me to borrow for the film's expenses. Right, so I received a phone call and - when I realized the call was about the letter - I thought a generous offer of 2... maybe 5 hundred dollars was coming.

Instead... I was offered $4,000... which, among other things, threw me off for a moment. Well, it still does throw me off when I think about it.

Now, I should state very clearly before I go on - that I hope my discussing this publicly isn't out of line for the person I'm anonymously referring to above, and that their offer was and remains very, very, very (*insert "very" 3,997 more times*) appreciated. I feel lucky to have family so giving - I feel as though, just the offer itself, has lifted a great financial pressure off my shoulders, etc.

Here it comes: But - this person has children... and I can't even begin to imagine the guilt I would feel if, say, after using the said $4,000 on the film, they found themselves in a unforeseen financial situation where they needed that money desperately for a child-related-expense. Is it over-dramatic to have this worry in my mind? Am I going to find a reason to be uneasy about accepting any money from any person, no matter what their situation? Am I turning great news into... something... less great? Is all this a hypothetical question - and I just needed to write it down?

The answer to all of these questions is probably: probably.


The main reason I debated so much about bringing this subject up at all is - this site has evolved from, quote, "an extensive and personal 'behind the scenes' look at the making of an independent film", to a site that acts less as a personal documentary-related journal, and more of a front for a film that has yet to even begin filming. 80% of the ups and downs of the film aren't brought up here, simply because a person related to that "up" or "down" might read the site and take it the wrong way.

I don't want to give the impression that every-time someone comes forward with an interest in funding the film, I'm going to announce on this site. This situation - I felt was unique. Okay, that's that.