I Finished My Movie!!!/Vacation sketches 2/I Heart Batman

I'm thrilled, frightened, and a million other colors of emotions because I finished filming my movie on Sunday. I can die tomorrow and something I created exists no matter what(I won't die tomorrow, but I just heard that famous fantasy writer I never read Robert Jordan died, and since he is the contemporary of George R.R. Martin whose Game Of Thrones I've gotten around ten people to read, I am thinking about mortality and completing things before I die.).

We filmed the final scene of the movie plus some inserts. We had something of a celebration afterwards. Actually it lasted all day. First we finished filming the endiing scene at around 2 PM. Then we headed over to a pub that Paul and Taylor wanted to hang out at. We bullshitted about our future stories and movies. We talked about my favorite book Hyperion and how it practically is the last word on Science Fiction and how it's a massive look at literature, poetry, and the common tropes of science fiction. It is Star Wars times 30 and smart and emotional. Then I showed them the collection of 1939-1940 comics by Fletcher Hanks called I Shall Destroy All Civilized Worlds. They freaked out at how completely vindictive the omnipotent character was and how ignorant the writing was. It somehow ends up being genius in its stupidity. Everything infantile about comics is realized in it's pages. Doug joined us a bit later. We sat there drinking great beer for 7 hours. 7 hours of beautiful intoxication and talking with friends. After we shot the night scenes(that's why we were waiting around until dark) we went to a tiki bar and drank for another three hours. Even Mendoza joined us. He told us disgusting pizza stories. It was a blast.

This first chapter of storytelling in my life is almost over. The hard work is done. I am happy. But at the same time I feel weird that this is a chronicle of some pretty low times in my life realized as a fictionl single aspect of who I am. During the making of this I have gained friends, lost friends, had my heart broken, changed my whole attitude towards life, moved, lost a pet to a stupid disease, become the legal parent to my sister, and worst of all, lost my mother. In a way this needed to end to turn the horrible page and clean the slate. I've never had it worse than those years. Everything was at the edge of being lost. My sister, my money, my life, my stories, my friends, everything. I only complain about things now because I have entered into better place and I still have a few things I have to fix. But those things are relatively small. I have this chronicle. It doesn't explain who I am or my motivations, but it gives a small glimpse. I've looked at my other screenplays and i see myself much more.

This was written by Doug Clarke and I years ago as something to do. Something to express our sense of humor, and to show how weird we think Paul Gordan is(he's the villian and Doug is the hero, I'm the goof off friend, and no this is a skewed version of reality, no one is a villian or a hero and I can't just be a goof off and that's it). Paul's dialogue was like a fetish of mine. that is where you really see into my mind. his strange logic and the way the scenes with him are funny in a dark yet goofy sense. It's my ultimate asshole character and how I feel the world treats me all at once. I want to be him and I want to destroy him. And, yes Paul does sort of act like him. He tried to act a few times and missed the point. There is no need to act, the words come out of his mouth this way with no affectation. Of course, Paul is a nice guy, the asshole part was basically all me. The opposite of me but me.

I look at my other screenplays and I see the pure unrefined me. Goode Apples, my comedy is all the stupid things I think but can't say because they are just stupid. It is all the weird things I've seen about people and the innocent yet evil ways people can be. You love the characters but they are brutally stupid. They don't apologze for it. You have to accept that people are flawed and beautiful all at once. My Samurai action movie, Tooth And Nail is everything I feel hasn't been done properly in action and all the crazy thiings I've always wanted to see. A Thousand Words is the closest to me. It's about me. My life, my relationships(yet fictionalized since half of people and situations in this are fictional) and my personality. How I react to people. My inadiquacies(sp?). And how my weakness to women is a strength, yes, but also a sort of innocent ignorance that I need to grow from. It is real. Emotionally it is real. My friiendships, the fun times, the bad times, it is all me. I am the most proud of it and the most scared of showing it. Only Taylor and Mendoza have read parts of it. I wrote fifty pages of it in one day. I ended up changing about two pages of it. After editing it and editing it. The Dead Next Door, my first movie had seven edits. Goode Apples had three. Tooth And Nail had two. I'm talking finished edits with new scenes and fixed dialogue. I am not finished with A Thousand Words but so far I am 99% happy with it. And I'm 80 pages in with a target of 120 pages.

But for now I have this movie. The Dead Next Door. For now this is the closest you can get to me. This is the yard stick to my mental personal space. And a part of my life is forever behind me. That is great and terrible. Now to finish editing it.

The post by Mendoza, Sorry Spiderman reminds me of that Hollies song, Sorry Suzanne. I've been studying them to write songs in that vein for Goode Apples.

The first picture is some stuff I drew on vacation in Miami. It shows what I was thinking about and how I felt that day. The second I drew last night(the date is wrong by a day). I just love Batman. I love lighting him, drawing all the different plains of his face and mask. Making an asskicking scary guy of the imaginations of millions into a reality of my own mind. My own vision of him. Have to stop drawing him already.

Adrian