I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

And I'll breathe in mid-July. Maybe.

Got home about 8:30pm Tuesday night. Took my neighbors who dog-sat for me out to dinner an hour later. Worked all day Wednesday, plus had fellow filmmaker Brian Morrison ("One Down") help me figure out some compression and burn (making a DVD of the movie) problems, and took him across the street to meet my friend Phil ("Mrs. Simpson" in Smalltimore). Brian is renting Philip's fabulous Corvette convertible for a music video he is shooting this weekend for Lazerbitch (who is on the Smalltimore soundtrack - click their link on the right to check them out!).

Wednesday night went to The Charles to see Steve Yeager's premiere of, "Crystal Fog." I knew Steve had won an award at Sundance for his documentary on John Waters ("Divine Trash"), but I learned something I didn't know from the woman who introduced him: Steve is still Maryland's only award winner at Sundance. Of course, Eric Thornett won an award at Slamdance, and Michelle is winning awards left and right, so I am always in good company!

"Crystal Fog," was great. I wasn't sure what to expect but it turned out to be a very sweet and well-told story. Was NOT expecting the sweet part. Which is great, I HATE going into a movie and knowing everything that happens before it even begins.

It is the story of a drag queen (Crystal Fog) and an allegedly straight man who falls for her. The story is loosely based on a true relationship that happened to Steve's brother. I am always impressed when someone can write for a character that is very different from themselves and have the dialogue be believable, like men writing for women, crossing ethnic lines, an older person writing for a younger character, or a straight man writing for a drag queen. Steve did an amazing job, and it is an impressive tribute to his brother.

The after-party at Nick's Fish House (which was featured prominently in the film) was a great time. I ran into several of the actors and the DP that I have worked with on Steve's new feature (currently in production), "The Rosens". I spotted (actor) Johnny Alonso there near the end, but didn't have a chance to say hello. He has been in so many Baltimore productions, and mostly works in California now. I don't know him really, but met him briefly last year on the set of "Good People," which was the second time I had met Michelle but the first time I had seen her in action on a set.

Yesterday more work at the Day Job, then dropped by the Creative Alliance to pick up some DVD screeners from Kristen to review before our Members Committee meeting on Tuesday. A small panel of film-related people watch films that are in consideration for the next cycle of events. It's fun, I think, and always nice to have your opinion asked.

Today I have dreaded paperwork for the Day Job (god, I HATE paperwork! This is why I have never held a 9 to 5 job), and email/Facebook blasting about the Philly fest, and have to send some materials out to them and also try to get together a press release. That is SORT OF paperwork, but more of a creative kind and it can be emailed, so no real paper is involved and I don't mind it so much.

Tomorrow I have a small walk-on part for the Lazerbitch music video, and am going to try to catch The Degenerettes (also on my soundtrack - also click their link on the right) play a set at 8:25pm at the Pride festival stage on Eager Street (in front of the Hippo). And I know there are at least three other things I have to do tomorrow that I am forgetting about. Sunday is the second installment of my neighborhood yard sale:

Monthly Mother of All Yard Sales!
1 0 Households!
Sunday, June 21, 9:00am-2:00pm
Rear parking lot, 1125 North Calvert Street

Jewelry - glassware - antiques - oddities -
books - clothes - appliances - furniture -
decor items - dolls - kitchenware

Spread the word!!!


And then it's Monday again already? Argh!

Spin Me Right Round

(Cheryl Scungio as a rather drunken Gracie)

I'm a pretty happy camper today. Since Wednesday, our fans on the Facebook page, "Smalltimore, the Movie," (don't forget the comma) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Smalltimore-the-movie/54159809709?ref=ts has TRIPLED! Mostly through Kyle Holtgren's, Phil Calvert's, and my own friends, but we are also pulling in random people along the way, and I love that.

Eric got on board the other day, after I made a rather pointed plea to my friends who had not yet become fans. He is new to Facebook, and he asked me if it got me anything, having people sign up. Not per se, but it definitely helps. It is all about keeping the buzz going, keeping people talking about it, and if you think about it, it is kind of hard to keep people talking about a movie they've never seen, and don't know when they'll see it. But that is exactly what I have been doing for almost a year and a half now, via this blog, layering that with the occasional mass email, and now adding the Facebook page.

Anyone who has ever been to one of my parties or events can tell you that I know how to plan a good time, and a good turnout. Because what I am doing for Smalltimore is exactly what I do for all my events. Like I said in the very beginning, that is what making, and now marketing, a movie is - event planning. Scheduling, being organized, making sure everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing them and finding a way to reward them for doing it so that they stay excited about it. More than anything, it is about communication.

People forget things, and get bored quickly. We're all busy, and in this world where we watch the news with remote control in hand, flipping between several channels which each have one or more talking heads in the middle, various stock, weather, and time info in the corners and a streaming ticker across the bottom, our attention span has been reduced to the point that we require our information in sound bites. Collective social A.D.D.. Just the facts, Ma'am. And quickly!

Now that I have the FB page for the movie, that fills that niche, and I am glad to have it, despite the "new" FB being so annoying. But there are quite a few people that read this blog regularly, it gets an average of about 30 hits a day now. Until recently it was averaging 20, but it has gone up since I have been writing a lot lately. Which is nice, because I was afraid it would go down, that people would get bored with hearing so much from me!

I think the blog serves a certain purpose that I can't accomplish on FB. It is pretty stream-of-consciousness for me, and I think we all enjoy getting inside someone else's head, but my posts usually end up being some sort of story, and most people still like a good story. That's why we still love the movies! Especially if it is some sort of inside scoop, and even more so if it is some sort of inside scoop on a person. The days that receive the biggest number of hits are always the days that I post a profile of one of the actors (and my stat tracker differentiates between how many individuals view the page and how many page loads there are, so that number is not skewed by a few people returning to the page multiple times). BTW, Kyle, the biggest hits I have received in one day came on the day I profiled Phil Calvert - so don't think you're sailing away with that steak dinner quite yet. I think he is due for a comeback (see the posting earlier this week, "Feed a Starving Actor")!

I discovered that this (profiling individuals) was a very good tool a few years ago when I organized a couple group art shows with some of my artist friends here in Baltimore. I didn't have FB then, so I sent them out via mass emailing. We had great turnouts at both events. I received loads of compliments on them and no one minded at all that I was sending them a rather lengthy email once a week. As a matter of fact, once in awhile, I'll run into someone I haven't seen for a bit and they will tell me that they miss my mass emails!

I think the key is keeping it personal, that's what I try to do here. And funny, of course. It's not that hard. This IS Baltimore, after all. And Baltimore + actors = Plenty of material to work with.

Blog My Mango!

To answer your first question, the title of this post means nothing. Just unrelated thoughts mashing together in my head. And it sounds like some random thing that Kyle Holtgren (pictured above, as David in "Smalltimore") would shout, unprovoked and loudly, after several cocktails at Dionysus just to make anyone with him laugh.

I just got back from having lunch with my good friend Christie Thorndill, who is in town for a visit. She used to live here but moved to Florida last summer, and so of course part of our lunch was spent covering the pros and cons of Baltimore and why people miss it when they leave. I was driving, and when we left, I asked Christie where she wanted me to drop her off. "Baltimore is your oyster!" I said. She replied, "I thought oysters were toxic." "No," I said, "they're an aphrodisiac!" And that sort of sums Baltimore up, in a weird way. One woman's toxin is another woman's aphrodisiac. Christie thought about this for a moment. "Actually, I'd prefer a mango."

I am boycotting Facebook today, because as you probably already know, the new version of Facebook sucks and everyone hates it. So I vowed not to log on at all today, and I am sticking by that, although I accidentally logged on at 12:49am because my computer was tied up burning DVDs to send to festivals for about two hours and I wanted to check it one last time before signing off. So, I won't get back on Facebook until at least 12:49am tonight.

Right before I went out to lunch, I received a text message on my phone from Kyle, tempting me to log on to FB. Yesterday I posted on the Smalltimore the Movie FB page that it would make me very happy if we could reach 100 fans of the page that day. Since announcing the "Feed a Starving Actor" competition (scroll down a few postings for details), our number of fans jumped from 50 to (as of signing off last night) 87, newcomers being mostly fans of Kyle or Phil Calvert, whose horns are now locked in a battle to the death over a juicy slab of meat. I was a bit disappointed in that we should have easily seen it hit 100. I have about 120 friends of my own on Facebook, and hardly any have become a fan of the movie page, which I don't really get, since every one of them know how much blood, sweat, tears, time, energy, love, and money I have sunk into this project! But never fear, Kyle, upon seeing my plea, posted, "I'm on it!" So he texted me today when we hit 98... then 99... then finally, Oh Joy!, 100!!!

You have to enjoy these little victories along the way, they help to keep you going, as the road to the big brass ring is long, rough, and uphill all the way. I am including links to this blog and the FB page on the DVDs I am sending to festivals now. It is the way people find out about things, it is the way people market interactively, and the great thing is, it works, AND it's free! When I send the DVD off to the Atlanta Underground Festival, you better believe that I will be mentioning how many Atlanta folk have become fans (via Phil Calvert) on our FB page. I think they need to come up with a cool name for themselves, as do Kyle's peeps, so think on that.

Definite props to the Phil Calvert contingent for being such loyal friends to their guy, but I gotta tell ya, though you are beating up on everyone else, Kyle is mopping the floor with all y'all. I have about 5 actor profiles left to do, and I know Kyle is anxiously awaiting what I have to say about him on the set of Smalltimore, but he is going to have to wait a little longer for that. Today is just my specific shout out to him for getting the word out like crazy, and always being so supportive and enthusiastic. It makes me smile, it sometimes just cracks me up, it makes the whole thing more fun for me and it really does keep me going. There are days when I really need that.

So, kudos to the Man of the Hour, Kyle Holtgren! Next cosmo's on me!

Self-Critique

(The above pic was taken between takes at the Wind-Up Space. I can't prove it, but I think Cheryl Scungio is flipping off my brother.)

All of a sudden I'm swamped again. I got the DVD out the door to three more festivals today, including the Indie Film Jam in Florida. They weren't looking for feature lengths, only shorts and music videos. But because "Smalltimore" has 37 original songs by 11 Baltimore artists, I thought they might be interested in it and wrote to them. I received a quick reply back that they would take a look at it, and best of all I did not have to pay a submission fee!

Tomorrow night I am meeting with Tom Boynton, singer/songwriter/self-proclaimed Benevolent Dictator of The Remnants (who have a slew of songs on the soundtrack) to see if he can come up with some scoring for some scenes that do not yet have music. Thursday night I am having dinner with Phil Calvert, who played Thom, and Friday I am helping out at a membership drive/shorts fest at the Creative Alliance, so come on down for that!

Dinner with Phil gives me an excuse tonight to procrastinate just a little bit more about cleaning my apartment. The purpose of meeting up, aside from being friends and we do that once in awhile, is that Phil is considering his own leap into the realm of writer/producer/director and wants to pick my brain a bit. I will first off say to anyone in the same position, this is a great idea: take me out to dinner! Kidding... kind of. Actually, that is exactly what I did, and still do, and it is a great way to get a boatload of information. You meet someone, or know someone, who has done some work that you like, or even work that you don't. As long as they have more experience than you do - take them out for a meal. Occasionally this is met with some resistance, people are busy, or married, or both. To them I have said, "Look, you gotta eat sometime. You get a free meal and you get to talk about yourself the whole time, what's not to love?" No one has gotten out of it once I put it to them that way :) And there is nothing slick or underhanded about it, it is the absolute truth: you have knowledge, I want it, out of respect I will gladly reimburse you for your time with a meal. If you spend $20-$50 on that person for a meal spread out over 2 hours or so, it is less money than you will often pay for a class where you share the teacher with 10 or more other people. You have one-on-one time with that person, you get to get as specific as you like and skip over things you don't want to get into, and in the end, you will most likely have made a friend to boot.

Phil is my friend and I want him to succeed, so I take the matter quite seriously and want to give him some good information. His general question to me, in addition to where to even start, is "What would you do differently?" That is a very good question, and one you should ask every filmmaker that you can before making a film yourself.

Off the top of my head:

1. Hire/assign an Assistant Director. I think the AD has the single most confusing title of anyone on set. It sounds like they are also directing the actors, which is not the case at all, or at least it shouldn't be. The AD is the person who locks (quiets) the set down, makes sure actors are in wardrobe and make-up, meals are served on time, lights a fire under the Director of Photography and the crew to keep things on schedule. In short, if this person is doing their job well, they will likely be the least popular person on the set. So make sure you hire/assign the position of AD to someone who really doesn't give a shit if people like them or not. I didn't know this was what an AD did, and I tried to do it all myself. DON'T do that. It makes for VERY stressful days, and though it is likely if you are the Director you still won't be the most popular person on set, you definitely don't want to be the least popular person on set. Get someone else to do the dirty work for you.

2. Have a shot list. This wasn't anything I had ever even heard of before we got on set. It would have taken a lot of time in pre-production to complete, but it would have come in very handy during production. A list of every shot needed to be able to edit your scenes seamlessly: wide shots, medium, tight, dolly, jib, miscellaneous moving shots, and something I did not know the value of until I started editing : CUTAWAYS. Those are the little inserts you see, a pan of liquor bottles at the bar, closeup of someone flipping pages in a magazine, wine being poured into a glass, food being cooked in a skillet. I would suggest you ALWAYS factor in 2-3 cutaways per scene, they can save your life. They are the little band-aids that you can use to piece scenes together when an actor flubs a line or the camera gets bumped during an otherwise flawless scene.

The other reason to have a shot list is that it can not only save you time, but also money. You're on a very tight budget but you have access to a jib and dolly? Those things take time to set up, you can't use them for every shot. Plan out exactly the scenes you will use them in, so that the really sweet shots are spread out within the movie. Because of course, you shoot the script completely out of order, it makes it important to plan this out. If you are deciding on the fly when to use the jib, you might only use it every third day - and then when you sit down to edit it, you realize all your pretty shots take place in the first ten minutes of the movie and the rest is bland!

3. If you have to skimp, skimp on the wide (master) shots. I spent too much time on these and my coverage (single shots of actors) suffered for it because we would run out of time. When you edit, you only really start off with the wide shot, then you move in for coverage and rarely go back to the wide, unless there is some big action going on. Knowing what I know now, I would in the future try to get the wide done in three, and absolutely no more than four, takes. Many days I was doing 7 or 8, and I had some long scenes.

4. Schedule realistically. 5 to 7 pages a day is realistic. Most days I had scheduled 8 to 10 pages. Sometimes we made it, sometimes we didn't, and I had to add several pick-up days. Once you factored in my pick-up days, where we were only shooting 2-3 pages, we still averaged out at about 7 pages a day, which is good. But it would have been better to have a steady pace of 5-7 pages a day spread out over 3 weeks than 8-10 per day over two, and then have to come back several months later when everyone's schedule finally gelled again to pick up those last 10 pages spread out over 4 days. People lose weight, change their hair, shave their beards, move away, get jobs...

That being said, pick-up days are normal, and no matter how well you plan, you are probably still going to have to do a couple of them. So factor that into your schedule and budget as well. It will help your actors and crew to keep up a good pace if they know that if they don't get everything done on time, they have to come back the weekend after next.

5. Always, always have your "cans" (earphones, or earbuds). I was pretty good about asking for this and Danny, who did sound, was pretty good about making sure I had them. But sometimes we were in a hurry, or outside, and I didn't have them. And guess what? Those are the scenes I had to ADR. Sean swears by wireless lav mikes (the kind you can clip or hide in clothing, lapel mikes). I haven't tried them yet, but rest assured I will next time around. If you don't have access to them and you know you are going to be shooting somewhere where the sound is going to be horrible, factor in time THAT day to record the ADR, so you don't have to ask the actors to come in later to do it.

I know there's more, but those are the big ones that I found myself lamenting, "Why didn't I just...(fill in blank)!" Most other things sorted themselves out and/or I was well prepared for. Next posting I'll give you a list of things I did right, things that not everyone does but that I would highly recommend, and that I will always do in the future because they saved my butt. I could keep going, but I know my postings have been of epic proportions lately and I'd like to keep your attention. It (long postings) means that I need to get back to writing-writing. By the end of April I plan to have the movie completely finished, no more tweaking, and then get to work on the next script. I have some ideas and several people on board already, but can't do a thing until I have the script!

Phil Calvert, as Thom

I have both been looking forward to profiling Phil Calvert in his role as Thom, and dreading it, as I know that at some point while I am writing this I am likely going to cry. It is pretty much a given, actually.

That is because Phil plays Thom, a character who is loosely based on my dear deceased friend Thom Hickling. If you go waaaaayyyy back to the beginning of this blog, back when it was www.charmcitythemovie.blogspot.com, you'll get a longer version of the story. (you can also read more about the real Thom at www.thomhickling.com) I will try to abbreviate it here, because this posting should be about Phil, not Thom. But it is impossible to talk about one without explaining about the other.

Reader's Digest Condensed Version: I wrote the first version of this screenplay in one month, in December of 2004. I didn't do anything with it for a year. One of the characters I had based on my friend Thom, but I never told him about it. A year later, Thom said something to me that sparked me to start rewriting the script. Less than two weeks later, he was killed in a car accident. My (and many other people's) heart was ripped out. I couldn't touch the script. It hurt too much. I could never have imagined anyone other than Thom playing Thom. The following summer, I met someone who had a familiar, mischievous twinkle in his eye, a unique speaking voice, an easy and perpetual smile, and a way of making a person feel like they were the only one in the room. I don't think I have ever dropped that person's name in this blog, but I will finally do so - that person was the actor Bill Pullman (yea, the guy who played the President in Independence Day, among many, many other films). He was staying at my hotel for 3 weeks that summer while workshopping a play he wrote called, "Expedition 6," at Baltimore Theater Project.

It took awhile for it to dawn on me that Thom is the person that Bill reminded me of, but once I made that realization, lo and behold, I was able to write again, without being terribly sad. Well, at least not all the time. Bill is a great person, funny, kind, down-to-earth, thoughtful. While he was here, he nicknamed me Jeanie-us (genius), I think because I introduced him to the cocktail known as an Ice Pick (thank you, Elizabeth, for introducing ME to it!) on a very hot summer day at a crab feast we had with the cast. I was hoping the nickname would stick, but alas, no one else picked up on it.

Anyway, Bill's company finished their workshop and drifted back out of Baltimore, but by now I was off and running. Though I doubted it would ever happen, now I could picture Bill playing the role of Thom and I could write again, with a smile.

Somewhere along the line, maybe it was last March when Phil and I took Michelle Farrell's filmmaking class at the Creative Alliance, I thought of my friend Phil in this role. I had no idea that Phil was interested in filmmaking before he ended up in this class with me. We had been friends for a few years before this, but not real tight, just kind of see-you-when-I-see-you kind of friends. We had a great time at Michelle's class and hung out together outside of class more often. I always liked Phil, he is a sweetheart, and the more I got to know him, the more that he, too, reminded me of Thom.

I'll tell you a few things about Phil as a person, and you can pretty much add on, "just like Thom," to the end of each sentence. Phil has a heart of gold, and is a real live-and-let-live kinda guy. He's funny, and a gentleman. He likes a good party and a good time. And, bonus, he plays guitar!

What Phil did not have is a lot of acting experience, and that was a concern of mine. I made him audition, like everyone else. I made everyone audition, even the people I thought I wanted. I made no assumptions.

He did just fine. Though there were other actors that may have been better actors, there just honestly wasn't another actor in the auditions that was a better Thom. I knew I was biased, I knew it was a risk, but I also knew I could trust Phil to work very hard, and I also had to believe that I would be able to bring out the Thom in him, which would not be a stretch. I had to trust that the chemistry that really exists between me and Phil, like the chemistry that actually existed between me and Thom, would translate onscreen into the chemistry between Thom and Gracie... whoever ended up playing Gracie.

Gracie, of course, ended up being played by Cheryl Scungio, and Cheryl has chemistry with everyone, so that really helped. Phil is definitely at his best in his scenes with Cheryl. I think he trusted her lead and they were very comfortable with each other.

Thom in real life was Tucker's best friend and a member of Tucker's band. So I assigned Phil extensive homework, to drink with Tucker and play with the band as much as possible before we went into production. Phil is a professional and took his research assignment very seriously indeed.

Another concern I had was having a friend on set, and I had a few. Phil, Tucker of course, and also Kyle, who played David, though at the time Kyle and I were more casual friends. But Phil never took advantage of our friendship on the set, always came super-prepared, on time, good attitude, and ready to work. Now that I think about it, I believe that Phil had less acting experience than anyone on the set, but he had a pretty substantial role with many lines, and dramatic as well as comedic scenes. He did well in both. As a matter of fact, every time I have shown anyone the film in its entirety, there is a scene where Thom (Phil) is speaking to Andrew (Will Lurie), and Phil's delivery of his lines in this scene consistently gets more laughs than any other scene in the movie.

I know that deep down Phil was nervous a lot of the time, and I have to hand it to him for overcoming that. When all was said and done, we were out one night having drinks at the watering hole where we first met, Kisling's at Chester & Fleet streets. Phil raised a beer and told me, "You know what, Jeanie? I have done some pretty amazing things in my life. Lived overseas, flew in planes that only a handful of people have ever set foot in (Phil is ex-Air Force and currently works for Lockheed Martin). But making that movie was definitely in the top ten coolest things I have ever done. Thank you."

How funny... I am tearing up now, and not for the reason I thought I would before completing this post. I mean, Wow. What do you say to that? It made me very happy to hear that, it meant a lot to me, and I will never forget it. It made me very proud of Phil, because I know he really pushed his own limits and stepped far, far out of his comfort zone.

Having gone through the wringer that is making a feature-length film, I am glad to know that Phil is even more interested in filmmaking than ever, particularly in directing, I think, but still acting as well. One great advantage that Phil has is that he has a great look. He can be the sweet-but-strong teddy bear of a friend that he is in "Smalltimore," but in a flash his sparkly, smiling blue eyes can turn to ice and suddenly he is a scary, large, craggy-skulled serial killer-type.

The character of Thom, though his scenes did involve drama as well as comedy, did not have a broad range. But I believe Phil does, and I am really hoping to be the one to bring that out of him. We've talked briefly about another film idea I have that I would like to make happen with him, in a much more demanding role that would truly test his mettle. We'll see.

And to answer a question you probably were asking closer to the beginning of this posting... yes, I did indeed ask Bill Pullman if he would consider playing the role of Thom. He turned me down so sweetly and gently that I practically thanked him for doing so, and much later, I actually did thank him for doing so, more or less. We have kept in sporadic touch, I don't like to bother him much, but he did ask me to keep him apprised of my progress and I was and am happy to do so. A few months ago, while I was editing leading up to the screening of the rough cut, I sent Bill a brief status report. At the end of the note, I told him that in a way I was glad he did not agree to do the part, because if the movie does go anywhere, I would always be left to wonder if it was because the film was good, or because it had Bill Pullman in it. He kindly replied with a few sentences, saying he agreed and it was likely better not to have sort of skewed how the movie is received by putting a known actor in it. He also said he was proud of me.

So in closing this posting, I'd like to thank Bill for his support, express my extreme gratitude to Phil for the enormous amount of hard work he put into the role, and to thank the person who is ultimately responsible for allowing me to better know each of these wonderful men. As it is said in the ending credit of, "Smalltimore," this is... fade in...

for Thom


...fade out.

Friends With Benefits

Honing, honing, honing... I have these bursts where I can't stay away from editing and then days when I'd just rather sleep than think about it anymore. It is really coming together, though. I have put it in front of a few more people whose opinions I trust - Namely Eric, again, and now Stacie Jones-Gentzler, a local Producer/WonderWoman with Black Ink Films. Got some good feedback from them and made some more adjustments. Eric is especially great with this because he, good friend that he is, sat down and watched the whole thing with remote in hand, pausing and taking notes down to the details of FRAMES (split seconds) that he thought I should add or subtract to tighten things up. Out of probably a dozen very specific suggestions, I took his advice on all but two of them. Stacie's notes had mostly to do with sound, which I am still working on. I am glad that I have taken on that demon by myself, I have learned a lot, though probably the hard way. If a real sound engineer looked at the way I have jury-rigged some of the sound to fix problems, they would likely wonder what the hell I am doing. But, on the cheap, because I am pretty much COMPLETELY out of cash, I have found ways to patch things together so they are at least not completely jarring to the ear. Also I have three of the actors coming in on Monday to loop a few scenes that are virtually unsalvageable without doing so (God bless them!).

Collaboration is such an important part of the process, and one I really enjoy. Learning something new every day is one of my favorite things about filmmaking. I don't think any of the things Stacie or Eric told me needed to be fixed surprised me, and certainly none offended me. Especially the tiny details that Eric picked up on - these scenes bugged me but I wasn't sure how (or if) I could fix them. Sometimes you are so close to something it is hard to put your finger on the problem. You have to trust other people, and fresh eyes.

Not to say you should bend to everyone's whim. Eric, Sean, Michelle, have all made a lot of suggestions I have implemented. And each have made several that I said, no, we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. These are three people with VERY different tastes. You can't please everyone, and never should try to. You'll just water everything down.

On Saturday, Valentine's Day, I crammed 15 people into my living room to watch an updated version of Smalltimore, though i have a newer version still nearly completed. I cooked dinner, champagne & truffle mushroom risotto, that turned out pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Several people brought other accoutrements, including my friend Elizabeth bringing homemade chocolate chip cookies (so fresh that the chips were still gooey!) and my friend/star Cheryl bringing homemade and hand-decorated heart-shaped sugar cookies. She told me she noticed a big glop of red icing on the back of her underfoot cat in the midst of this little project. Have I mentioned that Cheryl is my own Lucille Ball? She just cracks me up.

It was really nice to have my living room carpeted (literally) wall-to-wall with my friends, watching the movie. Of course, they are a partially- biased audience, but the laughs and the silences still help me to judge where it needs further tweaking.

Other cast members who were guests were Phil Calvert (Thom), Kyle Holtgren (David), and Kelly Coston (Mel). Phil has been my friend for several years, and Kyle was more of a friend-of-a-friend before being cast in the movie, but is my own friend now. Cheryl and Kelly I hadn't known before all this, but as they were leaving after our very fun night together, I said to them, this is one of the things that really makes me happy - that we can do these things, that we are friends, to whatever degree, now. There are so many people I can say that about who worked on Smalltimore, Michelle, Regina, loads of people, certainly all of the cast I am on good terms with. And that means something to me, as I told Cheryl and Kelly on their way out. It makes me feel like I did something right. I am sure there are times they were frustrated with me, and sometimes me with them, on the set, but we have a mutual respect and just enjoy each other's company, I think. Maybe I am wrong, maybe they are just sucking up to me to be in my next movie :) . But (a) I don't think so, and (b), if that is the case, that is a big fat compliment as well.