The Look Machine is a rock band from the Philly area that draws on everything from acoustic finger-style to melodic rock to create their own original sound.
May 12, 2008
Collin in Africa
In the interest of keeping everyone up to date with things bandmembers are doing... check out Collin and Lindsay's weblog about the work they're doing in Africa right now.
Pretty awesome stuff.
Posted by jason at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
Mother's Day
It's wonderful to have kids who remember and care to make their mom's day special. Ollie and Lyric were both extremely interested in how they could make today awesome for Darby. Ollie wanted to throw her a surprise party when she woke up, so we got party horns, and blew up balloons, and hits behind the couch and shouted surprise when Darby woke up. Ollie was so excited about the whole thing that he told me that we would have to wake up in the middle of the night on Saturday to get everything ready.
Lyric took a ton of time to write a bunch of really nice little messages to Darby.
Overall, it was so sweet.
What was sad was not being on the east coast to be with our own mom's in person. But I did send my mom a couple of Wii games, so I tried to make up for it at least a little.
One thing that stunk was that I didn't get much sleep last night. There were two parties, both of which made sense for me to go to (and I wanted to go to), so I was out late.(didn't get to bed until 2.30) and Ollie was up before 6... so... yeah.
We went to the California Renaissance Faire today. I prefer the Pennsylvania one. While it is smaller, it is also more charmingly designed, the building are permanent, and the surroundings are beautiful. It's also laid out much better, so you can easily get to any area in a fairly short period of time.
Conversely, CA's Faire has temporary, cheaper looking buildings, was set up on what was basically just a large DUSTY field, and was one long serpentine path that didn't even loop.
One the other hand, the CA Faire had an awesome reptile exhibit, more games, less "hmmm that guy is so creepy he could actually be a serial killer" factor, and a much better set up for watching the jousting.
But the PA Faire has an elephant you can ride. But the CA Faire has box turtle races you can bet on.
OK, they're both good. But I like the PA Faire better. And that's that.
Posted by jason at 03:02 AM | Comments (3)
May 10, 2008
A moment of mac glory
Watch this music video. It's very clever, and a fantastic display of why people love to use Mac's OSX operating system.
Posted by jason at 10:43 PM | Comments (1)
May 09, 2008
Another Day at the Internship
I'm starting to think that one of the most valuable parts of my schooling here will be taking advantages of the internships. It's just such a great education to be in a production office, hearing how they view the business, getting comfortable with the scene.
Today I was fortunate enough to be able to share notes with the assistant there. It was a great conversation, and I think he enjoyed it as much as I did. Many of my suggestions were very well received. One of the head execs there overheard much of our discussion and stepped in to tell us he thought what we were talking about was great.
Anyway, the most intriguing part of the day came when I was asked to read a magazine article that they have optioned. Yes, that's right, a magazine article. This company paid a large sum of money to the author of a two page magazine article for the right to use her article (which has no story and no characters, but just a general opinion... and yes that opinion is interesting and thought-provoking) as the basis for a feature length film. I love this town. I really do.
Continue reading "Another Day at the Internship"
Posted by jason at 04:16 AM | Comments (3)
May 08, 2008
Incredible News
I can't get into a ton of details... but the upshot is that an exec at a major movie studio called me to tell me he read A Well Adjusted Boy and absolutely loved it. He said the characters were so deep, the dialogue so perfect, and the story was endearing and touching. He asked if I had representation and if it would be ok if he started showing the story to some of his agent friends and other studio execs because he could really see it on the screen.
I said yes!
Not sure this is BIG break, but it certainly seems like a break of some kind.
Posted by jason at 02:26 AM | Comments (6)
May 05, 2008
Awesome moment
Movies are made of awesome moments. Of course a compelling story, and characters that you care for, and overall structure are an absolute baseline that you need... but if you have a number of moments and scenes in your film that people remember the next day, the next week, and even years later... then you know you have pure gold.
Think about the movies you love. I'm sure that immediately, moments come to mind. Indiana Jones - the big ball rolling after him. The light shining through the staff and showing the location of the ark. "Snakes, why does it always have to be snakes." I'd bet that every movie you love has a number of these scenes that made an impact on you.
When I'm writing, these moments keep me going. Sometimes I'll have a great moment, one that I want to see on the screen, and it just gives me this energy to make the story and everything else awesome. It's when I've stumbled across enough of these moments that the story really comes alive for me.
All this to say, I wrote an awesome moment in Tovenray's Curse today. Lyric has just entered this mysterious world. She's been swooped up by a flying Kitty, riden by a boy named Torin. As they fly towards the woods, they are followed by a Spidersus - a flying spider. It's a WW2 dogfight in the air between a flying kitty and a flying spider... who wouldn't want to see that on the screen? It's crazy awesome. The spider is dropping webs on the kitty, constricting the kitty's wings, sending it into a nosedive. Torin is frantically cutting the webs with his sword while Lyric tries to ready a bow and arrow to shoot...
I want to see it on the screen!
Posted by jason at 06:30 PM | Comments (1)
May 02, 2008
My Holiness
I have a class about presenting and controlling a room. Our instructor was talking about each one of us having a "tell," something that we carried with us that was uniquely ours and that could be good or could be bad, but that we needed to be aware of so we could use effectively.
After class I asked him what my tell was, in his opinion.
He said... "It's hard to explain exactly, but there is just this... holiness to you."
What in the world?
He continued. "Like you're a preacher delivering a sermon."
You can take the son away from the pastors, but I guess you can't take the pastors away of the boy....
He finished saying that it's not a bad thing at all, and there's definitely an energy and a conviction, but that I should be sure to calibrate because sometimes that energy is appropriate and sometimes it isn't.
Posted by jason at 03:02 PM | Comments (6)
May 01, 2008
My spec episode for the Office - the full outline
OK, so this was the latest step in writing this episode. I have to say, after writing this, I feel like I've just about written the whole episode... it's just not quite in the right format and some more dialogue as to be filled in. Read it if you want. It's long. but I'm including it just in case people are curious about the creative process for this... from short story pitch, to beat sheet, to this.
Continue reading "My spec episode for the Office - the full outline"
Posted by jason at 03:50 AM | Comments (6)
