First thing is to lose all this chub I picked up somewhere over the last holiday(s). That’s going to take…a lot of work. [success!]

Next thing is to adjust my job strategies and plans to better fulfill the goals I am striving for. I love my work, and I intend to keep up AC jobs when God opens those doors, but if I EVER want to get married (and I do), something’s gotta give. I realized tonight that my “deepest desire” is laziness, it seems, and so combined with my non-desire to move away from home, I am not accomplishing enough work to effect my other personal goals. Solution #1 is to concentrate my work efforts much more locally. So, a home business of some kind is in order (here we go again…). Ultimately, I would like to be in a financially stable enough position to enable me to assume the title of “suitor” by year’s end, if the Lord desires.  [lol...partial success! I'm wholly local, and financially in a much better position than last year, but still not quite ready yet]

I am going to make a much stronger concerted effort to have a visible impact on my local community this year (maybe this and the second goal above will mix somehow). Suggestions welcome, particularly from my neighbors! (@Ben Graber, @Mike Hamrin) [partial success]

I’m going to straighten out my diet and get back to full health (related to goal #1)…too much sugar, caffeine and not enough balanced food groups and fruit. I’m going to get my sleep cycle turned around too…no more of this 3am stuff. Sorry, @Bill Hayes! [success!]

This year, shortly before New Years as I was again reasoning out the concept of making “resolutions” and struggling with the realization that while my work has picked up tremendously this year, it’s taking far longer to become financially viable than I expected it to, and I have to be ok with that. Right now, I am…I feel peace with the journey. And that’s what it is, a Journey.

Ironically, given that we are created in the image of a timeless, all-powerful, omniscient God, we are finite, goal-driven creatures. So much of my struggle is because I focus on the goals too much and I set up expectations for myself of what I feel I “should” be doing or where I should “be.”

But I realized that when I focus on the Destination, I’m missing the point. That’s not what relationships are all about. That’s not how God relates to us. It’s the Journey that is important and what we do along the way. It’s like the old saying: “The most important part on the headstone is the dash in between the two dates.”

So I started looking at my work in a new way: instead of each job being a stepping stone to the next job, next paycheck, ultimately leading to one or more goals, I’m looking at each job as a unique opportunity for learning, relating, and encouragement that I get to participate in. Sometimes these opportunities will lead to others, and sometimes not. Maybe the final destination of this real-life hopskotch will end where I think it will, and maybe not…and that’s fine. The important thing is for me to participate fully in each opportunity, and not look past it hoping for something bigger and better every time.

So I’ve decided to make a blog post here every time I get a new opportunity. At the end of the year, I will be able to look back and see all the places I’ve been and everything I’ve learned this year! You’re welcome to join me…I’m sure it will be an exciting time. The more the merrier!

I’ve also changed the look of the blog to a theme called “Notebook,” to reflect the chronological/biographical nature of the new purpose.

Also, in response to the post about MilePost below, a quick update – I’ve done a couple shoots with Mike since November and enjoy working with him. He doesn’t have enough work right now to keep me busy full-time so I’m continuing to freelance for him and StoneKap and whoever else needs help at any given time.

On Sunday evening, I’d sent an email to John at Stonekap asking him if he knew anyone who needed someone with my skillset. I love working for StoneKap – it’s the best company and best crew I’ve ever worked for, hands down – but they don’t do enough production to keep me busy full-time. John wrote back last night and said he’d been in touch with Mike at Milepost and that he had given him my name and said that if Mike needed a hand, I would be a good guy to call. I thanked John and promised to get in touch with Mike asap.

So Mike’s call this afternoon wasn’t entirely a surprise; I was expecting some sort of introductory conversation since we’ve never met. What followed took me by complete surprise…and I can only say that God is giving me an opportunity that I could never have created (and how I have tried, in the past!).

To shorten our 35-min conversation, Mike has been the primary production person at Milepost – besides being the owner – since he started the company some 15 years ago. He’s getting tired of running around shooting b-roll and doing the usual grip-gear bodybuilding exercises, so he’s looking for someone to eventually take over the production side of his business while he transitions to commanding the business side exclusively. He could probably use someone like John, who has all the experience and all of the skills, but of course that comes with a price tag. But, a twenty-something fresh out of Full Sail with no real-world production experience won’t help him, either. Essentially, he needs someone with head knowledge and hand knowledge, who knows enough to be productive but not so much to be arrogant. The best part is, he’s willing to train someone who might not quite be ready yet…like me (I can handle all the tech stuff he needs, but some of the creative and people management aspects I’m a little less strong on).

This of course sounds like nearly an ideal situation to me, so we agreed to work together soon and see what pans out. I’m booked through the end of the month, so probably around the middle of November we’ll do some shoots together and get a feel for whether I would be useful to his business long-term or not. If nothing else, I should be able to be a good resource for him as a camera assistant…

This is really quite a different direction than I was expecting to take, work-wise, but it’s an exciting opportunity and a challenge that I am eager to tackle. I have been wanting to expand my skillsets and knowledge base and this seems like a great opportunity to do that. And, at the same time, it would be a great blessing to Mike to be able to divide and conquer. His business is primarily corporate and industrial videos, largely web deliverables, so it’s similar to work I’ve done in the past and should not be hard to get the hang of.

The ironic coincidence? Milepost is located exactly 2.5 miles from that lovely little house on State St in Greentown that I had my eye on a while back…and it’s still for sale!

I’m not quitting as a freelancer. I will still continue helping out at Stonekap when I can and doing my own stuff on the side. For a while, if Mike and I get along well, I’ll be freelancing for him the same way. Eventually, perhaps, if God allows, I’ll move into a more capacitive position there. That’s a ways off, I think, and I’m in no rush. I will continue doing what’s before me, taking opportunities as they arise, and always seeking God’s presence in the things that I am doing!

On the 3-hour drive home, I had plenty of time to think. As usual, I covered the usual odd topics, such as building an electric frisbee thrower (capable of simulating forehand and backhand hucks, featuring adjustable throw angle and infinitely varied speed+distance), the nature of life, the reality of God’s will, and Google’s recently-announced autonomous cars (the latter primarily crossed my mind as I navigated rush-hour traffic around Columbus on Tuesday going to the wedding).

It was probably about the time when I was usurped from the fast lane by a Toyota Prius, besting my old Chevy by a good 15mph, that I started thinking about the difference that some of the new eco-friendly advances that have occurred in this decade will make for my children and my grandchildren. I’m no tree-hugger, for certain, but this year I’ve taken a keen interest in certain ecological awarenesses, such as fuel-efficient vehicles, natural energy harvesting (solar, wind, hydro), home energy conservation (LED’s), etc.

So here’s question of the week: what have you done this week for your children? Even if you don’t have children, like me!

- I renewed my subscription to MAKE Magazine. This will be a fine resource and inspiration for my children to leaf through when they’re old enough to do the projects, especially since by then all the components and electronics necessary will be obsoletarily dirt-cheap.

- I needed a can of PVC glue to build a drapery frame. Instead of buying the usual cheap toxic sludge, I spent the extra four bucks and bought a can of Gorilla Cement, a specially formulated PVC glue that is a less toxic, less harmful version of the same thing (uses few or none Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOC’s).

- I witnessed and supported the wedding of two fine young Christians who will, I’m sure, raise a superb family of Godly children for my own kids to play with!

- I purchased photo/video equipment that I will be happy to provide to any local Christian film productions, to help make local production more feasible and accessible for independents.

- I’m replacing the failing Electronic Gas Recirculator sensor on said old Chevy, helping keep its emissions low[er] and increasing its fuel efficiency. To the tune of $283.47 (nobody said being smart is cheap).

- Last Friday I finally received the adapter rings for my Canon EOS (digital!) camera which allows me to re-use older Yashica lenses, instead of having to use all-new lenses. In doing so, I supported the recycling *and* bartering community by purchasing both the lenses and rings on eBay. Okay, some of it was the Hong Kong community, but still…

What did you do for the next generation this week?

Start thinking…what are you going to do next week?

One upside to no tech was that I had a great deal of time for reading and thinking. I read half each of two terrific biographies; one of Galileo Galilei and one of Thor Heyerdahl, the great explorer and migration-theory anthropologist. Sadly I have finished neither but perhaps I will find some time here at home. Unlikely given that…

I spent much time pondering great life questions such as “why am I the way I am?” and “what am I doing with my life?” and “how should I be spending my time?” Heady stuff for a *vacation,* perhaps, when the whole point supposedly is to “get away from it all,” but that was one of my goals going into the trip was to try to figure out where I am and where I’m going. I never got a convenient little road map, but I got something even better: one morning after a particularly disturbing dream, I was talking to God and he told me quite clearly: “Do what is before you. I will provide for you.” So, naturally, that prompted a flurry of list-making in my notebook of the things that I know are right “before me” – websites I’ve promised for people, business opportunities I’d like to explore, new equipment for the work I do now, information I need to research, work that needs doing around the place…it’s quite a list, actually, nearly 20 items (and in conversation with someone last night, yes, I got the old “so you have lots of time to read since you’re not working right now, right?” Um, no!).

I’m gonna stop looking back and start movin’ on
And learn how to face my fears
Love with all of my heart, make my mark
I wanna leave something here

Go out on a ledge, with out any net
That’s what I’m gonna be about
Yeah I want to be runnin’
When the sand runs out

When The Sand Runs Out – Rascal Flatts, Feels Like Today

I want to cry like the rain
Cry like the rain
Shine like sun on a beautiful mornin’
Sing to the heavens like the church bells ringin’
Fight with the devil and go down swingin’
Fly like a bird, roll like a stone
Love like I ain’t afraid to be alone
Take everything that this world has to give
I want to live

I Want To Live – Josh Gracin, Josh Gracin

Hey! It’s a new day. Time to rock out and do what needs to be done. To borrow a phrase from my early film days, it’s time to “design a way forward” – which means that even if we’re not sure how to accomplish a goal, we need to create a way. Learn. Dream. Brainstorm. Make it happen.

The exquisite, exciting beauty of it all is that God has already designed the way forward – so for me, it means that I need to seek His will and do the things that he has put right in front of me that will take me where He wants me to be. It’s so ridiculously simple and yet so often I try to over-think it. Good ol’ Thor was correct – we do need to get back to basics. Only this time, it’s not “back to nature” and living in a Tahitian island paradise, it’s right smack here in the middle of glory-bound life! – and making every grain of sand count.

Please let me elaborate before you categorize me as a mooching, 25-year-old videogame addict who lives with his parents because they’re too nice to kick him out. That is far, far from the truth. I do live with my parents, yes (and no, they are not going to kick me out). There the resemblance ends. Besides, I’m only 23.

Since going pro as a film industry AC, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. And by a ‘lot,’ I mean that I usually only get a couple major productions a year and a handful of small stuff like commercials. Total since January ’07 – about 28 weeks, or 7 months. That’s nearly six weeks of downtime for every week of work I get. It’s a sad ratio, but nobody ever said that getting into this business was a get-rich-quick scheme. Anyway, I have had a lot of time over the last four years to do many other things between shoots (certainly not limited to looking for more shoots!).

That downtime has come in especially helpful in rare circumstances such as this past New Years’ when my grandmother broke her hip and spent six weeks in recovery. I was able to be there with my grandparents, staying overnight at their house, helping hold down the fort here at home, drive my grandfather wherever he needed to go, do shopping, etc. My availability for those six weeks was pretty useful at keeping the sanity level at a functioning level for all of us. Or, when friends move cross-country on short notice and need help packing up. Or when friends need plumbing help, or roofing help (oops, missed that project, I was on a shoot), or whatever – being able to be available has been a blessing to me.

I’ve really gotten attached to that availability and the freedom of not feeling like every waking moment has to be spent in the pursuit of fame and fortune (at least the fortune, anyway). I’ve been busy pretty well constantly for the last few months doing freebie projects, with a few paying gigs scattered in – if I was working a full-time job there’s no way I’d have time to do favors. I really enjoy it, too – I’ve always liked working for free because it totally removes the pressure to “earn” your money. It silences that little voice in the back of your head that says “you deserve that money because you worked hard for it.” All you get are the warm fuzzies inside knowing that you worked your best just because it pleases God. In the end, that’s all that really matters anyway!

So when I was driving down the road last week, I realized that I enjoy that feeling so much, that lightness of spirit and joy of working for God’s glory and not for material recompense (which doesn’t mean a thing anyway), that I’m really not very motivated to have to stop doing it! I don’t really want to give up that flexibility to go shopping for Mom, or cut the grass for all our neighbors, or do photo shoots for companies that can’t afford a paid photographer, or help out a friend just because you can. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” – I think I really do understand what that means now.

Sometimes I still get that niggling little voice in the back of my head that says “you’re a slacker because you don’t have a job and a corporate ladder in front of you! You don’t have a house and a yard and a minivan so you’re not really much of a man, are you?!” Usually at those times I have a momentary little panic attack and I worry about ever buying a house and getting married, or figuring out what I really “want to be” for the rest of my career. But pretty soon that passes as I realize that God is in control of my future, not me, and that as soon as I get myself all trenched in and set to carry on for a while, He’s probably going to change the plan and that’s a fine thing! I just need to remain flexible and not try to impose my own timeline on God’s battle plan.

God made it pretty clear to me this month that buying a house is not in my immediate future. He also seems to be indicating that getting a full-time job is not the best option either. To point, I’ve gotten more freelance work in the past six weeks than I have in the previous six months combined and maybe longer than that! Which is just fine with me, because that leaves me plenty of time to do other things…

Case in point, I’d better wrap this up – I have an early call time tomorrow to help the neighbor do some touch-up painting at his house. Today I helped him move out and pack up the moving truck. Maybe if I have some downtime tomorrow I’ll get a chance to do some more work on Marissa Dubina’s new website for her educational show, Realm of the Reptile. I’d better hurry up before Dan Fenstemaker comes back with more tools to photograph next week for his startup business…and I still need to call around and borrow some portable LED lights for that wedding I’m photographing next month as a favor for a friend…

It’s such a blessing not to have a job right now!

First and best news is that…I’m househunting! Finally taking the plunge and getting serious about moving into new adventures. I was all excited over a property here in Hartville this week and even went so far as to get a realtor to show me around inside, but it turned out to be a bust. I must be a blessed man, however, because I just found one this evening that looks even better from the pictures. I may have to get another showing here this week!

Of course, if you’re given cause to pause here and say, “waitaminit, Mike, I thought your yearly income has been below the official poverty line for the last few years?” you’d be right. My expenses are very low, but even so I haven’t been able to put that much by. I’m really only starting to make a profit at this film business and that’s primarily because I’ve finally acquired everything I need to actually do the job and I’m not out buying new stuff all the time. Plus, my rate is going up. Someone just offered me a 250% raise last week on a 2-day shoot because he wanted me that badly (this was after I’d turned him down the first time).

That being said, life would be absolutely peachy if I were getting a job like that every other week. Unfortunately, I’m not. About once a month is normal, and that at my normal rate which is sufficient to keep me *well* below poverty lines again this year if it wasn’t for a couple big checks from Ace Wonder and CTI. So, at the rate I’m going, it will be, oh, about another decade before I can support a family on this kind of work. And that’s if I’m not home very much!

So, I’m semi-officially retiring from the pro film industry. I’ve turned down some work that was in the way of my hunt for a full-time job; I have two more commercials to shoot and that will be it for me. I’m locking up my AC case and putting it in the closet for a while in search of more lucrative (and useful) pastures. One of my longtime dreams has been to build my own home, so I’m particularly keen to find a job that would help me achieve that goal (from what I hear, the employee perks at some of the big-box hardware stores are pretty good, so I’m not ruling that out).

I hope to still be able to do side film projects every now and then (maybe even freebies!) but after mid-August I won’t be doing it for a living anymore. So, to all my friends and co-workers – Chad Kapper, John Pope, Jamie Nabors, Kirk Wray, Steve Mason, Matthew Rogers – it was real, AND it was real fun. Thanks for all the fish, gentlemen.

So what’s next? Well, I’m working with a realtor to find some nifty little properties in this area. I’d love to stay in Hartville proper but houses are just way too expensive here. I found a few nice places in Uniontown and my realtor just sent me some interesting prospects in Alliance (conveniently near a certain big-box hardware store). After that, well…who knows? I’ll not bet on that future!

The worst part of making a career in the film industry is that my skills cross-apply to exactly…nothing. About the most useful thing I can offer to an employer is that I’m good at working 12-hour days!

Guess I better change the title of the blog, huh?

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

This arrested my attention and thrust a question into the forefront of my mind which struck me two days ago and, quite frankly, terrified me at the time because I realized I had no answer: what is my purpose?

I just finished watching THE RED BARON, a historically-based story about Manfred von Richthoffen, the most successful WWI flying ace in history. In the movie, a nurse whom he becomes acquainted with continually challenges his perspective of the war he is fighting, showing him the less honorable and certainly less glamorous side of the battle. His attitude slowly changes and develops a much more certain purpose: no longer is he a noble war veteran riding an invincible red steed, but a reluctant and starkly mortal leader engaged in a battle all too real. From thrill-seeker to grim soldier, his actions remained the same but his purpose changed remarkably.

I realized earlier this week that I lack a definitive purpose. I make movies but without a certain goal other than telling good stories – a worthy reason of itself, but hardly an attainable goal. I want to raise a family of war heroes in Christ but because I lack that “road map” of purpose it remains a far-off, futuristic achievement with a very murky, winding path between. Because I don’t know where I’m going, I wander. Consequently, I may never reach my goal because my purpose is so broad.

To step aside for the moment: I realize that I have come dangerously close to excluding the matter of faith in God’s divine steering. I can name scores of examples of God’s intervention and provision in my life and I have not the slightest doubt that He will continue to do so. However, God does not send His Will down to us, written on heaven’s letterhead in a bulleted list. He leads us one step at a time and we must listen to his voice leading us. That being said, He has already given us certain very specific instructions in His Word regarding our purposes and we cannot ignore them. Occasionally he also blesses us with vision beyond Scripture and to set those inspirations aside would be foolish. In such cases, we need to pay close attention to the opportunities and choices He sets before us.

This is where I feel I have fallen short lately. I do not see that specific instruction before me as I should (as I know it is there if I only open my ears and listen for it). I am flailing. Opportunities are passing me by, I am sure, because I do not look for them. Others pass because I do not pursue them.

When his airstrip was being bombed by the British, von Richthoffen did not bunker down and wait for the raid to end. He took to the skies and shot down the enemy. Even though he was put on the defensive, he took the opportunity presented him to strike the enemy instead. He took the action that was presented to him instead of sitting by passively.

Being close to our Father will teach us what is an opportunity to be taken, and what is not. Then it is up to us to take action. Without the action, we will never achieve the goal we set out for. Our purpose must be in our action, not in our intent.

My purpose starts in Genesis. God laid out purpose for Adam and Eve: conquer the earth and fill it. God has given me skill sets and resources to accomplish that task in many ways. If one action fails to succeed I must try another. I must do what is before me. God never stops speaking; I only stop listening.

There are new skies to be won; new dogfights to be fought. Tomorrow is a new day. I have a new sense of purpose – and a very specific list of opportunities before me. It is time to conquer the earth.

I felt like I tore up my Homeschooler card this week because I did something drastic (for me). I bought an Xbox. No, I’m not turning into a couch potato (Ultimate would never let that happen). Back in April, the weekend before we started shooting ACE WONDER, I went to lunch with three great friends – Nate Eckerson, Nathan Webster, and David Heustis. The topic for discussion, prompted by Eckerson and myself, was how working in the film industry and raising a family could work together and not be mutually exclusive – or, in other words, how not to ignore your family completely while still making movies.

David made a comment partway through discussion that animated films have a certain appeal to him because they are made entirely in post-production, in a sense (it helps that David is our resident post super-wizard). This led us to consider the fact that video games are also entirely “post” created – that is, in a studio environment, no field production involved – and that the most enduring, endearing games that have been around forever are the ones that tell a great story.

That concept struck me pretty positively. I’m not really a gamer – oh, sure, I played my fair share of Age Of Empires four or five years ago – but as we talked about the possibilities of storytelling through games, it started looking pretty cool. Think about it this way: games have a much higher view count than movies. You might see a movie once or twice in theatres, buy it when it comes out on DVD and maybe watch it every four, five, six months if it’s really good. On the other hand, if a game has a really good story and good replayability, you’ll buy it when it comes out and play it through once or twice by yourself, then get all your friends together and play it frequently in multiplayer mode. Especially if it’s an online multiplayer like Halo, the replayability is almost endless. You’ll never get that kind of viewership from movies. Given that the Xbox LIVE community numbers around 8.1 million strong, and that there have been over 40 million Xbox 360′s sold worldwide, there’s a pretty big market out there for games.

So I started considering the possibilities of starting a small game studio and creating games. I have several very specific guidelines in mind for what I want a game to do:

1. Tell a great story. Not just once, either – I want it to be an evolving storyline based on gameplay, so that the story changes and comes to a different conclusion every time based on the actions and choices the player makes in the game.
2. Local Multiplayer. By my estimation, over 80% of all games are local singleplayer. Some have online multiplayer. In the interest of getting people to interact with each other and develop friendships and community in the real world, I want my games to be local multiplayer, preferably more than 2 (do you know how hard it is to find local-4-player games? I went through the entire rental section at the video store and found TWO). I want the game to ONLY function as multiplayer – REQUIRING people to play together.
3. Be mind-engaging. Again, my estimation is that probably around 75% of Xbox games are FPS (first-person shooters). Another 15% are racing simulators, and the last 10% are mostly movie adaptations. I want to create a game like Myst or Riven – requiring the player to actively engage with the story and the other players to beat the game.  It doesn’t have to be a puzzle solver, but it can’t just be a triggerfest.

It turns out that Microsoft has done a decent job of opening up the Xbox 360 development platform to indie game studios, and they have actually created a “Games Marketplace” with a special section just for those games. So, I bought an Xbox to find out what kind of games people are creating, and to see what is possible with the tools Microsoft provides (they call it the “XNA”).

I spent several hours last night and this morning going through the indie games and downloading trials to the ones that looked worthwhile. My conclusion there was more or less the same as it was about the game store – there are virtually no intellectual games, marginally fewer local-multiplayers (I found exactly one that supported 4 players, and it was just a Kirby spinoff, albeit a good one). Most of them had cheap graphics and very little story. From what I could tell, none of them were utilizing the XNA to a significant extent.

It’s too early to make any serious decisions, but the obvious conclusion here is that the game market is not saturated with great stories or intellectual games. It *is* saturated with FPS’s… It’s too early to determine whether the market is even interested in more strategy/problem-solving games. The fact that Red Dead Redemption (a new sandbox-mode game) is doing well, and that Far Cry became a trilogy with three expansions, tells me that good solid games do sell. It’s the old G-rated vs. R-rated deal – the cleaner movies consistently outsell, but for some reason studios don’t like to produce them…

I’m not expecting to make a career switch and start developing games. I’ve considered the possibility of going back to school to get some sort of education in game production, although I don’t know what exactly that would get me in terms of game buildability as a one-man-show. I still intend to talk to some of the local media production people (Chad Kapper, Ralph Lumley, Jeremy Davis) and see if they share any optimism for the possibility of Christian storytelling through games.

Work-wise, I am still looking for full-time work at Enviroscapes. I hugely enjoy the work I do for Stonekap, Motion Adrenaline, and Macville, but between the three there is not enough work to keep me busy full-time. If I could do commercial production here, just enough to meet my income goals this year (3 days a week would be enough), I would have no problem staying an AC for the foreseeable future. I love my work, don’t get me wrong – but my income isn’t enough to justify it. If I can tell stories through games (guerilla style – nights and weekends, baby!) and do something else to pay the bills, at this point I feel that would be more beneficial.

I have been strongly considering buying one of the bank-owned houses here in town and exercising my Constitutional handyman rights. There are a few cheap houses locally and that would go a long way towards allowing me to do local production full-time. Doing ACE WONDER took me a long way towards a down-payment.

For now, I am going to stay away from doing non-local feature work. I have no problem with it if I can come home nights and weekends, but I’m done with couches and bunkhouses for a while. Going commando on your friends and family for a month is not a great way to grow relationships! That probably means that I won’t be doing any more feature work, but that’s ok. I would rather take an 8-to-5 job doing something completely unrelated and do production in my spare time, than sacrifice all that’s near and dear for the sake of the story. It’s not a good tradeoff.

So…if you live in the greater Akron area and have an interest in quality Xbox game design, drop me a line!

On this production we were not able to afford a standard monitoring solution such as the Panasonic BT-LH1710 (an awesome monitor, highly recommended). James had brought his Hanns-G LCD monitor with him, but sadly it is VGA/DVI-only and his HDMI-DVI cable is only about 8 feet long. We quickly realized that it is not practical or even professional to have video village that close to camera, nor is it practical for dolly/slider scenarios. About the same time, something in the HDMI-DVI cable started trashing the audio output on the RED – it was a nasty mix of distortion and static. We tried running a straight HDMI cable to Rob Cook’s SmallHD DP1 and got clean results, so we pulled out James’ 10′ HDMI cable and tracked on. Obviously only having 10′ of cable is ridiculous in a feature situation, so I ordered a couple longer cables from Amazon – a 25′ and also 50′ HDMI. We were able to make the 25-foot run work well for a couple days.

Soon we started getting into environments where 25′ of cable simply isn’t long enough. At that point we found that the RED One doesn’t have the oomph to push a signal down 50′ of HDMI – it probably peters out around the 40′ or 45′ mark. Simultaneously, Teddy Hallaron, our sound mixer, was wondering if it would be possible to split the HDMI signal and run a second standard-def monitor to his cart to aid his boom op as well as his mixing strategy. Sure, we said. Rob did some research and purchased a simple battery-powered HDMI splitter for $40, which accepted up to a 45′ input and would throw dual 75′ outputs. This not only allowed us to break the signal to Teddy and video village simultaneously, but it also allowed us to use our 50′ cable. I picked up an HDMI coupler and we started sending signal down all 75′ of cable very happily. Eventually we replaced the 9″ DP1 with a 19″ LCDTV.

Meanwhile, Teddy decided that it would be more cost-effective for him to buy an HDMI-composite converter than to buy an HDMI monitor, since he already has a composite-input LCD monitor on his cart. This allowed him to use some of his 75′ lengths of BNC instead of the more expensive HDMI. So, we piped one output of the splitter into our 75′ run of HDMI, and the other output into his converter (which we hung in a bag under the sticks), and from there into a BNC run. This created an awesome cable snarl on a regular basis, but everybody had picture and was happy so we dealt with it. I purchased 2 sets of rechargeable AA batteries, and that gave us more than enough power to keep the splitter running all day long (1 set of Energizer rechargeables would run the splitter for around 8-10 hours depending on how conscientious I was about saving power during camera moves, delays, etc).

RED ONE to Splitter via 6ft HDMI

 - Splitter to Gefen Converter (6ft HDMI)

 -- Gefen Converter to sound world (75ft BNC)

 - Splitter to Insignia 19" LCD-TV (75ft HDMI)

For simplicity sake, eventually I taped the BNC, HDMI and a dedicated camera power cable together in one 75ft snake, which made life a lot easier. Given that Teddy’s box always required 110v AC, it made it simple to keep the RED running on AC as well. We could have run the HDMI splitter on AC power as well, but we didn’t need ANOTHER cable in the mix and since we had the rechargeable batteries already, it was simple to keep that solution.

We finished the show with the setup I described here. It wasn’t pretty but it got the job done. For anyone needing to monitor via HDMI, I would recommend the solution here (this would also be a reasonable solution for an HD-DSLR shoot as well). However, if you don’t need to monitor in HDMI, DON’T! It’s far cheaper and much, much simpler to monitor via HD-SDI over BNC cable to an HD-SDI monitor. They usually run around $200/wk to rent and are far more durable, capable, and simple to operate than an HDMI rig. Not to mention that the cable is just as durable and cheaper to fix and/or replace.

In retrospect, I should probably have rented the Panasonic monitor out of my own pocket rather than deal with the cable mess all the time. It would have saved much time and frustration. Still, this was by far the most inexpensive solution we could have used without foregoing the monitor altogether! On the other hand, it let me do THIS…

What I’m *really* looking forward to is the Epic+iPad combo…

I apologize, first, for the unanticipated lack of blog updates during the last five weeks (did I even manage one per week? I think I did not). This is partially due to the sad lack of internet access at most of our lodging places (I was moved four times), and partially due to lack of things to write about. Not that it was a boring shoot by any means, but a play-by-play is hardly necessary.

By some miracle only God knows the whereby, we wrapped on time despite almost foolish odds. Our AD, Chip Lake, whom I am priviledged to call my friend, managed the unthinkable and we did not drop any pages – a Herculean task for anyone in our circumstance and Chip did it without flinching (or having a meltdown). We shot it all and only did two 14hr days! A few pickups will undoubtedly be necessary – with a schedule like ours you could count on forgetting a shot or two, or not having time for it – but there is enough material in the can to cut a rough draft without much difficulty. Nathan Webster and David Heustis did an admirable job of managing our data workflow, data backup and dailies – without their experience and wisdom I can honestly say that the shoot would have been in far deeper trouble than most of the crew are aware. I thank God for their collected coolness and persistence in solving several very difficult technical problems. I’m sure I don’t know half of their stories and the ones I do know would cause monitor burn-in.

In addition to their technical troubleshooting, they literally pioneered bleeding-edge technology during the show. Adobe released Creative Suite 5 about two weeks into the shoot and Nathan and David had our workflow completely converted before the end of the day. We believe ACE WONDER can likely claim to be the first legitimate feature production to cut dailies in CS5 (Nathan’s remark was, “Any legitimate production wouldn’t have upgraded systems in the middle of the show!”). So, once again, HeuMoore sets the bar: on WIDOW’S MIGHT, we were one of the first large features, and unquestionably the first Christian feature, to shoot on the RED One. Gotta love life on the edge!

Not that life on the cutting edge is without its challenges. For this production HeuMoore brought in Chad Gunderson to produce the film, and with Chad came a team of experienced Hollywood-class crew members. This created an interesting oil-and-water mix when put together with the more guerilla-oriented HeuMoore team and the small army of interns who graced the show. It led to not a few operational methodology conflicts which were not all neatly resolved, but it taught all of us a very valuable lesson about how productions can and cannot operate. By God’s grace we finished the movie, but not a day went by that various issues were not being addressed.

A large portion of the conflict came as a result of the highly compressed schedule and the compromises which were forced as a result. With more time, fewer compromises would have been made and many tempers would have been calmed. Also, because John Moore was making an admirable effort to bring in a number of more rookie filmmakers in an effort to help educate them, sometimes impatience flared when protocol was dropped or balls were dropped. However, I feel that this was far outweighed by what we were able to give to them and the value that they in turn congtributed to the production. Several people immediately come to mind as men I will be calling on in the future and that is something they earned not only in my estimation, but in many others’ as well.

This production taught me many new lessons as well. As I have written before, I came into this project with some question in my mind about the Biblical validity of the standard Hollywood production model and my opinion hasn’t changed. I still think that it is oxymoronic for a family member to make a career out of field production which inevitably tears them apart from their family in ways that only long-term travelers can understand. But beyond that, I learned many things about myself that have left me with some regrets, some treasures, and a deeper understanding of some of the things that I believe and what they mean in a real-world environment. And not only just in film, but everyday situations and workplaces. Here are a few of the specific lessons I’ve written down to remember:

- I was in the new situation on this shoot of having multiple people under me. I’ve worked with a 2nd AC once before (it’s a rare luxury), but in this case I always had at least 2 people near me. By the end of the shoot, camera department actually outnumbered grip&electric. John Hedrick and Chris Gill, our interns, did a great job and made my job and Ryan Guzdzial’s much simpler. However, for the first several weeks, the camera department roll call tended to fluctuate depending on the location and who was able to be on-set that day. As a result, for the first three weeks I tended to do a large portion of the work myself (which resulted in somewhat slower results than the production was willing to wait for, which resulted in them making Ryan – formerly our script supervisor but conveniently an experienced camera assistant in LA – the 1st AC and demoting me to 2nd). I never took the time to properly train Chris or John because I was never sure who was going to be there and I felt too busy to take the time to train and instruct someone who might not still be with me the next week. As a result, it hurt all of us. Lesson learned: take the time to “teach the man to fish.” Instead of giving specific instructions but not actually teaching anything, show him the reason *why* things are done specific ways so that he can begin to think through the work for himself. That’s the best way to improve – learn WHY things are done in a certain manner so that you can discover BETTER ways to do them, or ANTICIPATE the need in the first place. Chris and John, I apologize for not sharing my knowledge sooner and more fully!

- So often people take more work upon themselves because they don’t trust other people to do the job properly. Every time you decide not to delegate a task that could be given to someone else, and as a result slow down the production while they wait for you, valuable time and money is lost. That is foolish – surround yourself with people you can trust. Those people are worth their weight in gold.

- If you have reservations about something you are doing, or are being asked to do, don’t do it. You will regret it. It is better to feel like a fool and back out than be a fool and do something you should not.

- But if you do decide to do it, give it everything you’ve got. If you don’t give 100%, your level best, you still have lots of room to improve. Don’t take the path of least resistance. Do the right thing. You know it’s the right decision because usually it’s harder.

- Don’t be resistant to change. Resistance means you are fighting, braking against the flow, slowing down. Think of it as changing lanes: you are still going in the same direction, headed for the same place, but you are just taking a slightly different route to get there. It doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way, or that either way is better – too many times it just comes down to preference. Be the man that gives up his preference to someone else’s.

- Never, ever, EVER complain. People that complain are cowards because they are afraid to do something hard. However, be practical. If something is being done  or a process is being used that is inefficient, unsafe, unrealistic, or of lower integrity, be persistent for the right thing. There is a difference between practicality and complaining. Be careful – the more you blur the line, the less seriously you will be listened to.

- Get to know your co-workers well. Often first impressions are wrong. Misunderstandings can crop up too easily to make assumptions. Find out how they think, what their values and morals are, what their vision and inspiration is. You will find that you have more in common than you thought. The better you know them and their own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, the less conflict you will have.

- Don’t force people to conform to your ideology. If you cannot persuade them lovingly, let go of the issue. The more you try to force the point, the more they will resist you and the deeper the divide will become. If you cannot live with non-conformity, be sure to only surround yourself with like-minded people!

I’m sure I will have more thoughts later when I have had time to ponder over the last 5 weeks for a little while. It has been a very thought-provoking show. Most of those lessons were learned the hard way.

I intend to move all of my Twitpic posts over to Facebook soon. Don’t forget to check out the production blog at http://www.acewondermovie.com/blog/

Next post, coming soon…Turning Over A New Leaf.