Heat Wave Broke

This morning it is cloudy and there's a fall dampness to the air. The Small Dog is sleeping beside me on the dining room floor. It feels much more like October now.

But I digress!

I've been reading the scripts of my colleagues in the Producer's Lab, just finished a script that reminded me very much of an incident I witnessed in my own high school life. I thought it really captured the smaller moments of people's private lives incredibly well. I have the Sloan winner's script to read this morning.

I've been looking at Peter Broderick's website, Paradigm Consulting he was one of the speakers at the Filmmakers Forum. I like what he is doing to help indy filmmakers, you might want to check it out. My former colleague Don Burton has finished a short called Homeland and has a nice website up for it or check out Don's personal art site, Flickering Spaces.

I also met with people at The Culver Studios this week to see what they were up to, and of course, being a DC Native I had to watch the VP Debate last night.

I Twittered my commentary but at some point after shouting at the TV and dinner being ready, I got up and switched it off before it was officially over. Today in the Huff Post I found this article which seemed to square with my own perceptions of the debate. All I can say is that clearly it's Republican Doctrine to pronounce the word Nuclear "Nuke-you-luhr" as opposed to "Nuke-lee-uhr" because I don't see an additional U in this word, do you? It's their shibboleth but I bet she couldn't say where it came from.

Just a bit more on the Filmmaker Forum

Without the gratis pass from the benefit of being in the Producer's Lab I would not have attended this event. Mostly because I just don't have that kind of liquidity to shell out a few hundred dollars on things like this. This year I am exceptionally blessed because I also get to attend the AFM in November as a guest as well. So I am most grateful for FIND and all the nice perks they give us.

Here's a good article on the rest of the weekend that was in my IndieWire feed this morning that sums up the event rather well.

Last night we began the Producer's Lab. They served us Indian food which along with Greek is probably my favourite. There was wine, another plus, and that seemed to make it slightly less awkward. The group all have varied levels of experience, some come from directing, some from development, some are writers. Myself and one other person seem to be the most experienced at physical production & the overall nuts and bolts of being on set. I was really inspired by some of my colleagues levels of passion for their material. I would certainly see each of their films because they all seem to embody universal themes of human existence: love, tragedy, missed opportunities. Some are already cast with ATL crew attached, some are just scripts (mine), others even have music. We are mostly women, with the exception of our "token male" whose project won the Alfred P Sloan grant of $25,000K. It's an unusual story and I hope it finds an audience. I do wish we were split a bit more between the genders, it's more of a reflection of our audience.

We are reading 2 scripts a week. Mine is up for discussion on October 13 along with one of the most developed projects.

Still no work. I'm getting the feeling that between the incredible upheaval in the global economy and the lingering labour unrest with SAG that this will be a very skinny and tough few months for many of us. What if there is another "Great Depression"? Well, last time we had one of those, people wanted escapist entertainment and someone's got to help make it. Or we can all stay home and eat Depression Cake!