Now this isn’t a feeling I’m comfortable with. I am not a victim of circumstance. I created a magical life which I (in general) love from a place of nothing. I take pride in the fact that my life is how I’ve decided to make it. So I was left wondering what I am supposed to be learning from the past year. I mean, for the love of God, people don’t have years like that for nothing…right?

But as I look back, I realize I also let the year affect me in ways I shouldn’t have. I practically stopped writing. I almost entirely stopped shooting pictures. I fell out of touch with some people who are very important to me. I stopped trying to grow my business, and just maintained. I can’t come up with a single new challenge I gave myself and took on. For the love of God, I didn’t even leave the country once last year. And none of that is “me”.

So, my 2011 is going to be about a year of rebuilding. Of putting my life back together in a new, better form than it has ever been. Because THAT, my friends, is what I do and who I am. I figure out solutions. I live with a smile on my face, embracing challenges and asking life “what else ya got for me?” That is the person I see in the mirror, not a person who just drifts through, taking what is handed. I self-identify as a risk taker, challenge seeker, problem solver, and joyful, joyful person. New home, new relationship, new ways of doing business. By the end of 2011, I expect my life will look nearly unrecognizable from where it is now.

Yesterday, we were trying to finish up our plan for the sales posters for A Little Help. I have had someone in mind for quite some time to shoot them. However, today was the day we were finally locking down what we want to do. So, I called the photographer I wanted to shoot the poster and started talking to him.

We started out with the basics, me telling him what I wanted, and him giving me his availability, but I could hear a bit of strangeness in his voice. Now, keep in mind, he is someone that I am friends with socially , so I could talk to him in a way that you can’t with just simply business contacts. So I asked him why there was a hitch in his voice.

It turns out that just that day, while on the treadmill, he had sent out “a voice” (his words…) into the universe. He and his wife are about to have a baby, and he said “today, I need to find a way to $XXXX” Well, strangely, that was the base amount I was able to talk about for shooting.

Or, is it strange? I have repeatedly found that when I put something into concrete terms, it occurs. It’s the concept behind the highly successful “Best Year Yet” book and groups. Be specific, and put your effort behind it, and it will happen.

He had spent the day knocking down other doors trying to make that amount happen. And I happened to be the universe’s messenger that could tell him that was exactly how to operate.

Aspen, CO —–>Central Colombia—–>Vegas, NV—–>Paso Robles, CA—–>back to NY—–>VT——> finally home for about 6 weeks!

So for the next six weeks, I will be catching up on everything, including the blog. After all, since I blogged last we have:

1. started the festival submission cycle with A Little Help

2. sold off a project to get it into production

3. gained a reality television agent

4. brought on a small budget film with Pierce Brosnan attached which we are putting the finance together for

5. begun to regroup and plan out our next few projects

Much has happened, and much is happening in the time coming up, so I need to get caught up. Finishing a film is always a time to reassess and come up with the best attack plan for the next year or so. Onward!

Things were going along nicely, with them discussing how they had to run and gun a lot of scenes (this was an ultra low budget, so luxuries like permits weren’t used), how they did the research for the bio-pic part of it, etc. Then some lady in the back stands up.

“Uhm, I just had a comment about the scene in the park. There are some modern cars driving behind you.”

Oh, yeah, did I mention that the filmmakers made a period piece? A no budget period piece? A no budget period piece set in the 1920s? Where the producer and director were also acting as m/u, hair, wardrobe, and countless other hats?

So, were did a couple of modern cars drive through the way background in one scene? Yes. But the point, I think, is much bigger than that.

Shut the f&*k up.

I have heard people make statements like this, and ask loaded questions to try to throw filmmakers at every level of screening. Why is it, that in a Q&A situation, people lose simple human kindness? It’s as if the schadenfreude of person asking the question can’t stand the fact that the people on stage completed a project, and has to find a way to tear them down. Up on the stage were six people who had put countless hours, their own money, and a ton of creative energy into a project that, overall, looked good. But, even if it HADN’T looked good, the time and place to bring up errors isn’t here. This was to celebrate their work.

Look, was the film perfect? no. Do the filmmakers think it’s perfect? no. But what good does pointing out that car do? The budget isn’t there to digitally take it out. It’s there, it’s in the background, it’s going to stay.

So, how about we all agree that if you need to tear someone down just to tear someone down, you stay out of the artistic community? We’re all fighting every day to create work we’re proud of, and that’s just not helping anyone.

By the way, rude lady, I don’t see you having a “Not a Premiere Because You Can’t Call It a Premiere If You’re Sending It To Festivals, So Let’s All Dress Up And Call It a Cast, Crew and Industry Screening” today. So enjoy this one.

now to finish the About Me and Contact too….

She moved into my house for about 9 months, while she was shifted around in the public defense “system” of LA  (seriously, the way public defenders are trained is crazy. They have to go through multiple court houses, so there’s no way they can actually settle until they get through a huge number of systemic upheavals) The Public Defender was living with me while I started my business, and has seen it grow from a spark in my eye (before she had even passed the BAR), to Tuesday night meetings around the dining room table, to offices and an office Christmas party (in her words: “holy crap, that’s stuff my mom has to worry about!”), to me being across the country working when she was proposed to. 

The Public Defender is a lot of things I aspire to be. She knows her convictions, and allows those to be her guide in life. She has a contruct of values and lives her life according to them…both personally and professionally. 

 Now, I’m not saying that I agree with her opinions and convictions on things. In fact, some of the best times we have are over a bottle of cab, disagreeing. But, her singular purpose to live life behind the beliefs she has committed to is inspiring. 

and makes me change a little every day.