Category Archives: making movies

April 23, 2011 · 10:02 pm

Travels & Stuff!

It’s been over two weeks since my last blog and in that time there has been so much going on. they include:

Business stuff I can’t talk about yet, so I’ll stop mentioning it.
A trip to New Orleans Louisiana for business and pleasure.
Super cool stuff for the documentary.

There is an opposite side to this coin, but they are such first world problems:

My to do list continues to grow faster than I can check things off.
There’s not enough money for all the cool shit we want to do.
There is too much cool shit that we want to do!

We had a great time in New Orleans! Rene’s family hails from the Crescent City and I have always wanted to go there. Even though the effects of Hurricane Katrina are still very obvious, the city has a magic that no natural disaster can wash away. In addition to enjoying the local flavor of the town (including the food, drinks and even the touristy stuff) we also stumbled on to a couple movie sets that were filming down there. Here are some select pics of our trip:

Looks like we may be able to do some business in N.O. and that is VERY exciting! Whether it is business or pleasure I can’t wait to get back!

Since I’m catching up I’m going to go off and write a few more blogs about some of the other stuff I mentioned earlier – spread them out over the next few days. The next one will be published Monday, give you something to read at work that might be slightly less boring than what you should be doing.

See you tomorrow… err, Monday!

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Filed under making movies, musings, rene, travel

April 7, 2011 · 6:00 pm

Experiments in Story Telling

There’s a lot going on in my life right now, so much that it is hard to catch my breath and see exactly what is going on. It reminds me of a Lionel Richie interview when he talked about all the things that were going on in the 80’s. He said he didn’t really get to enjoy what he was doing because he was always spending his time either getting to an event to perform or running from a place he just performed at. The last six months or so have felt like that for me too, although I haven’t been singing “Dancing on the Ceiling” to crowds of tens of thousands of people. It’s wake up, rush, probably shoot, rush, teach, rush, sit, sleep. Not the most glamorous schedule in the world. Better than digging a ditch, but not glamorous.

Today we caught a break, though. Our interview for the documentary went very well and ended a few minutes early and I got some bonus “sit” time. I thought about what we’ve actually been doing and it occurred to me that, as much as I keep complaining that I’m not exercising my creativity, I’ve actually been experimenting with a few different ways of story telling and some of it might turn out pretty cool!

For the doc we’ve got three very different looks that we’re combining together:

An HD Cam for the glossy operating room, doctor’s office interviews.
A high caliber standard def cam to capture the natural look of our interview subjects.
A Flip HD Cam for the “P.O.V.” shots from Rene and I.

And even though it feels like this is all getting tossed together by the seat of our pants I really think this doc is coming together.

The Wiggy Webs stuff, even though it is woefully stuck in edit hell, has me really excited! With the commentary pieces, satire and straight up schtick it’s the most exciting outlet that we haven’t taken full advantage of yet. I’m re-affirming my efforts to get that stuff up – seeing as how I’m four months behind. I’m ashamed of myself.

Cheerleaders Must Die! – A long time back & forth between turn around and production, but still Zeke is making great script alterations and there’s a wave of support growing under it and that’s awesome.

And, on the geek front, our D&D game is evolving for the better. My buddy Dean was added to the group about a year ago and since then he has challenged some of my ideas about how to play. I now feel like we are just building a fantasy story and I’m planning my participation to help contribute to that. I don’t feel like I can explain that very well here, but the important detail is that even this game is a version of storytelling and it is getting better as I work.

They say work breeds more work and I’m noticing it even if it isn’t directly involved in the kind of work that pays me I’m still getting paid in satisfaction.

Brain is turning to toothpaste so I’ll…

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under cheerleaders must die, documentary, dungeons and dragons, making movies, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs

February 16, 2011 · 7:57 pm

It’s Only 11:19am and Already We’ve Averted Disaster

At 9:35am we lost our shooting location for today.

Zeke gave me a call, we needed a new location and everyone was working on it.

I leapt to action, had three different people working on finding new locations, had eleven different possibilities by 10:15 am and by 10:45am was told that the weather cleared enough for the shoot to happen at the original location.

It’s moments like this that give a production team a chance to shine. We do not have an unlimited production budget or even a definite time slot, but it all came together and, if we needed it, we had several options for a new location is just over an hour.

People often ask me what the job of “producer” entails. Usually I say that the producer builds the team that makes the movie, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty a producer is there to put out fires as they pop up on production.

This morning I was a fireman.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, Enter the Wolf, making movies, projects

· 7:55 am

Good Day. Shooting Day. Creative Day.

Today was a good day.

It wasn’t particularly extraordinary, but it was a good day.

Today was the first day of shooting for “Enter the Wolf”, the show that we sold to Syfy, and Zeke was our man on the set. I stopped by to check in and everybody, the crew, cast – everybody – were great! I’m very excited to see how the rest of the week goes.

I was also doing a bunch of scheduling and paperwork for the documentary today. That’s more of an experience than something that is interesting to write about, but it did take up a good portion of my day.

The thing that made the day truly “good” though was that I felt creative today – still do actually. I had inspiration to write and images and new ideas popped into my head and I suddenly had a need to be in a book store. Or a cafe with coffee and cheesecake. Or a piano lounge in New York. Or Tokyo. Some place with atmosphere where I could pop open my Moleskine and jot ideas or a story or build the site map for the re-design of CurtisAndersen.com (which is what I ended up doing).

I have so many ideas flowing through my head that it’s actually hard to concentrate. I’m listening to the Creative Screenwriting podcast right now so that my brain can focus as I write this. Still I really want to get the ideas out.

I had a new idea for a novel today. I’m trying to decide if I want to hand write it or type it. I should also probably try and find out when I could make the time to write it.

These bouts of inspiration usually come when a win hits, and even though the Syfy show could still implode it’s still a pretty good win!

Today’s picture is of Hollywood & Highland when I was traveling between my two destinations today. I’m hoping to make it to set again tomorrow so that I can post some behind the scenes pics on the Wiggy Blog tomorrow.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, career, Enter the Wolf, making movies, musings

February 4, 2011 · 8:00 pm

A Week in Re-Cap – But only One Picture

Really I could talk about a lot more than a week, but I’ll try and keep it centered around the last week’s worth of events – unless I ramble and start talking about other things too. We’ve been busy lately! Shooting for the documentary has ramped up and the next six to eight weeks are going t be packed! Today I get to purchase my doctorate. Still debating whether or not I’m going to be a doctor in gravy or pick a better “specialty.”

OK, I was trying to write about other things but there’s really only one thing I’ve wanted to write about for the last few days – GO-KART RACING!

I love my job! We have business meetings in the best places and last week we had one at a K1 Speedway in Gardena. Open racing, Chinese food and a healthy dose of manly competition (even the women were feeling manly)! A friend of ours was having an event for the pre-production of their new film “Super Go” which is about, you guessed it, go-kart racing. I’ve been indoor go-kart racing before, but I have to give it up to K1 – who is not endorsing me – for a pretty killer time. The karts were smooth and quick, they took a surprising amount of punishment (all unintentional, of course) and
all done with electric motors! Here’s a view from my kart before the start:

Since it was a private party they weren’t really keeping great stats, but I’m pretty confident that, even if I wasn’t winning a lot, I was a top racer.

When we were done I felt like I’d just played Grand Theft Auto for eight or nine hours straight. I had to cool off before I felt safe getting back in my own car and even when I did it felt very different to drive a real car again. Zeke said we should just make movies about go-karts from now on so that we can have an excuse to race more. I can’t argue that, it’s a good idea

Off to shoot more movie stuff!

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, friends, fun, making movies

January 28, 2011 · 8:11 pm

Sundance Wrap-Up and What’s Up for February

We are BACK!

Sundance was amazing this year and incredibly busy! This is where I apologize for not keeping up with the daily blogging – but if you were paying attention to my Twitter Feed then you had a pretty good idea of what was going on. If not, here’s the brief rundown in bullet points:

Arrived and enjoyed some of Park City’s finest beers and Mexican food.
Went to a LOT of industry mixers and mixed with some of our favorite, & new favorite, industry people.
Saw mostly good movies (Brick Novax’s Diary, Babyland, Benavides Born, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of Toynbee Tiles & Here) & one crappy one (Vampire. Seriously, avoid this one.).
Found out I’m still pretty famous in Utah form just 2 things: Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Mary-Kate & Ashley Olson’s Winning London.
Missed a party that I really think I would have enjoyed, but happy that we didn’t get the food poisoning that a few of the attendees got.
Left Park City on one of the most beautiful days of the trip.

I was also introduced to a new production tool called doddle. It’s a program and app that helps production run smoother – specifically when you need a call sheet. Check out the link above to see a demo, but I’ll be writing up about it more on the Wiggy Blog.

As far as what’s coming up in February – it’s all production and Wiggy Webs!

We’re getting into the filming part of our documentary and that is VERY exciting, but as far as things you can watch you’ll have to check out Wiggy Webs! Feb. 7th will launch the first of the new programs on our channel so I hope you’ll check that out.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, making movies, sundance '11, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs

December 30, 2010 · 12:22 am

Blog Writing When I Should Be Searching & Star Wars

I have a headache, I’ve lost a log book and I can’t find a printout that I need to read.
Instead of doing anything about those things I’m writing a blog, not because I’m particularly inspired but because I can’t think of another place to look for these things. We had a bit of a leak in the office and in the rush to place tarps to keep everything dry I remember seeing the log book and the print out. I moved them to keep them safe and I forgot where I put them. I’ve been looking most of the afternoon and I’m at a point of frustration where I’m too tired to tear the house apart and I’m hoping that they will just magically appear.

So far they haven’t.

It is possible that I threw out the print out. I can live with that, but I want to know what happened to the log book!

Well this is a boring rant kind of a blog so here’s a link to an article about going a year without Star Wars that I think is great and important for creatives of my generation to read: A Year Without Star Wars

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, documentary, making movies, rant, star wars

December 28, 2010 · 8:33 pm

It Is December 28th – This Is Not A Top Ten List!

It’s the end of the year and after a long rest over the last two days I’m starting to feel recharged and ready to attack the new year! I am shamed to say that I tried getting started yesterday on stuff, but after Rene’s head shot shoot and a few phone calls I was completely exhausted (the remains of my cold may have contributed as well but I hate to admit when I’m sick.)

This morning I woke up ready to attack the world and I looked like this:

OK, that picture is mildly posed, but I think you catch my drift.

In other news, working on the documentary has led me to watch some strange reality T.V. – some as research and some just because I didn’t change the channel fast enough. Right now I’m watching “Hoarders: Buried Alive” on TLC. I’m completely fascinated. These stories don’t seem like they could be real, but they are and it’s shocking to see how out of control things can get.

I’m going to go now, things to do.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, general, making movies

November 14, 2010 · 7:03 pm

Budgets, Books & Boxes

There seems to be no end to moving in. Rene and I moved back in September and here we are, mid-November, and out place still looks like we moved yesterday. I’m finally getting up the gumption to get everything put away and un-boxed. A lot of that comes from the fact that I’m selling off a bunch of crap I didn’t even realize I still had. Right now eBay is my best friend! I’m am so happy that my geeky 20’s can now be passed on to new 20-somethings who appreciate geeky stuff too!

And are willing to pay for it.

Speaking of paying for stuff – I’m all about movie budgets right now. I have completed an updated budget for the documentary we are working on – more about that on the Wiggy blog next week – and we have been asked to produce a $5million budget for CMD! I swear the little project that could just keeps getting bigger than we ever expected! Now I just hope someone will finally fund it!

I need to go sort books right now, some to sell and some to store, so have a great remainder of a weekend!

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, ebay, making movies, moving, rene

November 11, 2010 · 5:41 pm

Blog Epic Fail!

Oh, I’m laid low in my shame about how poorly I’ve kept up with my blog. It’s been nearly a month since my last posting and the whole idea of “making sure I write once a day” and “project 365 2010” have completely fallen off the rails. It’s not that there isn’t good reason – getting married, several projects all moving forward and starting work on a new documentary – but I’m not a fan of excuses, I prefer results and the current result on this blog is failure.

So I started asking myself what I should do next? Should I keep up Project 365 2010? I have a bunch of pictures that are ready to be uploaded, but I’ve definitely missed many days and so it’s starting to feel like the project is actually getting in the way of itself. It’s also gotten in the way of general blogging since I feel like I need to go back to catch up to what hasn’t been posted – but there are so many things happening RIGHT NOW that my brain has a really hard time focusing on things that happened last month when I really want to talk about things happening today.

So this is what I’ve decided to do – I’m going to post the last remaining pictures I have for Project 365 2010 right here – in this very blog – with no remarks or days and then the project will officially be over. The blog will hopefully begin again as a daily thing since I’ll be able to mobile blog again without worrying about the pictures. The end of 2010 is going to be CRAZY busy and there will still be a bunch of pictures, but I think it’s time to drop the whole “picture a day” deal.

Here are the pics!