Now after the devastation of my last blog entry, I have some follow up news to go along with it. Many people, friends and even strangers, were affected by our loss of dear Spaz. On Wednesday night, we tried to resume the education of Micah on American Cinema, but I mostly just wanted to have people in the house again and reignite some of the warmth that made our happy home what it is. I do so deeply appreciate the condolences, shared stories, sympathy, et al. One of the most effecting things was from my friend Cathy. She sent an endearing email to Brandy & I describing how the blog entry made her cry at work and that she even ran out of tissues halfway through. What separated her email from the many nice things was one particular sentence where she said, “[i]I wish I could have re-written your story with a happy ending. [/i]” This moved me deeply.
The next day, Cathy emailed me and asked if we were interested in getting another kitty. Brandy & I had been discussing this very topic. We wanted to help out Cousette, Spaz’ sister, who really realized that her brother was gone and was very lonely, so I said yes. A woman named Renee that Cathy worked with had one kitten left from a litter. I called her up and she said that this one little black 8 week old kitty was left and no one wanted him. He was the runt of the litter and very sweet. His story was all too much like Spaz’, although he is very different. I said we’d take him in.
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He joined our family today at 1:00PM. Sadly, Cousette is hardly thrilled about it for now… lots of hissing and lots of angry looks. In the end, she’ll get used to her new baby brother and it will help her not be lonely. He’s already slept in my lap and Brandy’s. He’s explored the world known as Rossdonia.
Thank you, Cathy. That’s all we can ask for and it has helped us here in making our home happy again.
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He looks eerily similar to TROUBLEMAKER from the HORRORS OF WAR shoot in Mechanicsburg, and at 8 weeks old, he’s rather rambunctious. That’s an understatement, he’s a mountain-climber who has scaled the back of every chair in the house in less than 4 hours and goes up or down the stairs with effort, but as a giant ball of energy, manages just fine.
Brandy said I could name him, so I have. I named him “[b]V[/b]”. At least that’s his nickname. He has a full name, but part of what I’ll do different today in this blog is see who can guess what his first name is (hint: starts with a “[b]V[/b]”). A free copy of THE BEST OF SONNYBOO DVD awaits the first person to guess [b]V[/b]’s entire first name, and as a bonus I’ll give a free copy of my book to whoever can say what movie quote inspired the naming of this kitty (another hint: It was NOT from the movie “[b]V FOR VENDETTA[/b]”).
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I don’t believe this is a “[i]happy ending[/i]”, but a “[i]New Beginning[/i]”. The revolution has begun again and the cats conspire against one another and I try to remain neutral but with secret alliances with each party of their government, trying to maintain a level of control through subterfuge.
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Cousette sees her new enemy…
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V sees his quarry…
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For a brief time, there is peace in Rossdonia!
Back to business…
Tonight I went to CONTEXT, a science fiction writing convention where HORRORS OF WAR played. It was a small crowd, but worth going for. I believe attending every screening possible and fostering a relationship with the audience is important. Even though anything to do with this movie annoys the hell out of me.
John Whitney & I worked on a new trailer for Horrors of War for the American Film Market. John did picture edit & I did the sound & music editing, just like last year. It was nauseating as I am completely sick of this movie and want desperately to move on. I believe my writer’s block on the new script is intrinsically linked to still seeing and working on anything related to Horrors of War.
Last week Micah Jenkins and I attended the River City Film Festival. For a first year festival, they did everything right. There was a nice setup for filmmakers, the projection and sound were very well thought out and executed. Unfortunately, HORRORS OF WAR played last and I’m not sure what people were expecting, but the movie just plain didn’t connect with this particular audience. Now anyone who works in the business long enough will know that sooner or later, your movie, no matter how good or bad will finally play for an audience that just doesn’t get into it or maybe expectations were different.
This was the least fun screening for me and the Q&A afterwards cemented it. The first question of the night was “[i]Why did you feel it necessary to denigrate the Jewish people by ignoring the Holocaust in your film? [/i]” … and the questions got worse from there. Let me start by saying that we are in no way disparaging the Jews or what they went through under the Nazi’s, but we’re not telling that story. I don’t think any science fiction or horror story can possibly compare to the actual atrocities that took place, so why bother? Our story takes place before the Allies really commonly knew about concentration camps. Besides, they never touched on it in Saving Private Ryan either, so go get mad at Spielberg too.
If I needed any level of finality on my HORRORS OF WAR experience, that film festival audience did it for me. Sadly, I’ll be in Michigan for the THRILLER! CHILLER! FILM FESTIVAL next weekend for a screening… again. At least this time we’ll be playing to our target audience.
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The book is doing well. I finally got a physical copy of the 6″x 9″ update to the book. Oh yeah, it’s definitely better. Since my last update, I had Dan Kiely check out the update and he had a great comment. In the last draft, I ended to book with how I made BACK OFFICE, then NEW WORLD. As Dan so eloquently pointed out, I ended to book with kind of a downer since NEW WORLD is really for me “[i]How Not to Make a Movie[/i]”. He said I should add the making of HORRORS OF WAR. Well, it’s not exactly a short story. In the smaller, pocket sized paperback book, the abridged HORRORS OF WAR story took up 58 new pages. More pages = Higher Cost of the book. I then converted this over to the 6×9 book with bigger pictures, bigger, more legible font, and shaved 20 pages and can keep the price at $10 per book. Seeing it in the larger format, and HELL YEAH! It looks so damn cool. I have my own book I wrote. That’s still cool to me. I don’t see this losing its luster anytime soon.
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I may be working on someone else’s feature at the end of this month. I’m in negotiation to direct on this HD feature for someone and we’ll see how that goes. More on that when there’s more to report.
The script has not been writing itself, hard as I might hope that it would. My plans this week to write were derailed by Spaz’ passing. I have not been in the right frame of mind to write comedy. Go figure. I think the damn of writer’s block will soon end. [b]V[/b] is already on my lap as I write this and I find my heart lifted from despair. Perhaps this new family dynamic will help the divine inspiration find it’s mark. That and a visit from George Caleodis next week….
Thanks again acolytes. The Boo has heard your well wishings and is pleased.
-PJR
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