Here's What Happened

As I'm typing this, I've got Kanye West blasting on my computer. I don't own his album but one of my MySpace friends has his song on their page and I keep refreshing it so that I can hear this song. "Wait till I get my money right!" It's hot! I guess that was my best impersonation of Paris Hilton. Anyway, this past weekend was the 48 Hour Film Project and I had my team all together to make something happen. I'd gone out and scouted locations for the project and found something in Downtown Richmond that I thought would be perfect. It's an area near the canal which houses some newly built and renovated buildings. It also houses one of the most popular new restaurants in Richmond, Blackfinn. When we got down there to start filming, they told us that we needed to get permission and that there was no one there that could do that for us today. They told us to come back on Monday. That'd be great but the contest is over on Sunday. We'll move on. I could give you so many details in this diary entry that you'd have to scroll down the page to see where it's going to end. I'm not going to do that. Here's what happend. On Friday, I went to The Camel and met up with Neil Constantine and Gregory Schmidt to do the drawing for the genre of the movie. It was fun to see so many other filmmakers in the Richmond, VA area. Everyone had so much energy and was ready to go. Introductions were made. Hands were shaken. Looks were exchanged. Then we got to the drawing. I went up, stuck my hand in the hat and pulled out my folded piece of paper. I opened it... SCI-FI. Awesome! I don't know anything about science fiction, but I was going to give it a try. After agreeing to meet up with them around 9:00, I went and did a few things. I bought some new tapes for the camera that I'd rented for the weekend. I got some wires that I needed and a few other things. The entire time I was doing this I was thinking of a story idea. Suddenly, It popped into my head. I met up with the other guys at my place and we sat down and discussed the ideas. I liked mine best. Then my boy Kenny Chu came through and input an idea of his own. I liked his as well but was leaning towards my idea since I had it all in my head. Time was ticking away. It's funny how you can come up with idea... after idea, after idea once the flood gates open. But being that we were on a time limit, we had to choose something. We met up at Chipotle (Yes! I'm still addicted) with the other members of the cast and crew - Samira, Ken, Ray, Greg, Bounce, Todd, and Nana. After some discussion, some food and a little drink, we decided to meet up at 3:00a.m. to start filming. I was going to be given a few hours to write the script and then we were going to get going. Kenny and Neil followed me to my place. After a short talk with them, I went to work on the script. After a while, it was obvious that I was going to need more time with the script so, phone calls were made and we agreed to meet at 10:30 am at Panera. I spent the entire night writing and revising the script. I finally went to sleep at 6:00 in the morning. I got a wake up call around 9:15 from a couple of friends (I knew I was going to need more than one), ot my paperwork ready, went to Kinkos, and then met them over at Panera. We read the script and I got the feeling that they weren't all that energized by it. I'm not saying that they weren't, I'm just saying that I don't think anyone thought we had some academy award winning stuff there. But they all jumped right in. We had a read through which got a couple of good laughs thanks to Gregory being a wonderful drunk (in the movie). I was excited. But we were still looking for locations. I needed a medical office and a high-rise apartment building. We had neither. On my way home, I noticed a Vision Center located in a shopping center that I visit all the time. I just never noticed them because I've had no reason for glasses. I stopped in there and told them what I was doing. Amazingly, they were on board. We had a location. I made a call to another friend (Tamara) and she came out to act in another roll that needed filling. Why did I write parts for people that I didn't have? Does that make sense? Nope, but things have a way of working out. I finally felt like we were doing something. I was giddy to have something on film, finally. Maybe we can do this. We did that scene and then moved on to the next thing. We went downtown to the location that I'd picked out earlier and were told we couldn't film there. I wasn't happy, but I didn't have time to sit around and mope. Time was running out. I ordered some sliders from Blackfinn and after waiting for another actress (Mirinda) who I'd not had when I wrote the script Why? Why? Why do I do stuff like that? Marinda came through with several changes of clothes, a big bright smile and a wonderful positive energy. I was ready to go. She followed me over to Nana's apartment building where they treated us like royalty. They let us use their model apartment, they gave us a key to the elevator so that we could shut one of them down, which we needed for several of our scenes. They even let us use the roof for one of the scenes. Wow. Betty and Bridgette were wonderful. It was a long day and a labor filled night. We got all of the shots that we were looking for. Everybody did a wonderful job. Everyone. It was a team effort and this team rocked. Seriously. I couldn't have been more pleased with what I'd seen through the viewfinder and heard in my headphones. I was excited to get home and start editing. Before I could go home, I had to get some shots of the city of Richmond. I went downtown and got a shot of the 17th Street Farmers Market. I got some footage of Bottoms Up Pizza. Some footage of the huge clock at the train station. I took some shots of the cobblestone streets. I also got a lot of traffic, lights, cars zooming by, people walking around... I was happy. Time to go home and edit. I left downtown, went home and decided that I was going to start transferring the footage from the tape to my computer and then I would go take a nap. It was after all, 3:00 in the morning. As I began to transfer the tape to the computer, I noticed some very weird lines going through the footage. Funny, I've never seen anything like that before. Then it went to a blue screen and then back to footage with the lines going through it again. I put the head phones on and tried not to panic. The sound was going in and out. It sounded like the worst cell phone conversation you've ever heard. I was getting every fifth word. And then it started to play beautifully... for about two minutes. Then it was back to the lines and broken audio. I was horrified. I put the camera in VCR mode and fast forwarded through the tape. It was disgusting. I went to Wal-Mart's electronic department at 3:30 in the morning to see if the tapes would play correctly in their machines. I did not. Again, I was disgusted. I didn't have any usable footage. I drove home and went to sleep. The following day, I woke up and made all the calls to the people who had sacrificed their weekend to help me make a movie. They were calls that I didn't want to make. I was amazed that everyone understood. Not one person said a negative thing to me. Not one. Of course, they were disappointed, but they all understood. I took the camera back to the guy I'd rented it from and told him what had happened. His response, "You used cheap tapes." My response, "I've never had a problem with these tapes before. Ever!" So, what do you do? You move on. I got half my money back since we couldn't figure out exactly what happened. I thought that was fair. And now, here I am. Waiting for my camera to get back so that I can make a movie. Until next time.

Cast and Crew
	NAME POSITION Odyssey Michaels Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Writer, Editor, Actor Glenn Robertson Producer Samira Fazel Production Manager, Actress Kenny Chu Grip, Actor Ray Bullock Grip, Actor Neil Constantine Boom Operator, Grip, Actor Gregory Schmidt Grip, Actor Nana Actor Bounce Adams Actor Ken Chappell Actor Todd Actor Mirinda Actor Tamara Actor

Special Thanks
	Bridgette 1515 Apartment Employee  Betty 1515 Apartment Manager Nicole Vision Center of Glen Allen Paige Vision Center of Glen Allen   Chipotle Panera