Currently, I am the only member of my family that is not sick with an upper respiratory infection. In fact, I’m not sick at all. Well, not physically anyway. Leanne and London are both a bit under the weather and stayed home, from work and school respectively, in hopes that they could recuperate. London really doesn’t feel that bad other than the cough. He sounds like a lawn mower trying to start when he goes off on a coughing jag but he’s in good spirits and is going back to school again tomorrow. Leanne is a bit worse. She has multiple symptoms and is feeling pretty bad. She’s going back to work tomorrow because she doesn’t have the PTO to use for another day, since she’ll need it to do observation for her classes later in the semester. I think she’ll be fine but her stress level was pretty high the last week and the more stressed you are the more susceptible you are to infection. I am, of course, the man of steel. I get sick very infrequently. So infrequently that when it happens I’m like a petulant child. I hate being sick and am keeping my distance from my wife and son for the next few days. Luckily my schedule doesn’t offer me much in the way of contact anyway so our routine is safe. They can be miserable together and text me updates 
I’ve been working on a script off and on for the last few months and I think it’s coming along nicely. It’s the first truly adult and mature work that I’ve written in full length form. I have some shorts that I think are very nice but this is a more complex and emotional story that I couldn’t have possibly written ten years ago. I’ve also been rolling some short story ideas around in my head for a month or so and I think I might try and get them down on paper soon. I love to write and always have and it’s something that I think I should get back into. If and when I get something written I will post here it for people to read and will welcome any and all criticism.
On the heels of the John August trailer contest, I was debating entering the Apple-sponsored Insomnia Film Festival for high school and college filmmakers. It seems like it would be right up my alley but it’s a 24-hour festival, meaning that you have to conceive, write, shoot and edit the entire 3 minute short in 24 hours. They give you three key pieces of the puzzle (be they props, dialogue, setting or genre….etc) on the morning of the competition and you have to incorporate the in the film. They’re way of keeping out cheaters who would submit a previous project. The main problems I have with doing this right now are:
1. No time.
2. No crew.
3. No time.
4. Working on the day of the contest. So I could try and do it in 12 hours but that seems a bit unrealistic.
5. No actors.
6. Did I mention “no time”?
So I just don’t think it’s in the cards for right now. I would have a week and a half to put together a crew, a cast, a location or two, a few ideas for shorts, ask for the day off from work and free up the space on my overloaded harddrive. The last short I shot was done in 48 hours but it wasn’t done that way by design and I had already written the script and secured the location and some of the actors. I love the challenge of doing spur of the moment filmmaking in the guerrilla style but they couldn’t have possibly picked a worse time for this. Oh well, there’s always next year.
