Daughter of God

Faisal dropped off his edit of DOG. In the spring of 2009 he had offered to bring out the “David Lynch ambiance” while simultaneously loping off “atrocious performance”. He felt that DOG depicted a quirky, off kilter world that was believable.

His approach was not timid – slashing out chunks of dialogue, occasionally going so far that the sense of the moment was totally lost. He had no qualms about changing the story either  – excising characters entirely and even suggesting a new ending!

On the whole, his trimming was pretty nifty. Many of his ideas will be worthy of careful consideration and the energy he has brought to the project is amazing. I owe you pal.

Timewise, the project is a misfit. It’s too long to be a short and too short to be a feature. At the end of 2008, it was 26.40 minutes – the standard length for 1/2 hour TV episode. An ideal short length would be about 13 minutes. Faisal was attempting to bring it down to the high teens, he made it to 20 something.

How do I feel? I hadn’t seen the project play out in 6 months. Watching DOG with all it’s production warts, ragged and hemoraging from it’s trip through Faisal’s brain – I felt happy. There really are some great ideas here, and the project should be finished so those ideas can live. It’s doable, it’s gonna be fun.

So when can we work on it, what’s the schedule? ALM preparedness is underway – what would have to happen to DOG before hitting the water? A working cut, long or short version would allow motion graphics to move forward while I’m gone. March is the window, I can schedule two weeks. A very focused two weeks to block out the basic structure, what’s in and what’s not…

Last thing… test screenings. Put a project online with password protection and a feedback form, then invite participation from major metro areas using craigslist. If we could somehow integrate video chat, whoa. Record reactions and facial expressions from an audience of one, by appointment.

The primary lesson I learned making Daughter of God or DOG is this – finishing a movie by yourself takes forever. To complete DOG and support ALM this year, I’ve assembled a team of two knob spinning freelancers and five adhoc experts. Here’s some quick introductions.

Art Department
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Dan Kelly. Me.

Jonathan Kelly is a emerging artist working primarily in the digital domain. He’s been doing 3D modeling and game development for the past 4-5 years and has been expanding into editing and motion graphics with Premiere and After Effects respectively. He also has plans to pick up some programming to be able to extend and customize his toolkit. Jonathan has contributed significantly to the apocalyptic ambience of DOG with futuristic cars and a derelict cruise ship.
http://jonathankellyarts.com

Melonie Steffes is a painter and musician. She is also an awesome mom and no slouch with a power saw. Melonie went on location for DOG in the spring of 2006 as assistant director, fabrication specialist and set stylist. Though Melonie favors real world materials, she has been computer savvy for at least a decade and is the proud owner of a zippy new OSX platform. Melonie is going to be mixing and matching traditional and digital expression to expand the visual horizons of both DOG and ALM.
http://meloniesteffes.com

Business and Outreach
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Julie Constantin is a financier and business magus. Her venture capital career boasts a bevy of brave new start-ups and she’s raised multi-millions for nonprofit organizations. She’s seriously connected, an iconoclast and very hard to kill. She too is an amazing mom. Julie will be turbo charging our projects with her expertise on management and social marketing and blowing our minds with her visions of the post future.
http://www.constantinpartners.com/

Editorial and Story Advisors
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Faisal Azam is an editor, filmmaker and writer. Faisal has plenty of corporate clients you’ve actually heard of and though he could have sold his soul to the beast a thousand times, he remains a force of integrity and goodness in the universe. He also has bitchin’ cool long hair. He and his squeeze Erica live in some god forsaken corner of Queens, but if you show up he’ll juice you some carrots. Faisal has generously offered to recut DOG to bring out the tasty bits. He doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s going to get even more deeply entangled in our crazy schemes. With any luck, we’ll drag Erica along too.
http://www.faisalazam.com/

Jeff Gibbs is a filmmaker and composer. His hutzpah has powered such documentary blockbusters as Bowling for Columbine and Capitalism, A Love Story. In every camp he visits, his integrity and passion causes fur to bristle and minds to open. Jeff has had a profound influence on the development and philosophy of On Desire and Around Lake Michigan. His recent incarnation as a media savvy Lorax is galvanizing forest stewardship throughout Northern Michigan. He’s also rumored to be working on his own monumental cinematic expose of the human condition.

Steve Elrick is a painter, theatrical director and performer. He’s directed countless plays during his multi-decade career as the President of the Benzie County Players. Affable and gregarious, Steve is universally loved by the local arts community and anyone with half a brain would agree that he is the region’s premier arts advocate and ambassador. His acutely inquisitive nature and noble carriage merely hint at the full extent of his stellar character, a character only mildly tarnished by his crazed obsession with punning.

Andrea Maio is a filmmaker with an affinity for the experimental. She is a recent transplant to Benzie County, squatting her family’s cabin in Elberta when she’s not negotiating big deals in LA. Currently she’s pitching a food series centered around the Great Lakes region, featuring intimate portraits of cuisine artisans like the vintners of the Leelanau Pennisula. Andrea is also a gifted teacher, giving her a storytelling turbo charge. Her insightful guidance continues to inform the development of Around Lake Michigan.

But wait… Faisal is in New York, Julie’s in California, Jonathan and Melonie are in Michigan… Short of scorching the upper atmosphere with combusted kerosene, how can they effectively collaborate? Geographic and atmospheric impact are minimized by the Trickster Pictures Collaboratory.

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On February 14, the year of the tiger begins. It’s a good year for me and to celebrate, I’m gonna reach out to the scattered tribe and connect. Perfect timing really,  the contractors will be humming and all the blogs sorted out. Reinvigorate our public presence and announce the return of ALM.

It’s also a hallmark card day, but feghk that!

I thought I had a plan for making the mothership blog, but not quite. Now I am confused. Here’s a little map to illustrate the flow.

FORUM collaboratory

|| feeding

BLOG Mothership (holyboners.com)

BLOG Daughter of God (dogthemovie.com)

BLOG Around Lake Michigan (ondesire.com)

BLOG Awesomeshit (artisthouse.com/fellowship)

Now this may seem silly, but I am hung up in an aesthetic snag. Holyboners is about fortunate mistakes but does this premise apply to Ondesire as well? Holyboners was a fine premise for Daughter of God, but I don’t think it flies for ALM. Not that I am giving up this wonderful principle but I think I am moving beyond fortunate mistakes as my primary strategy. What then would be the guiding force for the mothership?

TT seems a likely candidate, but there’s two problems. Though the mothership blog is not exactly public, it will be feeding the satellite blogs, and that in theory drives traffic back to the mothership unless I password protect it. I can use TT when crossposting to ondesire certainly, but it still invites exploration.

TT requires finesse. It’s not something to implement overnight.

The second problem is the guy in California owns TT.com and wants $2500 for it. It would be lovely to own the entire set and I don’t mind paying him something, but get real – he’s had the sucker since 2002. 8 years of paying for it or $80 let’s guess and then whatever other overhead he’s got. $100 if he’s savvy. I’ve offered him $200. I doubt he’ll bite, camping is his business.

The point is I’d like to launch TT eventually, but to mastermind a huge media effort just to have the traffic stolen later? The name will become a traffic magnet once I get going, increasing the value of that domain.

I probably should have not said, “I’ll check back in a few months” – it’s a contradiction to my premise of preparing to launch a media campaign for a film. If he counters my $200, perhaps I’ve got a chance.

Let’s come back to earth. I’ve configured blogs that will work as they are. I can play a bit of a waiting game with Don from California though he knows via whois I own every TT but his .com and that I am trying to create a matched set. I am motivated to assemble it. He knows he can wait me out, but he’s not even bargaining. I can always visualize his help, hee hee. That’s my kind of leverage. $400. I can play the straw man who is bidding against me, though I would need another account. It’s oh so fun to strategize, but much easier just to visualize.

So the plan is… holyboners remains the name of the mothership for now. If we want to rename the mothership later, that’s fine. In the meantime let’s just assemble the infrastructure and move forward. Let’s test for awhile – the whole mothership concept might be not be feasible.

Before we go – distill into a domain name the guiding principles of my journey, of my practice. Another time, perhaps.

Afterwards… The beauty of visualization. After an interesting exchange of emails with Don I got TT.com for $380. How about that? $20 under the visualized price! Could it be any clearer?