blatantly subtle POST opens in Hollywood

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Things are just getting started but we've already cut three music videos, a short documentary and part of a feature film.

Our Mark Twain - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr RIP

"When I think about my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever."

-from WAMPETERS, FOMA & GRANFALLOONS, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Bryan Friedman's "The BodyBuilder & I" premiers

This looks incredible. Bryan, come to LA! (or NY)

Kaki King's video "Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers"

Shot and edited by Joe Leonard.

Shooting the "Spirit of 76"

I met Jace McLean shooting my first student film at NYU, and we've been buddies pretty much ever since.

Jace moved to LA last summer but wouldn't tell anyone he was an actor. In the meantime he wrote a feature length screenplay, put the money together for it, and we shot it. Now he won't tell anyone he made it -- wrote, starred, co-directed and co-produced it. Either he's crazy or I am, and I don't really care which.

It was an 18-day shoot and I won't tell ya how much we did it for because I want you to think it was made for a million dollars. Never mind, I'll tell you. We shot it for a million dollars. How do you make a million dollar movie? Jace started with three distinct characters and stories and wrote them to be shot in our neighborhood. You cast actors who will kill for a part and then you make them commit homicide and come along with you on a pirate ship of a movie. You do the same for your AD, your DP, and yourself. Then you try to get some sleep. That amounts to one or two hours per day, so then you invest heavily in Rolling Rock and Costa Rican coffee beans. Pray that your girlfriend understands. If possible, cast her.

In all seriousness there was no preparing for this shoot (even though I worked on it for a month before it started) and no recovering from the heartbreak of it being over. There is no replacing the friends that are made and unmade making a movie. As a learning experience I would give it up for nothing.

Making movies is an excellent way to go for broke and end up with a hangover you feel good about.

ACTORS on Youtube

ACTORS, 22 minutes, has been uploaded to Youtube.

I have to stop banging my head against the wall

You would think this would be easy, but it is not.

Some highly recommended things to check out --

"Half Nelson" came out last week, and it's a pretty damn great movie. In New York it's at the Angelika, in LA it's at the Sunset 5, and everywhere else hopefully it's playing somewhere within driving distance. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden are both excellent people who have always been great to us. Here is the Half Nelson website to check out --

Also, you've gotta hear Kaki King's new CD, ...until we felt red. Un-fucking-believable. She's touring the country right now and if you can get to any of her shows, do it. Here's her website with her tour info: kakiking.com. She will be in LA at the Knitting Factory on September 25.


[A la Reading Rainbow] ...But don't take my word for it:

"You can still hear Kaki King's great guitar virtuosity, but the impact of added instruments and the voice is exhilarating. It's exciting to witness the flowering of a great, new artist, and it sounds like there are great things yet to come from her." --
Ned Wharton, NPR

"[Half Nelson]...Easily the best film I've seen all year! GO out and see it right now!.”
-Kevin Smith, Guest Critic, EBERT &ROEPER

San Francisco Shorts

I am laying in bed right now with Lily and Leslie -- aren't you jealous? We are napping after our second screening at San Fran shorts. We have stayed in a European style hotel for the last day or two and now we are living the good life out at the beach in Pacifica. San Fran shorts is an upstart festival, and we all appreciate that. It is in the Mission, which has led to several nights wandering around with parents through streets crowded with homeless people, some more interested than others in getting some spare change. Watch as you hand out quarters that will turn into a can of beer. Great coffee in great coffee shops. The films have been good, and strong in different ways. A couple of them have pissed me off, and since that is what they set out to do I guess they were a success. It's great to be involved -- and the ACTORS screenings have gone well.

Great to see Chris Chambers today, and my brother and his friends Bhi, Nick and Rachel all were great. I wished Bhi had become indignant with me for making a movie about diverse characters when I am so lily white. My prepared response would have been "it was more interesting, plus white people are boring." More than half true. Last night Jared and Sarah and their friends from Berkeley came. It's been a great trip.

Zach Evans, wherever you are, you are missed.

Vague Grant for "How I Got Lost" Announced

NYU recently posted this announcement for the Vague award. I am so grateful to have been chosen, and excited about the future of "How I Got Lost."

YouTube.com is the end of the world.

It's a good thing. Honestly, I think this is the sort of site that Blatantly Subtle was made for.



This is the trailer for ACTORS, hopefully soon starting a festival run. It was fun to make.

A day spent not thinking about winning The Vague Award

It was my second year being a finalist, so I knew not to think about anything ahead of time. I kept down any lifting feeling, kept my gut tight. I was staying midtown at the Hotel Chandler, thanks to a producer and good friend of mine, and I took my time that morning shaving. I drank water from a huge bottle. I had everything I needed in my small bag: my pitch, my production book, and nothing else. I woke up early, around 5AM, knowing it was a big day. It was so early that the kitchen in the hotel wasn't open, so I had the bellhop hold my bags and left to find a diner or something.

I walked through early New York. I had been in town four days and most of the time I just wandered around quietly. This morning was special, and I took in everything I could. As I walked over past Penn Station an old woman in a walker surprised me asking for money. "I don't have any change," I said. "But a dollar --" she said knowingly. I pulled a dollar out and gave it to her, and as I stepped away someone anonymously said "You just got taken." It made me smile to be back in New York like an 18 year old from St Louis, again.

At Penn Station they were selling newspapers. Calling out for The Post and the Times and The Daily News as I descended to the A train. I had remembered where I wanted to go: La Bonboniere. My favorite diner for some reason, over on 7th Ave in the West Village. Inside the waiter remembered me and asked about Lily before getting me coffee and blueberry pancakes. I didn't even have to order and that was fine with me.

After my first cup of coffee it began to rain. I had a nice vantage point and felt comfortable inside, looking out as the umbrellas were unfolded and blown around by the wind. After I finished the paper it was pouring, and it was time to go. I walked along the buildings, getting sprinkled by windblown raindrops till I made it to a deli and bought an umbrella. The rest of the way I was fine -- protected from the downpour. I walked through Washington Square. Everything I did that morning I did with purpose, and without thought or concern for anything except showing up and talking for five minutes to five people in a room on the tenth floor.

I saw Nicholas Georgiou in the lobby. I had last seen him at Sundance, and he still seemed to be carrying that energy, of thin air and travel. He came over to say hello -- it was a relief to talk to somebody after all of that quiet. And I felt comfortable, like maybe I was ready.

Still, I hid in the hallways and stairwells of the giant building until it was five minutes before my pitch. When I showed up I waited five minutes, sitting next to someone who recognized me -- an old RA of mine named Rafael Del Toro, who was also pitching. My slot was at 10:45AM. I pitched them the story, what was going on with the project, and my plan. Pretty short and sweet, but I still was cut off at the 5 minute mark, just as I was about to say "thank you" one too many times. They asked me if I would be doing any rewrites ("yes") and if I could make the movie with the grant ("yes,but"). Then I left.

Three hours roughly till the announcement. Nick and I went to the Corner Bistro, had a burger and two beers (I did anyway). "It's one of us two," we told each other. His project sounded great -- a documentary about Cyprus, and he was planning to go to claim land taken from his father by Turkey. Still an hour and a half left. Wandered aimlessly, bought another cup of coffee. Ended up back in Washington Square and sat down to play chess with an old African-American guy. He killed me the first two times but told me what I was doing wrong, and the third time I nearly won in the first ten moves. He was nervous it would rain again, so I paid him for playing with me (technically he won it, $2/game) and went to the announcement.

Unbelievably, once I got there and once everyone was sitting down -- and after they called us up one by one and said a few words about what a difficult decision it was, they announced that I'D WON THE GRANT. Words fail. For the rest of the day I was Muhammad Ali.

It wouldn't have happened without Matt and Danny, Mark Arywitz, Bryan, Jill, Jared, Zach, Drew and everyone else who suffered through phone-call pitches. And I wouldn't have made it this far without Lily and my mom and dad.

We'll be shooting "How I Got Lost" the feature film in April 2007!

The Silverlake Diet

Started a writing group in LA with Jared, Lily, Jace, Gabe and Josh. We will meet every week this month at our place. It is a funny thing to start in a way. Writing is sitting alone in a room. A writing group is really commiserating. Plus everyone has a different process and style, and their own vision of what they are writing in their head. It is just difficult enough sounding to seem like a great way to spend every Wednesday this year.

A new year. This year everything positive, building ahead. Less drinking. Or at least, rules for drinking. Only drinking this year with friends, and as little as possible. No benders. Except when warranted by visitors. These rules are made to broken, so nevermind. Less drinking in general, more writing. A good resolution.

Working on finishing up "Actors." It's been incredible working with Gabe, who I can only describe as a "real editor" because he is just a pro, and because we've been finding this project together. It's a better project than I could have hoped for, but most importantly it has been interesting every step of the way. Currently have a cut that is too long, but after a week of looking at it happily -- my director's cut -- I was happy Gabe started cutting it down. Got some music for the movie from Russell Holbrook, a guy I met at Sundance last year -- we were both volunteers. His cues are terrific. and I speak to him on the phone about them and he sends them to me on CD. It is an over-the-phone collaboration, and works just fine because we are both somehow on the same page.

I saw Kaki last week. It was incredible to see her. She played for an hour at a jazz club in West LA. She sang some, and played things that were new, and made a few things up. Afterwards I got to catch up with her. It's incredible how some people can affect you, and remind you who you were and who you are all at once.

I ran out of money this month. Too much movie spending, no income for a few months. But it's a new year. I took a job at a phone bank raising money for the DNC to supplement my random post-production pay. I am one of those people who calls and asks for money. Everyone should have to do this. It is actually tough work inconveniencing people, asking them for money. But you learn things about yourself and about the things you take for granted and make assumptions about when you're on the other end. Our call center is a beautiful thing, too. Not only because I am building character and learning about myself. I have never encountered a place that was richer in terms of material. Everyone there -- everyone -- is a character.

It's perfect because I getting into a new SIlverlake rhythm, and this year I'm writing more and drinking less.

PRESS! Action: The Independent Film Resource

"Actors" short film shot in LA

It started in August, going to LA's Chinatown with Zach Evans, buying sugar cane juice. The two of us had worked together on a short teaser for a horror project he is producing, and now we were talking about what project we wanted to do with all of our free time in the fall. So we wandered around Chinatown, a strange and addictive place. I had just gotten back from New York where I had worked as an assistant to my buddy Matt Tauber, who was directing his first feature film from his own script for a company called HDNet, a successor to OpenCity backed by Mark Cuban and making unique $1.5 million movies on HD back-to-back with a shooting schedule of about 20 days each. It was an intense and terrifying experience, and afterwards I was glad to be back home in LA (as strange as that sounds). I was reeling, trying to figure out where the hell I was as usual. I needed to find a house to live in, for one thing, and I needed to remember why the hell I got started on all of this to begin with.

Chinatown with Zach was a start. My girlfriend Lily saved me with the rest. First of all, she put up with me. I scribbled the script for this new movie on her kitchen table long hand, and stayed in her apartment for almost a month as I looked for a place of my own in Silverlake. She was doing incredible work on a new play and with the Groundlings, and because of that I accidentally met a few of the actors who would work in the movie. First, Jean Paul Rodriguez, from her acting class, and second, Royce Binion, a friend of a terrific actor named Simon Sorrells, a great guy and coincidentally one of Lily's best friends out here. Once I had these guys in mind, I started working on their stories.

But let me back up, because it's always a funny thing where a project comes from and what it's about. In some ways it's a total mystery. This one I called "Actors" because everyone in LA is an actor. It's a strange kind of movie, in three parts, about people who are out of their element and finding a way to move forward. And it's meant to be the exact opposite of the idea you get about LA from watching movies and television. These people define their environment, not the other way around. Jean Paul defined Hollywood, playing the game his own way. Royce was going to literally be cool in any situation, whether it was south LA by Watts where he lived, or Chinatown, where we shot his story. After living here for almost two years, I had a few stories I wanted to work on. Zach, Lily, Jean Paul, and Royce got me started.

This gave me an excuse to start talking to all the people out here who I was looking for a chance to work with. Gabe Reed, an incredible editor who went to the same highschool as I did in St. Louis. A DP named Chris Chambers that I'd heard about from Jared, my roommate from AFI. A composer in Atlanta named Russell Holbrook who I met at Sundance last year, whose stuff I thought would be perfect. Things started to fall into place.

Zach and Drew started looking for the actors I had written without anyone particular in mind, all of them hard types to pin down. The process began. We set up auditions and started scouting locations. Chris Chambers and I started hanging out at least once a week -- mainly over coffee, usually with a great deal of fruitful miscommunication. Actually, the first time we hung out it was to play tennis, and I let him win. We brought in a Production designer named Matt Hausman, who could do everything with practically nothing, and a sound guy named Zach Wrobel who was interested in working with some new equipment. And Josh Weiner, who had directed Lily in a fucking funny short called "Hy-phen," signed on as my AD. It was an incredible team.

Then we headed into the unknown. We shot for a week, hard to even remember it. We made it through. And I got this feeling in the middle, a hard sensation to forget:

Doing almost anything else, I have no idea what to do. But working on a project like this is a little like freefall, and it's like I've been wearing a parachute around to cocktail parties and laundromats. But once I was out of the plane, I knew just what to do.