tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84981132012-02-16T19:53:44.026-08:00What started as a blog about a single film, became a blog about a career in film and has now become an epic web series. And is still about a career in film.RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-66083058940860487802009-01-28T19:50:00.001-08:002009-01-28T19:50:35.778-08:002009-01-28T19:50:35.778-08:00

There's an online petition going around. Here's the text:One Percent for the Arts CampaignCongress will soon pass a stimulus package aimed at creating jobs and stimulating the economy. We ask that 1% of the stimulus support the arts. In the 1930s the Work Progress Administration created by Roosevelt created 3 million jobs. They built roads, streets, highways, bridges, parks, and public buildings.

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-25195565717252354742009-01-27T10:41:00.000-08:002009-01-27T11:08:40.936-08:002009-01-27T11:08:40.936-08:00

I had lunch with a friend last week and we were talking about the state of films and film making (I'm conflicted on the grammaticality of the elision of those two words into one in our popular culture) and distribution and the prospect of making films in the future that are not under the umbrella of a studio - major, mini or otherwise. The subject specifically turned to the idea of a $60,000.00

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-16775897759355746462008-11-02T14:17:00.001-08:002008-11-02T14:19:16.388-08:002008-11-02T14:19:16.388-08:00

Sorry for the lack of scintillating words, but it's been awfully hard to concentrate on developing really stinging snarks about the film biz when you're working so damn hard. Now - if I could only translate piles of work into piles of money, I'd be a happy camper.

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-71111857384025446702008-09-25T17:37:00.000-07:002008-09-25T17:41:30.817-07:002008-09-25T17:41:30.817-07:00

So Clay Aiken is on the cover of People (which was lying handily on the floor in our library bathroom) and apparently he's come out as gay, which, according to some of the radio I've been listening to is no big surprise to anyone. BUT - according to the photo on the cover of People he's also becoming a woman. Either that or someone went a little slaphappy with the old Photoshop.

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-78176970265643225042008-09-19T17:02:00.000-07:002008-09-19T17:07:01.690-07:002008-09-19T17:07:01.690-07:00

I've been a member of Netflix for neigh on three years now and over the course of that time I've gotten several mailers from them, and today I got an email from them, all along the same lines. The cover, and in this case the subject line touts a great member bonus."Special member bonus inside."Yet, when I fall for opening it what I'm presented with is a coupon that I can give my friends or family

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-74266705437831054312008-09-09T18:13:00.000-07:002008-09-09T18:16:25.045-07:002008-09-09T18:16:25.045-07:00

Yeesh,It's been a while since I posted here. Well, things have been busy. This industrial I'm working on, I just realized yesterday, is feature length. I mean, quite literally. At its current run time it clocks in a t 101 minutes, which easily qualifies as feature length. It's funny because I've been working on it for months and never once did it occur to me to do the math on that. Anyway,

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-27104510522629280252008-07-31T12:27:00.000-07:002008-07-31T12:29:52.938-07:002008-07-31T12:29:52.938-07:00

Apparently, as I ponder new episodes for the series of webisodes that the Sunday Evening Daily Morning Register called, "brilliant in it's latitude," the world has decided to assist.Today is "National Orgasm Day."http://www.orgasmsurvey.co.uk/

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-27137075546954376112008-07-30T13:17:00.001-07:002008-07-30T13:23:45.119-07:002008-07-30T13:23:45.119-07:00

but I've been shooting and editing and just lose all track of time and bodily functions while I'm doing that.

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-64831102845038544272008-07-09T14:31:00.000-07:002008-07-09T14:36:20.616-07:002008-07-09T14:36:20.616-07:00

Finally had the shoot - two days for the paying gig. It was fun in a weird sort of way. Weird because it was a tough shoot - too much material, not enough time and not enough money - but yet still fun because it was a shoot. Now I'm editing which is a lot fun and now that I think about it would be a great job for a vampire since about the only light I see during the course of a day is the warm

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-19843433944556639692008-06-18T09:59:00.000-07:002008-06-18T10:19:15.269-07:002008-06-18T10:19:15.269-07:00

After suffering through the indignities of the Funny or Die website re-design and the carnival freakshow atmosphere of YouTube - we've put up our own damn site.Here it is right here.grandeconcarne.com

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-46404640765845952812008-06-14T10:18:00.000-07:002008-06-14T10:41:42.195-07:002008-06-14T10:41:42.195-07:00

I've only once before delved into anything kind of relating to politics on this blog but considering that I am (only just barely) in the media business, as a filmmaker and published author, I thought I should comment on this article.Basically, it talks about the current Canadian persecution human rights kangeroo court trial of a journalist Mark Steyn for publishing words that were apparently

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-3520846272196204592008-06-14T09:21:00.001-07:002008-06-14T09:24:04.654-07:002008-06-14T09:24:04.654-07:00

Sorry - forgot to cross post this here...Grande Con Carne: Ep.8 "Double Lesbian Twist" on FunnyOrDie.com

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-4379510997291857392008-05-29T11:12:00.000-07:002008-05-29T11:15:53.302-07:002008-05-29T11:15:53.302-07:00

After a few weeks of being buried in a script for the current project, I'm back to editing Grande Con Carne while I wait for client notes. It's a long script, so I'm not expecting anything from them until at least tomorrow, which means, that I should be able to finish up Episode 8 today. I may wait until Monday to post it though as Fridays tend to be right before Saturdays and I'm pretty sure

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-88053413946634676672008-05-19T10:30:00.000-07:002008-05-19T10:58:07.192-07:002008-05-19T10:58:07.192-07:00

The last week has been particularly brutal on my sinuses. It tends to happen when the weather changes, which it did last week, from kind of cold and muggy (down here at the beach) to really hot and dry. Now I love the hot and dry - I really do, but it takes my inner cavities a little while to get used to it, which makes it hard to sleep and - well - live. The tragedy is that I don't think this

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-73070307527184445132008-05-08T08:47:00.001-07:002008-05-08T08:51:19.723-07:002008-05-08T08:51:19.723-07:00

Sorry the posting here and of new episodes (of which there are two awaiting my digital razor blade) has been slow but it turns out I had to take a little time off to work for some actual money. You see, although Grande Con Carne has all the appearances of a multi-national, festival-favorite, box-office blockbuster, the fact is that remains a labor of love. And as such requires, from time to time,

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-73099115522806793952008-05-02T10:32:00.000-07:002008-05-02T10:44:30.085-07:002008-05-02T10:44:30.085-07:00

As an off topic, little bit of fun, I'm posting this: (At least, I think it might be a little bit of fun provided you have sufficient bug spray and aren't working anywhere near anything thorny or poison ivy. Yeesh)Get ready for the Fourth Annual World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD)! People across the globe are encouraged, on Saturday, May 3, 2008 to tend their portion of the world's garden clothed

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-21681711440726027552008-05-01T17:31:00.000-07:002008-05-02T10:31:56.597-07:002008-05-02T10:31:56.597-07:00

Well, we're up on YouTube. I had kind of resisted posting on YouTube for two reasons, one - is I think it's essentially a freakshow with the best and the brightest falling behind the weirdest, scariest and sickest. The second reason is that the codec YouTube uses to compresses the videos sucks donkey balls.But - YouTube recently added a function whereby the viewer can click a little link at the

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-44691602211184951592008-04-28T10:27:00.000-07:002008-04-28T10:29:32.163-07:002008-04-28T10:29:32.163-07:00

So I just posted Episode 7, "Hi, Hi, Bernie" of Grande Con Carne. I'm looking forward to seeing what the reaction is on this one since it has a couple of industry "in" jokes. But in keeping with the age old internet tradition of keeping your eyeballs glued to this page forever - here it is:Grande Con Carne: Ep 7 "Hi, Hi, Bernie" on FunnyOrDie.com

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-67367108787182258062008-04-25T13:03:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:21:31.811-07:002008-04-25T13:21:31.811-07:00

Well, for those of you who may not know, which accounts for the whole entire world, minus about 12 people, "Grande Con Carne" has been submitted for Emmy consideration. A few weeks ago, I got a comment on this blog (here) encouraging me to submit. Apparently there is a special category for "Short Form" programming and last year the Emmy folk decided to make broadband an acceptable form of

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-84050863214602483772008-04-23T09:51:00.000-07:002008-04-23T10:00:15.616-07:002008-04-23T10:00:15.616-07:00

In my blog rolling adventures I came across this link at another blog. It's a glossary of film terms, yet I find it sorely lacking. Anyone who's been around the business long enough will certainly have heard terms that get every day use, but are not included in this list.For the initiated:Mickey Rooney (used to describe a dolly move)Groucho (a direction given to an actor)Cowboy (a camera angle)

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-85285525769701939492008-04-22T13:43:00.000-07:002008-04-23T09:31:10.516-07:002008-04-23T09:31:10.516-07:00

A Script Supervisor is one of those positions that, when you are making something for a very low budget, seems superfluous. It's also one of the jobs on set that can be extremely important. The job of a Script Supervisor is to record every shot, every action, to take notes on the script as it's being shot. They also assign scene numbers that go on the slate. Though in reality the convention of

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-74036287329674141232008-04-21T11:19:00.000-07:002008-04-21T12:06:48.039-07:002008-04-21T12:06:48.039-07:00

"Grande Con Carne" is looking for a home. I realize that while we look like a slickly produced, big-budget, high-concept, years-in-development webseries with gobs and gobs and gobs of venture capital™ firms pounding at our door, dying to moentize® our efforts,  such, I can assure you, is not exactly the case."Grande Con Carne" has been produced on a shoestring budget, independently and with a

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-46842217348263784072008-04-20T14:53:00.001-07:002008-04-20T15:08:22.151-07:002008-04-20T15:08:22.151-07:00

There was a time when it seemed like being a Coppola was a sure ticket to Hollywood success. I'm not sure if all of these names are related to the grand-master Francis (though a staggering number of them are), but I'm sure their surnames didn't exactly hurt their careers. In fact, while I was shooting my first film, "Learning to Surf," (winner: Best Achievement in Directing at IndieVision Fest

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-21260823210332935832008-04-16T12:03:00.000-07:002008-04-16T12:52:12.792-07:002008-04-16T12:52:12.792-07:00

The LA Times writes today about Judd Apatow's engorged efforts to thrust the display of male genetalia more securely into the modern film age. The story outlines an episode in the new "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" where the main character, played by Jason Segel, is fully and frontally nude for quite some time. The scene, according to the article, prodded the audience at South by Southwest to fits

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498113.post-91807574568755312252008-04-04T16:15:00.000-07:002008-04-04T16:18:33.006-07:002008-04-04T16:18:33.006-07:00

For all my adoring fans and loyal readers here is episode 6 without the added heartache of navigating away from this page:Grande Con Carne: Ep 6 "Brokeback Martin" on FunnyOrDie.com

RJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627941565967196246noreply@blogger.com1