Questions and Doubts

Well it seems we've reached the Question and Doubt portion of the pre-production show. After a weekend out of town I've come home to face reality and make many long To-do lists. Logistically,  I shoot in a month and a half, so I have time for costumes and props, which is convenient because my art director (Mo) is plenty busy in these upcoming weeks (see her posts for proof). I'm working on scheduling rehearsal time and communicating with SAG, but what's really stressing me out is locations. 

Locations and my story as a whole. For the time being, positive classmate and professor feedback had been enough to overshadow any doubt I had been having but now it's back. Mainly because whenever I try to explain the plot of my movie to anyone they give me the same blank stare back. I find myself covering, defending, dismissing; cowardly adding on some "don't worry, it's way cooler than I'm describing it." But frankly, that just shouldn't be. The fact that I've yet to come up with a logline satisfying enough to please the random people I tell my project about is really starting to worry me about the story as a whole. Is it just completely stupid? I've been telling myself that a lot of the humor comes from the story format, but is that a lie? I'm hoping that this is the normal self-deprecating jitters that everyone goes through, and that it'll pass. 

Dear Monique,

Have we switched bodies? Have you become me? I ask you this for two reasons: firstly, because I cleaned a lot yesterday and that is clearly a You trait and secondly because you are starting to stress like me. I'm not saying you are not allowed to stress and freak out, you obviously obtain that right. However, I am saying that I know it'll all work out. Really, this is just me stating that I will be your cuddle producer. End of story. 

Love,

Sarah 

Lazy Day

As I sit enjoying one of the last lazy weekends I'll be able to have for some time I am struck by how calm I feel. My day has been an interesting mix of productive and useless. I ran some errands, did the dishes, worked on my script, wrote my character descriptions and some logline attempts, and have also watched an absurd amount of television. 

When the programming on Food Network was too underwhelming I found myself watching some show about wedding planning on one of those channels that would have shows about wedding planning. I couldn't help but think about how if/when I ever get married I'll be so much more together than these crazy people. My logic? It's pre-production. It's the exact same process, same stress over details leading up to one short weekend, and even the type of details are similar. There are costumes, locations, set decorations, catering; it's the same type of obsessing we've all been doing for our projects now. 

That's why it's comforting to know that my current strange wave of serenity is able to occur as I kick my pre-production into gear. I have a new zen-like mentality that I wonder if I'll be able benefit from, or even sustain longer than this weekend. Now that I have a script that I'm happy with I have an alarmingly passive que sera mindset that everything will fall into place. Should I trust this calm and embrace it? Should I get back to my anxious ways and feed off the stress as usual? 

Do it to it,

Sarah 

Yay New Things!

As Monique so proudly declared earlier: our blog is transforming anew! Since we are now happily reunited and are no longer living in Summer Fantasy land, the new direction of our lives is our our senior projects! 

Despite the fact that other classmates of ours have been deep in pre-production for weeks (*cough* Monique *cough*) and I have been lagging slightly behind, I think that today feel like the official starting point of this project for me. Today in class we planned out the shooting schedule for the semester and I now have official shooting dates to work towards. This makes it real. Too real. Good real. My story currently exists as a treatment which is being made into a script by Katie, whom I trust greatly as a writer. Once this script gets nailed down it's location scouting, casting, rounding out the crew, and getting down to business. I finally feel ready and excited. 

It's on. It's so on. 

New blog direction calls for a new sign off:

Do it to it,

Sarah 

Stuck

I'm in The Hometown Lull in addition to my writers block. I've outlined 3 different scripts since being here, one is promising but that hasn't kept me from thinking about all the ways that it's flawed. Will I ever be inspired again?

At least I'm relaxing, kind of, to the best of my ability. I'm excited to get back to Tucson in a week but terrified that we're that close to starting the semester and I'm still so clueless. Despite my lack of direction I'm stoked for this year. Since Jesse will be making his triumphant return to Tucson it makes me realize how much happier I am since freshman year when I met him. It'll be the usual crew plus Jesse plus legal drinkers all around and I just hope that we're all able to play as hard as we work this upcoming semester. And I want neighborhood dinners, damnit. I want them now.

For now I'm doing "home things", like hanging with my sister, seeing the few high school friends that I still like seeing, going to a Red Sox game tomorrow night - my first in 4 or 5 years - which I'm very excited for. Whenever I visit Boston in the spring or summer I'm always reminded by how much I love the city, but am increasinly saddened by how little of a life left I have in it. I'm admiting to myself now that I'd actually like to have a life in Boston again one day, I just don't know how soon that day is.

Bye kids,
Sarah

live every week like it's shark week

I've been spending a few days in my family's summer house in The Hamptons before heading back home to Massachusetts. This house is where I am able to relax more than any other place. It's so familiar, full of memories, and is usually filled with my favorite families. 

As relaxing as the days are here, the nights are something else. After everyone else goes to bed, I can never sleep. I sit on the couch watching some sort of late night food television and grow more and more antsy. 

Last night, in addition to the restlessness, there was script anxiety. I read about four of the stories George had sent me and dismissed all of them (probably too quickly) for various reasons. I wrote down a list of imagery I like, themes and subject matter I have been thinking about lately, and various lines of dialogue that I had heard recently in daily life that I thought were intriguing. I read this list over and over and am still as lost as ever.

I've started going back, farther mentally than I think qualifies as "Square 1", to the idea of doing a music video or a documentary. At this point I'm open to absolutely anything. I just feel completely uninspired, like I'm deep in a creative lull. I don't know what I need to do to get inspired, but it needs to happen quick. 

I'll be back home tomorrow, where I'll be downloading Celtx to my dad's computer until my new lappy arrives. I have a sick feeling that I'll be sending Makino 5-7 completely different scripts in a few weeks and telling her to chose. Each script will include an underwater, green-screen sex scene. Fact. 

Bye kids,

Sarah

Listening to: SHARK WEEK!

Hey Tucson Hey!

I am home, in our little duplex on 1st street, with lots of little bugs that worked their way in somehow. It's weird. Super duper weird. It all seems familiar enough; my bed still feels like my bed (and is still as amazingly cozy as ever), I still can fall asleep in one of our chairs in less than five minutes, and it looks like the same house I habitated in all of last year. But it's just all wrong. It probably feels that way for the following reasons: 1) I have no computer to occupy my time and I am incredibly lost and bored as hell without it. 2) I am alone in the house, without my Mo and without Mr. Tom even though I see evidence of his existance everywhere and am constantly tempted by the sixpack of Dos Equis that he left in our fridge. 3) Since reasons 1 and 2 have left me completely stir crazy in the house, all I want to do is go outside but it's so miserably hot out that I regret that decision within minutes of walking out the front door.

At least the library is air conditioned. I drove here because I didn't want to walk in the 110 degree heat but the drive is so short that I felt pathetic.

At least George, Nick and Allen are around so I've seen them a little. Still, the two days I've been here have been painfully long and lonely. I miss the beach and the breeze and the endless amount of activities that exist in LA. I'm also very very ready to fly back east tomorrow. I need to recouperate from the summer, I need to see the people from my Old Life, I need to write a script that I am happy with.

I am still as lost as ever when it comes to my script. I want to write about robbery, since I have it on my mind, but when I told the Momelet my idea she dismissed it as contrived. Of course it is; I feel contrived.

I'll be without a laptop to call my own for a while longer, but I'll have my sister's laptop to dick around with once I get home before my own lappy arrives.

I'm not ready to be back here for real. I'm not ready for the semester to start. I'm just not ready to be a real person again after this summer.

Bye kids, be well,
Sarah

Listening to: Some guy getting tutored in History a few computers down.

P.S. MONIQUE I SAW SKYLER! I was walking out of the blood drawing room after getting some taken and there she was sitting in the waiting room with her adorably large-headed baby. She said the shoot was great and she's very please with it, so obviously in my head I gave you all of the credit for that.