Just added a new plugin called Wordbook, which pretty much links your wordpress blog to your Facebook page. Let’s see if it works!

Move out date: 11/15/08
Flight to Hawaii: 11/18/08
Return to SF: 12/09/08
Move to LA apartment: ?

Cool article in today’s NY Times about how they’re promoting the commemorative Thriller album. It even includes a shout out to the Filipino prison video. I wonder why the article didn’t mention the Indian version.

The most recent episode of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew devoted this round of competition to MJ as all the competing crews performed dance routines to songs from that album. Here are the performances from some of my favorite crews:

Been a bit scattered over the past few weeks. Maybe it’s cabin fever since I’ve cooped myself up in the apartment. Maybe I just need to work. I just can’t seem to keep myself occupied with one thing for an extended period of time. It’s weird how you’re always much more focused when there are 8 million things going on. When there’s nothing, I just keep bouncing around.

A few weeks ago, I challenged myself to come up with a new idea for a script. I actually worked on it. I scoured a bunch of screenwriting websites, drew up a quick outline, and meant to revise it. Then I worked for a weekend and it kind of threw me off my groove. I had a feeling it would do that, but I figured that I’d be able to come back to it and work on it some more. Never really happened.

Then I connected with an old co-worker who is in a band that is releasing a new CD next month. We casually talked about the possibility of producing a music video together. Naturally, this excited me and for about four days straight, I was focused on that. I’d set the song on repeat and let it play while I brainstormed concepts and ideas that would fit the song. Right now, I’ve got a rough treatment that needs to be cleaned up a bit. But for some reason, I can’t force myself to just finish it up.

And then there’s the whole leaving NY thing. I’ve spent the past couple of days evaluating where I am at in this career path and what the next logical step would be. If you read the two comments on that post, LA was suggested. Now I’ve contacted some of the folks that I know down there – some from Cogswell, some from Bindlestiff, and others that I just met over the years. Their words have certainly been encouraging and the idea of moving to LA occupies a huge chunk of my brain activity. (I was actually trying to sleep just now and got up just to jot some thoughts down about it. Of course, the thai iced tea I drank at 10:00PM is also a likely culprit for the insomnia.)

But my optimism about the potential in LA is halted when I think about the one thing that can prevent me from pulling the trigger – the good ol’ $. See, last year, when I was preparing for my move to NY, I had a full-time job. I knew exactly how much money would be coming in and how much I would be able to save within the timeframe I was working with. Not to mention the tax refund and the PTO pay out. Now that I am self-employed, it’s much trickier. I can’t really predict how much I will make in any given month, thus can’t really determine how much I can save, either. And since I get 1099s, it’s likely I will have to pay taxes.

Now among all the other moving costs I would need to save up for, I will also need to build up some sort of cushion – at least three to four months worth of living expenses because of my line of work. If you’ve been tuning in since the beginning, you don’t magically get paid grip & electric jobs right away. Time needs to be taken to work on some unpaid gigs – like student films and indie shorts. You start to rub shoulders with more and more people. If they can stand to be around you for 12 hours/day, you might end up on their short list of people to call when there’s work. To put things into perspective, it took me about 4 months before I started to get called regularly. So without doing any math, it’s kind of scary. Unless I get booked ASAP to the end of summer, a plan such as this may not be executable.

But that’s enough of the glass-half-empty scenario. The bright side is I already know people out there who might be able to get me involved much quicker. Al-Jay will be graduating from film school soon, so being able to latch onto a DP is definitely a good situation. A guy I know from Cogswell is in the electrician’s union. A couple of indie filmmakers, an editor, and a few others round out the list contacts. And I’m sure they know people too. Of course this doesn’t guarantee anything. But it sure is a hell of a lot more than I had when I came out here to NY. And I’ve got some chops now. Some down and dirty NYC film work has got to count for something, right?

So now that I’ve puked out everything that’s been eating me lately, it’s best that I focus. Maybe I need to get out of the apartment for a few hours a day – just sit at a cafe and just soak in something other than the white walls of this narrow apartment. You know it’s bad when you hold off mailing out your Netflix just so you will have something to do the next day. Oh well, I guess all the time off has given me the opportunity to work on my Hawaii figure for Eric and Mon’s wedding in May.

This is why I should really stay behind the camera.