Surreal Lessons from Pills

So remember my rant last blog? The one about all the people here, stupid people here? Well, I changed my mind. I mean, kind of not but yes. Okay, so the film wrapped production and now that I have had a few days to look back and reflect on it, I have learnt a lot and their sitting on me and squashing me was a little good for me. And I dont think its just this job, in any job, you just have to toughen up and learn not to take things personally.

I just finished reading a book called Rebels on the Backlot. Quick read about six "maverick" directors who flourished by rebelling against the studio system. These guys sounded a lot like my supervisor at this gig: they sweet-talked and smack-talked at the same time, did not accept no for an answer, were not afraid to bully people around them and ultimately got their film made. Traffic, Fight Club, Three Kings, etc are all films that are hailed as classics right now and were critically lauded when they came out (except for Fight Club which got terrible reviews and failed commercially). But these guys never had a bad attitude about it, I mean they knew what they were making and had the confidence to crush everything that told them otherwise. I love this one quote David Fincher has about Fight Club: The producer is whining to him about how he is going to loose his job fighting for the film. Fincher whips back, "I dont have any sympathy for you. Ten years from now, you'll be picking up chicks saying - Im the guy that made Fight Club." And, you bet he is. So, lesson, not all lessons come to me right away. Some of these take a little time to settle in.

I'm done at Akeelah. I had a fabulous time at the wrap party and got a whole bunch of numbers and what not. I have to set up a meeting with both the director and the producer sometime because there is a lot I want to know from them. If I had a script, I would have given that in to the producer as well, but like hell I don't. Its all a land of opportunities and no one knows which one is going to serve up.

Today I was supposed to start at the Surreal Life because Bernie Mac is on hiatus for a week. So I was going to check that gig out and see how those guys put that house together. I havent seen the Surreal Life and dont care much for it, but I'm always in on the learning ride. Have you ever thought about how those shows are lit.. how do you light a reality show in a house, and never have people bang into lights or always expose everything perfectly or indicate times of day? How many crew people do you have? How do you do script notes and classify footage for editing? These are all answers I hope to get from the Surreal Life.

But I DID Not go to the surreal life today because I'm home sick and with a cold. Today was my first day off since Feb 10, when production on Akeelah started so its not so bad. I watched The Incredibles on Josh's computer (Josh Hegmann is my roommate...) and just chilled out and ate Thai Food and took some medicines. I rarely fall sick, so I was really frustrated. Dang it.