Sorry for being bad keeping up with updates and e-mails these days...I've been very lucky, I'm in pre production on 2 films I will shoot at the same time...and that, right now brings the total projects I'm working on (in one way or another) to about six in the next 4-6 months. These 2 films are pretty different, but both tell pretty intriguing stories...the first, for Cowbell Films is "Down With The Boogey" which, has been compared to a lot of things, but for me, it most reminds me of "The Battleship Scene with Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" meets "Adaptation". I've never read anything like this, I deceided on wanting to be part of it by PAGE 13, and I really can't wait to start filming it on August 25th:
And the second, is a project I've been wanting to do for a little more than a year, and it's called "LEAF" based on the story of Ryan Leaf, an NFL quarterback in 1998 who really managed to make everyone forget about his talent and amazing football potential, by him focusing on his arrogance, ego and bad behavior. Ryan was out of the league by 2002.
So with that, when I was asked about the busy work schedule coming up, I remembered another time when I was lucky and had the chance to work on 3 tv shows in 5 days, but at the same time, didn't sleep at all. Which believe, me the way I see it, there's always time to sleep, but this particular week was pretty wild. I started the "sleep deprived blur" that Friday...I used to work this corporate security gig which entailed, well nothing there wasn't much to do and there was only one person there. It was a computer firm that had to be open 24/7, and my shift was always Friday 11pm to Saturday morning at 7am, then back Saturday at 3pm to work through 7am that Sunday morning, then back at 3pm that Sunday to work through 7am Monday morning. So 40 hous in one weekend and it gave me Monday through Friday to work on projects and travel to do auditions. So after that shift ended Monday morning at 7am I was in the heart of New York City working on Darren Star's wall street show "The $treet" by about 10am, it was great because it was a recurring job for me, plus the cast was really nice, Jennifer Connelly, Tom Everet Scott, Christian Campbell, Bridgette Wilson Sampras....so from there I worked til about 9pm that night, and had to work on "ALL MY CHILDREN" that next morning at 6am (another recurring job, I was in a very lucky time) where I worked til about 4pm, in time to be at a commercial meeting by 5, back to "The $treet" the next morning at 5am, at about 10am that day, I get a call to appear on LAW AND ORDER, I wrapped late on The $treet and the next day at about 6am I was at another studio on Chlesea piers in NYC for L&O. That was a LONG shoot day and By Friday I think I'd slept about 6 hours the entire week, Friday was particularly tough because, do you know that feeling when you're not sleeping where you just sort of ache all over? That day I had no lines on L&O, which was good, but it was a big long court scene. The great Sam Wasterson did a pretty incredible monologue, but I have no idea what he said, because I was fighting so hard to keep from nodding off, it got to the point where there was an "extra" sitting in back of me that was kind enough to kick me when my head started looking pretty heavy.. I'd wrapped L&O by 8:45pm that Friday night and was at my 40 hour weekend job by 11pm Friday night. So really when all is said and done, it was well worth it, but at the same time I had never gone so long without a solid night of sleep...by that weekend, I think my brain just started giving up. I was making phone calls to people, and having the same conversation I'd had with them only 3 hours prior, motor skills had sort of come to the point where it looked like each one of my feet were like 100lbs each!
Anyway there's really no moral to the story aside from get your sleep, and as crazy as the schedule may be over the next few months, I doubt anything would be like those 9 straight no sleep days! By the way I'll be shooting LEAF in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvana, New Jersey and possibly Texas, so I'll be keeping updates up over the Film production profile at "Parking Lot Films" (it's on my top 8, and we accept every request for friends!)
Now for a cd I hope everyone takes a listen to...
Rancid
This is the very first "Rancid" cd, I've been a fan for a while, but for some reason I always come back to this cd. They were only a trio at the time and the songs here, it just feels like the entire batch is a great "sing a long" song with tunes like "Rats in the Hallway" and "Outta My Mind" you can normally find this one at a used cd shop in your area, it's not the most popular of their releases, but if you get the chance, give it a try, it's definitely worth it!