Tutoring business, Working at Warner Bros, and Glass Golem

Shit, cut to nine months later. I'd offer deep apologies were any one reading this. After a stint with Davidson tutoring during the ISEE season, I kept many of my students and expanded into business on my own as a tutor. Those students recommended me to other students and suddenly I am working 1.5 hours a day for the same pay... minus obscene driving time up and down Santa Monica Blvd.

Last week, I was picked up by Warner Bros and Rob Long as an assistant on the sitcom Sullivan and Son. I can't say I'm too sorry to see tutoring go, although I now work ten hours for the pay I made in two. Still, it's exciting to work in production (and eventually, on set). At the moment there is little to do and this badly necessitates a side project. Blogging? Something purely masturbatory, please. I could do reviews or something.

I get a lot of writing done on my more recent script, Glass Golem, but with the possibility of someone peaking in their head every five seconds, it makes such devoted work... less desirable. Still, two hours on it each day seems more than possible. While the last movie, Foster & Mephistopheles, came in at about eight minutes long, with Glass Golem I am looking for something bulkier and deeper. F&M, if anything, was mostly a dialogue exercise dramatically filmed, and a calling card for all players involved. The primary character, meaty to the point of psychosis, proved outside of Mats' comfort range, and thus the project itself ended up benefiting primarily myself. Mats played the sniveling counterpart character, the titular Foster.

For Glass Golem I have different goals:
a) Characters that sound less like myself. This worked for F&M because the movie was so completely dominated by the Calvin character that my style of humor was easily recognizable. I'll leave the implications of a psychopath character epitomizing my style of humor to the reader.
b) An action scene. I'm thinking the Golem character will jump on top of a car when he, Moshe, and Dodger are being chased by Dodger's ardent fans.
c) Intensely avoiding morals. F&M avoided to the point of coming out -against- morality, but in this case, especially with a "learning robot" type character, the pitfalls of pontificating characters seems intense.
d) A lead character that isn't Mats! This seems wildly important, as Mats and I CAN NOT work together as director and actor. Mats' breakdown on the F&M set caused an editing challenge I prefer not to repeat. Maybe, MAYBE, there is a part for him as Dodger's friend at the restaurant. The character's few lines could reduce the focus on Mats and require much less direction from me.
e) An increase in scale. F&M looks wonderful, but that may be because I kept the budget at zero and went black and white to hide the lack of color. It worked stylistically but who knows how difficult and expensive the new sets and locations, the color balancing, and juggling what looks to be over seven actors plus extras will be.

How nice it was to visit the schlickbernds today. It felt like a tutors visit to an victorian family, except everyone was laughing and having a good time. I felt very welcome and present in the moment.

I am, however, in a bit of a panic now about jobs. I wake up and realize I havent taught in half a year. I have spent that time writing, and too slowly. Life can go by so quickly if you let it. I must stand more firmly on my own feet.

Very glad to be getting the Ivan/Calvin project off the ground.
We had over four hundred and fifty people apply to audition for Ivan. Insane!

I fear I am getting nothing done with my life. I am in a holding pattern. Why am I not applying to grad school, or finding a career, or working as a production assistant? Where the hell is my progress?

Finished!

Yes! Finally finished the last scene of the first draft. Now that the story work is done, I can go back and finish a lot of the clean-up... but later, and with fresh eyes. Beyond just general housekeeping (making sure the blocking, etc. looks professional) I need to work on Tracy's voice. My god it's hard to write Tracy.

Tracy is a racist minefield.

Between then and now I am developing the pilot and getting a job. And then Sarah comes in August to write our Big Bang Theory.

Pops issue

I was poised to write today, but bad news this morning about my grandpa derailed me. He had a stroke at 8 am and this is it. I can't feel it out properly. I think my brain is trying to ignore it, but I think this a trap a lot of men fall into to. It boils beneath the surface, and I am testy with everyone until I told them what happened. He's 92, and he seems ready to go, but it's still my mother's father and he's still a real person who's dying. I say it's ok, but I know I will still be scared shitless to die when I am 92. I want to tell him I'm gay before he goes... he's the only person I never told, and I think that's when the divide between us started.

I have one scene left to write before my first draft is completed, and then I can revise, or start another project and revise later, or, you know. Get a job.

Blog Re-brand

Previously unmentioned in this blog: I've moved to LA. That happened about 8 months ago. Sometimes I am very happy here. The people are good looking I guess. It might be turning me anorexic.

I read over my old journal earlier today and maybe it was the thickness of my shirt, or the dramatic effect of my shave, but I feel more relaxed now. It's possible that previously I wasn't here as myself, or even in Chicago... facing all that stuff and recognizing how emotionally wild I was, and incorporating that into my current narrative, puts me at peace. A common story back then was for me to get obsessed with someone who was within reach and fed me a bone now and then, but was otherwise emotionally unavailable. I mean I would be in LOVE, and then I would concoct minischeme after minischeme and write it all down. Ironically, if any of them had worked, I would no longer be interested. They were a tad dumb. That's hard to admit.

Today I feel that with my focus on my career and the rapid maturing of my friends, my life has become rather dry. My old livejournal would have comments from a circle of friends out the wazzu. Gina, Kyle, Sarah, Eli, Rachel, and Amy... all these people have moved on, moved to another state, or become an orthodox jew. Now it's just Mats, and he and I are very different people. I've made some new friends here, but it's hard to compare to them to the old time crew. I think I can make friends easily, but no one can speed up time to make these relationships deep!

However, outside of this stated goal (expand my social life) my focus for this journal will be as a work progress blog, with maybe a splash of color now and then. I'm going to simply record what I worked on that day, to keep myself accountable... much like what a manager would do to their employee.

Right now my 30 rock spec is two scenes away from being "complete." Some jokes are missing in some spots, and this is noted, but I'm completely intent on going back after the completion of this first draft to redo a lot of the dialogue and scene descriptions, especially to make the character's voices more true to themselves. A particular focus is Liz, who was surprisingly difficult.