Breathing Room

JD Walsh has entered the political fray and gone viral…

Well, at least one musician out there is lending a helping hand to filmmakers in need of music for their films. Variety.com reported this week that Moby, the ‘multifaceted dance music artist’ who is the man behind hit songs like “Southside” and “We Are All Made of Stars,” is giving away 44 unreleased tracks for use by indie, nonprofit and student filmmakers (11 instrumental tracks from “Hotel,” six from “Play: B Sides” and three from “18.”), which are available on mobygratis.com

TriggerStreet.com | Trigger Digest

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You always pass failure on the way to success.
                                                    Mickey Rooney

7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure | Life Optimizer

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Breathing Room on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I should clarify something about yesterday’s post. I mentioned a couple of people who didn’t like Breathing Room - but there are other people who do like it. My point wasn’t that the film sucked.

I realized right after making the movie that it’s nearly impossible to make a film everyone likes. That’s rough because a film is a such a big, time consuming thing to do.

I’m a photographer, too. If someone doesn’t like one of my photos, that’s ok - I have hundreds more. They will probably like one of them.

I only have one feature film, so far. If people don’t like it, that’s all I’ve got. If people do…well, it’s still all I’ve got.

Dealing with rejection is just part of being an artist. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

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JD Walsh in Breathing Room

I had lunch with JD Walsh yesterday, the star of my indie film Breathing Room. I haven’t seen JD in years, except for the numerous TV and commercial roles that I see him in all the time. We met at the same Burbank Acapulco that Britney Spears went to a few weeks ago, so we were living the dream.

JD’s great and he’s now married and a father and runs an improv group. JD asked about the path I’ve been the past few years, so I told him - from making Breathing Room to doing stock footage and corporate video to teaching, living in Orlando and Austin, wandering the Pacific Northwest and then working at my current job for the last three years.

JD was very gracious and told me that he felt like he’d learned a lot from acting in BR, so if I wanted help on project he was there. But he told me he wanted to be honest and said that he didn’t think I should be putting any of my time into Breathing Room. I’d referred to Breathing Room as a ‘fixer upper’, like a house that had problems but the basic foundation was there. JD said a better analogy might be ‘marshland’.

What’s that sound people make when someone punches them in the stomach? Oomph?

JD wasn’t being mean. He was being honest and helpful. He has giving me his best advice. I guess I thought when he found out that I was doing work on BR that his reaction would be ‘Wow! Cool - that was a good little film that really needed to be finished!’ Instead, I realized that it was more like “Wow! Let that corpse stay buried!”

And - can’t emphasize this enough -  JD said he’d do whatever I needed on the film. I told him a couple of the ideas that I had and he said I was clearly passionate about it, which I think is what I think they say to crazy people to calm them down.

I told my wife Lauren about my lunch conversation and how JD said he thought I should just move on. She was pretty quiet - what she did NOT say was, “Well, I think it’s a great film - whatever anyone says, keep going, honeychild!”  But nobody really talks like that. Well, my Mom did, actually.

Then this morning, Lauren and I got in an argument about something else altogether and she got pissed off at me and said “…and JD is right, you ARE nuts about Breathing Room! It’s a bad film, it’s boring!”

What’s that sound people make when someone kicks them in the nuts? Ygeeeaaeii?

So, neither my film’s lead actor nor my wife are big fans of the movie. And here I am writing about it. Do I know publicity or what?

And still…I’m not giving up.

I like the film and I see the possibilities in fixing it. It’s too slow in some parts - boring, I guess - but I know how I’m going to fix that.I don’t plan to abandon the film for the exact same reason I don’t think you should abandon your kids. I know I’m overly optimistic and that’s gotten me in trouble sometimes in the past but on the other hand I MADE A FUCKING MOVIE and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to see it through to some sort of life outside of gathering dust on a shelf in my office.

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Breathing Room on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I mentioned that went to a screenwriting conference this past weekend and of course in every discussion about scripts and how to write a scene, I kept thinking about Breathing Room. Specifically, when anyone talked about High Concept writing or conflict in a scene or pretty much anything, the first thought that would occur to me is “Hey, I’m a total fuckup!”

That’s life in my head, really.

Upon further consideration, though, I think I wrote a pretty good movie. The fundamentals are actually there when I stop and look at the movie itself, not the negative bullshit floating around my brain. The film is fixable and worth fixing.

Hopefully, I’ll start getting some before and after scenes posted here soon.

I’ve been taking some great classes at this year’s Creative Screenwriting Expo but I’m too tired right now to write everything I’m thinking. Here’s a quote that’s very fitting about my feeling about my own film making from Hal Ackerman, who I took a couple of classes with yesterday..

What, in your opinion, are the most common mistakes aspiring screenwriters make when they’re getting started — mistakes that can ultimately lead to their failure?

I’d prefer to replace the word “failure” with “delayed success.”  The only thing that absolutely guarantees failure is quitting, giving up, packing it in…

Writers Break: Interview with Hal Ackerman

For years, I gave up. Now I’m working on delayed success.

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PrepShootPost

Eric Escobar is a freelance multi-hyphenate filmmaker from San Francisco and he has a new blog. A recent post talked about how all skin tones are the same hue value on a scope. Check out his new blog here!

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So I announce a contest to get your song in the soundtrack for my movie Breathing Room - and then I find out that Microsoft has a similar contest, with actual prizes!

Don’t worry - if Microsoft blows you off, I’ll still be here…

Microsoft is sponsoring a nationwide contest to identify one lucky artist or band to be included on the Official Halo 3 Original Soundtrack. Submissions are currently being accepted on the Halo 3 MySpace page at myspace.com/halo3 until 12:00 P.M. PT on October 22, 2007.Submissions will be reviewed by an esteemed Halo Judging Council, moderated by both Halo 3 album producers Nile Rodgers and Michael Ostin and composer Marty O’Donnell.Grand prize winners and second and third place finishers will also receive a Halo 3 prize package including an Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition Console, a copy of the Halo 3 game, additional Halo 3 merchandise, an exclusive Halo 3 Ibanez Xiphos electric guitar, and a Zune-Halo 3 edition music player.For more information on the, contest and other exclusive content, please visit www.myspace.com/halo3.

Xbox.com | Halo® 3 - Halo 3 Original Soundtrack Announced

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