Category Archives: business

January 28, 2011 · 8:11 pm

Sundance Wrap-Up and What’s Up for February

We are BACK!

Sundance was amazing this year and incredibly busy!  This is where I apologize for not keeping up with the daily blogging – but if you were paying attention to my Twitter Feed then you had a pretty good idea of what was going on.  If not, here’s the brief rundown in bullet points:

  • Arrived and enjoyed some of Park City’s finest beers and Mexican food.
  • Went to a LOT of industry mixers and mixed with some of our favorite, & new favorite, industry people.
  • Saw mostly good movies (Brick Novax’s Diary, Babyland, Benavides Born, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of Toynbee Tiles & Here) & one crappy one (Vampire.  Seriously, avoid this one.).
  • Found out I’m still pretty famous in Utah form just 2 things: Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Mary-Kate & Ashley Olson’s Winning London.
  • Missed a party that I really think I would have enjoyed, but happy that we didn’t get the food poisoning that a few of the attendees got.
  • Left Park City on one of the most beautiful days of the trip.

I was also introduced to a new production tool called doddle.  It’s a program and app that helps production run smoother – specifically when you need a call sheet.  Check out the link above to see a demo, but I’ll be writing up about it more on the Wiggy Blog.

As far as what’s coming up in February – it’s all production and Wiggy Webs!

We’re getting into the filming part of our documentary and that is VERY exciting, but as far as things you can watch you’ll have to check out Wiggy Webs!  Feb. 7th will launch the first of the new programs on our channel so I hope you’ll check that out.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, making movies, sundance '11, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs

January 7, 2011 · 7:00 pm

Creativity and Time

I can safely call myself a producer now. For a long time I believe I was an actor who was producing, but now my time is definitely spent more in a producer role than as an actor. There are pros and cons to this, most I don’t really want to go into right now, but the biggest change that I’ve noticed, especially the last couple days, is that I don’t have the time to solve the creative problems that have been popping up.

I guess “problems” is the wrong word, they’re more like “issues.”  Things with CMD!, the documentary, the other development projects and Wiggy Webs are really starting to push forward, but as things ramp up the time that I feel comfortable dedicating to the creative side keeps shrinking.  There’s just too much business to do.  I find myself excited when I have to go to the store because it means I don’t have to review another invoice or re-do a budget.  Don’t get me wrong, people pray for my problems but I miss the days of sitting in front of this computer and just making up stories whether good or bad.

I think that, once a few of the current projects get far enough along I’ll be able to dedicate myself to the creative more, but in the mean time I’ll be negotiating with myself about when I’m going to pull out a CMD! re-write and review a new script or two.

These are such first world problems.  I suddenly feel very guilty even writing about it.

See you tomorrow!  Warts and all!

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Filed under business, cheerleaders must die, doctor who, projects, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs

December 30, 2010 · 12:22 am

Blog Writing When I Should Be Searching & Star Wars

I have a headache, I’ve lost a log book and I can’t find a printout that I need to read.
Instead of doing anything about those things I’m writing a blog, not because I’m particularly inspired but because I can’t think of another place to look for these things.  We had a bit of a leak in the office and in the rush to place tarps to keep everything dry I remember seeing the log book and the print out.  I moved them to keep them safe and I forgot where I put them.  I’ve been looking most of the afternoon and I’m at a point of frustration where I’m too tired to tear the house apart and I’m hoping that they will just magically appear.

So far they haven’t.

It is possible that I threw out the print out.  I can live with that, but I want to know what happened to the log book!

Well this is a boring rant kind of a blog so here’s a link to an article about going a year without Star Wars that I think is great and important for creatives of my generation to read: A Year Without Star Wars

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, documentary, making movies, rant, star wars

December 28, 2010 · 8:33 pm

It Is December 28th – This Is Not A Top Ten List!

It’s the end of the year and after a long rest over the last two days I’m starting to feel recharged and ready to attack the new year!  I am shamed to say that I tried getting started yesterday on stuff, but after Rene’s head shot shoot and a few phone calls I was completely exhausted (the remains of my cold may have contributed as well but I hate to admit when I’m sick.)

This morning I woke up ready to attack the world and I looked like this:

OK, that picture is mildly posed, but I think you catch my drift.

In other news, working on the documentary has led me to watch some strange reality T.V. – some as research and some just because I didn’t change the channel fast enough.  Right now I’m watching “Hoarders: Buried Alive” on TLC.  I’m completely fascinated.  These stories don’t seem like they could be real, but they are and it’s shocking to see how out of control things can get.

I’m going to go now, things to do.

See you tomorrow! 

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Filed under business, general, making movies

December 25, 2010 · 9:18 am

Christmas Eve… Oh, wait it’s already Christmas!

I’m sitting in our living room watching The History Channel learning about the gospel of Judas.  I’ve already seen most of it, but I’m not tired and can’t sleep.  I wish I could say that I was all jazzed for Christmas morning and that was why I can’t sleep but I feel like I’m too old for that and really my mind is just full of mud, and I feel inspired to write. 

I bought myself a Moleskine journal, the same kind that I got my groomsmen.  They’re supposed to be the same kind of journal that Hemingway used and I like Hemingway and I wanted a fun new book so I got one.  When I was a teenager I used to keep journals all the time.  When I look back at them they are basically diaries with all the embarrassing emotional ramblings that you’d expect to see coming out of a upper-middle class teen, but I never thought of them as diaries I always called them “blank books” and usually  bought new ones when I found one with what I thought was a cool cover.  The first one was bound in burlap and is still my favorite. 

This Moleskine journal is pretty neat.  It’s small, pocket sized, and comes with an elastic strap to hold the book closed.  There’s a ribbon book mark to hold your place and an expanding pocket in the back to hold things that are just a bit bigger than a business card.  The inner cover has a spot to write your address so that it can be returned if lost and, in a wonderfully pretentious turn, a line that says, “Reward if returned: $______”.  I don’t think I’m going to fill in that last line.  All the pomp and circumstance makes it feel like whatever I write in there should be important like notes for a travel journal or government secrets and so I find myself dying to jot in it but not sure what it should be.  Whatever it is I’m confident that I’ll avoid the emotional ramblings of a thirty-something.

Next week starts the editing process for the new sets pf shows that will be featured on Wiggy Webs.  I’ll be posting on the Wiggy Blog and Twitter as those new shows go up – I’m very excited!!

I’m yawning now so I’m going to go to sleep.

Merry Christmas to all!

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under adventures, business, day in the life, rambling

November 14, 2010 · 7:03 pm

Budgets, Books & Boxes

There seems to be no end to moving in.  Rene and I moved back in September and here we are, mid-November, and out place still looks like we moved yesterday.  I’m finally getting up the gumption to get everything put away and un-boxed. A lot of that comes from the fact that I’m selling off a bunch of crap I didn’t even realize I still had.  Right now eBay is my best friend!  I’m am so happy that my geeky 20’s can now be passed on to new 20-somethings who appreciate geeky stuff too!

And are willing to pay for it.

Speaking of paying for stuff – I’m all about movie budgets right now.  I have completed an updated budget for the documentary we are working on – more about that on the Wiggy blog next week – and we have been asked to produce a $5million budget for CMD!  I swear the little project that could just keeps getting bigger than we ever expected!  Now I just hope someone will finally fund it!

I need to go sort books right now, some to sell and some to store, so have a great remainder of a weekend!

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, ebay, making movies, moving, rene

November 11, 2010 · 5:41 pm

Blog Epic Fail!

Oh, I’m laid low in my shame about how poorly I’ve kept up with my blog.  It’s been nearly a month since my last posting and the whole idea of “making sure I write once a day” and “project 365 2010” have completely fallen off the rails.  It’s not that there isn’t good reason – getting married, several projects all moving forward and starting work on a new documentary – but I’m not a fan of excuses, I prefer results and the current result on this blog is failure.

So I started asking myself what I should do next?  Should I keep up Project 365 2010?  I have a bunch of pictures that are ready to be uploaded, but I’ve definitely missed many days and so it’s starting to feel like the project is actually getting in the way of itself.  It’s also gotten in the way of general blogging since I feel like I need to go back to catch up to what hasn’t been posted – but there are so many things happening RIGHT NOW that my brain has a really hard time focusing on things that happened last month when I really want to talk about things happening today.

So this is what I’ve decided to do – I’m going to post the last remaining pictures I have for Project 365 2010 right here – in this very blog – with no remarks or days and then the project will officially be over.  The blog will hopefully begin again as a daily thing since I’ll be able to mobile blog again without worrying about the pictures.  The end of 2010 is going to be CRAZY busy and there will still be a bunch of pictures, but I think it’s time to drop the whole “picture a day” deal.

Here are the pics!

 See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, fail, Frankie, making movies, project 365 2010, the wedding

October 12, 2010 · 6:55 am

Project 365 9-28-2010 Multi-Task!

This is Multi-tasking:

  • Editing computer – Check!
  • Zombie Love script for memorization – Check!
  • Email open for movie stuff – Check!

What isn’t visible is my phone with all the IM’s and other email account.

This is why I’m not keeping up with my blogs.

See you tomorrow.

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Filed under business, making movies, project 365 2010, theater

September 26, 2010 · 6:00 pm

Project 365 9-22-2010 Catching Up

Wow!  Apparently I’m really bad at maintaining a blog while I’m moving, rehearsing a new play, looking for film funding, shopping reality programing, teaching, getting a corporation back on it’s feet and planning a wedding.  I apologize for my dereliction of blog duties and for the passive aggressive way that I just talked about how busy Rene & I have been.

As you have seen from the pictures that I did remember to take over the last few weeks we’ve been up to a lot!  I still want to revisit my day at the L.A. Time Festival of Food & Wine – I emcee’d right next to the stage that I shot two of three seasons of Sabrina the Teenage Witch on – but I’ve finnally caught up so I want to talk about today and what it makes me think of: sleep, Taco Bell and how fast time has been moving.

Sleep, due to the lack of it.  there’s just too much to do.

Taco Bell because for some reason I’ve had a craving for it the last couple days and I finally gave into to it today.  We’ll see how my colon fares tomorrow.

Time flying because it just is!  I started working at 8am today and it was 5pm before I knew it!  There is still so much to do.  I have three emails to write that I’ve been meaning to get out since Monday – guess that’s what Thursday is for.

Rene and I are in a new play this fall called “Zombie Love”.  It opens soon and Rene and I will be getting even less sleep as we do rehearsals.  Here’s a picture of the script:

Now I’m going to bed.  Hopefully I’ll get my desktop fixed soon.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, doing new things, making movies, moving, new play, project 365 2010, rene

September 13, 2010 · 7:47 am

Project 365 8-27-2010 Hollywood & Hobbits.

*NOTE: I know these are SUPER late!  Rene & I moved & it took forever for us to get internet up & running.  So between here and 9-13-2010 these entries are going to be brief.*
I had a very busy day today.  I ran up to L.A. to meet with some of my networking friends and then ran back down to O.C. to see “The Hobbit” playing at The Maverick Theater.  The play is excellent, see it while you can, and the meeting was fun, Happy Hour with gourmet appetizers!  I was wrestling with which picture to use for today and originally I was going to post this one:
It’s the really cool laptop case that one of my associates brought to Happy Hour, but I decided on this instead from the bathroom of an Anaheim El Pollo Loco:
Why that one?  Because it’s stupid and sometimes we all benefit from being reminded that stupid people do stupid things on the walls of public places.  I would like to make special mention of the misspelling of “faget.”
See you tomorrow!

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Filed under business, project 365 2010, rene, theater