Ooops. Calendar malfunction

Tuesday September 3rd. 22:58

Okay, so I messed that up. I thought it was tonight that the guys from Beacon, including my near estranged friend Helen were coming over. I was wrong. Not for the first time lately, I got the wrong week.

Oh well. Glad that I call Stephen and checked when I got home. The conversation went something like...

Me '.... so Steve, when are you guys thinking of getting here for the filming...'

Steve ' Errr. Next Tuesday. Like I said in my email.'

Me 'Bollox'.

I have not heard anything from my temperamental teenage daughter. Nothing since the outbursts /  chaos of the weekend. At least I know she is alive and well. Well enough to be posting things of facebook at any rate.

Having suddenly found my evening a lot more empty than I had expected, I finally pried my sorry ass off the sofa around 21:34 to have a crack at the editing I have promised to do for Steve. I was just getting into my stride, trying to find all the files concerned, chose between doing the edit (or at least initially) in iMovie or in Final Cut Express, when the batteries in my 'magic mouse' announced that they were about to die.

Not that fucking magical of them then.

I took this as a foretelling that it was time to give up, pack up, and go to bed. By go to bed, I mean get into bed, and write a blog entry (this one) on my Chromebook.

The shenanigans with meetings and stuff at work meant I could not keep to my normal routine of going to lunch at 1pm. This meant that I didn't get to share it with my friend, which I find sad, as it certainly gives the day a nice break and she provides a nice distraction.

To Vlog, or not, to Vlog. That is the question.

I've been playing around today with the camera and Final Cut Express to see how easy it would be to put the same person in one scene three times. It turns out that it's actually very easy, when you've spent half the day figuring out how the hell to do it.

After messing about with the technology vs my lack of skill and finally getting to a workable solution. Which I have uploaded onto the M27's facebook page for all the world to see.

I've also decided to have a little play with some of the footage that I've taken on my Blackberry of the cats, and edited that quickly in iMovie. Example of this  :-

Flip camcorder

I have been a little inspired lately by the vlogging style of Nerdzrl who seems to pretty much just take her  flip camcorder with her wherever she goes, and record her conversation to camera, and with real people too. I don't know if the good folks of Cosham would react in the passive way that the public in Canada seem to be happy with being filmed, which is funny really given our propensity to shove a CCTV camera in every conceivable location. (by conceivable location, I don't actually mean the ones people conceive in, although you never know....).

When I was a teenager, like most teenagers, I was pretty convinced that I had a unique and special way of looking at the world, and no one else really understood. It wasn't just me they didn't get, THEY also didn't understand how the world REALLY was. THEY just couldn't see it.

Well now that I am (ahem) older. My opinion is pretty much the same. Except maybe just a little (a little I said) arrogant. I do think I look at the world in a slightly different way to most other people. Does that make me some sort of undiscovered genius ? Hell no. It probably means that I am more socially backward than normal people and have far too much thinking time on my hands.

Anyway, I have digressed. When I was a teenager, I kept a diary. That's not that uncommon. A lot of teenagers do. Inspired as I was by 'The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole' (By Sue Townsend) in all it's generations, I picked up whatever writing implement was to hand at the time and committed to paper the workings of my demented, self absorbed teenage mind. There are volumes of my diary, pages upon pages of it. I told my impressionable, naive, and intellectually reckless young self that 'one day you can publish this, and it will be of comfort to anyone that reads it... ' not so sure about that one now or that 'your children can read it when they are teenagers and will be happy to know that the sort of things they are going through are the same things that their dear old dad was going through when he was their age'. hmmm. If there is one thing that is certain in the universe it is that teenagers most definitely do NOT want to be reminded of any similarities with their parents. As my daughter rapidly approaches her teenage years, one thing comes to mind. There's no way she would ever be interested in reading it.

For one thing, it's pages and pages of self opinionated drivel (see nothing changes). Deluded is the word that comes to mind.

So in the face of my daughter reading my diary, and suddenly having a tearful revelation that I too, suffered as I was a teenager, that I too did awkward uncool things. (still am doing - how's the hat going ?) That I too was a jumbling mess around the opposite sex. A mess around the same sex for that matter.

My point, my point ? Oh yes, there WAS a point. Is the written word more suited to this kind of outpouring or is the video blog (vlog) better ?

2nd day and going well

2nd day of my holiday away, but not very far (about 10 feet as it happens), and I'm feeling good.

I got up Monday about 8:30, and was at the desk, tapping away at the keyboard by 9. With the odd break or two, working the majority of the day until about 4, when I peeled myself away from a 98% completed 'The Adventures Of Stephen Brown' script, and went and had a bath.

What a skank, I hear you say. Soddit.

Anyhow. Even the curve ball that was thrown my way, which was that two of the principle guest characters in this story can't make any filming days together had been catered for. I just needed to throw in some reference to what was going to be happening in the next story, and I was done. I just didn't want it to look like I had just 'thrown it in'.

Helen came round Monday evening, and after what seems to have become the customary takeaway (last week was Pizza, this week was curry) - both of us stuffed to the gills with Korma (despite ordering Passanda - but that's another story entirely) we got to being creative. We came up with loads of ideas. Some we could film, some we could not. We gave up waiting for anyone else to arrive... we are a filming group of two at the moment. Which is intimate, and rather nice, as Helen and I get on so well together, but the idea of a club is that there is, well, some people in it. Anyway.

We threw our artistic sensibilities out of the window, and filmed me eating a poppadom, and then edited it to show... well, oh just watch the film it'd be easier... www.youtube.com/m27online

We got that edited and uploaded, as well as making some progress in getting last week's effort edited. I've noticed that the last few things have seen me in front of the camera, which had actually been some time. It's nice, for me to 'act' (or is that 'act up' ?). Helen is really good on the camera, and is so much the better of the two of us at 'going handheld'.

Chris came down today to work on our script for 'The 9th Man'. We were a little disheartened at first that we had not got further than we had previously. We spent the time reminding ourselves what we had talked about before, and fleshing that out into a scene by scene, just breaking the synopsis down into Excel and putting some more detail in. Looks like there's going to be some really interesting drama in those episodes, if only we can get the time to sit down and write the damn thing. I'm sure in this age of technology (Celtx being the preferred script writing software of choice) progress can be made, even when we can't be in the same room together.

By far though, the thing that really put me in a very good mood, was utterly unexpected. The best things always are. When I went to bed (just after arriving at my holiday residence on Sunday night), I wrote a blog entry, and then after that I checked up on my twitter page. It was at that point that I discovered that my daughter had, at some point during the day craftily updated my status a couple of times. One of the things she wrote was 'my dad is awesome, in a utterly weird kind of way'. That did bring a tear to my eye (and not because of the grammatical errors). It was so nice of her, and so unexpected. It doesn't matter what else the world throws at me. My daughter thinks I'm awesome (in an utterly weird kind of way). It's I think the greatest compliment I've ever received.

Today, after 4 failed attempts, my merchandising purchases from 'Script Frenzy' arrived. Two travel coffee mugs, with Script Frenzy iconography and 'Stop watching. Start writing. Script Frenzy. April' on them. So appropriate I thought, as it is the TV that sucks me in and swallows all my time in a manner a kin to the appetite of a black hole. I also brought a book 'No plot ? No problem !' - by Chris Baty.

Write here. Write now !! Do it !!! Sounds like a motivational speech given by Peggy Butcher. (get out of my pub, you're - the - bard).

1 script submitted. 1 film shot, edited and uploaded. Other projects moving forward. I should be on holiday more often. I'd get more done.