Moving Forward...

Things are getting hectic! I don't even know why I'm writing in the blog... I guess it's a good way to let off steam and put things in perspective.

Work on my new film, 'It's All Good,' continues. The shooting dates are set: May 7 and 8. I have to thank my staff and cast for getting it together on this point. It's hard enough to get a couple of buddies to agree to a date to meet, imagine trying to get 35 people to agree on a date! Especially my lead Stephanie, who has a new CD coming out from Sony on the 29th of April and will be shooting my film smack dab in the middle of her promotional tour!

The location is turning out to be the biggest challenge. It's an old house not lived in for god knows how long. Some of us on the film went over to clean it out during the weekend and it's proven to be a bigger job than anyone anticipated. We could only scratch the surface of all the boxes and dust in it. I mean, the place is around 80 years old! It will take several more full days of work to get it up to snuff. But it's worth it. It's a great, unique location.

It's a little late in the game, but I got Shinji Nishikawa to do the storyboards for the film. A professional storyboard artist and designer by trade, Nishikawa has done storyboarding for, among other films, many of the recent Godzilla movies and designed many of the Toho giant monsters from over the past 20 years. I first met Nishikawa on the Godzilla set years ago, but, following the series ending, I hadn't seen him for ages until a chance meeting at the Famous Monster Event two weeks ago. The short of it is: he read my script and asked to sign on! Cool! I love his work! We had a totally fun meeting the other night full of non-stop discussion and going over the script. I'm excited to see his work. Well crafted storyboards are a real joy, and Nishikawa is one of the best at it.

Also, I'm happy to announce that our other latest staff member is Yoshihiro Nishimura, director of the film 'Tokyo Gore Police.' Nishimura will be creating the film's alien parasite. I'd originally planned to do the creature CG, but, to be honest, I always wanted to do it 'in camera.' I don't hate CG, but I also don't love it. I was on the set of Nishimura's latest feature a few weeks back and after getting home I got the idea to ask him to make the creature since his work is so outstanding. I went to his studio the other day where he looked over my designs and showed me a few samples of similar effects he's done. I'm pleased to announce that he said he'd build the thing and operate it.

*Whew* The less CG the better!

Oh, and the photo at the top has kind of nothing to do with anything I wrote about. I went to a stage show the other day in Yoyogi and it had to be the worst I've seen... EVER! But I went with Kumi, Mayu, Abbey, Mari, and Noemi and so had a good enough time. This is a shot taken during intermission. Man... I should have just left then and there! At least I got a comp ticket! To make it worse, Mayu and I got coffee before the show and didn't eat. It's a safe bet to say that our hunger pangs during the first act didn't enhance our enjoyment of the play!

That's about it for now... I have to get back to work!