#16: "The Unbearable Dish"

it's over. 48 hours of controlled chaos resulted in a little film titled "The Unbearable Dish". http://youtu.be/mnU4nG5nDrs

what a trip... the team we built was an amazing collection of creativity. experienced and newbie alike ALL kicked ass. my friend teresa (TS) had never acted before, on stage or screen, and she KILLED it! god i'm proud of her. i flew her in from boston to participate. we hadn't seen each other in 2 years, though we do keep in touch regularly. i wanted her music she wrote for my film... she began a new song about hotdish but we ran out of time. no matter. everything else she did was incredible. the rest of the team was amazing as well. travis' performance was nothing short of brilliant. zilah was... zillah. enough said. julie, our DP, shot the film just as it should have been. it was a mockumentary, and her shooting style meshed perfectly with the genre. karrey ran her ass off to wrangle up paperwork and brought TS to the airport so i could stay and help finish the flick. kelly and marco 'volunteered' their house... or more like allowed us to INVADE their home for the entire weekend. if we hadn't had their home to gather, work, live, sleep, etc... i doubt this film would have been made. or, at the very least, made in the same way. here are some highlights from the weekend:

• No one on the team ever made a short film. Z was in a short, but she didn't take part in the creative process.

• No script was written. All lines/dialogue were improvised on the spot while filming, and I believe all of the shots we used were 1st takes as we shot very few 2nd takes.

• Nobody knew Adobe Premiere well, yet 4 of us managed to piece together a 6 minute, 42 second film.

• We (Zillah) finished the movie on the way to Minneapolis on my macbook while i drove 90, and we finished it and turned it in with no time to spare. we didn't get it entered in time for the prizes, but we made the public viewing deadline.

• i drew the genre 'mockumentary'... my friend eric was an actor in a 48HFP movie back in '08, and it was a mockumentary. it is because of eric my movie was made, and the main reason i entered a team this year. it is in his name i dedicate my film.

• I lost my iPod.

there's a lot more but you get the gist.

now that it's over i feel this void... i have nothing to work towards right now. i was surrounded by a group of artists who gave off so much creative energy it recharged my batteries. when our group departed my energy dropped. i feel i really need to surround myself with creative minds and energy. it's something that was sorely missing from my life for the last few years, and now that i've had a taste of it again i want more. MORE! unfortunately our group is split apart in various ways... geographically, time and commitment-wise, etc. Zillah leaves for the left coast in mid-july. TS is back in boston. the rest of the team's in mankato and i'm in eagan. i suddenly feel alone. isolated. sequestered. i don't know what to do with this feeling of emptiness right now. i feel GREAT, yet i feel alone. a mixed bag of emotions, as usual.

what's next?