Rough updates - Big Wow convention and other stuff...

Hmm.... So much for more consistent postings in 2013...ah well... Started off the new year taking a once-a-week beginning film class as a refresher course- I was a little nervous at first, insecurity worrying about being the oldest one in class... but fortunately it wasn't quite the case, and there were 25 students all over the map on levels- I'll eventually write a more detailed post about the experiences for the three-month class, but for now I'll mention that it was a blast- maybe because once I got started, that I had a certain amount of fearlessness in casting students at the college... coming from a time of feeling pretty frustrated for (ugh) years of Black Canary being in limbo--- it was a great joy to be uninhibited in filming an experimental narrative (albeit a silly one) and complete it from beginning to end. It really reminded me of the 'ups' of filmmaking and not just the downs that I've been frustrated by for awhile now. Anyhow... That's the most (creatively) interesting thing that happened from January-March. Helped out a couple of folks as well in class, and was very glad to do so. The appreciation level of helping someone who'd never made a film (video) before is great. The unexpected reward was being able to stand on the side and being able to vicariously remember the euphoria of shooting one's first short film ever. I hope it doesn't sound pretentious, but sometimes shooting a short at this point is painful- maybe because what I want in my head is a specific thing, but in the beginning.... there's perhaps less expectation and just a thrill to see what you write on paper get transformed into people performing it and it becoming this tangible piece of film (or video) that you can keep forever. So... it was a great way to start the year off! April and May was a bit clunky--- I had hoped to continue the momentum of creativity by taking a one-day-a-week animation class- and hopefully use the class discipline to complete the Back Canary shorts I'd wanted to start- but, it turned out that it was primarily a Flash class (Something that I'm teaching soon!). Anyhow.... Caught a couple of sequels- Iron Man III (which was a mixed bag--- It was far better than the horrible Iron Man II, but since it was Shane Black, I was expecting something akin to his Lethal Weapon I and II- IM 3 was very good, but it wasn't quite Shane Black's best work) and Star Trek II (which was a big disappointment--- One critic called it 'the Star Trek Supermacy', which was a good title. It was more about the chase than anything else--- which I guess is okay, but after watching it, I immediately longed to rewatch one of the classic Trek movies (except for the Shatner directed one) as I remember the joy of those films not only being more about the characters as a family, but also having more substance at the end of the films as well. JJ Abrams might not be Michael Bay, but it's nice to have SOME attempt at trying to have a little depth along with the flash and explosions in a movie franchise.) Anyhow- that's cool. I'm more looking forwards to MAN OF STEEL and THE WOLVERINE anyhow. How cool is it that there are a set of scifi/superhero films each summer now? On the dvd tv front, recently caught up with DEXTER Season 7--- interesting stuff with Manny Coto as one of the head writers/showrunners there (yeah!) and am currently viewing ALPHAS Season 1--- which was only interesting to me because I'd read that Steven Ira Behr (of Deep Space Nine fame) was fired on Season 2 because he was taking the show into controversial territory. The pilot by Zack was flat, but once the series started with Ira, it's not bad. I partiuclarly like the Rain Man-like character on the show and David Straitharn. On the creative front, attended the 'Big Wow' convention this weekend. Very interesting.... will have a long post later soon - but in short, I have to say a number of different interactions with different folks have me VERY inspired on a creative level of what I want to do longterm. More later, but in brief, this is what I've been up to & I will soon be uploading the entire pencilled "Faith"- long story for later on. H.