The last week one.

On my way to baggage claim on Sunday, my phone met the acquaintance of the LAX floor. It didn’t get along with it well, and, combined with the fact that I left for Los Angeles without putting my AC adapter in my bag, I was left incommunicado. It was a strange feeling, especially since I had gotten so used to my constant data stream from the wi-fi connection in my room. I’m sure there’s a lesson there about technology’s intrusion into our everyday lives, and how the psyche has taken on unnatural affectations in order to compensate, but I was simply perturbed that I couldn’t check my damn e-mail.

___________________________________
The film is underway. The script is a lean seventy pages, and it can be shot in various locations which all happen to be located within half a mile of my apartment. There is, however, the troubling matter of money, as films require much of it in order to get made. So, I begin the arduous task of finding investors, a task which suddenly becomes fit for Hercules when I look at the first investor’s contract and realize that he wants the rights to the film in perpetuity throughout the universe. I want to mumble “fuck this” and get up from the table, but I instead tell him that I’ll think about it.

___________________________________
I’ve finally called Faith Lahane for the last time. If she ever deigns to pick up the phone, I may answer. But I know that if I keep running that way, all I’ll get is tired.

___________________________________
Despite my reticence to sign away my work to the first shmuck who offers up cash, I’m still forming my crew in hopes that the project will magically come together. I’m surrounded by a huge amount of talented individuals, being that I go to freakin’ film school, so most of my recruiting happens like this:

Picture, if you will, a near-empty movie theater. This is the site of Classical Hollywood Cinema, a class I’ve wanted to take since I arrived at SCULA. A quick break between lecture and screening allows me to say my hellos to Ms. Hildy Johnson, whom I did not see through the entire break despite our close proximity. We have just enough time to speak about our strange Christmases and our mutual distaste of the recent Narnia film before the lights start to go down. Right before the projector clicks on for the first time this semester, I turn to her. “Hey, have you ever assistant directed before?” “I’d love to learn.” “Seals it. You’re hired.” If there’s one thing you can say, it’s that I work quickly.

The flash of 35 millimeter. The brilliant monochrome of Modern Times. An image which burned its way into my mind at seven years old: Chaplin floundering in the water outside his ramshackle home, and Paulette Goddard trying in vain to pull him ashore.

___________________________________
Obi-wan’s voice resonated down the line for the first time in months, worried that I had changed too much. She tells me not to worry, and just to remember to secure the basics. Nobody figures it out for another ten years, anyway.

If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born. “Come in,” she said, “I'll give you shelter from the storm.”