No Budget PreProduction on Indie Horror Short - Gumdrop Sampson

Hi. Ever made a movie? Not a home movie, but one you want others to see, others you don't know and will never meet? Putting yourself out there for comment. Making a statement. Sharing what you are thinking and showing how you think? Want to make a movie? Then stop listening to others who say you can't and just DO IT!

If you want to or are going to do it, this might be interesting. If you've done it, then this might just be sad, or hilarious. I know something about movies. Studied it some in college. I'm no practiced expert, but I've figured out a few things and I'm learning as I go. That's part of the fun of it.

I was with friend and local indie director Kelly Hughes when were at the Port Orchard Film Festival yesterday, to support the festival and see his music video collaboration "We're Nothing", entered in the Experimental Block of films, as I write this. From his website:

NEW COLLABORATION! To promote my docu-series Acting Up, I made a music video set to Postvorto's song We're Nothing. Postvorto is a post-metal band from Italy, and they have an intense sound that inspires me. The music video includes new footage I shot in Gorst and Sunnyslope, WA. One of the band's guitarists, Andrea Fioravanti, is also composing new music for me. I've heard several of his tracks already, and they are pretty amazing.

Kelly asked who he should introduce when we got (today) to Crypticon in SeaTac. We're spending the night, hitting panels on film production and Kelly's music video is also playing there. I'm obviously an author, blogger, aspiring screenwriter and now functionally, a filmmaker. I suggested that.

Kelly smiled and said, "Well, wannabe filmmaker."  I thought about that for a moment, a bit bummed out. But maybe he's right. Though, I would alter that slightly and say, "aspiring filmmaker". I have perhaps a few more projects to go, and maybe a feature-length film to go, in order to consider myself a full-fledged filmmaker.

To be sure I have earned the title filmmaker in having produced and documentary and a short. That's only fair to me. But, to be fair to more established filmmakers, I really should wait on that until I have a few more projects under my belt. Let's not jump the gun. Yes, you CAN call yourself a "filmmaker" after one project regardless the length. Or quality? Just Do it! But, strive to be more and really and proudly call yourself a filmmaker, once you have truly and fully earned. it.

I may add to this in the future as things progress if I find anything I left out. But following is the history and mindset I've had in building this project to production and preparing to shoot on set.

But that's not why you make films. As in being a writer, you produce because you have a need to produce. Because you enjoy it. You have a story to get out. Or you have a need to tell stories. Filmmaking, however, is not for the faint of heart. And then you put it out for others to see and you have to steel yourself for someone sooner or later shredding your work and your ego.

So do your best.

I started this by considering my next project, obviously. In 1993 I produced a documentary for public access cable TV at Viacom in Seattle. A studio up on Roosevelt Way Northeast. It was a comedy of errors like you wouldn't believe. I had moved out of Seattle and hard to return to work on the project, finished it, it "aired" twice in the PNW and that ended my work in production.

Until 2016. I got new equipment, I started writing. I came up with a viable project as a test after all these years and working with new equipment and produced "The Rapping". I have also been working with local indie horror director Kelly Hughes for a few years now.

Because I wanted to get on set and get a better understanding of what happens to my writings once it hits production. It's been fun, anxiety invoking (like when the police showed up wondering why a woman was screaming things like "Let me go!" "Why are you doing this to me!" That was actress Jennifer True. The cops couldn't have been nicer and said now that they knew we were shooting they'd be aware for the rest of the day.

art by Marvin Hayes

So, in choosing my next project I considered my original and recent reason for shooting films. To take some of my own published writings and turn them into live action. I decided the one with least special f/x could be Gumdrop City. I wrote about this before. Originally written in 1983, it was first published in an anthology in 2010. Then I put it in my own Anthology of Evil in 2012. And I wrote about this new film project in April.

But this is about the production now that it's been selected.

Preproduction.

I came up with the idea to not produce the story itself, but to do a prequel. How did this all begin? The story itself is based on a true crime story I heard about in college toward my psychology degree in a class on abnormal psychology. It affected the class so strongly I felt in walking out of that class I had to write about it. I'd never even known such things existed back then.

But to do the story itself would require some difficult scenes I didn't want to get into, I didn't even want to get into in the short story. Special effects I didn't want to do on a first full narrative film project with my limited money and resources. So I settled on a prequel. An origin story of sorts. I just let my imagination go after re-reading the original story.

And a vision emerged. I decided to go a bit more bizarre. What if this was bigger than the short story. What if this guy wasn't such a degenerate as he is in the short story? What if, he lived the prequel storyline and then severely degenerated between that and the short story? That freed me up in many ways. Creatively. Financially. Resources. And it made it more fun.

So I wrote some notes out, then wrote my first draft. Over the next couple of weeks, I worked on other things and kept going back, adding ideas, fleshing it out, honing it to imperfective perfection.

I started to think about who should act in it. I had wanted to do something with my voice actor who has read a couple of my stories as audiobooks, Tom Remick. Nicest guy ever, playing the part of a sick demented murderer. Sure, why not.

I started to consider other actors I know. Tom said his son might be interested, and his two young boys. Excellent. I needed around ten actors. Three are voiceovers and never seen. I know actors from my friend and director Kelly Hughes' stable of actors (he and I will be at Crypticon Seattle in SeaTac this weekend, by the way). I've acted with some of them, done f/x around them, pyrotechnics, etc. As it turned out I'll only need a few of them. I now have the production cast.

I continued honing the screenplay. I started picking up props. I started researching the f/x I will need and some of the food props. That all in itself was an experience and an education. Any idea how expensive a lot of gumdrops can be? Single color? Red? Maybe easier to make your own.

Marvin Hayes who did most of my ebook covers and my print book covers had some f/x suggestions. That was handy.

A production is a collaborative effort. In a low budget indie, or no budget indie, it can have much more of a family/community feel to it. People volunteer their skills or efforts out of a love, not payment, for what they want to do. Some who never dreamed of doing it find they're doing it and living a kind of dream. But they still have to be able to pull off whatever it is they are offering. They still have to show up on time and pull their schedule off or they're replaced.

Some directors can get gold out of even problematic actors. Kelly is like that. I've been told I'm quite good too at directing by actors. We'll see soon enough. I'm used to working with professionals in other careers. I'd expect no less in this one. Demand quality and it shows on screen. Let the production take over your production, or your actors or crew, and you lose the production. Set up an environment for productivity and creativity and keep things moving forward, and you'll all feel the joy of creating something special.

Rule #1 in a production... Preparation: a solid screenplay, actors, camera work, f/x, and sound makes life so much easier and sets you up for a much better end product. Especially pay attention to sound. Because it can so easily ruin a good project.

Rule #2 in a production...Finish the production. David Lynch took five years to finish Eraserhead. But he finished it.

OK. So, I hit the point where the screenplay was finished enough to send to the actors. A screenplay is finished when the film is shown. It's perpetually in a penultimate state as things change on the set when shooting.

At the same time, I was working out practicals. Number one, gumdrops. Purchasing them was too expensive and finding only red ones even more problematic. So I decided making my own was the cheapest. AND, it gave me a new scene where Sampson, the lead character, makes his own. That gave me more opportunity to add in some more creepy factor.

That meant I had to research the recipes. That led to ingredients. One was problematic and expensive. More research until I found one source that was best and purchased it online. It's here now and more than we will need.

I had an idea for an opening camera shot involving my Syrp Genie and equipment. I continued honing that complex shot in the screenplay. I finally got around to digging out the equipment.

Syrp Genie configuration for this opening/closing shot

By the way, I charge all my equipment batteries the first of every month on all my equipment, something an assistant would be assigned to do if I had a bigger crew...or a crew. I set up the configuration I would need and began to plot out the setup and execution of the shot. Which, as it turned out, wasn't practical.

So I had to work around that. Splitting up the programming (there is a cell phone app where you program the equipment) into two programmed shots. The Syrp equipment simply won't do the shot I wanted.

The plan was to start high and happy and shoot downward slightly, tracking to the right and lower to and sad, at the other end of the track. Uncovering and exposing the other side of a face. Then I could take that shot and split it up, using the first half in the opening and the second half at the end. It was a moving example of "the Comedy and Tragedy Masks" or just "the theater masks".

Preproduction is so important in so many ways. Having a good screenplay. Rehearsing at least some. You want the actors to understand what you want of them which relaxes them some. Trying out camera shots ahead of time. Testing f/x and recipes for things like blood. Lighting issues and setups. Locations and test shots. Etc.

I've learned not to send my screenplay out to too many or ask for too many comments on it (same with dailies or rushes if you have them) as a lot of times it simply muddies your thinking. If you find someone who really does understand how you think and can productively critique and add to the project, they are simply gold.

I'm deep into preproduction now.

At some point, you need to write up a list of shots, or a shooting script. Some don't do it at all, some get very technical about it. Find your bliss, what works best, what turns out the best product for you and go with it. Always considering to enhance or alter as you find what works better, or you are eventually able to evolve into. The mission, the project, the product, the film is what takes precedence, not you. Kick your ego to the curb and produce quality at all costs.

You also need a schedule for the production and consideration for what needs to be on set before anyone arrives. You can send a screenplay to a company and they will produce for you a shooting screenplay, or cost estimates or all kinds of things.

Or you can do it yourself (preferable). it can be as intricate or simple as you like. All that matters is that it is good enough to make your life easier and the project more productive and aid in enhancing the quality of the end product.

What day, what actors, when do the actors /crew need to be where. If you have any crew and I suggest you have some. I hear, certainly, on a larger crew/production, an AD is so important, an assistant director to take on your more mundane or difficult tasks freeing you up for the real directing on set issues.

What do you need for all of them? Food and drink, to be sure, always keep your actors happy and fed and happy to return. Costumes? Practicals? Props?

The list of who is shot when and in what scene. You may have an actor in scenes all through the production, but do they need to be there in chronological order or can their scenes all be shot on the same day and edited into place later?

Taking the screenplay from its format and order and timeline into when is most economical in many/all ways is imperative. Logistics are important and getting them right in preproduction is a life saver.

I have children in this project. So getting them in as early as possible, their scenes shot all in one day makes my life, and theirs, and their parents lives, easier.

Paperwork. Do you need shooting permits from the city, county, area? Or are you guerilla shooting, shot and run shots? Actor waivers/agreements. I know many don't bother with them on no budget films but it's so easy to do, I think it's worth it.

That alone makes the actors feel more respectable, more professional, more respected and sets a tone overall for the project. Not to mention it gives you and them, the reasonable protections you want later on if something unforeseen does come up.

Now with all these things under consideration, preproduction is a matter of going over them until you hit your desired level of perfection and costs. Which is where I am now.

Last Friday Tom and Amy came over and we did a run through on Amy's scene and it was so enlightening. Table reads, rehearsals, save so much time and can really add so much to tweaking the screenplay. Iron your issues out before you begin principle shooting.

Next up? Production?

Actually, just a lot more preproduction. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Cheers! Sláinte!

The Teenage Bodyguard - A True Crime Biopic Review

This is a couple of reviews for my true crime / biopic, The Teenage Bodyguard. I lived this story, I researched this story, I wrote this story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but not the criminals.

Ruger Blackhawk .357 magnum I carried

I have an alternate title for this story, Slipping "The Enterprise". Because what we were trying to do, was to slip by the Tacoma Mafia family who called themselves, "The Enterprise" and was referred to as such in local and national newspapers all through the 1970s. The question is, could someone like me, at eighteen years of age, protect a murder witness from an organized crime enterprise who was looking for her, and actually live to tell the tale?

Shoulder holster for the magnum

Obviously, I did survive. So the question remains and the intrigue is, who else might have, or didn't survive. And how did this all work out? Because the fun is in the telling of the story of how all of this came to be and how it ended up for everyone involved.

Was a magnum too much against a bunch of guys mostly carrying 38s and 9mm and shotguns? I'd argue, no.

My esteemed self partying at a drive-in theater with the friend in the screenplay the year previous

This is a story that oddly enough, involves and aside from the typical mafia environment and activities, parties, drugs, sex, skydiving, fast cars, flying planes, and... finding dead bodies.

In the end, the Pierce Country government near Tacoma, Washington, had to be changed so another crime or mafia family could not get their hooks so easily into those who were supposed to be involved in crime prevention and prosecution and not criminal support. Here are some photos of the actual things, vehicles, weapons, criminals and weapons involved in the story.

 

--

From BlueCat Screenplay Contest:

The story picks up relatively quickly after the explosion in the Carbone party—leaving Lena a few permanent scars. After witnessing the scenes involving [our protagonist's youth] Air Force background, we realize just what kind of a character he’s raised to be: someone who couldn’t really care about his own safety, but as witnessed with his reaction with Lena’s injury (as well as his eagerness to help Sara much later on), someone that has the capacity to care for others.

But it didn’t just stop there. Even with a skydive malfunction, it seemed like [the protagonist's] own life doesn’t even seem to be worth two dollars and fifty cents, as the repack itself was a bit out of his budget.

All this makes [the protagonist] quite the exciting character to follow given his astounding complexity. His nonchalant approach to life is intoxicating mainly because it’s like watching fire: although dangerous, it’s still alluring. The initial hook of witnessing [the protagonist] potentially murder someone, as well as echoing his words “do it” as he did with his first jump, is very well played out—as it shows parallels between one world and another.

The writer also seems to have done quite the research, and it’s impressive to know that the events are chronologically accurate. I was pleased to find out [the protagonist] actually made it out of everything and even had a family of his own. Given that it was a real story based off real events, I could’ve never predicted that he’d make it to that kind of life.

Overall, The Teenage Bodyguard is one heck of a life story that I’m surprised isn’t on the big screens already—a well-done thriller that knows how to lure you into a story about two unlikely people, the protagonist and Sara, and how they took a turn for the unexpected.

John Joseph "Handsome Johnny" Carbone, head of the Tacoma Carbone crime family

From The Blacklist Coverage:

The premise of a coming of age crime drama, where an eighteen-year-old protects a witness fleeing the mafia, could have solid commercial appeal, particularly as it is based on a true story. The narrative's period setting is rendered with a strong degree of authenticity and a specificity, through details like that of the commune, that makes the film's backdrop of the Pacific Northwest feel grittily alive and real.

[The hero] is an intriguing teenage protagonist, who is well-characterized, particularly on a physical level. His courage in protecting Sara from the Tacoma mafia is credibly rendered. The dialogue is well characterized as each member of the core cast possesses a clear, identifiable voice. The down ending, featuring the harrowing final scene of Sara in the mafia car, where she "closes her eyes, puts head back and hears sounds of children happily playing baseball.", right as the hitman next to her takes out a garrote, is chilling, surprising (in a good way), and sure to have a powerful effect on audiences.

Prospects

THE TEENAGE BODYGUARD has a viable premise and core concept that could have commercial potential, likely in the indie space and is overall a solidly written script.

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Every industry type who has read this screenplay so far has really liked it.

I am obviously moving forward on this project.



#producers #studios #screenplay #biopic #truecrime

It is Past Time to Recognize Religion as Myth Worship

Society, especially so-called polite society, rules the day in allowing theists to pretend their reality is real. Isn't it finally time to call religion mythology and its worship of it characters myth worship?

That being said, regarding mass shootings of religious groups... that is not how you evolve beyond something. You cannot do it from outside. You do not have hate for others in order to evoke social evolution. That, is a sign you are on the wrong track.

We have a leadership in America right now in Donald Trump, that is nationalist and ignorant, greedy for power and wealth and evoking more ignorance. Denying science and reality and telling lies daily from our highest office which is inflaming the foolish and the mentally and emotionally and even socially, damaged in our society. Stop it. Americans should not kill Americans. The American government, should not kill Americans. Really, we should not be killing anyone, unless it is to stop them from killing or harming others.

You Need To Consider The Possibility Your Religion Is Mythology

Still, there is a groundswell rising against religions in the world.

And we're seeing dysfunctional reactions within them against one another. Mostly based in the three desert religions of the Middle East. It's not really being noticed for what it is and is building in the so-called "First World" countries. And why is that?

Also, those Theists who support religion and do notice this are totally misunderstanding what is happening.

I don't believe anyone (certainly not me or anyone I know) are really against people exploring their spiritual beliefs, their religion, per se, or even wanting to end it tomorrow. This is still America, still a free country, regardless of the illiberal actions of some in power at this time.

Hopefully, with our attention and efforts, we will be putting an end to that very soon in 2020 and ending the conservative and Trump delusional form of governing.

However, there are still and always some obvious downsides to religion. Such as extremism. And religion's biggest travesty, "cherry picking" among their beliefs in order to fit them more closely into reality, sanity and logic.

Those who ignorantly profess their "faith" incorrectly and inaccurately enable their religions to continue and evolve when they should have died off centuries ago. It also enables those abusing others for their own misguided religions fundamentalism.

Those who are attacking such groups as transgenders, calling them child molesters, or ridiculously and ignorantly equating trans or gays with bestiality, when the reality is quite different and they are really quite normal, just different than the "norm".

If there's such a thing. When really it's about majorities and minorities. And where so often we see those types who call out others as degenerates, being charged with many of those same offenses themselves and so being outed as the hypocrites they were, to begin with. Typically all for reasons of position, power and wealth.

Kids More Likely To Be Molested At Church Than In Transgender Bathrooms

What this growing irritation is leading eventually to is a reaction against all those who are so-called believers. If they can simply follow their religion and keep their mouths shut, I don't think anyone would care to bother with actions against them in any way.

But when one considers all the bad actions and ill will that has been built around theism in recent times, what else could one expect? Pushing their beliefs into others faces, into our government, is illiberal and incorrect and even criminal. Certainly unconstitutional.

Those who say their religion requires them to do certain things, to get involved, to sway non-believer's beliefs in aggressive fashions, is just asking for a reaction against themselves, and others like them.

And then you have people like Donald Trump as POTUS who use religion in a morally reprehensible fashion for purely political purposes and lying, claiming he is a religious individual, which his only religion us capitalism and even beyond that to kleptocratic and oligarchical actions.

If you take this kind of behavior to its obvious conclusions, it's death for the future of religious institutions overall. To be sure it will take time. To be sure they may never really completely die off in a kind of half-life form of degeneration. Where they will halve in power and membership seemingly forever, but never quite go completely away.

Because religion is a symptom of the human mind, the human brain, and human evolution. It is a form of thought that should fade away as humankind evolves to the next stage and the ones after that. There are some beliefs that are more functional that some of the major religions today. Better than the ridiculous ones we hear of so often in the likes of Mormonism, Christian sects, Muslim sects, and even Jewish sects. As well as corporate thought style beliefs like Scientology.

Buddhism for one, the Buddha Dharma is far more functional that most if not all other "religions". While not a religion itself, but more of what we need in a mental discipline. I am not selling it as an answer. To be sure it too has fallen to the damages of the human reconstruction in ignoring its original teaches and adding nonsense to them down through the millennia so it too is viewed as more of another ridiculous religion.

The one saving grace is what Gautama (Siddhartha) Buddha Himself said, and you typically don't see in any religion, is to trust your instincts and if you're being taught something stupid, simply don't believe it. I dropped religion when I was younger, for sanity and reason themselves:

"In the time of the Gautama Buddha, many holy teachers and priests also wandered from village to village offering their teachings and principles to anyone who would listen. How can we differentiate an authentic teacher from a charlatan? According to tradition, Siddhartha Gautama offered the answer on one of his many journeys:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
– Gautama Buddha

In what other "religion" would you come across koans or one such as:

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”– Linji

Humankind seems to wish for Magic, rather than Reality. It needs buffers to the daily grind and abuse of living. I learned of ancient Asian philosophies in grade school Isshinryu Karate classes in that Okinawan martial arts and philosophical system.

Through my life, I found one similarity after another to that. I found some similarities in the Catholicism I was raised with and abandoned by 9th grade. I became well read in philosophy from the Greeks to the ancients in India and China and Japan. I found people who grew up in Buddhist countries seemed the most oriented toward Buddhism as a religion. Which to me was reversed to what it was intended to be.

I found that the Catholic teachings appeared to have a basis in Buddhism. At university for my degree in psychology, I found many of the beliefs in that discipline to be very Buddhist in nature. At least the most functional forms. I learned about humankind's relationship to ritual and repetition. And I studied phenomenology and began to see how religion had gone awry.

How through anthropology and philosophy, sociology and psychology, it became clear where we began and how we evolved.

Religion is not the end, but the beginning, sadly. As when one learns how to walk, one changes and drops that methodology when one learns how to run, ride a bike and fly a jet or a spacecraft. And yet we hang onto the old ways out of fear. Out of conservatism. Out of ignorance. An ignorance we no longer need to cloak ourselves in.

We just need to be brave, learn the better ways and move into the future along with our overall inevitable development.

Still some, especially the conservative mind, holds onto it as if life depends on it. And it thoroughly does not. We may never evolve fully into our potential if we cannot finally let it go.

On the one hand, while they want to expand their ranks while religion is in this current phase of dying off. They aren't considering the reasons for religion's warnings because it's been discussed as a part of their theologies and epistemologies simply because they've been persecuted in the past.

Humankind and society have tried again and again to purge themselves of religious, but have failed repeatedly because they needed a replacement. A modern and functional form of mind management. It will happen, but it is like fighting an addict's cravings for what they are so used to, what they are indoctrinated into from childhood, to need.

While the individual may need something in daily life, society at large obviously does not. And we're seeing the dysfunctionality of it all over the world today.

One wonders perhaps why anyone would want to persecute someone else because of their beliefs until you have had to deal with someone being really and truly religiously annoying on continual and daily basis. Those who flaunt their mythology in the face of reality and against reality.

While religion will surely not end once and for all anytime soon, and while we do need to allow people their freedom in their choices, the rest of us should not have to suffer through living within their delusions around our society. It is a kind of reversed abuse. To be sure, enjoy your religion, just allow us the benefit of enjoying not enjoying it.

We can and should at least all agree that others are worshipping their chosen myths from the past, and then go on our way. Undisturbed and unperturbed by those theists who still wish to continue with this internal mental standing bicycle of a mentality spinning its wheels and going nowhere. Certainly not progressing into the future of the continued evolution of humankind.

Corporate Thinking Disease, Syndrome, Disorder

Many, many, years ago America found out that intersection stop lights are not installed or changed until three death situations were recorded. Three separate accidents where deaths occurred.

At that time, we all became complicit in the "corporate thinking" models that had invaded America and most of the world through capitalist thinking..

It has invaded our schools, our government, our consideration of the 2nd Amendment, our religion, our communities, our clubs, and our homes. And our children's way of thinking, for generations now.

So that today we are so inundated with it. Where no one even sees what the problem is anymore. We are just astounded, shocked, that things are as they are in common practice. With apparently no idea what is going on. Because it has become so inherent in who we are.

We don't see how to fix most of what is wrong today. Because we are standing on a carpet of complicity and our politicians and our corporate leaders lean into it furthering our ignorance and satiation and our desire to not be responsible for any of it.

We are. And we can fix it.

WE just have to see where the problem began and know that we have to go through the pain of changing something that is now woven into the fabric of nearly everything involved in our daily lives, in our government, in our religious institutions, and in our choices.

But they are OUR choices.

What is the point? The point is that we seem incapable of proactivity.

Rather than looking at a situation, seeing it's flawed and doing something before there are deaths (or destruction of various kinds), we have got to instead wait until there are deaths or destruction (i.e., Donald Trump as POTUS, NRA such as we allowed it to become, or the current defective and destructive GOP in its current mode of failed political party and paradigm), before we ever act.

That is the mainstay of our problems today. We have got to find a way to become more aware, more intelligent and stop praising and supporting the most stupid of us and our most foolish considerations.

Greed, is not brilliance. It is Greed pure and simple.

Ignorance is not ignorance anymore, but stupidity.

Especially when, as Eric Idle put it, "It is artificial ignorance."

It is time we see how ignorant we are and why. It is time to see corporate thinking as the burden that has been placed upon us by those wishing to enrichen themselves. Even at anyone else's costs.

It is time to see that capitalism has become a disease, a syndrome, a social and mental disorder that is woven into the fabric of our nation and our daily lives.

And it is time to make changes. if we follow the current Republican party we continue on this path.

116th Congress

However, we see today in the changes in the Democratic party, with young and diverse voices, more closely adhering to the makeup of our nation today, a potential for change, and something we've been lacking for some time.

Hope.

We now need to pile on top of this something else that is extremely important and dangerous to ignore.

We need to realize how close we are to barbarity, how recent our evolution has been to our modern, hard fought for society today.

How precious and delicate our democracy is. And how quickly it has been slipping away.

How quickly we can revert to old and ignorant beliefs.

Remember the story of the Handmaid's Tale. In that story, only things that humans have done before to humans has been used.

In Iran. "Iranian women are oppressed and they always have been. There was a period where they were liberated and stopped from wearing the veil, during the Pahlavi dynasty from 1925 to 1979." The Telegraph (2015)

One day in 1979 women were wearing miniskirts and the very next day they were forced to wear full body length black Burqas and hijabs. Under penalty of law.

How would you like that... tomorrow? That is what some conservatives are asking, for women to be treated to restrictions they are no longer familiar with or desire, or require.

We need to realize how directed the Republican party is to going back to the way things where when America was great, apparently, in their mind. One might argue, tiny minds.

The GOP even now has a president in Donald Trump who gets cheers when he calls out that he wants to "Make America Great, Again! "

What he is saying, what you are cheering for, is not what many of you think, and yet exactly what many of you think!

Things That American Women Could Not Do Before the 1970s:

1. Keep her job if she was pregnant.1978
2. Report cases of sexual harassment in the workplace.
The first time that a court recognized sexual harassment in the workplace was in 1977 and it wasn’t until 1980 that sexual harassment was officially defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

3. Be acknowledged in the Boston Marathon.1972
4. Get a credit card.1974
5. Refuse to have sex with her husband.1993
6. Compete as a boxer in the Olympics.2012
7. Get a divorce with some degree of ease.1969
8. Celebrate International Women’s Day.1980
9. Have a legal abortion in most states.1973

Make America Great, Again?

Start with correcting corporate thought all through our culture and government, social and religious institutions. 

Bottom line is...treat one another with more concern for humane treatment, than corporate or individual profit, and certainly, at any or all costs. 

Gumdrop City, My Next Short Horror Film

The reasons I retired from my career in IT was to focus on writing and selling my writings, to continue writing in new ways, to branch out, to feel free to choose my directions. But also to start making small movie productions... of my own writings.

The Rapping was a POC. To test my new equipment and my methodology. This link goes to its place on the Once A Week Online Film Festival for the week of January 2nd, 2019. So I can do it. Well, I've done it before. It's just been a while.

Cover art by Marvin Hayes

Marvin Hayes did the original cover for the ebook so you can see the character in his "Rex Harrison" hat above in the cover art.

I decided on Gumdrop City as the first production of my writings into a short film. Mostly because I could simplify things and use little f/x. Even if it is to be a prequel and not the actual story itself. But that frees me up some as it can be an origin story, and I don't have to follow exactly the previously published story. It's working title is now, "Gumdrop Sampson".

Which also sets up an interesting dynamic on several levels. Creatively, artistically, marketing wise. I've written about this story on here before.

This will be my first narrative horror film from one of my published writings. The Rapping, is an Attic Tale, written expressly for filming it. As was the as yet unproduced film before it, Garage Tales. As I've moved houses since then and no longer have a standalone garage (or an attic), my next might be in that similar vein as, a Basement Tale. Or not.

Selling your writings is like trying to get unknown others to desire a certain drop of water in a lake of so very many others. Or from an ocean. Or so it feels anyway.

Producing your own works is like creating that lake yourself. Perhaps starting with a puddle for others to access, rather than merely a drop. Hopefully, an entertaining puddle. One that unknown others may desire. Who does not have to take from an ocean or a lake, but perhaps just a good sized pond.

Some of it is in your own mental image, in your efforts. Some are in your discovered reality.

An ocean: Google Books estimates that there are about 130 million books in existence. If you double that, it's probably more than enough to cover all the books that ever existed. UNESCO estimates that about 2 million books are published worldwide each year, but that includes older books as well as new ones.

A pond: It has been estimated that there are approximately 500,000 movies (of narrative fiction feature-length, theatrical-cinema films) currently in existence (Vogel 2011, p. 102).

Nothing really grisly will be in the film prequel of Gumdrop City, that's in the short story, the ebook, and Anthology of Evil, version. Eventually, there will also be an audiobook version of the original story. My hope for the ending of the film is to lead to a disturbing and satiating conclusion while setting up the sequel of the published short story.

I had also worked on Gumdrop City as a feature film length production with a producer in Hollywood a few years ago. We fleshed out the storyline. In that version, we added some characters and more storyline. While I liked this story for a film project, the producer liked another idea I had of a traveling angel.

Perhaps that story is now even more apropos than it seemed back then around 2011. I'll eventually get back around to it. Kind of a good feeling Frank Capra type story, only with more of an edge.

One that America may need more now than ever before.

As I indicated this film will be a prequel of Sampson in Gumdrop City, the weird old guy trope in your neighborhood that the kids (and adults) fear or at least, shy away from.

And no, it's not an autobiography.

It IS, however, a true crime story I had first fictionalized in college after hearing the story in our popular and sometimes disturbing abnormal psych class at WWU. We all walked out of that class that day with a bit of dread and disgust. And I knew I had to write it as a horror story.

Tom Remick, my voice actor, is set to act the lead role. Should be pretty easy physically, in that he has to act like a somewhat hobbled, weird old man. Typecasting? No, I assure you. Tom is a great and compassionate guy. But he's looking forward to playing the role. It's easy to relish playing a character that is very different from your own personality or experiences.

As this is a prequel, things may evolve between this project and the published version. So if he lives one place in the film, that may change before the story timeline.

I am still working on the first draft of the screenplay, but it's coming along nicely. Tom is reading the short story this weekend and we'll get together this week to talk. he found a "Rex Harrison" hat at a store this week. We still need a tattered tweed suit jacket. And a burlap bag. And maybe, a teddy bear.

Yeah, see? You can already see this is descending into madness. But it should be, I don't know, if not fun, entertaining.

This is the fun part for me, the creative process. I'm making it as simple and effective as I can. There will be humor in it. Weirdness. And in the end hopefully, if I can pull it off, horror. And in that should come the fun for horror aficionados.

And in the end? I hope to have a viable film to submit to film festivals. If I can get it done in time, and I believe I can, I will even be able to submit it to our own local film festival here that I was among other things, a judge in during last year's first-ever Gorst Underground Film Festival.

We're looking forward to another great and second annual festival later this year. I had a blast and met some great new people. Like "Man in Camo" Ethan Minsker from New York and his awesome documentary.

Also, there is the next town over the festival which actually begins May 3rd: The Port Orchard Film Festival. And those here in the Pacific Northwest as well as others around the world.

I will also be at Crypticon Seattle that weekend of May 3rd at the Doubletree Inn in SeaTac. I've been to two now but not for a couple of years now. I also was at the first ever Seattle ZomBcon which was a blast and it's second year. Just a few years ago I'd never been to a convention all my life and now within a couple of weeks, I'll have been to five within a few years. I have my friend and horror filmmaker Kelly Hughes to thank for that.

I even got to meet and have a heartfelt conversation with actor Lance Henriksen last time, just standing at the latte bar one morning at the Hilton SeaTac hotel. We got to hang out and talk alone for a while and I tell you, that's the way to meet these celebrities. What a sweet guy but so scary on screen. And he was just one of those I got to meet and hang out with. These things can be a great deal of fun.

Being able now to show up as an actual filmmaker and not just a writer, author, and mere screenwriter should be a lot of fun. So if you should happen to go, I'll keep an eye out for you!

Cheers!

Not Raising Rapists

I really don't get this need to train guys on sexual harassment and rape. Maybe the harassment side, but rape? Really? What is it about "No" that isn't "No"? What happened to just being a gentleman? Drunk or not.

If a girl is too drunk to make a decision, make it for her, err on the side of caution. Walk, the hell, away! Come back another day when she is fully involved in her decision to have sex with you. Feel like a jerk if you are trying to get sex and she isn't into you. Even if she is taunting you or being a complete bitch, be a Man for God's sake (for your's and for her's).

Isn't having sex with a girl, too drunk to move, kind of like necrophilia? What's next? You going to ask (more likely pay) a girl to lie in a tub full of ice and then have sex with you while not moving and barely breathing?

Not to mention, have you advanced to using date rape drugs yet? So basically, you're into having sex with dead girls. Are we experiencing a rash of spawning necrophiliacs?

Yes, your actions do define who and what you are.

Being a "Man" doesn't mean getting sex ANY way possible. It means taking the high and more difficult road tempered with some degree of class and manners. It means giving her an environment and experience where she enjoys it (and you), so much that she WANTS to have sex with you. See, SHE gets to enjoy it too; not just you, you jerk.

All that being said, Ladies, when you say No and you mean yes, you are setting yourself up. Be damn sure you know you both know, just what's going on. This "No-for-Yes" thing really is best with someone you're in a relationship with, Right?

I've experienced this one myself and it can be pretty frustrating. What the hell DOES she want? Let's face it, it takes acting to convey that meaning clearly and some people just aren't that good of an actor, regardless what they want.

But what percentage are we looking at in this for overall rapes,, the No-for-Yes" thing. Very little I'm pretty sure.

Yes there certainly are women who claim rape later on, when really it wasn't at all. But I suspect in all the alleged rapes, those are far fewer than the reality of real rapes (no not "legitimate" rapes, I'm actually talking about actual or not actual rapes). When a woman yells rape and she knows very well it's not, that is not a real rape, okay? That's what I'm referring to here.

Still, I suspect we do need some kind of sexual harassment training for women too, not just for men, and obviously not the same kind of training because from a woman's point of view and position in life, they have a somewhat different set of rules to deal with.

Though it's obvious that there are many more male abusers, let's not ignore a viable complaint just because of that. There actually are things women do (could not do, or could do to help things) that could alleviate some of these issues. But those are minor things compared to out and out rape. I'm afraid that one, is on the guys doing it.

Rape as we all know is really about control, about power issues. There are always going to be some rapists just do to their own physical limitations in how their brains work. But that doesn't mean we can't learn and make changes to decrease the amount of men who obviously can't handle their situation and so rape out of a need or desire that shouldn't be there in the first place.

It takes practice and a foundation to know what to do rather than rape someone. So it would seem that there are many men who are being raised in an environment, or culture, that trains them in such a way, or allows them the thoughts that they can alleviate their discomforts by way of controlling and sexually abusing a woman. When you see groups as we've seen recently in India, it becomes quit obvious there is more going on here than someone's brain composition or home environment. It's a cultural thing.

Perhaps we really need the men being given sexual harassment training to share those classes with women. Not to humiliate the men but to open their eyes. We need to grow compassion in them, somehow. But that really is something that needs to start as a child.

Families need to empower their children. Some communities need to be less restrictive and punitive. And religions are always going to be a problem and a burden for their restrictions that simply for many of them, are unrealistic in these open times.

Dear America, liberals, progressives, and abusive conservatives weaponizing these issues against those people... please do not conflate communication and proximity issues with those of sexual abuse and predation.

As it actually is in Donald Trump, and so many actual sex abusers so frequently exposed on the conservative and religious side of things where it shouldn't exist according to their own professed beliefs.

Don't be a Trump who actually is the things he accuses others of being in calling THEM lars, or stupid, or in being abusive so he dilutes the meaning of those things for when he does them in his attempts to normalize and obfuscate. For his own benefit.
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We're better than that or we should be and we need to be smarter than that. Save your anger for the real situations.

Frottage can be disgusting but it is not date rape or violent rape. Even more distant issues are not those of frottage or rape.

If we don't keep that appropriately in our minds and social discourse, we're going to cause a lot more problems that we really don't want to see in the first place.

Even at times where it does not exist.

I worry as do others about this proximity issue, about the range of sexual harassment or unwanted sexual intention, or unwanted proximity.

There ARE degrees.

From what I've seen and heard, the Joe Biden and even Al Franken issues are not the Donald Trump or a rapist on campus issues,

Perhaps we shouldn't look at this as sexual situation unless they definitely are. Even in some rape situation while there is no issue of sex being involved there is one of consent and understanding, or can be.

Sex, magnifies everything.

But what much of this really is, is about communication.

Women are tired of communications, especially sexual communication being a one-way street where they either have no say in it historically, or they are supposed to be quiet about it.

When all they really want is a say in a social dynamic between two (or sadly at times) more people.

Because communication is a two-way street and they are reasonably quite tired of it being their job of being the silent receiver, especially in situations where one has power over the other as in a boss/employee dynamic. Where one has power and the other is instantly in a precarious position and unable to speak up.

Because seeing this as a communication issue would eliminate some of the confusion in some of these situations as it doesn't put the woman on a shaky standing and if a man (or other) doesn't abuse him either, if that happens to actually be the situation.

We obviously haven't been communicating properly and it's time to be sure about that and readjust our dynamic.

Look, some people are just abusive. Donald Trump comes to mind. Rapists in and out of prison also.

But then there is an entire group who simply have poor communication skills and to claim sexual harassment when it is not

Does Having A Child Change You, Asked Boyd Crowder

Just watching the last season of Justified and something was said, that got me thinkin'.

Character Boyd Crowder asked US Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens:

"Does having a child change you?"

Raylan took a moment to think about it.

And so did I. I paused the show. It got me to thinking back.

Back to about a year and a half after my son was born. I was driving down the street, alone. I can remember it like it was yesterday. So I must have thought about it many times since then. Plus, I can see myself driving in this memory, so it's not an original memory.


I was thinking: if I have a kid now (I did) and considering some of the ill feelings I have about having been a kid myself, perhaps I should consider knocking off the wild stuff in my life? Now I hadn't done any wild stuff for a while since before he was born anyway. But the future was unfolding as I thought about it and I knew quite clearly just who I was. And what I might want to do at some point or other. Add some excitement to my life. Do something fun, dangerous.

Still, because of my own childhood, I did have an unusually strong consideration of responsibility about things. Most especially, toward children. And more so, toward my own.

Film audition headshot of myself around the time my son was born

So I decided in that very moment, surprising even myself, that my life would have to change where much of my "crazy" was not going to be allowed to be active any longer in my life. Because I felt I should be there.

At least until he grows up and moves out. But even then decades after, when it might be nice for him to have a dad around. My hope? That I die first, before my child. As every parent does. But then, he had my genes. And his mother's. Good grief. She was even wilder than I was, in ways other than I had chosen.

See, I had myself two dads. I grew up with my mother and my step-father. But neither dad figured much in my life. One ignored me as he had remarried and had eleven kids. My stepdad seemed to hate me. My mother said he was jealous of me. Weird. Just, weird. In some ways in my own mind, they did have some relevance in my life. But not in their active, positive and daily influences on me. Not really so much in reality.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is... about that question? "Does having children change you?" That is really a loaded question. At least two issues about it now immediately come to my mind.

Yes, my son, who was an exhausting, but awesome kid

One is that day when you change and take the responsibility, not just for your kid. Which hopefully you did some nine months before they were born. But also for yourself and how YOU fit into THEIR lives.

Now we get into question number two, what people mostly mean about, "Does having a child change you?"

In the daily activity (and misery, and joy) of raising a child, that bonding, that restrictiveness of action and motion, and desire, that downside and then that upside...all eventually come together. Should, come together.

Eventually, you start to see the upside more and try to laugh at or ignore the downsides. You begin to enjoy a laugh, read things into what the kid does, start to play with them on their level. Or manipulate them into having fun and giving you a laugh.

Essentially and unknowingly, programming yourself into what they call, bonding with the child. Something hopefully you have also and already done along with your child's other parent. But they are on their own journey, along with you, and along without you. Childrearing can at times be a very lonely thing.

And so too I realized, that I had indeed finally bonded with our child. I hadn't been ready to be a parent, you see. I wasn't sure I ever wanted to be a parent. Though I knew I wanted to have an offspring some day. But I questioned if I ever should propagate, or endeavor to raise a child. My childhood had been pretty messed up. Did I want to pass that along? Would I?

Now some people do bond quickly, even immediately. Some weirdly, ahead of time. Others? Well, it takes a while. Some never do bond. Or ever take responsibility to change their lifestyle. All when it's really all about the child.

And if you don't get that? Well, puppy dog, YOU (and a friend presumably) brought THEM into this world. Sorry, it IS YOUR responsibility. Your responsibilities.

Just like if the government puts you in jail. You are now their responsibility and the things you can no longer do, they now have the responsibility for, to take care of, and to pay for, YOU.

But for your child? That doesn't mean protecting them to their point of paranoia (or breaking), either. Because you have to let them live, to fail, to become prepared for actual, LIFE. To be able to think their way out of, if not at least a wet paper bag, of any of life's future and traumatic situations they may come upon.

So when someone asks, "Does having a child change you?" The answer is two-fold. At very least. So know that.

Of course, you don't have to answer both parts publically. But you do have to know that both are there to be answered. So do know it. Do know, them. And address it all. Let that full change happen to you. Evolve.

Because really, it may be the most productive thing you can do. For yourself. Certainly for the child. And perhaps one could argue, even more important than either of you, for society at large. As well as for History. Even before it's been made.

So? Does having a child change you?

You're god damned right it does.

Even if you run away, never to see that child again? Yes, even that, just changed you.

Just go the other direction. You'll be glad you did. And so will someone else.

Including all the rest of us.

With my son many years ago...

#BoydCrowder #child, #childrearing, #Children, #dad, #father, #fatherhood, #Justified, #kids, #maturity, #parenthood, #raising,

#Raylan