Let Sleeping Blogs Lie?

Well, hello again... sooo much happening, and it's hard to get it all straight in my head. So one possible solution is to blog about it, eh?

Check out this sequence of recent events (all since June):

1. Slab leak in my house, which took 2 solid months (June and July) to fix, while my house was in complete uproar.
2. Mother-in-law died on my birthday (Aug 16), just days before my brother John was to get married... I was in his wedding, then we left to go back to Albuquerque for the funeral. Drove out in one shot (12 hour drive) and then drove back again in another one-shot a three days later.
3. Got home and received word that the owner of our house (which we've been renting for 12 years) passed away, and the heirs were going to sell the house. We got a 60-day vacate notice. We have to move by November 14, which is...
4. ...three days after my Middle Daughter's wedding. 

Weddings, funerals, and forced moving. Plus, all my writing/acting/directing projects I have to focus on... Two screenplays, and a large Christmas project... Honestly, I hope that is the final "big shoe" to drop this year... not sure I can take another Life Wallop...

Speaking of the Christmas project, I've written a pair of scripts. The production is part-film (called The Laborers) and part-live play (called The Deliverer). Same characters in both. Picture "Act 1 and Act 2" being a film, which will be shown on the Big Screen at church, and then "Act 3" will be acted out live onstage... It's quite ambitious, and I hope we can pull it off.

I love live theater - but I've also been learning film making (see the previous post for a short film I recently made as a test), so I thought, "why not combine both"?

So, yeah! My world is all a'swirl at the moment. The part about having to move is unnerving me. I don't know whether to find another place to rent, or try to buy something. Rents are OUTRAGEOUS at the moment in San Diego. But so are home prices. I don't want to sink $500K into a mediocre house in some skanky neighborhood... but to buy a nice home in a nice neighborhood will likely run me far more than I'm able to spend... *tremble* So I'm looking out for rentals, and I'll also apply for a loan to see what I can qualify for. Maybe we can sneak into a decent condo somewhere. With Middle Daughter getting married and moving out, it means we can get a smaller place, since it will be just me, the Mrs., and Youngest Daughter...

We'll see! *tremble again*

Here's something else that happened within the past 24 hours...

So, I mentioned I'm focused on not 1 but 2 screenplays, on seriously huge projects, as well as the aforementioned Christmas project... and yet... I had an idea for a full-length play just fall into my head last night, and it rapidly became fully-formed and alive in my head... so I felt compelled to just sit down and write the thing. I've had things like this happen before - if I don't strike while the iron is hot (so to speak) then I'll default to merely taking detailed notes and then burying it in my archives, with the hope that "someday" I'll actually write it...

So, yeah, stop the important projects that I should be working on every free minute, and instead write down a play that is burning a hole in my heart...

Good thing I have my A.D.D. to help me out in times like this!

I have songs I want to record. I have audio dramas I want to record/edit. I have Wagnervana comics I want to draw. I have two web series ideas that I want to film and edit (which I've already written scripts for). I have soooo much I want to do. I wish I could get paid for some of it, lol... that would help me pay for a higher rent, at least! Sheesh!

I wish there was some way I could demonstrate to "someone of means" that I had creative talents that could be utilized for mutual gain. You know? Like, "hey Dave, write this screenplay for me, and I'll pay you X amount of dollars!" God, how amazing would that be? To get paid for doing something I love, and that I'm good at... I don't know how to brand myself like that... I have to hope someone "discovers" me and decides to use me to benefit him/herself... sort of a win-win... But hey, I know that type of thing doesn't just fall out of the sky... I need to try to make that happen... I just don't know how...

What else?

Good grief, haven't you had enough?

Life is an uproar for me, but oddly, I'm ok with it, for the most part. Flashes of panic here and there, but for the most part, I'm holding course. Wish I had someone to walk with me through this. Wife is in her own world since her mother died. I certainly can't fault her for that. And yeah, I feel selfish for hoping that she'd somehow be by my side with all this (she doesn't seem to want me by her side in her path)... but hey, no one ever died of loneliness, right?

Right?

Dave the Wanderer

Stay Close: A Short Film By David Wagner

Here's a short film I shot in August with two of my daughters and a friend of the family, called Stay Close.



I made it as an experiment, trying to see if I could do a short film myself from concept to finish. All things considered, I'm very pleased with it, though the handful of people I've shown it to have had very little positive to say about it. So be it.

Filmed it on my iPhone 7, got all the footage in about 3 hours in one afternoon (from 5:15 pm to 7:45 pm), did the edit and color corrections in Premiere Pro. The music is too loud, I know... and the sound is inconsistent. The audio-gathering and crafting aspects of film making are hard for me still, but I'm learning.

And hey, if I don't try, I'll never learn, right? I had a lot of theory in my head going into this. Every shot, everything I put in it, I had a good reason for. I think a lot of it worked (in spite of the feedback I'm getting), and I have a plan moving forward, as far as what I'll do differently next time.

And there will be a next time. And many times after that.

First film, done.

Adios.

Dave the Mildly Disillusioned