Hmmmm... I'm concerned. I don't like the pacing and I hate the chase scene (though it's not close to finished). I like the pacing of the movie from the start, but it slows down drastically in the middle when I'm talking with Brett (who replaced Chad as the player). The scenes with Brett are funny, but not really funny enough. I think I'll ask him to reshoot parts of them. Otherwise the movie will be a letdown. There are still some scenes to film (nervous breakdown scene, chase) before I can really grasp how good this will be. What happened to the good old days of FTLOTD???!!!! Back when that was being filmed EVERYTHING worked out right. Everything was funny, quick, good. Now it's soooo much work to get things right! Grrrr.... Oh well, hopefully the work pays off. No matter what the movie will be better than The Dingbat. But I'm having my doubts as to whether this will match up to FTLOTD.

(6/18/04) As a blanket statement, I honestly think it surpasses "The Dingbat" and can at least move in right along with "For the Love of the Dame." The two are about on par. Not to mention that "Springtime Love" (as is the working title) is pretty much a sequel to "FTLOTD". In fact, about 35% of it is shot on the same location! "Springtime" also shares some locations with "The Dingbat". Geez, you'd think I'd be more creative than that, right?

I think the first five minutes are very funny, easily funnier than anything in the other two movies. So far it (pretty much) flows well, and I can see the potential. Hopefully I can develope it and fashion it to be as funny as it should be. Then the pacing shifts, but it shifts smoothly, so I don't think it's a problem. The Dingbat goes from trying to pick up chicks to trying to learn from the master how to pick up chicks. The master (or player or pimp, however he's credited) is played by Brett Valenti, who is about as brilliant a comic as I know. He and I (I play the Dingbat) shred out three scenes, the focus generally on Brett as it should be, though I think it's kind of an Abbott and Costello thang (with him playing a kind of comedic straight guy. I'm the comic of the duo cause I'm the idiot, but he plays the straight-man with such zane that he seems to be both Abbott AND Costello at the same time. It is safe to say that he's the funnier comic of the two of us in those scenes. The pace is slower and the shots are longer than the first five minutes, which moves at about 80mph, much like FTLOTD.

The chase scene is yet unspectacular. No real stunts as of yet, a few sight gags (one extended one), some good jokes. It's funnier than the chase in 'The Dingbat' but is no where near as cool. I'm gonna film some stunts this summer in California and try and splice them in without losing continuity. Yay for guerilla filmmaking! Naw, seriously, I think I'll have to reshoot a GANG a'dis. But the concept and idea are there, it just needs to be fleshed out.

The ending to 'Springtime Love' is grand.

6/27/04: Shooting a shot today for the movie. A nervous breakdown shot. Hopefully will turn out funny.
There is a whole level of filmmaking I have yet to uncover! Wow, I watch movies now and realize exaclty how bad I am! I just watched 'Around the World in 80 Days' last week and decided that I need to develope. I mean, in that movie they did more than they had to. They were so creative with the traveling graphics and other such things. Very cool. Also, The Hulk really made me realize that I was nowhere near having arrived yet. It's time for me to do more than I have to do to make my movies good. No more will I settle for a simply cross dissolve or stationary camera! Unless, of course, that is the only thing that works. Sometimes simplicity is the best way to go, an I think alot of young filmmakers like myself forget about that and set up needlessly complicated shots that not only look bad, they hinder the audience's reaction and the actors concentration. So my goal now is: do exactly what it takes to maximize the audiences reaction, but in the less important parts (transitions from scene to scene) or more exciting parts (chases and such) spice it up a bit. I think that on my future projects I'll try to make the camera how I want the audience to be. I the quieter parts, the camera will be still, and on the exciting parts the camera will be jumping around and such. Ya know what I'm saying? Anyways, that's what I'm gonna go for. At least experiment with it.

First Day of Filming: First things first, praise the Lord it didn't rain. I can't tell you how much I hoped and prayed for no rain. And God blessed us! Second, of all the girls coming down from Portland, only Amy came. Huge punch to the stomach! I was panicking. But thank the Lord, some other local girls came and filled in, and so we were able to work.
Shawn Nelson was AD'ing and he really brought some good stuff to the table. He had more equipment than I knew what to do with (before this I never even used a tripod on a movie!!!) and was a fun guy to hang around. I suggest you visit him over at Nelson Entertainment.

What Worked: The Lovers Lane sequence worked out very good, except I wasn't able to get a certain vertigo shot (never done one, wanted to). Everybody was laughing and we had a great time acting ridiculous. Had a nice crain shot, and a decent joke.
A guy named Chad from my house made his acting debut as player with a lot of girls, and he was hysterical. He steals the scenes he's in.
Amy was a joy to have on set. She knew how to act and didn't take a lot of time. Directed herself, if you know what I mean. Plus she had to wait around for FOREVER to finally shoot her scenes, because I had to shoot everybody else's because everybody had to leave.
Shawn Nelson, already mentioned why.
The mood on set was great. Everybody was laughing, joking and having fun. There were no outbursts, nobody challenged me or thought I was an idiot (at least they didn't say) and nobody left unhappy, to my knowledge.
A couple scenes turned out quite funny: a swingset joke, a statue joke, Rob absolutely beating the heck out of me and some random other things all turned out to be funny.
I adopted a completely insane personality for the Dingbat this time around, something that's been hinted at during the other two movies. I don't think there is a shred of normality left in the character of the Dingbat. To be honest, I think it worked well. My most over the top performance to date.

What Didn't Work: As I've said before, I REALLY wish that I had more time to shoot. I would love to take a couple days per scene or two to perfect everything, but alas that obviously isn't going to work. I think that the energy level kind of declined throughout the day (by the end I was EXHAUSTED) and the quality descended a little. The scenes will all work, but probably won't have the dynamic that they should. This means I will have to make an even crazier chase scene to make up for it!
A couple of jokes didn't come across as well as I would have liked, due to time constraints.
During the players scenes, I fear some of them might be slightly out of focus. Not too bad as they are generally short and will be in black and white. Have to wait and see.

Overall: Grade A- day. I will probably fall into a minor depression for the next couple days because not everything went as I had hoped, but too much good happened for me to not be completely thankful. I praise God that it worked out as well as it did! I do think this movie will surpass 'The Dingbat' and at the very least reach the level of 'For the Love of the Dame.'