Under the Big Hat

Ah, return of the blogging Jess!   What? Do you mean I actually have time to stop and smell the roses?  Not really, but I've been feeling neglectful and I have a few stories to tell so I figured why not? 

I'll start with family stuff.  Jackson has adopted "Cheese."  Cheese is his stuffed dog.  He picked it out when I took my friend Brooke shopping post divorce finalization.  He had to have the dog. Wouldn't put it down. 

 So, I bought it.  It was $5 well spent.  Almost immediately he started hugging it calling it "Cheese."  I have no idea why it'

s name is Cheese, but that is it's name... so Cheese joins t

he throngs of stuffed animals that have taken up residence in our house. 

 In the past week since we got it, Cheese has not been put down with the exception of the day and a half it was over at abuelita's house in which Jack moped around the house asking "Cheese?"  Cheese was quickly returned and off he happily went. 

The other thing that Jackson has discovered is that he can get out of his playpen.  I have a little houdini on my hands.  The first time he did it, I didn't even hear him.  He managed to collapse one of the sides and climb out (which he's also climbing on EVERYTHING now).  He got an empty two liter bottle, came up behind me and whacked me on the back and started laughing hysterically.  Naturally, I chased him around the house, much amused, and finally tickled him.   The kid amazes me on a daily basis.  He also has learned the word "juice."  Now, whenever he's thirsty, he throws his sippy cup (the kid may have a future in the major leagues) and yells "JUICE!"   He does, however, say "tanku" his version of thank you, when you hand him back the full sippy cup.   Cute cute cute.

Lily is doing well.  This has been ISTEP week.  I spoke with her teacher on Monday before the test and we both had a bitch session about how ISTEP is completely useless and tells you nothing and that now a days most kids fail ISTEP because a) the test is completely subjective and b) they purposefully try and trick kids with wording.    One of the questions the teacher gave me as an example ended with the words "Justify your answer."   WHY WHY W

HY would they put that on a THIRD GRADE TEST?!??!?!!??!!  Yes, ISTEP is stupid.  Everyone agrees it's a waste of time.  Make it go away, please.  

Casey is still working.  He's pulling double duty between Majority and our Production Company.  I'm hoping that one of these days we can make some money with the production company thing and get his ass out of construction.  We're working on it, that's for sure. 

Film stuff... this could be long.  

Right now I'm working on three main projects.  Well, two main projects and the th

ird is just to kind of flex my producing muscles.  The last one it turning out to be... interesting.  I'm still not 100% I want to do it but I'm going to just because I think if anything it's good practice for my newbie producing skills (which, from what I've heard are uncomperable to anyone else's in the area... David O. Selznik kiss my ass thank you very much - Casey says I'm Selznick on PMS when I'm on top of my producing game and I take that as a compliment).  I also just finished up the Mid America Filmmakers Winter Screening last Friday which was pretty cool.  I got the head count last night at it was 73 people!  Rock on!  

Project one would be our film, Small Change, which we have slated to shoot on March 22nd.  Last night we did the whole wonderful Pre-Visualization thing and that went really well. 

 Casey story boarded out all of his shots ala Rodriguez and while he was doing that - 

using myself and Tara Eary (our lovely Assistant Director) as the mock-actors in the scene, I amused Tara with various clips from willitblend.com  (an amusing site, go check it out and then buy me that blender).   Small Change info is up on our website, so go there.  In case you haven't been there, it's www.bighatcowboy.com. Thank you, come again. The pic is actually Casey doing setting up the wide shot. 

Project two is the new South Bend Film Festival, which is now named "The River Bend Film Festival."  Yeah... I'm not happy but I'm not going to go into it.  Let's put it this way.  Things need to be a lot shinier and a lot prettier before any advertising can get done and I'm wearing my stilletos to the meeting this afternoon so I can kick some ass.  Yo.   I'm involved because Mid America Filmmakers is the main sponsor and I'm the Vice President of Mid America Filmmakers, so yeah.  OH, I've also been elected "Filmmaker Liason" which means I get to schmooze and cater to the filmmakers that are coming in and give them packets and gift baskets.   I'm actually looking forward to this because I am a very social creature and well, it gives me an excuse to dress up and look pretty. Yes.  I like to look pretty.

Project three is a "horror" script.  I use that term loosely because there's nothing really scary about it.    This one I don't have much to say about because, well, it's in it's infancy and I'm just producing this for fun, so yeah.  It's practice. 

That's about it on our end of things.  I hope you've enjoyed my gigantorpost.  It has taken me roughly half an hour to write (and I was baking cookies during that time, too).