Picture Lock for "Corner Store" and the Results of Fermentation

I just got back from a meeting with Robin Hartwig, the editor on The Corner Store, and we finally locked picture. That means there is to be no more messing with the video. The audio, both sound effects and music, however, will require ample messing-with in the days and weeks to come.

My good friend Dom Ricco has resurrected an old project of his, tentatively titled Visions of Life, and asked me to take a crack at his year-old script. I really love the premise. A wounded and bitter young soldier, confined to a restrictive neck brace, is stuck in a hospital room next to a friendly older Arab man, who describes in engaging detail what's outside their window. Though he hates the Arab man at first, he eventually has a change of heart, only to discover that the Arab man has passed on, and that he was blind - basically making up the scene outside the window.


I'm having fun with doing rewrites, and I'm really hoping that Dom can put this into production in the Spring. He was basically ready to go last year (some of the impressive storyboards are above) before he decided to pull the plug, probably because the script wasn't quite there yet.

Sometimes there's no cure for writer's block than letting it ferment. There's almost always a solution after you've put it out of your mind for a while.

"La Nina" Pushing Forward

With a mere two and a half months left until cameras roll on my ultimate passion project, La Nina del Desierto, the pre-production materials are flowing. We've gotten our schedule and budget approved by the school, and subsequently our Green Light.

Furthermore, storyboards have been finished (see top and bottom), and, perhaps most exciting of all, our production has been selected to receive a grant from Fotokem. They will develop, for free, up to 10,000 feet of 16mm or 20,000 feet of 35mm film. This means we can essentially shoot as much as we want. Thank you, Fotokem!

Now all we need is a grant from Kodak for the film and a grant from Panavision for the cameras...

In casting news, I suppose I can reveal who we were romancing to play the lead role of Javier, since we never got through to him personally, and his agent very politely rejected us.

Danny Trejo is NOT Javier Martinez!

Oh well. The good news is, I scoured IMDB for other similarly-aged, grizzled-looking, Mexican-American bilingual actors who've had a decent amount of acting experience (I'm suprised I found any at all), and I came across Joaquin Garrido.

Joaquin Garrido MIGHT be Javier Martinez!

He'd be perfect. I contacted his agent and she said that he's in Mexico currently, but should be very interested in the role. Fingers crossed!

That's it for now. I leave you haunted by the pint-sized spectre that is ... La Nina del Desierto.