Busy Busy

I've been trying to think about what I've been up to in the past week that has kept me from thinky thoughts for the blog. Here's a bullet list.

• A bunch days of joining shoots with my Production 3 students. Those tend to be long, chaotic, exhausting days. And there's at least one more of those coming up. I like the kids in the class at least. Oh, I should try to find the pictures we took of the lighting we did in the pouring rain last Saturday. It was supposed to be a sunny afternoon so we took a tarp from my trunk and a bunch of c-stands and made a sort of tent and then put up a couple of big lights and some diffusion to be the sun. Inside the living room it felt like a nice afternoon for 12 hours. I'm kind of proud of that.
• Sporadically working on my research for the paper I'm writing for British Cinema. I'm taking a look at women in the Bond films over the decades. So far I've watched Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and on tap for today is Live and Let Die. I'm also reading a biography of Ian Fleming (who was a complete ass apparently).
• I've had some projects for my lighting class that I've been working on. We're not allowed to share them or I'd post the one from yesterday. I had to recreate a scene from the film Collateral where the assassin is on a metro platform lit on one side by the lights from the train, and on the other side by street lights. It came out pretty cool and was fun to do. Next week we're recreating a scene from Oliver.
• I've been exchanging a bazillion emails with a client I did some work for in October who still hasn't paid me. They're trying, it's not that. The problem is they're government and the federal payment system changed since the last time I did a job for them. In converting to the new system I made a mistake in how I filled out the form. They caught it and I fixed the mistake. But now I'm stuck in bureaucratic hell because some other random branch wants me to fill out forms proving that I changed my business name. I keep saying that I didn't, I just made a mistake filling out the form the first time. We've been circling a lot. My client's finance people have been very helpful at least.
• Then there's the house. I got notice that my renter is moving out, so I'm putting that on the market. 100 details there to try to deal with from a distance. I'm using the same realtor I had when I bought the house though. I like her; she's been great.
• We picked a location that would work well for Esther's Front Step (it's become enough of a thing that it's gained capitals in my mind) but haven't been able to get permission for it. Well, they sort of said yes, but only with restrictions that make it unusable for us. So now we're going to start looking for Plan B. Actually, the street we like is full of appropriate places so I'm not too bothered about not getting the first choice. If we can get permission to any of them we'll be fine.
• Aaron and I met yesterday with someone he wants to bring on board as his 1st AD for his film. She seemed great, so at the end of the meeting I asked her if she wanted to do mine as well. I'm going to send her the script today so she can think about it.
• I've got 2 days this month that I'm going to be working on a shoot for one of my professors.
• Oh, I got my taxes done earlier this week. That was a pain and nice to not have to think about any more. 
• I might buy a bike this afternoon. It was very nice to have three different people offer me hand-me-down bikes when mine got stolen last fall, but none of them really fit right so I never ride them. REI is having a 20% off sale at the moment, and I just got my rebate from them for $147 dollars. So I thought I might take a little bit from the refund from my taxes and get a bike that really fits so that I might actually start riding again.

Anyway, back to work. Lots to do.

Oh hey, here's the shoot in the rain.

3k watts of light under the tarp from my car, held up by 4 c-stands, all set up in the pouring rain.

It was dismal all day outside, and a sunny afternoon all day inside.