highlights reel

Go Big or Go Bust: It's HERE! The Official Trailer for all three seasons of The Louise Log!

For months now, I've been calling it a 'highlights reel' but am suddenly so sick of that term I can't say it one more time. 'Official Trailer' sounds so much more, well, official. 

Whatever you call it, this 142 sec. video is the product of more work than you can imagine. (details to follow on Wednesday)  In the meantime,  ENJOY!!  And please don't hesitate to share the link.  Thank you! 

The Louise Log is a comedy series about the inner life of a NYC woman.  (2:22)  (l to r Jennifer Sklias-Gahan, Everett Quinton, Morgan Hallett, Joseph Franchini)



Go Big or Go Bust: Getting Ready for a Flurry of Activity (BONUS: hear Mr. Green learn from Matthew McConnaughey)

It's the season for hibernation ... but I'm going in the other direction - I'm coming back to life! After almost a year of thrashing around and trying to figure out the next step, I've got a plan

Here's a (2:00) clip to start the ball rolling.  More soon.   (Please click the 'Like' button and be instantly rewarded for your big heart.)

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 196 (Neither rain nor thunder nor crickets... with Everett Quinton and Marie Christine)

Another day killing it here with this highlights reel.  Three thunderstorms and a cricket (who in the meantime has moved in his whole darn extended family) have made it challenging to do the voice-over...  BUT.  We persisted and the reel is practically ready for sound editing!  I'll be splitting the tracks in the morning.

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In gratitude for your patience, here's a screengrab from the highlights reel featuring the father-in-law everyone wants, Ethelred Black, brought to life by the brilliant and irrepressible Everett Quinton.  Behind him is the lovely (beleaguered) director of the Tarzan and Jungle Girl movie, Marie Christine Katz.  

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 194 (the 'dead' line)

Okay so I didn't make the deadline.  Fortunately it wasn't an actual 'dead' line and I'm not going to die (GOD WILLING).  Or maybe it's because you crossed your fingers for me.  Thank you for that!

The fact is that I could have made it but it wouldn't have been as good as it could be.  With a few more days I'll be able to improve on some things that will actually matter in the long run.  

Keeping this short so I don't lose focus. 

Happy August!

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 192 (on not getting enough attention as a child, power outages and a very noisy generator)

Once upon a time, my total m.o. was in trying to get an 'A' for effort.  I hated actually *working* but became somewhat of a specialist in making it look like I was trying really hard.  Not that I ever did much besides pretend.  Hey, we were a lot of kids very close in age growing up.  Maybe I needed the attention. 

Our first trip to Europe: Rome.  Note I'm the one out in front, looking like the tour guide. 

Our first trip to Europe: Rome.  Note I'm the one out in front, looking like the tour guide. 

Or maybe, as one of my own children (at the age of five) accused me, I'm "just mean.  And LAY - ZEEE."  

On the other hand, nobody wants to be normal and that word 'dissociated' sounds so post-modern and existential.  Maybe that's what I was. 

Whoops.  Just looked up 'dissociated personality' in the Oxford Dictionaries which says it's another term for *multiple personalities*.  Let's drop this. 

What I was trying to get at is that it feels like I'm suffering from a hangover of that childhood behavior today: I like everybody to know how hard I work.  It's embarrassing to admit.  Some people like to pretend that everything just happens with a wave of the hand.  I'm way over on the other end of the scale wanting everybody to ... what?  Feel sorry for me?  Be in awe of my stamina?  Give me a break on any success cause, heck, she's killing herself! 

So here I am scrambling to finish this darn HIGHLIGHTS REEL

I fear you're sick to death of all my yammering on about it but anyway, last night we had the second power failure in three days.  The first one was at midday, last night's ended at midnight.  Your guess is as good as mine as to the cause because you can do all the twitter searches you want about "power outage upstate NY"  to no avail.  As Mr. Green shouted to me in the dark (over the generator of the people across the road)  I'm probably the only person in a ten mile radius on twitter.  If that. 

And so today, rather than wringing my hands in bed when I woke at four in a panic, I got up and went over to my studio.  (Did you catch that?  I got up at four.)  It wasn't long before Mother Nature proceeded to unleash the loudest crash BAMM thunder and lightning storm (with torrential downpours) for hours.  We didn't lose power but, hello, guess who's still not finished with her bloody highlights reel.  My tech support friend called tonight from the plane, on his way to go camping in Yosemite. Our sound editor is leaving Sunday but (I think) holding Saturday open to do the job if I can get done in time.  

How are you supposed to record Louise's inner voice over a chorus of crickets that would drown out Times Square?  I'm going to bed.  Tomorrow is another day. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 190 (on Final Cut 7, my dear old imac and the beach ball of death)

The way things have been going, it was starting to feel like this darn highlights reel might Never get finished.  The job of conforming a high-quality version to the workprint isn't exactly a fun job but, in this case, it was a high-stakes melodrama and not in a good way. 

My old imac, the computer on which I cut Seasons 1 and 2, is on its last legs. The last few times I used it, the beach ball of death was my constant companion for even the most simple routine jobs like opening Text Edit, or clicking on Finder.  Every little thing took twenty-five minutes.  And so my dear old friend had been retired to its box for the past year.  I've been dreading that I might not be able to get my hands on any high quality tape at all from Seasons 1 and 2 without forking out a thousand dollars for another version of Final Cut 7 and then going through the arduous job of installing it, all for one day's work. 

But the sun was shining on my little studio today.  My old computer was as snappy and fast as the day I bought it.  (Maybe it was the car ride up from the city?  To my horror, Mr. Green had packed it into the car lying on its side...)  I think the hard part of the job is over. 


Go Big or Go Bust: Day 188 (on the chaos of a web series edited by someone learning Final Cut 7 and X and spread over eight years of hard drives)

Mr. Green isn't showing me any sympathy at all.  He has his challenges with the lawn mower and his top-secret-chemistry projects.  (Nothing like Breaking Bad, I assure you.)  But how I would like to have some 1920 x 1080 files to work with, some consistency and order instead of this chaos.  Mr. Green loves to quote Emerson to me: “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” 

This is what I'm dealing with in assembling the elements for the *highlights reel*.  And instead of writing, am going with the old  'picture is worth a thousand words'.   Look ... and weep

This took two days.   Note the various, less than ideal sizes of the elements. 

This took two days.   Note the various, less than ideal sizes of the elements. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 185 (on a web series highlights reel, Final Cut Pro, procrastination and Mr. Green)

I'm not the most hi-tech person who ever walked the planet and the next job on the agenda is to build the cut of the 'highlights reel' in the most high-quality files possible.  I'll say it right out that this would be a a daunting job for anybody: I learned to cut video under deadline pressure on three different softwares, two of which are no longer available.  Combine that with my marginal impulse control and you have a mess spread over ten+ hard drives. 

So naturally, I've procrastinated to the limit with plugging in the old Lacies, Western Digitals and G-Drives Here's a shot of me caught in the act with my last delaying tactic: the wall calendar.  The three month plan.  Until the darn highlights reel is ready, there is no three month plan.  Nuff said. 

Or so I thought.  My roving photographer, Mr. Green, offered to give me a deadline.  When I practically bit his head off, he apologized: "I'm sorry I said anything."  I don't think he is sorry.  I think he just knows which side his bread is buttered on. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 180 (We've been working hard this summer and now we're joy riding)

I'm afraid you're sick of me talking about this ... but I have to say it.  This Louise Log highlights reel we've been *working on* since Christmas and talking about for more than a year is finally getting close

And so, I'm giving myself a pat on the back, taking a break and having fun with my friend Bonnie in her stick-shift Miata.   OH yeah. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 153 (progress report on the highlights reel)

Like the little vegetables in the garden, I'm happy to report that I'm making some progress.  The highlights reel is close.  Even very close.  Mr. Green pronounced it 'a lot better than okay'.  

And this even though I'm spending way too much time googling 'breaking news' about the escaped convicts, all the while hoping that I'm not drawing them psychically to me by this fixation.






Go Big or Go Bust: Day 149 (on the little things that fill a day)

Last night I couldn't fall asleep and really really wanted to creep out to the barn for my knock-out drops (thirty or forty-five minutes of pickaxing the dirt floor).  Too scared that the escaped convicts might show up, I read until the wee hours. 

Today I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and somehow the precious hours just ran through my fingers. A trip to the two-table farmers market in the nearby town was followed by a stop to see the blackened shell of a neighbor's 18th c. farmhouse (chimney fire).  Other neighbors stopped over to talk about non-chemical bug repellents, I cut a great many weeds with a pair of kitchen scissors and did two loads of laundry. 

OH.  And I showed a rough partial version of the highlights reel to Mr. Green who thinks "it has a nice way about it".  (!!!)  I'm encouraged!