David provided me with some powerful stuff for the end of our first season. The beginning at this point is a splicing of his stuff and a touch of mine. The middle is a good mix of both. But the linkage is proving to be difficult to work through. I’m in the middle of redoing an outline because the changes are quite dramatic given the new stuff for the last few scenes of the season finale.

Perhaps the way we decided to go about this is too far forward thinking. I think I need to step away for a day or two. What I am finding to be the toughest thing about this whole webisode format we’ve settled on is the length. Trying to support such a complex hierarchy of story arcs with under 30 minute episodes – each needing to be self contained isn’t easy. I see why most more complex shows need episodes to be an hour long.

But let’s just say that everyone who has ever given evidence of this light was being 100% truthful. Then, let’s assume that this experience is not the result of any chemical reactions in a body that may be chock full of adrenaline, dopamine, phenethylamine, and maybe, if in a hospital, experienced repeated, high-voltage jolts to the heart, and is likely under a high-intensity light source.

So we’re assuming 100% honesty and no environmental stimuli, no hormonal, drug, and neither medically administered nor naturally occurring neurotransmitters are responsible.

What is that light? What if it wasn’t heaven? What if it wasn’t angels or Jesus or God? What if it was a trick by something or someone sinister? What if it was a place of judgement? A pathway to both Heaven and Hell? A place as accessible by the minions of Hell as by the angels of Heaven. What if it fell?

Pretend for a moment that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, are all sort of right. None of them completely, but they are right about a glorious afterlife. A greater power. Celestial beings. All balanced by an absolute and complete evil.

Is that light so comforting now? What else is in that dark tunnel with you?

It’s a fascinating set of questions with limitless other possiblities, resulting in more questions.

Such as, what if you found that while inside the tunnel, you were not alone? You were with others just as scared and lost as you. What if you also found that you had free will? That you weren’t drawn like a moth to a flame? All you had was the knowledge that soon, you would be weighed, measured, and possibly found wanting. No matter where you turned, you were doomed, but you had no way of knowing to what you were doomed exactly.

That is one of the story lines in the second season of the Arkangel serial. Hope you like the way we see it.

Then, David launched into writing and I built this illustrious website. When I finished the website about a month ahead of schedule, I was ready to jump into writing.

David and I were at lunch one day tossing around more ideas and sources of inspiration and we realized that we weren’t 100% lock-stepping on the story lines. So, David asked me to write some ideas down. So I wrote the premise as I saw it. Then I wrote treatments for the first six or so episodes. I was hesitant to give them to him. I mean this story is his baby and he’s been sitting on it for years. Right? My treatments introduced a lot of new story lines, plot devices, relationships, I mean I severely altered some stuff. I wasn’t sure it would be cool. But so far, David and I had been completely honest with each other about what we wanted to do. Before we even started shooting our first film was not the time to start holding back. Right? So, I e-mailed what I had to David.

David told me he liked some, hated some, and we started squeezing the shit out and trying to keep the good shit together. While this was going on, David started warming to some of the stuff he wasn’t sure about when he first read the treatments. Of course, some of it is still shit to be sure and there’s only so much you can polish a turd before you realize, no matter how it shines, it’s still a piece of shit.

But the parts that were good, are serving the story well. Devices driving the plot and developing the relationships are taking an already strong story and stretching it into a series. I’m excited.

So David is working on his master’s degree and is approaching midterms. He handed me the scenes that he’s written and said ‘go!’

So this weekend I finished the first episode. The execution of the story arc is a bit jerky. But it’s a draft and we’ll smooth it out. I am about 20% done with the second episode. The beginning feels pretty strong but it goes down hill pretty quick. Most of it will never make the finished first draft. But I’m excited. David and I are ahead of schedule. By original timeline, I’d have finished the website just a couple of weeks ago and launched this past weekend. We’d be just starting to write.

I am already thinking about things like casting, lighting, things I know I HAVE to take David’s lead on. I also know I need to stop and keep writing. And that makes me smile. I love this part. The writing. And there’s plenty of it. Write.

People all over the world were quick to point out that the word ‘zealout’ and not ‘fundamentalist’ describe the terrorists who took those planes. Equating their perversion of the peaceful Islamic faith to the American Ku Klux Klan – who pervert the context and meaning of the Bible to fit their end – is an accurate comparison. So the fair statement to make there is that we can’t blame religion right?

Well …

No, that event should not have cast the Islamic faith into the same barrel as the those rotten apples. But has organized religion not been a cause of a lot of death in the name of a creator that I don’t think wanted us to go around killing His handiwork? Do you suppose we were meant to pass divine judgement – in other words act as God – and righteously take ‘Gods greatest gift’ from another in His holy name? Yet that is a recurring theme.

Look at what is going on in Israel and has been for centuries. Look at the entire history of the Crusades. Look at the shooting of the Pensacola abortion doctor by a ‘religious fanatic.’ Look at New York City circa 2001. Look at what has happened since.

Here’s a question – what if the Bible was really, actually, and truly written by humans? Humans, fallible and swayed by basic human needs and desires may have actually written that holy text. Astounding. No matter how inspired they were, they were human. But people go so crazy over the ‘word of God’ as if the book literally materialized out of God’s mouth.

Now, I’m not going to say what happened because like EVERYONE else, I don’t know. I take it on faith. But I certainly don’t think I should I have the right to kill anyone for disagreeing with me.

Living in the deep south right below the buckle of the Bible Belt, I often saw a bumper sticker that said ‘If it ain’t King James, then it ain’t Bible.’ To me, that epitomizes the hypocrisy. You’re going to tell me that a version so blatantly political that it was named after the MONARCH who HAD IT REVISED to his liking is the version that is CLOSEST TO THE WORD OF GOD?

Organized religion has always been big business. Long before the Jimmy Swaggarts and Jim and Tammy Bakers of the world ever showed just how corrupt of a business it could be. Churches have manipulated governments with tools like excommunication and defining monarchs as God’s instruments on earth. How is it that anyone, no matter how strong their faith can be so blind to that? How can they NOT wonder if maybe, the basic human principles like kindness, love, faith, forgiveness, trust, gratitude,honesty, generosity are all God intended us to take from His word and the rest is marketing?

I mean, why is it that God MUST be perfect? If he can get angry enough to reduce an entire city of rapists to salt or to cause a flood that kills all of the world except the folks in the big boat, doesn’t that tell you something about the basic humanity of God? We call that ‘the wrath of God.’ Wrath. One of the seven deadly sins. If God is capable of committing one of his own deadly sins, I’d say we’re calling Him fallible. And if He’s fallible doesn’t that take some pressure off of Him?

In ancient religions, gods were fallible. Zeus and all of the Greek gods were subject to wrath, jealousy, spite and making mistakes because of their very human flaws. Is it not possible that over the centuries, Christians have idealized God to the point of making Him this perfect being? Perhaps God is feeling a bit resentful? Perhaps God gave us things like intellect, free will, and, you know, thumbs so that we could make choices, make mistakes, live our lives and not expect Him to live and think for us?

As I step off of this soap box upon which I suddenly find myself standing (I’m a bit embarrassed), I’ll leave you with this. My whole point was to talk about the thoughts and questions that inspired the Arkangel series. There will be shots taken at the picture painted of God, Jesus, angels, the devil, our relationship with God as humans, and God’s relationship to the human condition. If that’s a problem, maybe the real question is the strength of the doubter’s faith. Or perhaps the strength of the foundation upon which they chose to build that faith.

The film is based on the Alfred Noyes poem.  It is set in 18th century England but filmed in Colorado. I encourage you to visit The Highwayman official website for a plot synopsis. But the reason I wanted to talk about this coming film was to share this excellent interview that Day gave to the Tongue & Axe podcast. Among other interesting topics, they talk about filming in Colorado.

Enjoy! Tongue & Axe: #5 Macleish Day

Unless I am mistaken, the article is saying that an independent film company based in Colorado (even one that does not fully comply with the 75%) may be in line for up to $300,000 in incentives. It does say “incentives” and not cash. So I’m thinking in terms of tax breaks, tax credits, perhaps some fee waivers rather than grants or loans, but who knows? The article doens’t go into further detail. I will try to find more details so check back.

Please retweet/repost this and lets keep an eye on this legislation. If it could help stimulate the arts in Colorado, I’m sure everyone interested in this site and blog would benefit. If I can find any links to the details of the legislation and whom we can contact to voice our support, I will post them.

But seriously, that was all completely different than the world I am entering. Just taking direction and letting all the people who actually do all of this for a living was easy. Now, I’m not just going to be riding a needle on a sound board but letting sound engineers really make sure it’s all working. I’m going to need to know what I’m doing.

Now, David is a producer with a technical theater background. He knows how to light a shot, set up a sound stage and all of that. Me? I am going to get to tinker with the camera for awhile. I am going to get into all of that techincal stuff and learn as much as I can. I have a lot to learn from my partner but I think it’s all stuff I can handle.

When it’s all said and done, my involvement in the creation of the story is what I am really excited about. This first project will sort of ease me in. David came up with the concept and really fleshed a lot of it out almost ten years ago. But since we are expanding a 90 to 100 minute movie into dozens of hours of self-contained episodes, there are a lot of plot and character decisions that may be made differently. Some devices used to convey a specific amount of information within the 90 minutes can be altered, expanded on, or eliminated completely. So while the goal of the story hasn’t changed, the creative direction has been given a completely new set of parameters within which to operate. Dozens of new possibilities to build plots, subplots, develop characters and detail their relationships. It also gives us countless new ways to achieve the goals we have to accomplish with this series.

Obviously, I am speaking to the other novices here. Telling a story with pictures is full of amazing possibility. For example, dialogue is MUCH less important than the twitch of a gaze, clenching of a jaw, shot of garbage blowing across an urban alley. So much can be explained with four silent seconds of film than can be established using several minutes of dialogue. While clever, believable dialogue is a good thing, I am learning that what makes dialogue good in a movie versus in a play versus in a novel are extraordinarily different.

To any novice, I highly recommend reading Syd Freeman’s book Four Screenplays. I also recommend the collection of classroom notes from legendary filmmaker and dean/professor of the revered film school California Institute of the Arts Sandy Mackendrick. The book is edited by Paul Cronin and titled On Filmmaking: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director. Both are amazing expositions on screenwriting and directing. If you can find a partner who’s been there before, I highly recommend that as well.

I am new to this whole film making thing. Don’t get me wrong, I have my strengths. But I think the greatest strength I have, the one that will get me farther than any other, is the knowledge and understanding that I don’t know anything yet.

Think of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers or Any Given Sunday.  Both movies I was able to enjoy but I had to ignore the whiffle ball bat labeled “THE MESSAGE!!!!!!!!!!” that was constantly being smashed into my head.

If you look at the cover of the Natural Born Killers DVD, it says right on the box ‘the media made them superstars.’  In an improbable street interview, a hip kid says to the camera “We value human life.  But if we had to be serial killers, we’d be Mickey and Mallory.”

In Any Given Sunday we see Los Angeles Sharks quarterback Willie Beamon flexing and strutting through commercials.  We watch athletes pumping themselves full of drugs and throwing money around.  We watch a bunch of millionaire players cheer as the star running back cuts the new star quarterback’s car in half with a power saw.  In the end, we see stills of old, leather helmet football players diving selflessly into the fray.  We watch the current day star running back step out of bounds with four seconds on the clock – stopping the clock and giving his team one more play to win the game.  We cut to a quick shot of Al Pacino on the sideline yelling ‘unselfish!’ as if we didn’t understand what that step out of bounds meant.

THE MESSAGE!!!!!!!! I THINK YOU, AS AN AUDIENCE ARE TOO STUPID TO GET WHAT I AM SAYING SO I WILL MAKE IT SO LITERAL, A REMEDIAL HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH STUDENT COULD WRITE A DISSERTATION ON IT.

That was what I was worried about.  The feelings that inspired David to write The Weigh Station were directly from the affect of the events of September 11, 2001 took on him.   That was a powerfully affecting event for those of us who remember the planes hitting the Pentagon and the twin towers.  And while the events and their aftermath brought out the best in people across all racial, religious, economic, and political backgrounds, it also brought out some really bad, overdone music, television, poetry – as any major event will.

While, I never doubted David as an artist, I know how powerful emotion can color our perception and especially our self-perception.  So I was concerned to say the least.

When I began reading, I got more and more excited.  Here was a story revolving around very sensitive religious subjects in a decidedly irreverent way (the understatement here is like calling a hurricane “breezy and a tad moist”).  But I was enthralled with the plot line.  There were some parts where the shift in narrative view were a bit jarring but that could be because the script he gave me was cut and slashed and edited and re-edited.  So I think I read some parts that were cut out.

It was a very moving and exciting story line to work with.  The real challenge has been to figure out how we are going to stretch this out over a series of episodes.  But I think after several weeks of tossing story lines and structure ideas around, it’s beginning to gel.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying.  This isn’t a story about the events of Sept. 11.  The tragedy of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack aren’t referenced in the series.  Those events were the catalyst.

But the questions are very real, very human.  David calls himself a recovering Catholic.  His view of the subject matter is colored by his experience in the church.  My upbringing was by a Protestant and a Buddhist.  So our backgrounds lend themselves to the sort of broader shift of accountability we are hoping to achieve with our show.

This is not a series about religion. We aren’t going to tell you what you should believe, or even what we believe.  We think that while you watch our characters’ journeys, you will come to the questions yourself.  Questions we ask ourselves and questions that those with the most staunch faith should still ask.

I’m rambling now.  But I am very excited about what we’re doing.  Oh and I get to say Horseshit without any Hail Marys. Just sayin.’

David and I are extremely excited about what we have to offer the world of film.  David comes to this project with some wonderful experience in Hollywood.  He’s worked on some A-List motion pictures with some A-List people.   As our journey on this project continues, you may find out who.

But Fourteener is not about David’s or my past.

I came to the project with a marketing and technical background but a passion for acting and writing.  Under David’s guidance, I am also finding that I may have a bit of potential for editing and direction.

Our first project is David’s brainchild.  He first wrote and began production on a screenplay version almost a decade ago.  But logistical problems made him decide to scrap the project.

When David and I met through work and became friends through my brother-in-law, we realized our common interests and found our skills to be complimentary. So, we decided to jump in with both feet.  I really can’t wait to show you what we’re working on.  Obviously, due to the nature of the industry we aren’t going to to show you too much too soon.  But we’re really excited and eager to fill you in.  So check back often and thanks again for stopping by.