Well, it’s confirmed, The MVM is coming to Hollywood. We’re founding a movie studio (23E Studios, natch). We’re building a production facility. We’re building a theater. We’re shooting a film. And we’re premiering that film in LA’s chinatown.

I spoke with Susan at Fringe today and we agreed on July 2008 for the show. The tentative date for the show’s opening is July 12, but that may shift by a week or so.

Susan is very excited and, as always, unbelievably supportive.

I, too, am excited.

I will meet with Ted Rzad and David Gurman next week to begin budgeting the build. And I need to get a start on the model with Ted. That could take awhile I suspect.
Then next Sunday I am holding a full crew meeting. I want to introduce everyone to each other. And do a presentation on the project. Answer questions and take ideas. And then collect head shots and bios. I also want to have meetings with the different crew units to get a sense of their needs, for budgeting purposes.

As well, today I ran into a friend and alumni of CCA’s Visual and Critical Studies department, Hanif O’Neil. Hanif is amazing. He is insanely insightful on media and theory issues, as well as video and audio art. I broached the subject of bringing him on board to work with me on the press and other written materials for the show. He’s interested, and hopefully we can meet next week to nail some things down. I’m hoping he’ll agree to be my conceptual personal trainer.

This is going to be a wild ride. We are going to take Hollywood by storm!
And I’ll be living with my parents.

Yup, you read right, our original architect, Ted Rzad, is back on board! That is stupendous news.
Ted took a break from the project back in September due to family health problems. Those are on the mend, and he called yesterday to jump back into Disembody.
Ted is the architect that designed Portal 3 for The MVM.
He also designed Disembody with us back in August before taking a leave from the project. All of the work Chris and I have done since then builds on the initial vision Ted and I had.
So, you can see why I am so thrilled to have him back.
I am having lunch with him today. We’ll catch up and start moving forward. I sent him the sketch-up designs Chris sent me. They are very nice, btw. I’ll look into posting them here for you all to see.
Chris’ animation should be arriving soon, as well.
So Ted and I will have a lot to work with.
The animation I will definitely post here and on youtube.

I expect to call Susan today and see if she has an idea of when we’ll be shooting and building.

As well, the first big action of February will be a crew meeting. I think it’s time to assemble everyone and make introductions and get people’s ideas floating around in the air.
I will also be able share the sounds and visions of folks like oRSo and Ted and Chris and I. The actual tangible goods generated thus far.

The crew meeting will be the start of the conrete for the piece. C-A and Ket and others will be able to actually start making things.

Woohoo!

Ch

I’m waiting patiently for the drawings and animation from Chris. One thing you can always be sure of in life is that schedules will be disrupted. Nothing goes as planned. Thank Heavens that is what this project is about. Well, one of the many things it is about for me.

Otherwise all is well.

Today I met with Elise, our current editor, her boyfriend Ben, and our friend Skye. Skye is a frickin’ amazing. He’s a faboo artist and incredibly skilled editor. He’s also a whiz with special fx in aftereffects. We’ve collaborated a bit and it is always a joy.

Skye has agreed to come onboard Disembody as co-editor. The more I think about it, the more I’ve been thinking that I would need more than one editor. Elise will need to sleep sooner or later. And because the nature of this project is to be generating footage, from two cameras, almost non-stop, the editor is going to be swamped day and night. Add in the confessional booth and Elise was going to be broken on the rack of my vision by Day 3 or 4.

Bringing Skye onboard, and safely assuming that Chadwick will be heavily involved in the editing suggests that maybe we can actually get footage rendered, edited, soundtracked, etc in the time we have.

So, today we moved another step closer to pulling this whole thing together and making a Hollywood flick.