I’m in SF to pick up the ceiling and a slew of gear.
Jonny flies in today. Monday, he and Skye and I will pick up a Budget truck.
Then all over the Bay Area picking up items:

Douglas and Sturgess to get 4″ pink foam to use installing the ceiling
Carson’s studio to pick up the ceiling panels and Carson’s tools and Elise’s hotdog machine
Adi’s to pick up a popcorn maker
Kathryn’s to pick up the usher outfits
Skye’s to pick up some of his possessions (we’re helping him move South)
Terry’s to pick up the hoodies and concession stand and menu light boxes
Alex’s to pick up a ton of production gear.

We’re convoying down in Skye’s truck, Alex’s car and the Budget truck.
If you’re on I-5 and see a little green Ford truck driven by a bald guy with a handlebar mustache following close behind a 26′ Budget truck, that’s us, so honk and show us some love.

Today Elise and I looked at rough cuts.
I AM SO FRAKKING HAPPY!
Yeah, the crew on this project are blowing my mind.

Last week I hung out with my friends Chuck and Barbara. They both work in the film industry in Hollywood. Chuck’s a producer and while we talked he mentioned that it’s a given that you always make three films on your way to release:
1) the film on paper - the script
2) the film you shoot - that is, the footage that ends up getting shot and which inevitably differs from the script
3) the film you release - that is, the film that is made from the footag in post-production and which differs from both the script and the film the director, cast and crew were making.
I liked this idea, and the idea that it is a truism in Hollywood, because I feel it is one of the points Disembody is designed to bring to light about art.

It’s been an incredibly busy week, but I hope you’ll all forgive me if I haven’t documented it as well as I should have here. We’re getting really close and I’m finding it harder to frame and organise what’s happening in a legible manner for the blog.

I can tell you we are all incredibly excited. And everyone is working around the clock at this point to get this thing ready to start. Which is pretty amazing.
Incredibly excited and incredibly nervous.
Skye and Alex have both taken up smoking cigarettes again, due to nerves they tell me.
I hear other stories of sinful regression, as well. As we approach the opening and then kick off of the project, exhaustion and nerves are taking a high toll.
I couldn’t be happier.
For my part, the vice I’ve returned to is listening to Gary Numan and Franco Battiato pretty much around the clock.

It’s not final, because not all of the crew has weighed in, but I’m really excited that we might name the theater

The Morgellon

What a great name for a theater.

I was brainstorming names with Skye and Elise today and we came up with that. It’s frakkin’ sexy is what it is.

S&E showed me a couple of rough edits they made from the Making Of footage. Okay, yeah, I’m almost always excited, I know, but seriously, they looked so good. And not just because I think this project kicks ass.

Or maybe just because I think this project is really exciting.
I don’t know.

In good news, my friend Mik mentioned to me that he thought his girlfriend, my friend Adi, had a full size popcorn machine. And indeed we may be digging that out of storage come July 6 or 7 to drive down to LA and install in The Morgellon. Sweet!

I met with investors yesterday and today. I’ve begun collecting money, which is cool. Of course, I’ve begun spending it, too. Jake got a check for $1000 today for the architectural model. And I spent almost $400 on materials for Carol-Anne’s and Keturah’s ceiling. I spent $70 Fed Ex’ing screens to Jake (and of course Fed Ex delivered them several hours later than promised and paid for.) Another $100 went to Alex to buy DV tape. Etc.

But we’re still unbelievably close to our budget. I can’t believe that every time I do the budget it evens out one way or another.

Jonny is working on the arcades, he just sent me an invoice for the joysticks. Our theater is going to so kick-ass. Popcorn, candy, soda, and an arcade. Hell, we’re gonna have trouble getting people into the theater to watch the film our lobby will be so cool.

Speaking of which Kathryn put the sleeves on my usher uniform last night. She’s making pants next. Jack and I are going to look so good in our matching outfits.

My main concern at this point is the ceiling. We’re three weeks out and it is simply impossible to have a meeting where Ted or David can make it. Both canceled on Thursday, our final build meeting. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with David that morning. And twenty minutes with Ted that night. As it stands I think it’s safe to say they have adopted antithetical opinions as to how the ceiling is best installed. I suspect the hammer waiting to fall in my future is the installation of the ceiling, as we still have no plan and no budget estimate for it. And I’ve decided to re-measure everything the day I get back to L.A., Weds.
LOL
Every stereotype you hear about working in the building industry it turns out is true. Even in a small gallery when installing a temporary wall and drop ceiling.

Tomorrow I meet with Ali and Terry to go over plans for the concession stand. Which I haven’t yet drawn up or figured out. So, obvs every stereotype you hear about artists and musicians is likely true, as well.

Actually this whole weekend has been a little unnerving. One of the primary investors is being hit hard by the current economy, and may be pulling out of the project. Which, with three and a half weeks to go, will introduce a serious complication. LOL
Of course, that was always one of the main points of 23E Studios, to devise a project so ambitious it could only fail, and then find a way to make it succeed.
I meet with that investor today to talk.
Then I begin improvising. As deflated as I feel fearing this is coming, I must say I’m also a little excited. Up until now everything has gone so smoothly…
Too smoothly. The film was going to be boring.

Another aspect of the unnerving weekend was that our potential architectural model maker leaves town on the 22nd of June. And he can’t give me a bid, let alone start building, until I get some measurements from a crew member, who hasn’t had a chance to get the measurements from her studio. So, over the last few days I’ve been watching the narrow window of opportunity for the architectural model close. Which, given that this afternoon we could conceivably lose half of the remaining money I was expecting, is probably for the best.

Our press release and other promotional materials that were supposed to be finished this weekend, are all tardy. So, those deadlines have been on my mind a lot, too.

Having said that, we’re now in a place where the project is simply unstoppable. And this is really the part of the project that is most thrilling for me, being caught up in something that is beyond control. The next few weeks can be nothing but pure improvisation. I get to live my art the way I play my music, by the seat of my pants; constantly adjusting to my partners and peers; sometimes leading or throwing out a riff we all ride, other times having to change direction on a dime when they introduce a new line. It’s probably a poor metaphor, but that is one of the ways I think about Disembody - it is one of my compositions, but the sound is spread out over the course of a year, impossible to hear with human senses and on a human time-scale.

I used to compose works that required performing acts of sound throughout a day or a week or a year. All the while recording my life, sometimes around the clock for weeks. Those recordings were then compressed to discover the rhythms inherent, or to find the composition of the sound acts within the music of my life.
Disembody is very much like one of those compositions, except this time our final product is a film. And this time it is a piece of music improvised by an orchestra of my closest friends, as opposed to being a solo work within the orchestra of my life.

Disembody is a unique feeling. There’s a wonderfully complex and seemingly contradictory feeling I get (and I think many performers do) before playing music with people. The mix of fear and excitement, feeding each other, hopped-up nerves. It’s a great feeling, really addictive.
Normally I have that feeling in the hours leading up to a performance or a studio session.
But for the last few weeks I’ve had that sensation coursing though my days and nights. It comes in waves. But I’ve never had it so regularly, so frequently before.
Except maybe on my first oRSo tour, when I’d get it before the show each night.
Except now I get it at the most random times. It’s strange how trepidation and fear can be so addictive and thrilling.

Anyway, the past three days I’ve experienced a very heightened sense of deflation mixed with the thrill of having to overcome a challenge.

So, having talked about the things not going right, let me mention that they are greatly outweighed by things going right. Stel and I met last night and he is bringing a couple of eight port gigabit switches so we can set up a solid network in the gallery. As well, he’s bringing several wireless access points. And he came up with a simple and reliable way to pull off the ending of the film, that doesn’t require a video switcher.
Phil and Libby are both raring to go on the project now that their wedding is behind them.
All of my crew members blow me away with their dedication and skills. Erin and Jonny have worked tirelessly on the website (our main promotional tool), posters, the confessional, screen printing, the arcade and a ton of other aspects; Amy is bending over backwards trying to help find funding and food donations; Carol-Anne and Keturah are spending hundreds of hours creating the interior design and all of its elements; Carson and Ted and David are all working on the build out; marcella, elise, Alex and Skye are pooling their resources to fashion an incredibly organized and efficient shoot; Hanif, Han and Ote are all working to make the promotion and conceit of the project as broad but focused as possible. Janet and Arthur are going far beyond the call of nepotism in accommodating all my demands and desires. And Susan, of course, is simply mind-blowing in her openness to letting us do whatever we dream up.

So, all in all, despite missed deadlines and a few setbacks, I find my spirits remain high. I’ll weigh in again after I meet with the investor. Maybe I’ll even have news on how we’ll need to rejigger the project to accommodate such a substantial loss.

Yup, five weeks from today we will be opening at Fringe Exhibitions in Chinatown. I don’t think I can describe how I feel right now, but it’s a mix of fear and exhilaration. It’s a lot like the mix of sensations that accompanies a live performance with SPP or oRSo. Except that feeling starts a few hours before a gig, at most. Five weeks out is a bit much. LOL. I can’t even imagine what kind of terror/glee rush I’m going to be riding over the next five weeks. It should be good.

Jonny went home yesterday. But only after making his second pilgrimage, this time to dip his fingers into the ancient muck that made Los Angeles the mind bogglingly wonderful city it is today - black gold.

Or maybe I exaggerate, but Jonny really did enjoy the La Brea tar pits, I think. It’s one of my favorite places in L.A. so I was overjoyed to take him there.

The week he was here we accomplished a lot. We got the wiki up (though it’s still not quite ready for prime time). We got the internet archive library started. We got the ephemera page started. We found some bugs in the confessional setup. We established that the time lapse will work. And we began the work flow list for video production.
We also discussed a couple other projects which we may be able to announce on the blog in the coming days.

After Jonny left I had lunch with Amy who is finding investors for the production. As well, she is trying to find restaurants, markets, cafes and bakeries who will provide food and drink during the production in exchange for promotion in the film and catalogues. They can write it off against their ad budgets. So far no luck.

Next week I’ll be hitting a couple hardware stores to try and get building materials in exchange for promotion.

Today Janet and I went over the contracts. I think we’re finally finished with the crew deal memo, the senior investor contract, and standard investor contract.

In SF, I believe today was the day Alex, elise, marcella and Skye were meeting to establish the video production protocol: work flow, responsibilities, shoot style, logging method, etc.

I wrote the newsletter and created a 200 strong email list for promotion. I’m working on the archive and website this evening.