But New Mexico is a long way from Peru. We’re four out of five days in on a shoot in nw nm filming in the alien landscape of the Bisti Badlands. Millions of years have eroded this once underwater dinosaur graveyard into the anomalous forms called ‘hoodoos’. Stunning and (cough, cough) dusty. Giant dust devils spontaneously appear and disappear, leaving destruction in their wake. Amazing and absurd, this process of movie making. Hard to imagine the place surviving our impact.

It’s the monday beginning week three on ‘Knockout’. We’ve been shooting a lot up in Los Alamos and today is no different. Thanks to the massive 8″ dump of snow yesterday I was late to an already pushed call (thankfully) of 2 hrs. On arrival I frenetically rushed to get the ‘pod car’ (pictured) wired and all the various acoustical gear together. These days with driving footage involved rigging the car first thing and then not seeing it again until lunch (Dennis & Eddie (mixer & boom) were riding in one of the two follow vans – no room for me). So here I am (again) holding down the camera truck – reading, surfing & blogging (finally).

I just learned that skim milk actually makes better foam than whole because of a higher sugar content. Go figure. 37 and still learning. I also just accidentally jailbroke my iphone (no, seriously). Though I doubt it would hold up in the court of the ‘Genius Bar’ it is indeed what happened. Actually, I was trying to jailbreak my old iphone (now in my eldest son’s possession – at his request) and got them mixed up. Doh! Ah well, we’ll see how that turns out.

What else is new…

Found This cool article on 6 Insane Coincidences You won’t Believe . Actually, only the first 2 are that insane to me but they are really insane. I love this kind of stuff. Fort wrote about them extensively and a few of them are mentioned in the intro to Magnolia. These stories make me wonder about the nature of time, imagination & cause/effect. The first two are about authors whose books foretold future events. Were their sensitive imaginations picking up on ripples from future events? Is it possible their books actually somehow influenced events? Which is harder to swallow? Either way, it makes writing seem like a delicate operation. Be careful what you throw out there, right?

Over the years I have experienced a multitude of these synchronicities. So much so that I’ve stopped paying attention and merely accept them as a normal state of affairs (although perhaps secretly I take some satisfaction in them being a sort of reassurance of my life being ‘in sync’).

As for this blog, we shall see what happens. I’m going to try to keep some regular updates happening (for my won sanity, if nothing else) but it all really depends on how I decide to use my precious time. So many other ways to waste it… I am starting a new gig in march so hopefully I’ll be in a better state of mind about sharing what is happening. Stay tuned!

So here we are, the final few days of the final week of a show that ate half a year of my life (and perhaps more… time will tell). All in all it’s been a great run. Learned a lot more about all kinds of aspects of filmmaking. I’m better at my job for sure. And I understand the roles of other crew better as well.

Boyoboy. Just when I thought the week would pass relatively uneventfully, a major upheaval occurred midway through Friday(uh, last Friday). The mixer, the guy who hired me for this gig, got canned. There were, apparently, some technical issues with the sound he was sending to post. We knew this of course but we weren’t aware of the extent of the problem. As recent as Friday morning I was sending emails to post in a continued effort to troubleshoot what the heck we were doing that was causing such issues. Funny timing, I suppose. Anyway, it made for dark, dark Friday & especially the wrap, where, instead of loading the sound carts onto the camera truck as always, we pulled all the sound gear off the truck & loaded it onto a selerate truck. Made for quite a scene with the crew. Despite the fact that it was made clear that the boom & I were to stay, I couldn’t help feeling bad. Just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Now I’m wondering if we’ll be back to square one with the guys in post.

Tried to get this post up while it was still “news” but the weekend was crazy busy & the week is worse. Anyway, on the fourth day with the new mixer the transition has been relatively smooth. Relatively.

If course, by mid-afternoon the wires have somehow degraded (sweaty actors, etc…) and have now gone all “rustly.” God I hate that. Anyway, I’ll be booming tomorrow & Monday (god willing) as Jeff is taking a couple days off. Should be a nice change of pace. Still, the future in this business, is entirely unpredictable.

6:00am start all over again

Hope to post more tomorrow. Must close eyes.