Some days in LA

September 12, 2009 Ashley F. MillerProgress ReportLeave a comment

I don’t hate LA. I mean, I mostly hate the town of LA, and I most assuredly hate the utter lack of organization and the awful public transportation and traffic and parking. But I like the people. There are parts that are seedy and gross and feed off of the slimy outgrowths of crushed dreams, but there are all those dreams the slimy outgrowths feed off of in the first place. There are people here who are talented, smart and funny. They may not be the majority but there are more here than anywhere else I’ve lived.

One of the toughest things about being new here is your inability to help others. Like, if I meet someone smart or talented who should be making something of themselves, it’s not within my power to simply hand them to an agent and say “Really, this guy is amazing, you have to build a career for him. He won’t disappoint.” There are so many people I know that I would do that for, without even asking something in return. Because they’re good and deserve a shot and real support.

Instead it’s like, yeah, you and me buddy. We’ll wait on the sidelines and hope someone tags us in and we get a chance to get the ball. And if we get the ball, hope to hell we score, because we may never get tagged in again.

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Sick, Job Worries

September 9, 2009 Ashley F. Millerbible con, film school, Gold, nicholl, Progress Report2 Comments

Ugh. I partially hope it’s swine flu. But not really. I’m just woozy, it’s my main symptom.

There are some cool things in the works career wise, including a web series that I may be able to edit/color correct the entire series and be paid. I might even get to DP, which would be exciting, I miss DPing. But, the contracts are in negotiation, so I don’t wanna jinx it by saying too much. The people are really cool and I’m hoping to get their input on my Nicholl script at some point, probably after the next draft.

Max Adams, the girl who is one of the more famous (and cutest) Nicholl winners and who, weirdly, shares a name with a guy I went to Film School with and who holds the record for worst punishment ever at West Point, is also on Word Press. I hold secret hopes that this post is about me, though I’m sure it probably isn’t.

There’s some mild chaos at work in my department, I’m hoping it gets resolved in a way that doesn’t lead to me losing my job. I’d much rather leave for a better job than desperately search for any job that’ll have me. If you got here because I sent you my resume, hi and welcome!

I’ve gotten nothing but sleeping and lazing about done in the last few days. I’ve been watching an unbelievable amount of movies and documentaries about Tudor England. I’d be hard pressed to explain my obsession but I’ll go ahead and blame the fact that I thought I looked like Queen Elizabeth as a child.

Researching Mormons

September 7, 2009 Ashley F. Millerbible con, Progress ReportLeave a comment

My re-write has come to a complete halt at page 7 because I’m writing a Mormon character and don’t feel like I know quite enough about LDS to be able to plot her exactly. She’s nebulous. I may skip over her scenes and come back, but I hate doing that. In this re-write, her struggle with her secret Mormonism is meant to be a defining characteristic. Unfortunately, I don’t know any Mormons who’ve married regular ol’ Christian folks, so I have to scour the internet for personal recollections. On the one hand, thank FSM for the Google, on the other, it’s a time suck google is my dear and glorious leader.

She leans in conspiratorially

September 6, 2009 Ashley F. Millerbible con, Progress ReportLeave a comment

I’m 6 pages into a revision/rewrite. The first act isn’t changing much, so that’s going pretty quickly. The title of this post is a phrase that appears probably ten times in my script. It’s always something. Strangely, I totally missed this and it took F reading and commenting for me to see how often it’s used.

Now, I’m off to Mormon up a character.

Final Draft Frustration

September 6, 2009 Ashley F. MillerProgress Report1 Comment

Apparently you’re supposed to deactivate your Final Draft before installing Snow Leopard. Otherwise it will think you’ve used that activation code and refuse to let you reactivate it. And if it’s a holiday weekend, you probably won’t see a response for days and days. And then, all that writing that you’d been saving up for your holiday weekend probably won’t get done.

I’m not mad at Snow Leopard, it is sleek and wonderful. I’m mad at Final Draft. Maybe it’s time to learn a new program, I’m just so familiar with Final Draft and all of my writing is already in .fdr files.

If you have suggestions for other script writing software, I’d be an easy convert at this point.

Productive

September 6, 2009 Ashley F. MillerProgress ReportLeave a comment

Today, I’ve been very productive in as much as I put this site together. And I got a new office chair so that I’m no longer sitting on my fold up metal one at the computer at home. Imagine editing for hours on a chair that makes your butt fall asleep in 15 minutes. F finally made me go get a new one, and I feel that this was a good choice.

I have not, however, gotten any writing done, and there are at least three projects that I feel the need to be actively writing. But I’m also just tired and feeling organizy rather than creative, so perhaps I’ll hold off for a while. I’m reading Alison Weir’s Six Wives of Henry VIII and enjoying it immensely.

I also broke my wrist two years ago, and the past two weeks it’s been hurting whenever I use a mouse or type or write for very long. So, that’s been a difficult work around.

Here’s broken me: