PRODIGAL ALTAR BOY BLOG - WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

The Highlights

• Consultation with Karen Everett
• Plans for WIP screening in Norfolk continue
• Donations continue at diminished level, fundraising at crossroads

CONSULTATION WITH KAREN EVERETT

ü  Phone conference with story consultant Karen Everett took place 21 March 2013.  The upshot is Karen sees progress and has suggestions for the way forward.  I will digest her notes (written, video and audio recording) and apply those to the cut.  The result will be what I take to Norfolk.

PLANS FOR WIP SCREENING IN NORFOLK CONTINUE

ü  Speaking of Norfolk, I placed an ad for the WIP screening in the bulletins for St. Mary’s.  Kathleen McBlair (havescripts.com, publisher of TQ’s book, “A Reluctant Malachi,” has given screening information to the staff at Holy Family (Virginia beach) for inclusion in their bulletin.  I have exchanged emails with one family at St. Kateri to spread the news there.

ü  I printed 50 additional posters to sell at the WIP screening

ü  Printed address labels to send tickets to the current donor list.  For tickets I repurposed postcards I printed to update the mailing list.  I bought custom labels and turned the postcards into tickets.  Admission is free, but I am asking people to request tickets.  I built a ticket tool for the web site, and put a snail mail address on all the advertising so people can write for tickets.  My thinking with the ticket strategy is I want to collect the tickets at the screening to:

1.      Assess, out of how many tickets requests, how many actually attended, and

2.      Continue to build out the email and snail mail address lists for further fundraising.

DONATIONS CONTINUE AT DIMINISHED LEVEL, FUNDRAISING AT CROSSROADS

ü  Donations continue to come in, albeit at a diminished rate.  A few donors are making second donation as well as sustaining donations.

ü  Fundraising is at a crossroads.  We are at the limits of how much fundraising TQ’s mailing list can produce.  The WIP screening will be the transition from TQ’s mailing list (of course leveraging emails culled from that list) to Crowdfunding. 

FINAL PAINTING FOR THE FILM

I took delivery of the piece that will be the last in a series of paintings based on images from the film.  Anna Pasqualucci, a Baltimore screen painter, dropped off a painting based on TQ's "Chock Full O'Nuts can.  Anna took a picture of the can and other images to create a 3D piece that exceeded my expectations.  Check it out:

Prodigal Altar Boy 100 Day Countdown T-91 Days to Go 19 October 2012

Prodigal Altar Boy 100 Day Countdown

T-91 Days to Go

19 October 2012

Goal:  2 hours per day working on the film

Details: 

·     Proofread the TQ mailing list

·     Researched upcoming seminar by Fernanda Rossi (Docs In Progress) with Karen

Total time:  4 hours

Goal:  30 minutes per day music practice

Details:

·     Warm-up on the Roland Ready Strat

·     Grace City Music work

Total time:  30 minutes

Goal:  15 minutes exercise per day

Body Opus Depletion Workout

EDT Session 1

Exercise 1A – Kettlebell Snatch Left (35 lbs)

Exercise 1B – Kettlebell Snatch Right (35 lbs)

EDT Session 2

Exercise 2A – Kettlebell Deep Deadlift (70 lbs)

Exercise 2B – Kettlebell Two-Hand Swing (70 lbs)

EDT Session 3

Exercise 3A – Seated Row (75 lbs)

Exercise 3B – Push ups (bodyweight)

Total time:  48 minutes

Goal:  30 Minutes “Tangential Endeavors”

Reviewed “Shaking the Money Tree” by Morrie Warshawski 

Total time:  30 minutes

The Prodigal Altar Boy Blog - Rev. Thomas J. Quinlan 23 April 1929 - 24 April 2012

Rev. Thomas J. Quinlan

23 April 1929 - 24 April 2012

Daniel 12:13

"As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance."

TQ passed away this morning.  Yesterday (23 April) was his  83rd  birthday.  The last time I spoke with TQ, he sounded hopeful, and lamented how he was not able to get around.  I still remember the graveside service for my grandmother, where he tied burial to our agrarian roots and the analogy of a seed planted.  The seed must die for the plant within to express its new existence.  He took that moment to remind us that the body that remains is but s shell, and that the spirit moves out into the universe, eternal.  He probably would have disagreed with the verse above, because he did not believe in bodies rising from the grave on judgment day, but in the spirit rising from the body, shooting out into the universe and to heaven. 

I finished the assembly edit of the documentary before he passed and TQ was excited about that.  Now it’s time to turn the assembly edit into the rough cut and from there to the eventual fine cut and locked picture.  When I was editing, I always visualized TQ seeing the finished film in a theater, reacting to each scene.  During the last few phone calls I had with TQ, he would always end the call exhorting, “Keep editing!”  I will, TQ, I will.

We can now fill in the date on the “Chock Full ‘O Nuts” can, and  put his ashes in the St. Kateri Tekakwitha columbarium.  Fly on, Blue Angel.

T-30 Days to Go [On The Home Stretch]

2011 – Last 100 Days

Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown

T-30 Days to Go

1 December 2011

Goal:  1 hour per day working on the film

Details: 

Watched Karen Everett’s Story Doctor Kit video #3, “Musical & Cinematic Solutions”

• Parallel, Contrary and Oblique music
• Designing a Sound scape with Sound FX
• Adding Cinematic Dimension
• Fixing Interviews 
• Revealing Character Traits

Total time:  1 Hour

Goal:  30 minutes per day music practice

Details:

MojoCaster warm-up

Pat Metheny – Etude #1 bars 1-4 30X 

“It’s Your Thing” – Isley Brothers

 “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing” – Living Colour version

 “So What”  - Miles Davis

Grace City songs

“I Give Myself Away”

“Forever”

“Lord, You Are Awesome”

“Revelation Song”

Total time:  1 hour

Goal:  15 minutes exercise per day

Viking Warrior Conditioning

36:36 Protocol – 18 Reps per set – 16kg kettlebell

20 sets

Total time:  24:04

Goal:  15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie

Details:

“Dies Irae” – 25X  in groups of five, allowing me to focus on execution

“Dies Irae” – Focus work on octaves and dyad climbs

“Granby Street” – played on the MojoCaster and slowed the tempo waaaaay down (experiment)

A Dorian intervallic riff  - this riff was where the Am –D7 riff came from.  Need to multitrack this with the chords to see if it works.

Am – D7 chord progression, pulling in palm mute A and A octave and D bass. 

R&B riff work from Gospel Skillz DVD

E – B/D# - C#min – A  R&B chordal riff work.  Focus on smooth transitions and tone.

Total Time:  30 minutes

Notes:  Okay, I am down to the last thirty days.  A list of“Lessons Learned” is not only appropriate, but mandatory! (Mandatory, hah) 

Lessons Learned for today:

Goals are just that.  Make the effort and if you hit the goal, fine, if not, learn from the effort.  Most importantly, avoid beating yourself up about not hitting the goal if you made the effort.  If you do not make the effort, your chances of hitting the goal is ZERO. Celebrate effort, any effort. 

Make the effort.  To quote Dan Duchaine, “Explore the limits of slackness.”  Many days, I nearly talked myself out of making an effort in some area, but every time I pushed and made the effort, I was rewarded. 

Return to center.  Know why you are doing what you are doing.  I started and stopped digitizing the footage.  I resumed working on the film after watching one of Karen Everett’s videos on organizing footage clips and bins.  In addition to getting a workng capture strategy, I was able to dig deep into the computer configuration and NLE settings to optimized the capture. Had I pressed on with what was not working, there would have been trouble down the road.

Program in mindless tasks. When I do my guitar warm-ups and some of the R&B riffs like “It’s Your Thing” and “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing,”  I am not putting a lot a mental effort into those tasks.  It is all muscle memory and letting my mind wander.  I am engaged enough to make sure executiuon is on point, but it’s mostly a trick to let my mind wander and settle down for other tasks coming up.  For score work, I am in the moment, working on the pieces, testing variations of tempo, tone and technique to see how they would work in the film.