This is so funny, it’s not funny.
What are we talking about?
The writers among you will know, after you watch this:
The Indie Film Making Bug Just Keeps On, erm, Biting?!
What’s that, you say? You’ve been bitten by the Hollywood bug but don’t know what to do about it? Guess what, pally – you aren’t alone.
The need to create and have our creations seen by an audience is universal here at TVWriter™. In fact, it’s even spread to LB’s current living environment, the peninsulas along Puget Sound:
North Kitsap grads go Hollywood
by Michael C. More
When Erich Cannon and Nathan Lee embarked on their first feature-film project together, they might well have been excused for setting it in the North Kitsap environs where they both grew up.
Instead, they found their locations — and the title of the resulting film — on Google.
“We fell in love with the look of the town,” said Lee, the film’s director and co-writer, of little Fall City, the Snoqualmie Valley village that jumped out at both of them from the Internet. “We had been Googling images, looking at small towns in Washington. Neither of us had ever actually been there.”
Once Lee saw the town in the flesh — as part of a honeymoon tour of Northwest locations with his wife, Tara (a co-producer of the film who Lee credited with also being a “big part” of the casting process) — the deal was done.
“We agreed it was just perfect,” said Cannon, who co-wrote and produced. “It matched our script, it matched our story. And the name made for a pretty good title.”
Cannon and Lee have known each other since their junior high days, when they lived down the street from each other and began collaborating on a cable access show for Bremerton Kitsap Access Television while at Poulsbo Junior High.
“It strangely became somewhat popular with the students, and then worked its way outward to the public,” Cannon said of their show. They continued to work together upon their move to North Kitsap High School.
“We were both in high school drama, too,” Cannon said. “I was more into acting, and Nathan was more into the tech side of it.”
Lee stayed in theater after high school before jumping into various film and TV projects around 2006.
“I started with small positions on big movies, then transitioned into working in bigger roles on smaller movies,” Lee said. He also has five Emmy awards to show for his TV work….
Good luck, y’all! If you make this happen, please, please, please write in and tell us how.
Check out a review of this “remarkable indie film” HERE
Live in L.A.? Looking for Something Good to Do Tomorrow?
…We have just the thing:
People Ask Why LB Lives in Port Townsend, WA
by Larry Brody
Yes, it’s true. A lot of people ask me why I live where I do.
Not why I left L.A., oh no, most people seem to get that, but why this particular place on the northeastern tip of the geographical area known as the Pacific Northwest.
There are a lot of reasons, of course. It was a very complex decision and wasn’t made in a vacuum. Gwen the Beautiful and I shared in the process and its result, just as we’ve shared everything during our 25+ year marriage.
One of these days I’ll get around to posting more details about how our lives in Port Townsend and environs came to be, but for now, here’s a pretty good intro to the area and its attitudes, direct from one of our local newspapers. Enjoy:
New postmaster tells of letters, packages and the uniqueness of Port Townsend Post Office
by Jeannie McMacken
The Port Townsend Post Office on Washington Street is jumping this time of year as thousands of packages, cards and special deliveries are handled every day.
Mary Jane Duff, who has been acting postmaster and supervisor since February, was promoted to postmaster last week. Larry Dekker, who was Port Townsend’s postmaster, was transferred to the Port Hadlock station.
Duff and her 36 employees are up to their elbows in packages and letters these days, with volumes about three times as heavy as at any other time of year.
Duff, who has been with the postal service for 24 years, is no stranger to the North Olympic Peninsula. She has worked in Port Angeles as a letter carrier and clerk, and in Sequim as a clerk.
“I started out as a postmaster relief in a little mountain town, Angeles Oaks near Big Bear in California,” she said.
“I worked 10 hours a week. Then I was hired on as a data conversion operator and keyed address information that machines couldn’t read. Those wonderful bar codes you see on your letters is what I did for four years.”
She also was a city carrier job in Banning, Calif., for 14 years.
In 2010, she sought a transfer to the Port Townsend area to be closer to her parents.
Her recent duties included being postmaster in the Quilcene Post Office with four employees. With her new position in Port Townsend, she’s relinquished that responsibility and the postal service is seeking a replacement.
Duff said Port Townsend has handled 18,000 presorted letters just for city carriers this week….
Read it all at Peninsula Daily News
How to Emotionally Detach from Criticism
Speaking of bad reviews, as we were below, here’s a broader take on dealing with criticism of all types because let’s face it, not only do sensitive writers take a pounding from time, so does everybody else:
by Beth Skwarecki
You’ll never make everybody happy—and the people that aren’t happy are liable to tell you why. Criticism is part of the price of being human. But even though we know that, it’s hard to deal when the negative stuff starts rolling in. Share an opinion on the internet—or just report some inconvenient facts (ask me how I know)—and you may have hordes of people telling you what a bad person you are. Here’s how to stop criticism from ruining your day.
Accept That It Will Happen
The only way to totally avoid criticism is to simply not let anybody find out that you exist. As soon as you start putting your face, name, writing, or actions out into the world, people will have opinions about you. Nobody, no matter how wildly successful, is universally beloved. Haters gonna hate.
When you think about it that way, getting criticism is a sign that you’re doing something right. You’re putting your work out in public. When I get one of those cringey flashback memories of a time I said or did something stupid, I like to tell myself, I was brave. Maybe I fucked up, but at least I was trying.
Pay Attention to Who Is Giving the Criticism
Do you care about the opinion of the person who’s giving the criticism? If they’re your boss, or your trustworthy friend, that’s different than if they’re just some rando who’s dashing off a mean tweet and didn’t know you existed until 30 seconds before that.
Separate Facts From Interpretation
Even well-meaning criticism has layers of human fallibility between the actual problem and the words or thoughts that come back to you. The other person interprets what you’ve done and they react in their own way; you hear their words and make your own assumptions.
