e-Jake

It's official...

2007-11-04T03:08:53Z

IFC announces that they have picked up all North American rights to "In Search of a Midnight Kiss." The announcement comes just in time for today's screening at the AFI Film Festival here in LA. I didn't go to the screening today but I plan to attend the screening next Saturday. I'm saving myself for the red carpet event.

Buried Alive

2007-10-31T05:37:19Z

I haven't said much lately about what I've been working but I can now spill the beans. I've been editing a new webisode series that Sony is putting online called Buried Alive. It's a weird mystery show that plays out over youtube, fearnet.com and various other outlets. Should be neat. Here's a sneak peek.

Midnight Kiss wins Best Editing...

2007-10-19T19:14:04Z

I figure I should toot my horn here. I just heard that "In Search of a Midnight Kiss" won the Best Editing for a Feature Film award at the Woodstock Film Festival. I share the award with Frank Reynolds (IN THE BEDROOM), who came on early in post-production and did the first rough cut of the film.

Also, good friend Chris Eska won Best Feature with his film "August Evening"! Here's a list of the rest of the winners at Woodstock.

Pre-order DEAR PILLOW...

2007-10-13T21:52:36Z

The Dear Pillow DVD release

2007-10-13T21:14:43Z

We are exactly four weeks away from the DVD release of Dear Pillow through Heretic Films. We'll probably have a DVD Release party in early November in Austin. We haven't set the date for that yet but stay tuned for more details.

I created a group over on Facebook so if you're a member of that community be sure to join up and say hello! The group is at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18796804824

Big trees

2007-08-27T07:22:08Z

Bridge and I made a road trip a few weeks ago to Sequoia National Forest. Click on the image to go to a photo album with a bunch of pictures of huge ass trees.

This was my second time to Sequoia. My first visit was during a family vacation when I was 14-years old or so. I remember that there was this massive tree that had fallen something like 800 years ago and the park officials let people carve there name into it. I carved my initials on that trip and on this recent trip I searched and searched but alas did not find my initials from 19 years ago.

Dave Brubeck and the Deathly Shallows

2007-08-25T17:56:48Z

When my friend Gwilym invited me to go see Dave Brubeck and his quartet at the Hollywood Bowl I immediately said yes. I've been in LA a year and a half and in that time I had never been to the Bowl. It's one of those quintessential LA locales that remind you that, oh yeah, there's some unique history here that doesn't exist anywhere else. The Bowl was built into the side of some hills that served as a natural amphitheater simply by it's shape -- it literally looks like a bowl with the hills above Hollywood.

Last night I watched Deep Water, a documentary about a guy who thought he could sail around the world by himself. Problem was he really wasn't a sailer. Classic tale of someone who's dreams outpaced his reality.

My daily battle

2007-08-21T18:53:47Z

To be perfectly honest, I have a real problem with procrastination. Actually, a better way to put it is that I have a close relationship with procrastination. It's been that way all my life. I've taken a break from writing my script because I've hit a wall. I've tried asking for help from other writers but they keep telling me that's it's a story that I need to figure out for myself. And they're right, of course. It's very autobiographical -- maybe that's the reason it's so difficult to finish. Another contributing factor could be the fact that I have mountains of debt and just enough money in the bank to last me the next three weeks.

Everyday I read the news, send out resumés, and try not to read blogs about filmmaking. For some reason those blogs always leave me feeling depressed. I have a short film that I shot with the Duber that I have yet to finish editing, and I don't know why I'm struggling to complete it. I'm trying to be okay with all of these strange and frustrating facts of my life.

I do find solace in the company of friends, though. Bridget and I watched Superbad with David Lowery. It's a fantastic movie, hilarious. Micheal Cera is unlike any other actor out there right now. He delivers every line of dialogue with disarming charm. Jonah is gut-wrenching-funny.

I have an interview today with the producers of a horror film who are looking for an editor. I just finished cutting a title sequence for another low-budget indie. Tomorrow I'll finish cutting three spec commercials. And I'm talking to Chris Eska about how perhaps the titles for his film August Evening might be improved. As I recall they're fairly simple and straightforward. They seemed to match the mood of the movie, but he seems to think they're might be some way to improve on them.

We've been going through a minor heat wave in LA. It's nothing compared to what you guys are going through in Austin, though. But when you consider the fact that a major reason for living out here is "the weather" then things start to seem a little off.

That's all. Just had to report.

Midnight Kiss in Edinburgh, Sarajevo and London

2007-08-20T20:25:05Z

"In Search of a Midnight Kiss" continues to do well at festivals, this time overseas. Audiences at the Edinburgh Film Festival loved it and critics are saying very nice things: witness The Guardian, The Scotsman, Neil Young's Film Lounge, FestMag and Eye for Film.

The film screens at the Sarajevo film festival next and then in Greece and London. I'll probably run up to San Francisco to catch it at the Mill Valley Film Festival. I've yet to see it with a festival audience. It'll also give me a chance to push my editing creds to other filmmakers.

My first earthquake!!!

2007-08-10T00:31:45Z

I am no longer an earthquake virgin!!! Last night I felt my first earthquake since moving to Los Angeles. A 4.6 sized quake hit north of Chatsworth at 12:58am. I was I was sort of halfway falling asleep when it happened and so I wasn't really aware of it that much. I heard a woman in the next building over kind of exclaim and I thought that was unusual, and I think I was beginning to incorporate her voice into my dream. I remember thinking, she sounds mad at someone. And then in the next moment I realized that I was being gently rocked back and forth. And then the rocking stopped and there was an echo of a rumble, and then Bridget said, "did you feel that?" By then I was awake. In hindsight I realized what happened, but I was not aware of it during the actual quake which bums me out because I've been looking forward to experiencing one.

I must say, I'm don't want anyone to get hurt in an earthquake. I just want to feel what it's like to have the earth move underneath me and then I want everyone to be happy and go on with their lives. If it were up to me, I'd give us all a little shake this afternoon and be done with it. But it's not up to me I guess. It's up to the fault lines of the southland. I guess you could say it's not my fault.

On the job hunt...

2007-08-06T22:10:49Z

Lately I've been really hustling for editing gigs in LA. Most of my work over the last year has originated out of Texas but that's starting to taper off. So I've created a new demo reel online here and I've been sending it out to the various job postings that I see online. You can see additional clips by clicking on some of the links in the navbar at the top. One of my favorites is "The Breakout" -- don't miss it!

Another 8 things...

2007-07-22T04:53:33Z

David Lowery "tagged" me with this 8 things thing. It seems a little silly to do this, but I did enjoy David and Matt Dentler's contributions. So here's mine:

Rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

1. I started taking flying lessons starting when I was 14 and received my pilot's license when I was 18.

2. I have what is sometimes called a Simian Crease on my hand. It's a line that goes all the way across your palm (instead of two lines that divert at the center). According to Wikipedia such a crease appears in approximately 3% of the world population. It usually shows up in people with Down Syndrome. I do not have Down Syndrome.

3. In sixth grade I stupidly let my haircutter give me a perm, but just on the front part of my hair. The perm formed a set of curls that supposedly would help me shape my hair into a classic part-down-the-middle, wings-on-the-side look that was so popular in '86. It did no such thing. I looked ridiculous and was justifiably skewered at school the next day. And the next day after that. And for a while after as well because...well... it was a permanent.

4. My great great grandmother started a restaurant called El Chico that went on to become a national chain.

5. I might be related to General Robert E. Lee.

6. I went to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1987. The movie had come out the previous year. Alan Shepherd, the first American in space, pulled some strings to get me in because there was a super long waiting list.

7. My birthday is on Earth Day.

8. I started a novel when I was 14 called Bullet Train Pursuit. I think I wrote ten pages before starting my next project: gluing a fly to a small balsa wood glider.

I don't think I should tag anyone. I choose to be a cul-du-sac for this meme.

Freewheelin!

2007-06-02T21:18:57Z

Here's another one: Freewheelin! It's a short that Bryan, Tim League, Kierla (not sure how you spell her name), Lars and myself and few others made for the 48-hour film project. I really like this one. It's a TV show and there's 4 episodes. Jerm Pollett, of Mister Sinus, did the theme music. Sure, it's rough, but it still makes me laugh.

German-Houston Expressionism

2007-06-01T18:54:56Z

Here's another one from the Fredricksburg vault: Ein Box, a faux German expressionist film shot by two kids in Houston. This is super-8 film that my friend Todd Redilla and I shot sometime in 1993, I think. We both taken a film history class by then and so we saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which is usually held up as the epitome of German expressionist cinema. We wanted to do something reminiscent of that kind of movie. I don't think we really succeeded, but we did make something slow and repetitive and weird.

Addicted to using a camera?!

2007-06-01T06:43:20Z

I keep a lot of old tapes and stuff in storage at my parent's house in Fredricksburg. When I was there a month ago I went through a lot of it and came across some of my old short films as well as some video that I shot as a kid. The piece of video below is from the NBC affiliate in Houston. They had a (very) short-lived fluff segment on their news broadcast called "Hats Off to Houston." The reason it's called that is because the "reporter" who did these pieces of ground-breaking journalism wore a big panama hat, or something that looked like a panama hat. At the end of the segment he would sign off by saying, "Hats off to Houston!"

Anyway, this is somewhat embarrasing but I have to post it because it's so hilarious. I have to explain a few things about this video but I want you to watch it first and then I'll explain afterward.

So when Paul, the reporter, got to my house he said he wanted to shoot me "in motion." He suggested I ride a bike. This felt like a weird suggestion but I went with it because I wanted to be on TV. As I was about to get on the bike he said, "Wait! We have to promote safe riding behavior. You should wear a helmet." I resisted, but he insisted. So I put on the goddamn ugly helmet. I knew I would look ridiculous, but I went with it because I really wanted to be on TV.

After the interview, he said that he wanted to shoot me shooting something with a camcorder. There was a guy working on the carpet in our house so Paul suggested I "practice camera angles" on him. Now, generally speaking, I do not "practice camera angles" normally. (I should also mention that I generally do not get my ideas for films while sitting in coffee shops in Austin.) But there I was, unable to offer up anything better to do, and so I set myself up to look really dumb. Because looking really dumb gets you on TV.

Am I really "addicted to using a camera"??? Do I need a 12-step program for camera addiction? I admit that I am powerless over the camera and my life has become unmanageable.