This is a quick interim post before my next big update post (planned for this weekend).

I just wanted to thank everyone for the warm birthday wishes. It’s been a very hard few months of work, and it was really nice waking up to the sight of so many people thinking of me. It made a dude feel loved.

And thank you Gilmore Girls Italia for the blog shout out. It really is crazy that Melissa and I have the same birthday.

Umm……. hey guys……. I’m, uh…. home? For a little bit, anyhow.

Anyone there?

I’ve been away for a while, haven’t I? According to the last post, since May 27th. Whoa!

Okay, well, where should I begin?

I’m directing a web series. Yeah, you know that.

It’s a story I wrote back in April. And it deals with music.

I guess when we started, I didn’t really think about where we were going with it. It was just like, “Musical web series. Okay, let’s do it and see what happens.” Well let me tell you what happened.

In May, we began a casting process that had us seeing (and hearing) about a hundred actors and actresses within 3 weeks. Every last one of them played an instrument, and the level of acting was through the roof amazing? I have to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but my casting director, Mara Casey of Gilmore Girls fame, pretty much rocked it like a mega phone.

What we landed with was a cast so full of concentrated awesome, that I wasn’t totally confident it would stick. I didn’t talk much about it, cause I didn’t really want to jinx it, but our line up was (and still is) Chelsea Staub, Noah Hunt, Minni Jo Mazzola, Justin Stein, and Zach Cumer.

The next step was contracts. And without going into great detail about that, I’ll just say, contract negotiations suck ass. They so utterly suck beyond words, I can’t even begin to explain. I totally get that people need to be protected… songwriters, actors, producers, financiers, agents, managers, lawyers, in some cases even dogs… but it’s so incredibly difficult to work in a medium that relies on guerrilla style speed and nimbleness when you have the representatives of 15 different people all trying to make sure their client is protected… and doing it at Old Media pace.

And so the first big lesson I learned was that if you want your talent in your New Media project to have a certain high level of professional experience, you need to be willing to throw away a certain amount of guerrilla style speed and nimbleness. The catch is, the longer you take, the more money it costs. And so what happens is you end up compensating for the time lost by cranking out crazy 20-22 hour days.

We had a week to get the reps of our 5 main cast to a place where they felt comfortable having them basically record an album for a month before diving into a 14 day shoot. And we did it. At practically the 11th hour.

And on June 7th we began one of the coolest artistic processes I have ever been a part of: Making a record. We’d been collecting a batch of original compositions and unknown covers during the final days of May… artists like The Blueflowers, Haroula Rose, Jon Cornoyer of Old War Shirt, Justin Clay of The Kax and others… and with our little team of rock stars, we started hammering them out, instrument by instrument.

We recorded at VAVV Studios in Van Nuys under the supervision of our music producer Sebastian Sheehan. I acted as a sort of music producer as well but had to learn a lot of the vernacular as we went. For example, I now know that you can’t just throw around the phrase, “that sounded a little flat,” when trying to describe a note that isn’t perfectly on pitch… because there’s a 50/50 chance it’s not flat, but rather sharp. Better, when you hear the note, to just make a face like you saw someone get beamed in the head with a baseball.

Oh, I should mention that Noah didn’t join us until a week into the recording. He had to finish up a show in his home state of Washington, so he drove down on the 13th. Oh and I should also mention that I offered to let him stay at my place during our near 2 month process. Oh and I should also mention that on his drive down, within 45 minutes of Los Angeles, he flipped his car 4 times trying to avoid a rabbit on the road.

Miraculously, he survived with nothing but a few scratches, but this is what his car looked like when I got to Lancaster to pick him up.

As freaked out as I was about that, I decided to think of it as a good omen for the project… and so far (knock on wood) everyone is still ticking. More than that, we finished the album… just days before the start of principal photography. We also finalized several other contracts, scouted and secured some crazy locations, and through all of that, somehow managed to shower and eat……….. oh, that reminds me, I have to pay my cell phone bill… and gas and electric…. and a traffic ticket I got back in May.

Anyway, so that brings us to this first week of shooting. Which has been so utterly amazing… my cast… my crew… I even got to meet a few twitter peeps like @mlmcw who helped out as extras on one of the days of the shoot. I’m being dead serious when I say, the background talent in this looks sooo good!

It’s funny, but sometimes you forget that part of the magic of making movies involves shooting the script out of order. We recently shot the last scene of the series. It was a really emotional moment, and afterward we all went in for this super cheesy group hug. There were lots of “I love you”s, and even a few, “I’m gonna miss you,” before someone was like, “guys we’re not even halfway through shooting.”

So yeah, that’s sort of what the past couple of months have been for me… in the broad sense. I mean there are lots of little details I’m leaving out… stuff like the fact that Adobe is sponsoring the project and that we’re editing on Premiere Pro on set… or that my production company Unboiled now officially has an office space (and a soon to be revealed new logo)… or that the new firmware on the 7D is really boning us on this project (PLEASE BRING BACK THE HEAT SENSOR!!!)… or that this man is one of the members of our cast. I know… awesome, right?

I can’t promise I’ll have another post up before the end of the shoot, but my hope is to write my next one from my new office… which right now is just an empty room. I don’t even have time to set it up yet. But the first thing it’s definitely getting is a little refrigerator…. to me, that’s the sign of a true office… and a plant… which @edrafalko has offered to provide. I just need to give him the address, which I’ll do as soon as I find out what the address even is… I haven’t had time to check.

Hey guys. How’s everyone faring?

So several of you have been asking about The Lark, and I know I probably should have brought it up sooner… but with Lost and my musical project monopolizing most of my time last month, I just sort of dropped the ball, I won’t lie.

So here’s the thing (and I’m sure this doesn’t come as much of a surprise to everyone), unfortunately, we’re gonna have to skip this Lark. It’s kind of a bummer, since I absolutely love the Lark and the prospect of darting a few of you between the eyes. But fact is, I just can’t juggle it with everything I’m going to be doing over the next two months work wise.

So the Lark will be back next season. It will be bigger and badder than ever. In addition to the “Darts” and “Cages”, there will be “Time Warps” (a game device I’ve been tinkering with in my workshop since last season), “Wings of Desire” (these are very touching), and a gaming device that, while still in the early stages of development, goes by the code name: Chupacabra.

And of course, I’ll be watching as much of this season as I can, so I’ll probably toss up my thoughts from time to time.

Thanks for understanding!

Will I buy it on DVD? Season 6? Of course I will. I mean you guys know it’s not really my bag… but I love Lost. I love that crazy ridiculous hieroglyphical quantum fantastical evangelical show. And Season 6 is part of the family, regardless of where you stand on the Faith/Science spectrum. I mean, you don’t just abandon the kid born with no arms, do you?… you love’im just the same.

This series was an amazing ride, guys. Let’s try not to lose sight of that. A really beautiful story. Even those of you who hated the finale, you have admit, the world of Lost was friggin awesome. I mean, look at us… the show is over and we’re still battling it out. The fact that we’re all so heated, right now. There is absolutely no middle ground to this finale. Fans of the show are either happy about it or very upset. And that in itself is really unique and fascinating. It’s like a sporting event.

LOVER: I thought it was beautiful. Touching. A perfect way to end this 6 year ride.

HATER: Anyone who loves this finale, doesn’t know what good writing is. It was a cheap cop out.

LOVER: I’ll tell you what would have been a cop out, a flying saucer would have been a cop out, and I would have puked if it had happened.

HATER: A flying saucer would have been a million times more interesting than the BS watery, contrived ‘they’re all dead, shove religion down my throat’ ending you love so much.

LOVER: Did you ever even care about these characters? Cause I watch shows like this for the characters. And I play sudoku for my puzzle solving.”

HATER: Oh really? I’m surprised you can even do simple math, if you found that ending even slightly profound.

LOVER: I’d be surprised if I learned you had anyone in your life that you actually loved.

HATER: Say that again to my face.

LOVER: I’d be surprised if I learned there was someone in your life that you actually loved. Or loved you.

HATER: I’m gonna kill your daughter Penny!

JOHN: *leaps up… stands between the two* Whoa! Chill out you too! Back away! Listen. We all came to this show, crashed on this Island, for the same reason… the pilot episode was awesome. And yes over the years our paths may have diverted. Some of us are living in the caves… some on the shore. Some are on their way to the Black Rock… other to the Radio Tower. We have our sides, that’s fine… but remember… we’re all still on this Island… and if we can’t live together… we’re gonna-

HATER: Dude.

JOHN: Yeah?

HATER: No metaphors, please.

LOVER: I like his metaphors.

HATER: Of course you do… you need that kind of BS to latch onto.

JOHN: HEY!

HATER: No man, I’m pissed.

JOHN: Okay, fine. Why are you so upset? Maybe you just need to let it out.

HATER: Don’t patronize me. I’m pissed because I was friggin duped. I was lied to.

JOHN: How were you lied to?

HATER: The writers promised it wouldn’t end up being purgatory or heaven or whatever, and then they pulled this crap ass ending? Even if they hadn’t assured us we were on a ride with a real ending-

LOVEER: It was a real end-

HATER: NO IT WASN’T!

JOHN: Guys! Lover, please. I’m gonna let you speak in a sec. Let hater do his thing.

HATER: Saying it was all purgatory is like saying it’s all a dream is like saying it’s a friggin snow globe.

JOHN: Well, first of all, they did not say it was all purgatory. It’s pretty clear the Island is real, and that it continued to have a history long after Hurley became the new Jacob. I mean, yes, the flash sideways, the Alti-verse do seem to be purgatory.

HATER: And how is that not just a poor man’s M Night Shamalama-ding-dang movie??!!

JOHN: Because it’s-…. actually that’s a good point.

HATER: And the fact that the big reveal was not even something deeply rooted in the Lost mythology… that was flat out insulting.

LOVER: What does that even mean?

HATER: The Flash Sideways were set up specifically for this season!!! Which means the big reveal was not a series long mystery! It was a season long mystery! We’ve been watching the show for 6 seasons for answers to actual series long mysteries, and they made up a new one for season 6??!! Just so they could actually have a big reveal?! So that they wouldn’t have to answer the real questions?! All season long we’ve been wondering how the Island got on the bottom of the ocean, but oh guess what! It’s not on the bottom of the Ocean. Cause it’s not even real! It was made up by a bunch of dead people! And all those puzzles we were trying to piece together this season in the Alti-verse, like “When did Ben and his dad leave the Island? Hmm. Was if before or after the bomb?” Surprise!!! It wasn’t real so it doesn’t matter. It was just a waste of your time trying to figure that stuff out. I mean, come on! That’s not right! You don’t do that to an audience! We wanted answers to the real stuff.

LOVE: You did. Don’t include me in that “we”. For me, the real value of this show was in the characters. It always has been. Who cares if we don’t know what this Island is. For me the ending was perfect… but not because of the purgatory thing. I wouldn’t have cared one way or another what the big reveal was… as long as they honored the relationships between these characters. Allowed their stories to be fulfilled.

HATER: Okay, then tell me this Mr. Love Connection? How about Sayid’s series long search for Nadia? You think it’s honorable to have him live happily ever after with a character we haven’t seen in 4 season and frankly most people had forgotten about? After all the years of massive longing and heartbreak over Nadia… his happily ever after moment, his fulfilled story, was essentially with a person he was dating for less than a month?! Wake up!

LOVER: It wasn’t about that. Shannon represented the happiness he found on the Island. Nadia was never on the Island. And as much as he loved her, his time on the Island, like everyone else’s, was the most important period in his life. And so it wasn’t about living happily ever after with Shannon. It was that Shannon was a deep connection he made on the Island that reminded him of all the rest of the deep connections he made there. It brought him happiness after so much sadness. Frankly, I like that the writers didn’t care about what fans might think of their afterlife choice, they were more concerned with the characters’ journeys. Which I think is so admirable. And personally, I’m much happier they chose that route, than to spend 2 and a half hours explaining physics and history and all the stuff that really just… confuses people sometimes.

HATER: Confuses idiots.

LOVER: You’re an idiot.

JOHN: Lover! Look, I think you make a good point, but I also think what’s really pissing off Hater is that he feels like what he loves about the show wasn’t honored at all. Clearly what you loved about it was, so you have a reason to Love the episode. But Hater enjoys the science and riddles and all that geeky stuff.

LOVER: He had two seasons of that back to back!

HATER: What two seasons?!

LOVER: 4 and 5!

HATER: Oh whatever! 5 maybe.

LOVER: Ugg! I hated 5. All that ridiculous time travel.

HATER: Right cause all that ‘Island is corking up the evil’ crap was so much better.

JOHN: Lover, I totally get it. Finding out the answers to the Island wasn’t important to you. For you this wasn’t really a show about hieroglyphs and string theory… but don’t you think a finale episode deserves to be owned by both lost fan factions? I think that’s really what’s hurting Hater so much. He feels slighted. You don’t seem to care much about the afterlife aspect, cause those kinds of answers weren’t that important to you anyway… but had the season ended in a way where Hater’s science and logic had been honored along side your own faith in the human connections, I think he might not have felt so slighted and angry.

LOVER: How would that even be possible. They contradict.

HATER: Spaceship.

LOVER: Oh please, enough with the stupid spaceship. Honestly that is just about the most annoying-

JOHN Lover! You’re doing it again. That’s not helping.

LOVER: *sigh* Okay, first of all, how is a spaceship any less of a cop out than purgatory? Seriously. You just said that you felt lied to about being told it wouldn’t be purgatory. Well, the writers also promised it wouldn’t be a spaceship. So had it been a spaceship, wouldn’t your own “logic” say you’d have to hate that ending too? In fact, I seem to remember way back in the day when the creators were quoted saying there would never be any time travelers. And yet, season 5 seems to be your favorite season.

JOHN: Lover’s got a solid point, Hater.

HATER: *grumble* Well…. why do you have to hate the spaceship so much? If the afterlife thing is neither here nor there… why the big resistance to atlantis or a spaceship. I mean, as long as the human connections are there… isn’t that all that really matters to you? Or do you also need to see me deprived of my geekery.

LOVER: Hey man, if it makes you feel any better, the Island could very well still be a spaceship. In fact, when Desmond pulled the stone cork out of the light hole, I actually wondered for a bit whether you were right… whether the Island was lifting out of the Ocean. Like maybe removing the plug actually “”dislodged the Island”. Kind of like what Faraday explained in season 4. Who knows… maybe if the stone cork had been left out long enough, a portion of the Island would have floated up… and I guess I wouldn’t have minded that.

JOHN: Hater?

HATER: That could have been what was happening.

LOVER: I mean why not keep all that mystery ambiguous, anyway? Isn’t the idea that what’s inside the mystery box can never really live up to what we imagine is in the mystery box? Don’t you want to just keep imagining? Theorizing?

HATER: I do! But personally, I didn’t think this finale (or this whole season for that matter) gave us any mysteries to chomp on. I leave this show with nothing to work with. While you get to have your bitter sweet spiritual ending, I get nada.

LOVER: *sigh* Okay man… lemme see if I can help you out. How about this: Jack.

HATER: What about Jack?

LOVER: Is he dead?

HATER: Of course. That was pretty much beaten over our heads by his dad in the church. They’re all dead.

LOVER: No no, that purgatory stuff is clearly taking place far in the future. I’m talking about on the Island. That ending there with Jack. With the knife wound. And Vincent laying next to him. Did he die?

HATER: Uh… yeah. That seems to be what was implied.

LOVER: Oh really? Well, I seem to remember a detail about that light cave… didn’t Jacob’s foster mother tell him something about that light. How going down there would do something to a person even worse than death?”

HATER: Yeah.

LOVER: So… being that Jack doesn’t have the resistance to-

HATER: Magnetic energy. Like Desmond.

LOVER: Yeah.

HATER: He’s become a smoke monster?

LOVER: Well it seems to me the light should have killed him… not the knife wound. So I ask you again… are you sure he’s dead?

HATER: No.

LOVER: Okay.

HATER: That’s cool.

LOVER: You want another one?

HATER: Sure.

LOVER: The statue. The temple. Where’d they come from?

HATER: I don’t know. And frankly I find it offensive that they didn’t even bother to deal with it.

LOVER: I think they did.

HATER: *cockey laugh* Okay Steel Magnolias, explain.

LOVER: Well that light cave was a little less ambiguous than we thought it was from the surface. I mean, it’s a man made structure. It’s clearly an ancient artifact. So isn’t it reasonable to assume that the same people who built the light cave, also built the statue and the temple. Since we know Jacob didn’t build the light cave, and since the architecture is far more ancient than roman era… isn’t it also reasonable to assume that this Island was at one point populated by an advanced but ancient people.”

HATER: Yeah.

LOVER: And wouldn’t that support the notion that this could be the lost Island of Atlantis?

HATER: Or a spaceship that ended up being populated by tribes of people who didn’t know what it was and thought it was a place of magic and godliness.

LOVER: *rolls eyes* sure… it could also be a spaceship.

JOHN: …………………….. Oh keep going, guys! This is nice. You’re really starting to see eye to eye. Hater, can you meet Lover halfway?

HATER: Not a chance.

*sigh* okay, this is gonna take a little longer than it thought. You might wanna go away for a bit and come back. Hopefully, by then I’ll have these two hugging it out.