Monday, March 31, 2008

Pidgeon Forge: An illustration

Look, I'm not a culture snob. I appreciate all types of different culture that we have here in America from Americana to the hip, urban place where I live now. It's all interesting in its own way and shows the diversity that is one of our country's strengths.

But, this weekend, I gazed into one of its glaring warts: Pidgeon Forge, Tenn.

I was in town to do a wedding for one of my best friends. The wedding was fantastic, good friends, old and new, bride was beautiful, groom, well, looked great, everyone cried. And the minister was, well, I was.

Anyway, Pigeon Forge is, as my wife likes to say, craptacular. No, more than craptacular. Supersized craptacular. Horrible looking theaters. Horrible looking shops. All spread out over a four miles strip with no reason, no zoning or even worse in my mind, working with the natural beauty of the Smokey Mountains. It is a perfect picture of what happens when capatalism runs amuck. As I have said, I'm no socialist, but, Pigeon Forge left me wondering....

Friday, March 21, 2008

Dying Today

I went to a Good Friday service at an Anglican church. It was fantastic. But even more, the priest's sermon was one of the best I have heard on a Good Friday.

It was all about dying and our need to die with Christ, to come to the Cross and be crucified with Him. We bring all our hopes, our dreams, our desires, our sins, everything, to the cross. That is why it's so hard to be Christian, because to be one, requires the death of everything, even good things.

For me, there are a lot of things dying right now in my life.

But, Easter is coming.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Film Blog 1-The Beginning

I realize how pretentious and arty is that I'm blogging about the short film I'm making. But, I really don't care.

We started filming last night. It was after a delay because our first choice in locations didn't pan out. But, our director came through with a great location. Our Kate did such a great job. She had to fake being attacked by owls and rolling around in the snow. She really went all out. I was highly impressed. We got some great shots and this film is going to look great. Can't wait!

Some more random observations:

Packed snow, fake blood, hay, dirt and sticks make great fake mice to drop through the air.

Fake blood tastes like watermelon.

Our director knows what the heck he is doing. The lighting. Its all about the lighting.

Hands on the top of my head make a great owl shadow. Although, that was the longest take of the night.

Fake blood looks like the real thing. I just hope no one in Bexley gets too worked up this morning about blood in the snow.

Saturday, March 8, 2008