So, did anyone out there read or watch Pandora's Clock? If you haven't, a spoiler question follows (in case you care): At the end of the movie, there's a little scene that takes place "Six months later." MacGyver and his wife, the ambassador's assistant, welcome Daphne Zuniga, the CIA/Melrose Place agent who helped saved Flight 66 (wow -- how did they come up with that number?) to their little place up in Seattle. MacGyver gets a phone call and says, "Brenda Whatever, the flight attendant, got a cold, was admitted to a hospital and died within 48 hours." And then the three of them stand around looking grim, like they all got their own death sentences.
Que?
The flight attendant was exposed to the virus, in which case they all were, in which case they all died six months ago. If she got the virus somewhere else...are we supposed to believe it's got a 6 month incubation period and then immediately kills? What kind of biological weapon is that?
Clearly I missed something.
If you know what it is that I missed, please tell me.
I've made a Sticky note (the notepad feature in the Mac OS) to myself listing everything I have to get done between now and the end of the year. I've gotten to check something off; yay.
On Sunday I filmed my final project for Nina's class. I met with the actors at 11 a.m. at the Lucas Film Building and we rehearsed for two hours. Actors really do bring something to a scene, much as we writers hate to admit it. I was directing the same scene I had done in class with Evan, and having actors who were willing to give that much more made the scene come alive. I made comments here and there to guide them -- which is, darn it, what I hope a director is supposed to do. No screaming, no line readings.
Then, at 1 p.m., Sharon was supposed to show up to unlock the GSP office for me so I could film in there. She didn't show. I panicked. I had forgotten her pager number at home, and my cell phone wasn't working. (The battery is just dead, I guess, despite my having recharged it the night before.) I went down to the pay phone and called Greg, who works in the GSP office during the week; he told me to go talk to someone in Operations.
What a smart boy that Greg is. It turned out that Sharon was sick and had called Operations to let me in.
I needed to block the scene on the fly with the actors, and then we did the scene seven or eight times. I'd fuck up, they'd fuck up, something would go horribly wrong. We got a couple of very good takes though -- I was happy with their performance. (Yes, I actually used the phrase "I was happy" non-sarcastically.)
We went an hour over what I expected, and I apologized profusely for keeping them. The actress (Ginger) said, "Stop being so hard on yourself." Hard on myself -- moi? It's good to know that I'm so honest showing my true self to others. (Sigh.)
Then last night I had dinner with my college roommate, Donna. I met her new baby, Robert, and her older boy, Benjamin, who's now 3 and running around like a crazy person. I also got to see Angel, Donna's husband, who was also her boyfriend during college, so I knew him as well. We talked about how life is for us now.
Today I didn't go to Spring Creek, so that I could stay home and write. Oy. I reoutlined the assignment due tomorrow and started writing. I didn't get enough done, of course, before it was time to go off to Brooke's business class. Once there, everyone in my writing class was in the same position: we're all going to have late nights.
Even worse: three people -- count 'em, three -- have finished their documentaries for Wednesday's production class. I fully admit I'm not one of them; hell, I haven't even started filming it. See, every time an assignment's due, we have to take two weeks to show everyone's project. Well, my projects have always been done the first week, so this time I was going to slide until Week Two. Everyone's decided to slide.
I'm wondering if I should arrange a sick-in, because the teacher -- already totally on edge -- is going to go ballistic when he realizes hardly anyone is done. Several people have shot their documentaries, they just haven't edited them yet. No one has yet attended the "Diane Patterson School of Incredibly Speedy Editing."
Something's fucked up in my PowerBook: the screen keeps turning green. Then everything will go back to normal...then green again. This is pissing me off. Fernando said he'll take a look at it -- maybe a wire's loose. I think my PowerBook just hates me and is going on strike.
It's also continued being slooooow. So Darin took me through the thrilling process of turning off all but the most important INITs...uh, I mean, extensions. And the machine is going faster. I will keep you updated, and no, you can't stop me.