When last we spoke, I was excited about producing and directing Celebrities To Go and getting Robert Johnson off the ground.  I was also pretty pumped about how I was going to get Rocketboom up and running again.

One of those things is still true.  I’m still working on getting the Robert Johnson script off the ground.  I’m 10 pages of (poorly-drawn) storyboards in, even though that just gets me onto the second page of the script.  I’m finding that I’m a bit frustrated by the fact that I can’t get the picture in my brain onto the paper.  I’m supplementing the drawings with text, to make it clearer.

I also might want to get another artist to do these storyboards up right, once I’m done.

I’ve also had a chance to play with Final Cut Pro X, and I think I want to edit the film on it.  FCPX is very intuitive and very helpful.  Everything is exactly where you want it to be. It’s definitely a version 1.0 and needs to be updated before it’s ready for the amount of work a film will use, but by the time I’m ready to edit Robert Johnson, I think FCPX will be ready.  I am confident.

This brings me to the other things.  For those who don’t know, I’m no longer working for Rocketboom, nor am I in New York City anymore.  I’m in Pittsburgh.  Why am I in Pittsburgh?  I was offered a job working on the new animated series from the Fred Rogers Company and Out Of The Blue Enterprises called Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.  I am working as an associate producer and editor for a series of live-action bits aimed at teaching children real-life lessons by example (going to school, making a cake, how crayons are made.).  I couldn’t be more excited.  The job came up in November, we moved and were in a new house by December 1st.  I was in the office on the 5th.

I love the new job.  It’s brilliant and the people are absolutely wonderful.  I hope to be here for a while.

I might well have done it.

I think I finally cracked the ending of The Devil and Robert Johnson.  I went through, redid all the dialogue, changed a character name and added a couple of nice moments at the end, during the *SPOILERALERT* death scene.

I’ve come up with my dream casting, that I’ll never ever get, but it’s Free To Dream, right?  Robert Johnson would be played by Jermaine Crawford and The Devil would be played by Idris Elba.  Idris Elba has this intensity that I think would scare the hell out of you (in the last scene) and Jermaine Crawford has a wink in his eye that makes him just a little impish.  Dream casting right there.

That will never ever happen, by the way.

Other Projects:  I’m producing/directing a 10-episode webseries called Celebrities To Go, created and starring by Rob Gorden and Erika Smith.  It’s hilarious and I think we can make something very poignant.  I’m breaking down the scripts now and will come up with a budget, schedule, and storyboards.  I cannot wait for this.

I think that’s it.  Stay Groovy, kids.

I watched the “Joan” episode of Louie yesterday and there was a moment towards the end (and Jesus, the ending gets uncomfortable, but I think Louis CK has been hanging out with Ricky Gervais too long) where Joan Rivers says “If you want a job, there are a million things you could be doing.  This isn’t a job.  This isn’t work.  God it sound so stupid saying it.  What we do is a calling.  We make people happy.”

And that really struck me.  As entertainers, and make no mistake about it, what I do is entertainment, we make people happy.  For three minutes, for an hour, for two hours, whatever.  We make people happy.  And we do it because we have to.  and I really love that Louis CK said it on national TV.

Oh, sure, people might say that he’s being sappy and self-aggrandizing, but those people don’t get to make other people happy.  Those people don’t get to tell a story that makes someone laugh or cry or sweep them away on an adventure that cannot possibly happen.  Jim Henson got that.  Louis gets that.  Joseph Gordon Levitt gets it.

As entertainers, we are storytellers.  We are the men and women around the fire charged with keeping the evil at bay and proving that the monsters might be there, but that we are better than those monsters.  We’re the conjurors of demons and djinn, or heroes and star-crossed lovers.  We are the Storytellers.

And that is important.

As if to hammer that point home, there was an article over on Hero Complex at the LA Times, by Damon Lindelof.  It’s a love letter to Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

It’s a calling.

Updates coming soon, I promise.  Some good notes are coming back, re: the Robert Johnson script.  It’s definitely making me re-think some things.  The story is definitely right.  The tone might need to change just a scooch.

Busy busy busy.  Pretty much the best way to be, I think.  :)

I made it out alive!  Now we have 3 bags of ice, two jugs of water and a partridge in a pear tree.  But we’re ok, and that is what matters.

I’m done with the new draft, but absolutely certain that it needs one thing at the end that I can’t figure out.  I’m going to harass and harangue friends and professionals to see what they think.  If anyone else would like to take a look see, tweet, facebook, email, whatever with your contact info.  I’ll send you the draft.

I will be thinking about the ending more before I go on to write the next draft, but I’m also keeping the visuals in my head as well.  More and more, I’m considering words-on-a-card and handing it off to an artist.

Got the scripts to a full season of a potential webseries from brilliant comedian and storyteller, Rob Gorden and actress & Marilyn Monroe impersonator Erika Smith  Laughed the whole way to work today.  Loved it.  I can’t wait to talk with them about it.

Rocketboom is still trucking along. We have so many great ideas, sometimes my brain hurts.  Today, we’ll be getting a bunch of things done in prep for the new Reboot.  Get ready, because it’s coming at you hard.

Rock and Roll kids.  How did you do during the hurricane?

The Devil and Robert Johnson:  I was awake from 2am to 4:30ish this morning. I didn’t wake up for a re-read of the script.  Tomorrow?  Maybe Tonight.

Rocketboom:  This is why I was awake most of the night.  Worrying and formulating and trying to come up with unassailably cool ideas, ideas that couldn’t possibly be turned down.  I don’t think I had any good ones, though my idea for the Premiere Rocketboom Reboot episode is super cool.  I came up with that one yesterday.  It needs some work, but it’s a neat, very fun idea.

Flannel Bob:  We have a short film that we are supposed to shoot this weekend about a man who has been broken up with and how he deals with this development.  Hurricane Irene is on her way, so there’s that.  This post might be updated later today.

And that’s the update on Matthias’ projects.

I added the last scene to The Devil and Robert Johnson this morning.  As a result, I was late waking Hannah up.  Hooray!  I mean, oops.

I’m not sure how it works, I feel like it’s missing something, but I’m not sure what that thing is.  I’m going to re-read everything tonight or tomorrow, but I’m feeling pretty confident that apart from the final scene this is probably going to be the script.

The last scene has a great couple moments, pretty intense with the Devil.  I can see it very clearly in my head.  It makes me want to storyboard it right now.  Slow and steady, though.  Slow and steady.  I can’t be impatient.  That only leads to rather poor decisions.

I think I might have one more draft to go before it’s absolutely ready to shoot.  Then, I start on storyboarding.  We’ll see how that goes, since I’m not much of an artist.  A director friend of mine once said that storyboarding is where real directing happens.  I’m getting very excited to give that a go.  Historically, I’ve been a words-on-a-card person (I handed “storyboards” to the Brothers Chaps once, to which Mike said, “These aren’t storyboards.  These are words-on-a-card.”  That’s been my tactic ever since.), but I’m excited to try the drawing process.  Maybe it will still be words-on-a-card that I’ll hand off to an artist.  Who knows?  I’ll at the very least try.

In Rocketboom news, I have plans for the first Episode of the ReBoot.  I’m fleshing them out today.  Everyone, I’m serious when I tell you, this is going to be one of the best re-boots ever, if all goes according to plan.   More info as I’m able to reveal the info.

Woke up this morning at 5:45.  The Alarm went off spectacularly, fireworks went off in my ears.  I actually stopped the alarm by putting my finger between the bell and the hammer.

Hell of a way to wake up.

I actually thought to myself, No, just go back to sleep.  Get up at your normal time.  It will be ok.  You don’t have to write at all.  But that was the thing.

Yes I do.

So up I got and write I did for about an hour.  I’m in the second draft of a screenplay that I’ve been writing in my head for five years now.  This second draft is probably going to be four pages longer than the first draft, up to ten, depending on how wordy I decide to get.  I expressed concern about this to Hannah, who said, “Yeah, but there were a couple of holes in your first draft.  You’re filling them in.”  that made sense, but I’m still a little concerned about it.  I’ll have to go through once it’s done.  That’s how it works, right?  Every day now, I’m going to get up at 5:45, or earlier, and write until 6:45, maybe 7.  And I’m going to get this script done as tightly as I can.

Oh, I guess I can tell you what it is:  The Devil and Robert Johnson.  I’m re-telling the folktale of how bluesman Robert Johnson sold his immortal soul to play the blues.  Draft 1 was 18 pages with an animated sequence in the middle (styled after the old Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Felix The Cat cartoons).  Draft 2 will probably be 22-28 pages.  SPOILER ALERT:  The Death Scene is being revised, which is why I’m not sure how long it will be with the new pages.

I started thinking about the next thing I’m going to write.  I’m afraid it might have to be a Western.

These are the things that I’m working on right now.  Behold my busy-ness.

• Producing a gritty reboot of Rocketboom.  Well, not so much gritty as a reboot.  It’s going to be awesome.  I can’t wait for you to see what we’ve come up with.
• Co-Producing a short film with my Flannel Bob cohorts.  We will be shooting all over New York City next weekend.  Locations include: Astoria, Spanish Harlem, Times Square.  That’s right.  It just got real up in here.
• Working on a short film script draft.  Almost done with it.  Once completed, I think I might just Kickstart this thing.
• Thinking about how one might make a movie based on an off-handed remark on the comedy podcuddle, Walking The Room.  I think it’s do-able.  The concept is ‘Brotel,’ a gritty torture porn comedy about a motel in the desert where the proprietor murders Bros that come to stay, only to discover that the Brotel is built on an Indian Burial Ground that was also used to store toxic nuclear waste.  As it must be obvious to you by now, the resulting horrors are called ‘Brosts.’  Sundance, here we come.