U-S-C-ya later

aight. so, last night i hit I-10 after a long day at the studio and made the trek to downtown l-a-zy. i was heading, for my first time ever, to usc's campus...a place that i've envisioned and dreamed about for a long time. ever since i had an inkling that i wanted to make movies i thought for sure that i would go to either usc or nyu. it just made sense to me. well, needless to say, i didn't go to usc...or nyu. i made a nice 4-year-home for myself in fw, texas and actually had an amazing college experience.

ever since i graduated a year ago, i've been wrestling with whether or not i wanted to go back to school - grad school...no, not just grad school: FILM school. i'm a school person. plain and simple. and since moving out here (and away from the collegiate environment) i've felt...well, let's just say DUMB for lack of a more intellectual word (because, see, i'm dumb now so...yeah...you get it...)
anyway, last night as i was driving to usc, i prayed that jesus would give me a clear answer when i got there. if i am supposed to go back to film school, let me know it the moment i get on campus. if i'm not, then i want to know that, too.

well, i'm not going to go into ALL the juicy details except to say that jesus answers prayers. i know that what i was exposed to last night was probably not at all what usc film school is actually like, but it's what jesus wanted to me see to make my decision. and i've concluded i don't want to go. i'm sure if i were meant to see something that were going to compel me to go to grad school, i would have walked into a sound stage where they were shooting on 35mm and lighting with cool rigs. instead, all i was exposed to was a shoot that basically consisted of "ok, go" (meaning the camera was shooting), single takes, no lighting, no boom mic, no real care in the world to make it a legit project. that's what i saw, and that's what i needed to see.

i think that's how jesus works. he knows what we need and gives it to us. if someone wrestling with my very same question last night (whether or not to go to film school) were to have prayed to jesus for an answer and jesus knew that that person DID need to go to film school, that person would have been shown what they needed to see to make that decision. it's so sweet how jesus knows us each so personally that he makes things special...just for us.

u-s-C-YA-LATER

(ps - this post is in no way a reflection of how i feel about usc or film school in general. to be honest, i still want to go. i think jesus knew if he had shown me the big stages, awesome cameras, and creative experimental environment that i probably would have signed up for classes last night.)

i'm excited that a lot of my ole film pals from tcu are coming out to la. i have missed their energy, passion, humor, and company so much. our group really has something special, a little like zoetrope in its early days in san francisco. i know we will do big things. we just love filmmaking that much.

My favorite French Man

I heart Michel Gondry.

Get excited about his new flick. Check her out -->

no day but today

1 year
12 months
52 weeks
365 days
8760 hours
525, 600 minutes
31,536,000 seconds

How do you measure a year in the life? Is it in a moment? Is it in a song, a laugh, a smile, a memory, a kiss?

When you realize that time is running out, how will you choose to live your last moments here on Earth? That seems like a pretty loaded question and one that, I imagine, requires pause for thought. What probably requires even more thought is realizing the fact that the majority of us won't even get the luxury of actually knowing when we're going to die. We'll either go in our sleep or, God forbid, in some accident that we never saw coming and then what? We won't have time to make that list of "all the things I want to do before I die." It'll be too late. It's a scary thought, right? No, not the thought of dying - I'm talking about the thought of not really living. That's what scares me most of all.

Tonight I watched a 2 hour documentary about actor/writer/composer Jonathan Larson, the genius behind the Broadway musical sensation RENT. For those of you who aren't familiar with Jonathan's story, it's one that I'll argue is even more touching and inspiring than that of RENT itself. As I listened to Jonathan's friends and family talk about his passion and his determination, I couldn't help but be moved. Jonathan knew that he was going to do it; he was going to revolutionize Broadway and the way the world viewed musical theatre. Not only did he succeeded creatively, but RENT's social impact was equally as impressive. Set in the late 80s at a time when the AIDS epidemic was sweeping across America, RENT chronicles a year in the lives of a group of artist friends in lower east side NYC and documents their struggles with disease, homelessness, love, and loss. Even in a one sentence description of the show, you can get a sense of the immenseness of the issues that RENT aimed to explore. Today, RENT boasts worldwide acclaim and has gone on to become one of the most successful shows, both domestically and internationally, of all time. It struck a chord with the people. They saw themselves in these characters and could relate to the human drama that Jonathan had so poignantly told through song. Sadly, Jonathan himself was never able to revel in the glory of the show's success. On the night of the final dress rehearsal, Jonathan died alone in his apartment of an ruptured aorta at age 35 - less than 24 hours away from seeing the musical he had spent over 7 years creating perform its first show. The irony and eerie timing of Jonathan's death rocked the theatre community and, as you can imagine, the cast who were scheduled to open that night. They decided to honor his memory by performing the show as Jonathan would have wanted, his dad reminding everyone through tears that "the show must go on."

I was so touched by how much of himself this man poured into his work and how dedicated he was to creating something he felt that he had to do. I think that's what separates the greats from the ordinary - the feeling of knowing they're going to do something great or big with their lives and not making any excuses for it. This man's entire life revolved around the theatre - around writing music and creating stories that he felt in his soul he needed to tell. As an aspiring filmmaker, I can only hope to embody half of what Jonathan did and make some fraction of the impact on the cinema that Jonathan did to the world of musical theatre.

If you haven't seen RENT live on stage, I charge you to do so. You won't be able to leave the theatre without being moved or rocked or changed in some way; I don't care who you are. If you aren't able to see it on stage, the new movie does a pretty good job of conveying the emotion, although I might argue that buying the original 1996 cast recording on CD would be just as good. The best thing about buying the DVD is, in my opinion, this beautiful tribute documentary to Jonathan and his creation. His personal story is riveting and so emotionally compelling.

I want to make a movie about Jonathan Larson's life. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. Anybody want to help? There is so much raw drama in the truth of his life that I don't think I could write anything better than what actually happened. He lived life just like the characters he created in RENT, knowing that we only have this moment, right here, right now. There's no day but today.

Thank you, Jonathan, for your contribution to the theatre and to all artists out there like me who want so badly to do something big.