Juggling Time

It's been three and a half weeks since we wrapped principal photography for the first half of "That's What She Told Me," a short film I directed. I'm also the editor on the film. The plan was to create a trailer with the footage we've shot, show it, and raise the rest of the money to complete the film. But as I started looking at the footage, I realized that I needed to edit together all of the scenes that I have before I can cut together a trailer. So I began, thinking it would take me about a month. In three and a half weeks, I've spent a total of 20 hours editing. And I'm only halfway done with the rough cut. It will probably take me at least another 20 hours to finish cutting the film before I can start on the trailer. Why so little time?

In that time, I've also had three school holidays, attended one high holy day service and held one family dinner for Rosh Hashanah, had four therapy appointments (me), two occupational therapy appointments (my son), one appointment in the burn unit (my father-in-law), one sick day (all of us), moved my kids into two separate rooms and painted both rooms, attended five meetings at the kids' school on volunteer projects, bought two birthday presents (the kids' friends), three other birthday presents (the kids and husband), took the kids to three piano lessons, designed and printed birthday invitations, designed and ordered Christmas cards (my husband is Jewish and I'm Protestant), and paid the bills. And that's just on the personal side.

In my other film work, I've had two phone meetings for film consulting, attended one artist networking event, submitted two film grants, put together a proposal for a potential producer for "Weeki Wachee Girls", did some re-writing on "Weeki Wachee Girls", read 12 pages in my writing workshop with Mick Casale of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and sent off "Flower of a Girl" to the Baltimore Women's Film Festival (playing Friday, Oct. 24 at 10:00 p.m.).

And I ask myself for the thousandth time, can I really keep doing this? So far, the answer is still "yes." Or maybe I'll just go back to bed.

Blogging and Flower of a Girl

Despite growing up with a refrigerator magnet stating "Better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt," I've decided to start blogging. If you think me a fool, please keep it to yourself. If you like what I'm saying, please speak up!

I'm an indpendent filmmaker, a screenwriter and playwright who also happens to be the mother of (almost) 7-year-old twins. Needless to say, making all of those things work together is challenging, to say the least.

I'm starting this blog initially to introduce my film, "Flower of a Girl," a 5-minute experimental piece that once elicited the comment "That was terrible!" from an elderly woman in the audience at the 2006 Staten Island Film Festival. During the Q&A, when I spoke about what the film was about and how the woman and the teenager were related, my husband says that same woman turned to her friend and said, "I knew it!" Judge for yourself. The film can be seen in its entirety on imdb.

It is also playing at the 2008 Baltimore Women's Film Festival at 10:00 pm on Saturday, October 25 as part of an Experimental Shorts Program. I plan on being there, although it is the weekend that my twins turn seven and I'm expected to throw a birthday party. At home. For 20 kids. Yet another challenge. Somehow, with help and more than a little grace, I'll manage.