Damn jetleg. I’m feeling Lost in Translation again. After 4 months of atypically wonderous slumber, I seem to be back on my insomnia kick. I sleep for a couple hours then wake up panicked forgetting where I am. I suspect it’s due to sleeping in too many different beds along with the myriad of time zones messing with my internal clock. And as luck would have it, looks like I may be visiting more soon…Death in Charge just got into the New York City Horror Film Festival – yay! Looks like I’m back on a plane in less than 2 weeks and if all goes well on another to Anchorage a week later.
That gives me little time to complete our website content what with the AFM and Shockfest this week, and now I’ve been brought on to help rewrite a zombie script with a director friend whose project just got picked up provided we can tackle some notes. I’m excited about working on this, our first story meeting went great, but man, the timing couldn’t be worse. Trippin’ musician Spider comes in from the U.K. tomorrow and I have a self-imposed deadline on my own script as I have another collaborative project beginning in December. Still, it’s good chaos, you know?
A lot of well-meaning friends have lectured me on how I must stop working on so many things at once and “buckle down and focus on just one thing.” However, multi-tasking seems to work well for me. There’s always something going on with at least one of our projects. For example, last week I get 3 new requests for Confederate Zombie Massacre! – 1) Scarecrow Video in Seattle wants a copy for their shelves (sweet! We LOVED them when we lived in WA), 2) another dude in Germany who actually wrote an online review in German of it wants to buy his own copy (a common request from Germans, where are they seeing it, I wonder), AND the Dead By Dawn Film Festival just requested a screener for consideration (man I’d love to go to that fest. It has a great reputation and Edinburgh is one of my all-time fave cities. There’s this super fun nightclub, the Frankenstein Club, modeled after the lab in James Whale’s movie, complete with rising monster body on slab – nice!) But I digress. The point is I haven’t lifted a finger to promote CZM in like 4 years, but this film just won’t die. I still get regular requests to buy copies and it’s screened in 2 new fests this year (that I know about anyway). Crazy!
Meanwhile, I also get regular requests to screen Death in Charge now. We no longer have to submit to fests – they come to us, which is pretty cool (and no fest fees – yay!). In some cases, people have actually asked me what my screening fees are. Really? I can charge for that? Oh, but alas, I really can’t. I’d feel like a jerk asking them to pay me. We made it to be seen after all. And most of the organizations are non-profit. How can I try to milk them for cash? Damn conscience – I could really use the dough.
Today’s interesting request was about Raven Gets a Life. They want to screen it at some big 
psychology conference in Portland – sweet! I love it when our films get played in an academic context. Death’s played in several classrooms and for an organization that promotes non-violence to inner city troubled children. I was so thrilled when the organizers had requested a copy.
Anyway, it’s nice to know our films continue to have lives. Despite the criticism for taking on too much at once, I’d have to say it’s really only worked to our benefit. It’s rare now that a day goes by where there’s not interest expressed in at least one of our projects – a script, a film, a guest lecture or interview. It’s nice to be on the map – even if we’re still just a tiny dot. Besides, my muse just doesn’t dig monogamy. Let the creative orgy continue!