davidvanwert.com

Got 9 minutes and 28 seconds to kill? You do? Then hey, my short film “A Pony for Eddie” is now viewable online, as well as downloadable for you swanky “iPod video” having folk. (Actually, it’s downloadable for normal folk like me too, if you just feel like downloading it to watch later when 9 minutes and 28 seconds is more convenient)

Check it out!

On March 31st at 3:00 pm, they started writing the screenplay… shooting began about 12 hours later… the final edit was completed at 4:00 pm Sunday, April 2. The entire process from page one of dialogue to finished, wrapped production was completed in 48 hours (daylight savings accounts for that pesky one hour offset). So how did it turn out? I’ll find out at the screening this Wednesday.

After working through the first night at two locations, I was lucky enough to catch a nap Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm before heading back out to work at two more. And I was home for the night by midnight Saturday. Sunday afternoon I stopped by the editing offices (Magic Hair Studios) to pick up some lighting equipment, and it was close enough to zero hour that I couldn’t resist staying for the final countdown. We made it.

It was an extremely exciting process to be part of. Beyond the simple audacity to even ponder such a project, I was most impressed by the incredible planning and co-ordination that made it possible. Executive Producer/Project Instigator Jeff Goode started with his friends, who brought in friends, who brought in friends, who… and somehow it all happened.

I was second-most impressed that folks who’d worked straight through the entire 48 were so coherent at the official wrap Sunday afternoon.

Now I’m wondering, how do you up the ante for the next one?

In case I forgot to mention it (and I know  I forgot, which is why I’m mentioning it now… so why the pretense? Beats me. It’s just my style. As are long parenthetical statements. Love ‘em! And sentence fragments. Love those too!), T. Sean Shannon’s “Bear City” now has its very own official web page, lovingly slapped together by me.

One of my favorite plays, The Dying Gaul, by one of my favorite playwrights, Craig Lucas, has been filmed. And as a special bonus, he got to adapt and direct it himself as an independent. As part of the story concerns a previously unproduced screenwriter struggling to maintain the artistic vision of his deeply personal script in the face of big Hollywood money, anything else would have been just plain wrong.
The Dying Gaul stars Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard, and Campbell Scott. Craig Lucas, whose previous screenplays include Longtime Companion, Prelude to a Kiss, and The Secret Lives of Dentists, makes his film directing debut.