Finally...

It’s been a long time coming, but after many starts and stops, delays,
cancellations, etc., we’re getting the Coffee House Gypsies music video
rolling, oh…in just about eight hours. Can’t begin to put into words how
jazzed I am about getting back behind the camera again, because this project
poses all sorts of challenges, and I’m excited about meeting and exceeding
‘em.

Initially, we were supposed to shoot this in Miami, but when Pam and I found
a house at a price that could not be beat, and moved across the state, that
put everything on hold indefinitely. Since then? I’ve gone through two
different cameramen, several different (and equally unreliable) models, had
other projects come up, etc. So, despite the shoot being relatively simple
in terms of concept and execution, between flaky camerapeople and
model/actresses, it’s been a frustrating process.

In a couple hours, though? If all goes well (knock on wood, rub o’ the
proverbial rabbit’s foot), the hassles’ll all be in the rear view mirror and
we’ll get in a good morning of shooting, knock out 1/4 of the shot list, and
see where we stand. Then, Thursday, we go back to shooting for Inside the
Bunker, the documentary chronicling the making of my first feature film.
While we’d finished a cut of the documentary back in ‘07, so much has
changed, and I’ve needed to replace so many parts, that it only made sense
to revisit ITB. So much had happened-from Gary Finneran’s death requiring me
to find a new composer, to various people getting booted off the film, to a
seemingly endless stream of post-production nightmares, we felt that there
was just too much that went into making the movie that was left out in the
original cut. Now, we’re shooting additional interviews, covering some
aspects that I’d initially intended to ignore, and fleshing it out a bit.
Thursday, we’re probably going to knock out two segments, with three
different shooting subjects. After that, we need to schedule a date at the
location I want to use for the new introduction, and nail that down. After
that, we should be pretty much finished with shooting. It’ll be into the
editing bay again, stitching the new segments in, smoothing out the sound,
and we should be good to go.

Should be able to report some more on progress tomorrow, maybe with a few
pics from the shoot. After all, you can never go wrong uploading pics of
sexy girls, can you?

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You on Facebook? Twitter? Myspace? Well, so am I. Hit me up with questions,
comments, off-color blind jokes, your own filmmaking nightmares, whatever,
at any of the following places:

http://www.facebook.com/joemonks

http://www.myspace.com/joemonks1

http://www.twitter.com/josephmonks

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Curious about the first feature film ever directed by a blind filmmaker?
Check out the trailer, and some clips from the Making of… documentary:

Film trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hobK0nS5me4

Inside the Bunker documentary clip 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrrKjzNepzc

Inside the Bunker documentary clip 2:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QXpb2F8FqgI

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