So the whole NaBlogWriMo idea kind of fell apart due to me getting sick last week. It was fun while it lasted though, and I think it helped a little bit... if nothing else, it got me used to writing for an hour and not throwing it away just because I think it probably sucks, which is something that every writer needs to get used to.

It may be a while before I write another entry in here, but something tells me that it won’t be a whole before I write more stuff.

mood: sleepy music: "West Coast" - Coconut Records

My name is David Michael Smith. I am 21-years-old, and I live with my wife Alexis in Huntington, West Virginia. I just recently graduated from Marshall University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a minor in French. I am a filmmaker; I have made several short films, one feature film which received some modest local success, and I am currently working on another feature. Just a couple of weeks ago, I started a new job in which I drive homeless people to and from various appointments on behalf of a program that aims to get them into housing and make sure they keep it. It seems fun so far. Life is good right now. It would be better if I had a little more money, but I am able to pay the bills and do other fun stuff, so I can’t really complain.

**

I love my wife very much. When I really stop and think about it, it is still a little perplexing that I was able to find someone as awesome as her and that she liked me, too. It is especially perplexing when I consider how convinced I was that this was never going to happen. I was never that lucky with dating or relationships. I had one girlfriend before my wife, and looking back on it, honestly, I think I mostly just liked her because she liked me and no one else did. Incidentally, the first feature film I made was about a guy who was never really lucky with dating or relationships, who ends up in a toxic relationship with the first girl who shows an interest in him--only in the movie, the girl was a cannibal.

There are many reasons why I love my wife, and while I am glad she loves me back, I spent about a good year falling in love with her while sadly believing that she would never have any romantic interest in me. *That* is a long, interesting story for another time. I can happily report that it ended with my finding out that she did in fact return my feelings, and once we found out that we belonged to a Mutual Admiration Society as Tony Bennett from “Entourage” might put it, we both went on to become very happy together.

So, as sure as I was for a long time that I would never find a girl who would even want to go on a date with me again, here I am, 21-years-old, married to the woman of my dreams. A lot of people who are a lot older than me don’t have that. It probably isn’t ironic, because grammar Nazis always like to bust on people for using that word the wrong way, but it is something, isn’t it?

**

When I tell people that I am a filmmaker, but I majored in Political Science, most of them ask if I want to be the next Michael Moore. I like Michael Moore’s movies, but I do not want to make political documentaries, nor do I want to be overweight and relate all of our nation’s problems back to Flint, Michigan (nor do I want to make political satires starring John Candy, because he is dead).

I went to Marshall because I wanted to go to an in-state school for monetary reasons, and I was turned off by WVU’s party school status. I almost went to Concord, but attending an open-house at Marshall with the aforementioned ex-girlfriend convinced my otherwise. Compared to Oak Hill, my small hometown, Huntington was like New York City. I thought at first that I might transfer to film school after a few years, but all along I figured it’d be too expensive. During my freshman year in college, I did learn that there was in fact an in-state school with a film program--West Virginia State. I almost transferred there, but because I was not driving at the time, I didn’t figure I’d get many opportunities to get into Charleston, and I didn’t want to be stuck in Institute where it seemed the only thing to do was go to GoMart.

I wonder sometimes what it would have been like if I would have gone to State, or if I would have gone to a proper film school like Ohio University in Athens. Maybe I would have received better opportunities, but I halfway think that combining school with my artistic passion would have turned me off from it. I tried majoring in theatre for a semester at Marshall, and that is the impact it had on my desire to act. I like the film work I was able to complete at Marshall, even if it was on my own without any structured classes--in fact, I kind of like it because of that. If I didn’t make movies at Marshall, I wouldn’t have met a lot of my friends and collaborators, and I wouldn’t have met my wife. So while it’s fun to wonder “what if?” sometimes, I think I made the right decision.

As for why I went to college at all, a big part of it was because of my parents. They instilled in me from an early age that that was just what you do--you go to elementary school for four years, then to middle school for four years, then to high school for four years, and then to college for four years. Even though they didn’t do it in exactly that order. They didn’t really mind what I went to college for so long as I went. So I did. And as corny as it may sound, I learned a lot inside and outside of the classroom. I know this isn’t a revolutionary concept, but I think your college experience is what you make of it. It taught me a lot about organization, and making friends, and all kinds of stuff that I might not have learned otherwise.

People always say, “I have this degree, and I can’t get any jobs with it!” Or, “What do I do with a degree in ____? Why did I get that?!” Now that I’m out of school and concentrating more on work, I’ve had a few more “what if?” thoughts, wondering if it might have been more prudent to get a degree in business or computers or something more practical. Because, aside from going to school for the sake of my parents, the other underlying thought was always that it would be a lot easier to make movies while working a day job to pay the bills if that day job involved sitting in an office rather than flipping burgers.

My thought is, my Political Science degree might not be the reason that I get a job, but having a college degree is at least an indicator that I put in my time and effort to earn it. And I know what you might say--“Oh, you got a degree from Marshall; anyone can do that.” But there are a lot of Marshall students who don’t.

I’m getting a little off-track. Why Political Science, anyway? Well, I started as a Broadcast Journalism major, because I figured that was the closest thing to filmmaking at Marshall. I quickly decided that I hated writing journalism-style though, and I was much to socially anxious to ever want to interview people as it seemed was inevitably going to be part of my assigments. Since I mostly want to make movies because I like telling stories, I switched to English. I hated my English classes because all the people in them were pretentious, I didn’t want to review other books, and really, I discovered that I just didn’t care for reading as much as I used to. THEN I tried Theatre for a semester, and that was just a disaster--again, probably a story for another day and time. All the time I was switching my majors, I was being smart and taking mostly general classes that I needed for any major. A few of these general classes were Political Science classes, and I really enjoyed those. I was very active in Young Democrats, and most of the folks in there were Political Science majors. Finally, and probably most importantly, as far as I could tell, because of the strong availabilty of required courses offered each semester, Political Science was the easiest program to get out of in four years, especially if you had already spent a couple of those years doing other shit.

So I majored in Political Science. I minored in French, but I can’t speak it. Je suis un chaise. I think that means, “I am a chair.” To minor in a foreign language, all you need to take are two courses beyond the four classes of it that you are already required to take in order to major in anything in the College of Liberal Arts. My two extra classes were both French film classes. Technically, I minored in the French New Wave. Technically, I *earned* the thickness of the sides of my glasses.

Anyway, if you major in Filmmaking, they don’t just hand you a movie. Maybe you make some contacts. Maybe you learn some technical craft. Maybe you get structure instilled into you. It seems like a lot of people who go to film school are douchebags though, you can learn technical craft other ways--trial and error is a really good one--and structure... well, that’s a good thing, but I’m pretty motivated myself, so I think I’m okay with that. It’s for some people; it’s not for others. I don’t think it would’ve been for me. But I don’t know.

**

I don’t know why I like making movies so much. Why does anybody like anything? I feel compelled to do it. I think I’m good at it. I’m not great--yet. I hope I don’t ever think I’m great, but at the same time, I hope that I eventually am great... I hope that I always hope that eventually I will be great. Although it might be nice to be satisfied with myself before I die. Again, that’s probably a subject better suited for its own blog entry.

When I was really little, I used to draw up TV schedules for my own imaginary channels. These included line-ups for shows that I enjoyed as well as my own original shows about my brothers and me. Sometimes I would act these shows out when playing with them, directing them on what do say and do. I used to write stories on my dad’s old black-and-yellow word processor.

When I met Peraldo in middle school, we developed our own sketch comedy show called “Stuff” that we shot on my family’s camcorder. It starred us and a bunch of Beanie Babies that I’d gotten from a trip to Disney World. The show was pretty bad, and I hope that all copies of the tapes are destroyed.

In high school was when we got into making short films. Even though I always liked writing stories, before high school I always wanted to be an actor. It was when I got into Kevin Smith’s movies that I started liking the idea of being a writer/director a lot more. He was the first “auteur” who I really admired. As time went on, I learned more about filmmaking and more about specific filmmakers... and I amassed more projects and experience.

I have met a lot of great people through filmmaking, and I’ve met some... different people as well. The small world of independent filmmaking in West Virginia is kind of surrealistically fascinating, and I think it would be a great backdrop for a meta-movie unto its own. It can be very dramatic and competitive, but also very familial and supportive.

I think that I have gone through sort of a transformation as a filmmaker in this environment. I used to have a much more competitive attitude. I think there are other young filmmakers who feel the way I used to feel--like, it’s almost like you feel jealous and nervous when you see someone else who’s similar to you succeeding, because it’s like if your neighbor wins the lottery, it seems a lot less likely that you are going to win the lottery. One guy wins the lottery, and the guy in the next house over wins the lottery too? When does that happen?

Now though, I won’t say that it doesn’t still happen with some people, but for the most part, I love seeing great movies by other people who are close around me. I don’t care if they’re better than mine--I’m happy for them. I don’t think I ever had a big ego, but if I had any kind of a negative ego before, I think I have less of one now. I think that I’ve grown up a little bit, and I like that.

I must admit, however, that moving to a bigger city where filmmaking is much more commonplace is a little scary. Here, even if I enjoy being part of my filmmaking community, all of us West Virginia filmmakers are still big fish in a little pond. It’s not going to be the same in California. I kind of talked about that in the last entry.

I don’t know if this section has been that coherent. I’m a filmmaker. I feel compelled to tell stories with movies. There are so many movies that I want to make, I hope I get to make them all, and I really hope one day that I can make a living off of it.

**

The day job that I am making my living off of right now seems pretty cool so far. I am basically a taxi driver for homeless people.

I was going to use this section to talk more about work, my work ethic, other types of jobs I’ve worked, and stuff like that. But it is getting late again, and besides, I would rather not blog too much about my job because I would like to keep these blog entries public rather than friends-only if possible. Not because I expect people who are not on my friends list to read them, but because... I don’t know, if I’m writing something that I would only be comfortable with my friends reading, then I think I’m kind of missing part of the point of this whole month-long exercise.

**

Anyway, I’ve written an entry about writing and blogging, and now an entry with some general information about myself. Hopefully tomorrow I will have something more specific and/or random for you. We’ll see.

-David

mood: calm music: "Let Me Tell You About My Boat" - Mark Mothersbaugh

Last night was a rare night in that I was able to devote it almost entirely to writing, and I didn’t get a damn thing done.

That’s not entirely true. I revised the first ten pages of a sequel to “Maneater” that I started about a month ago, and I began adding a new scene to it. Then I got frustrated. It was too wacky. The whole idea is too wacky and incoherent, I thought. Why am I even working on a sequel to a no-budget student film that was modestly successful around the area in which it was shot? I have a lot of conflicting feelings on that project. It’s one of those that’s extremely exciting to talk to people about, but when I get down to ironing out the logistics of it... part of it is still wildly fun, but it’s also very frustrating.

Anyway, I think the reason I quit working on that last night was moreso because I was tired than because I was losing confidence in it. Despite having the whole night to devote to writing since I was not shooting anything for the movie I am currently working on, and because Alexis so nicely did the dishes, I got a late start because I took up about an hour making a new unofficial play list for “Escribitionist.” Basically, a compilation of music I would like to use in the soundtrack if I didn’t have to worry about that pesky copyright law. The idea was that I was going to use doing that to segue into making play lists for other script ideas that I had. After briefly listening to a few old jazz songs and trying to see if I could come up with an idea for a black-and-white short film starring Steffie and be scored like a Woody Allen movie, I started working on a play list for “Shewolf,” the aforementioned sequel to “Maneater,” and a few songs into it, I just got tired of the whole musical exercise and started doing some actual writing.

By the end of the night, I was getting all existential and pretentious with myself as I tried to figure out what the next thing was that I absolutely needed to write. I convinced myself that what it should be is an improvised, loosely outlined mockumentary about me making a movie. I would blend reality and fiction, and though it wouldn’t be revolutionary, it would express all that I currently feel as an artist and person, and it would reflect my melancholy yet surrealistically humorous world. This seemed brilliant and exciting to me as I went to bed.

When I woke up, as I took my morning piss, I recalled the idea and smirked at myself. That was fucking stupid, I thought. I mean, I might make a movie that’s like that--I’m not saying I won’t. There’s some good ideas I have for it, but like “Shewolf,” there’s some bad things about it too. Anyway, I recognized it was one of those ideas, and one of those situations, where I think I’m subconsciously trying to just get myself to go to bed by convincing myself that I’ve made some sort of a breakthrough only to laugh at my stupidness in the morning.

I want to write, but I don’t know what I want to write. I’m not blocked. I have a tremendous bank of ideas I could choose from. It’s almost a little too overwhelming. Someone might suggest that I just make a list, start at the top, and keep crossing them off, but I don’t like that, because it takes so much time to work on a project... I don’t know, I just don’t like that way of doing things. I want to work on something I can get really passionate about, not just something that I’m doing because it’s on a list.

I don’t *need* to write right now. I guess I don’t technically ever *need* to in order to survive, although that is an argument for another day and time--what I am getting at is that I have a big enough project to focus on now; it’s not as if I wouldn’t be doing anything creative if I wasn’t writing. As I mentioned before, I’m in production on a new movie. But even though I like directing, and editing, and all of the other aspects involved in making movies, I always think of myself as a writer first and foremost. I would like to always have something I’m writing, and eventually I would like to amass a large collection of things I have written. So, I want to write.

I’m sort of at a crossroads right now in writing though, in that I just graduated college, and while Alexis & I will be sticking around Huntington for a while making our independent movies, we would like to in the not-too-distant future venture out to a bigger location to try to “make it” in the film industry. Really, I would love it if I could eventually make a movie that would break out so that I could become a career filmmaker like most of my idols, but I’m not opposed to trying to climb the Hollywood ladder. Some of my idols, including my biggest one, Charlie Kaufman, started out as just writers working on TV shows and things of that nature.

I’ve known for a while that in order to get a job writing for TV, I need to write spec scripts. I can write spec scripts for TV shows that are already on the air for that purpose, and I need to write some original spec scripts that I don’t intend on making myself if I want to try to get an agent or get noticed... it’s just kind of a difficult transition to make. I think that with just about everything I’ve written so far, I’ve written it knowing that it really doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of the script as long as the actors understand how to read the lines. Because at the end of the day, most people aren’t going to read the script; I’m just going to make the movie, and people are going to see it.

I would like to write other things too, though. I think. I mostly want to write scripts, but especially if Alexis & I move to California, I think I should get more into writing live stuff, because it’s going to be harder to film independent projects when we need a film permit for everything. When I say live stuff, I mean sketches, but I also mean maybe stand-up. I’ve always thought that would be cool, and I even tried it once at an open-mic night. I didn’t bomb. The material that I rehearsed, which mostly consisted of jokes about pissing and shitting, went over really well. The stuff I thought I could just improvise, on the other hand, sucked. The stuff that I rehearsed though--the stuff that I *wrote*, see what I’m getting at, was good.

I would like to keep a blog and update it often. I think about that a lot. I’ve tried several times. When I was younger, I blogged a lot, and I loved it, but now I don’t have quite as much time as I used to. I don’t think that’s entirely the reason that I find it so difficult any more, though. I think it’s the way I think about things. It’s the way I think about what I write. I get so self-conscious, and I want it to be this big production. I think about it the opposite of the way I should think about it, I think.

I’m going to try to cut to the chase, because it’s getting late again, and I think Alexis is going to want to go to bed soon--I want to go to bed soon myself, because I’m tired, and I ate way too much food tonight. I’m going to cut to the chase because I don’t want to scrap this entry, and let me tell you why:

It’s that NaNoWriMo thing this month, and while I think it’s a cool idea, it’s something that I never thought would help me very much. I know I’ve mentioned some slight motivational problems with my writing, but it should also be noted that I have proven myself to be very capable of completing some pretty large tasks... I’ve written several feature film scripts, and finished several films, including one feature. Really, once I get going, especially if I can outline a project and put it in my planner as I move along with it, I don’t really have a problem seeing a big project out. If anything, I have the opposite problem. I can’t do little shit anymore. I can’t blog.

Even though I can still do the big stuff, there are some disadvantages to not being able to do the little stuff. Maybe I’m using this as an excuse, but I think that’s kind of the reason that I don’t know what I want to write. There is so much that I don’t express how I feel about... not that I’m keeping emotions bottled up. I just--I would like to write about the things I think about, whether they be as little as social inadequacies, or as big as political issues, so that I can be more confident in knowing who I am and how I feel about some things... so that I’ll know what I want to write, and what the most important things are to me.

Has any of this made any sense? I wonder that a lot when I’m getting to the end of writing blog entries. So let me try to summarize. This may become a common way for me to finish these things.

Last night I had a great opportunity to write, and I got sort of pissed at myself because I felt like I squandered it. It was a familiar pissed-off feeling though, because I’ve done it before, and I know I’ll do it again, so it’s kind of like all I can do is laugh at myself. As I was being mad at myself, I thought, “Hey, it’s still the beginning of November, so maybe I could try to make a blog entry every day as kind of a BizarroNaNoWriMo.”

I don’t know if it will help give me more discipline as a writer, if it will make me any happier, if it will get me any closer to understanding who I am, if I’m even really as confused as to who I am as I’m making myself out to be, if I will keep up with it all throughout the month, if I will even write a new entry tomorrow, or most of all if I’ve made one lick of sense. It is an experiment, and we shall see what happens.

-David

mood: full music: The Mountain Goats - Autoclave | Powered by Last.fm

Putting my library on shuffle, I write down the first line of each song and string that together to make a poem. The 21st song's first lyric is the title.


"Revvin' Up Your Engine"

How do you do? I see you've met my faithful handyman.
"Ole ole, ole ole."

Early in the morning, rising to the street,
I want you to know I'm happy for you.

Fire's rage down in the north
with a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound.
This is the first day of my life.

Our dream got broken, seemed like all was lost...

All I know is that you're so nice.
You look like a perfect fit.
It doesn't matter what I say.

Biting your nails because you know you're wrong (know you're wrong)

Girl, you gave me your number,
if that's the way you want it

"Hot-diggity-damn, Hulk, I'm glad you set it off (set it off)"
In sleep he sang to me
"Well, you've given him a good home."

I went to a party last Saturday night.
I wanna ask you, do you ever sit and wonder:
"Brother, grab your chillum."

I should be sleeping right now, but I wanted to write and post this blog entry/facebook note/update thing because I've been thinking about doing it for probably close to a month now.

I want to start by talking a little about the past. During the first part of this year, I attempted to make a feature film called "Escribitionist." Although people that know me already know this, it seems to be a bit vague to others who only casually have their fingers on the pulse of Wazzlehog Films, so I thought I'd state it for the record: that project has been abandoned. I'm not saying that there is no chance it will ever resurface in some way, but if it does, it won't happen for a long time. Despite its qualities that make me cringe, I am proud of that script, and the project has a lot of themes that interest me, but there's just too much baggage with it now. I am happy to have learned the lessons I did while trying to shoot it, though. It taught me a lot about collaborating, and I was able to meet a lot of awesome people that I hope will be able to overlook the bad fate that befell that particular movie and work with me in the future. Of those people, I want to particularly highlight Brittany McKee and Erin Deegan, the two actresses we had lined up to play the lead female in different incarnations of trying to do it. Both of them were extremely dependable, which is really the most important quality in a performer in independent film, and they also did great jobs in rehearsals.

Now, as for the present, I actually have a brand new twenty minute short film debuting Wednesday, October 29, at 9:00 PM at Marshall University in Smith Hall 154. The movie is called "Candytakers," and it was written by Molly Tilly. This is the first film project I've been involved with that I did not write myself. In addition to producing it, I directed, edited, and performed in it. It was a different experience bringing someone else's work to life; I learned even more about collaborating, but this time there is a finished product (which is somewhat surprising given some of the complicated circumstances). Although I'm still working on some finishing touches, I'm already very proud of it. I think that *everyone* involved did a great job, and I hope that a lot of people will come out and see it.

Even after the screening, there will still be some work left to do on "Candytakers." I'm going to work with Molly on getting the audio as clean as it can possibly be before we start sending it out to festivals and distributing DVDs. After that though, I want to do one last big project before I graduate from Marshall next semester and move to New York or LA. I've been thinking about it in whatever little spare time I have for a while, but with work on "Candytakers" drawing to a close, I've been thinking about it more. While I still may decide to do another feature, I'm leaning more closely toward trying to do an independent TV show. Now actually seems like it would be a good time to do that as I may be able to get it aired on a local channel. A couple of years down the line, if I want to do a TV show, it'll probably be a situation where I can maybe make a pilot, but if it doesn't get picked up, I won't get to keep going with it. As of right now, I see this thing as kind of like my last huge passion project before I try to concentrate on writing spec scripts and getting jobs--not that I won't be passionate about those or still making my own independent stuff while I'm writing those. Another way to look at it is that if I've been sort of making my own film school with all of my moviemaking experiences at Marshall, this thing will be kind of like my thesis or my capstone experience. I'm going to put everything I've learned to work and try to work with all the people I've wanted to work with. I think that one of the cool things about doing a show will be that I can direct some of the episodes and let other people direct some episodes as well. In addition to that, this show that I'm thinking about making is semi-autobiographical--it's about me and my friends, and a big part of what we do is watch and talk about pop culture. Since we can't show footage from movies and TV shows due to copyright infringement, we'll probably be making a lot of fake movies and TV shows, so I can get other people to help out with those. I do have an outline already and an episode guide. It will be sort of like a British or HBO series in that it will only have ten episodes. The title is tentatively "The Rise and Fall of American Hipsters."

One last thing before I end this update: I don't know how I seem to have amassed so many enemies in the West Virginia indie film world. Maybe I don't have any enemies, and that idea is all in my head, but I hear people say that they've heard people say I'm a hack, and I've also heard other people say that people have said I hate people, and I don't know--it's all weird to me. I guess I need to try to develop a better self-image, especially since I'm talking about trying to head out to Hollyweird or New York in the coming year, but honestly, despite having created the amount of stuff I've created, I still feel like I'm just playing pretend. So, I don't know... making movies around here, I have encountered a lot of people whose ideas seem to be much bigger than their capacity to make those ideas happen, and yes, it gets frustrating when those kinds of people think that they know more about making movies than I do, but even then, I don't know that much about it, believe it or not--I just know how to make it look like I sort of know what I'm doing. But, um, people do seem to like it--and I hope that you like it, dear reader. Anyway, I'm not trying to do anything other than make movies and tell stories; I hope that you all like them. Until next time...

--David Smith