Day 35: It’s on!

Day 35.

My mouth drops open in shock.  She’s emailed it to me.  Wholly crapola!  For some reason I think I’ll get the script when I see her later today.  Hello.  Of course she sent it electronically.  How else am I supposed to get it on my computer and give notes?  Man, I’m freakin’ slow sometimes.  It’s already 10:38am.  I’m meeting a friend at 1pm for lunch right down the street from where I’m meeting screenwriter Monica.  I panic.  I haven’t showered, I have a call with joie de vivre friend about the motivation experiment at 12pm and I don’t have Final Draft on my new Macbook Pro yet so I can’t open the file and print out the script.

I slip into that funky, frenetic, out of body state where stars are circling my head like in a cartoon because my mind has been whacked with too much to do in too little time.  First, I decide to fire up my circa 2003 iMac where the same year version of Final Draft is installed.  I need to at least print out the script since she’s sent it to me.  I download the file from my email on my new computer then load it onto my thumb drive and then carry it over and plug it into the dinosaur.  I drag it onto the desktop.  Wait.  Damn.  She’s written the script on the latest version of Final Draft and my ancient software can’t read it.  Of course it dawns on me I wouldn’t be able to print it out anyway because that computer’s not hooked up to the printer.  Oy.  I change course.  I email her back and say…

What should I do now?  I need to leave in like an hour.  Showering is out.  Do your daily report.  That way I’ll be able to relax and not have to rush back after the meeting.  I’m also scheduled to go see my friend in Macbeth tonight…please don’t let it suck or be four hours long and suck.  Focus.  Okay.  I shake things up.  I record my reaction to receiving the script sooner than expected on Photo Booth for my daily report.  The lighting is horrible and I look even worse but the reaction is genuine and raw.  I like it.  I upload it but the file is too big for my site. Movie on 2-4-12 at 11.15 AM.mov exceeds the maximum upload size for this site. Shit.  I proceed to spend the next two hours trying to figure out how to compress it to make it work on the site.  I text my friend to say, “let’s meet at 1:30pm.”

It's official!

I end up leaving my house at 1:07pm.  I scold myself on the drive that I must stop being late and over scheduling myself. Obviously, I never figure out how to get the video to the right size because there’s no video to watch in this post.  I’m a half hour late to meeting my friend.  He’s gracious and kind.  He actually even ends up buying screenwriter Monica lunch!  Mental note:  give him a producer credit.  I call Monica and have her meet me and my friends at the Four Seasons down the street from the Beverly Hills library where we were originally going to meet.  It just seems like a sexier locale to seal the deal.  She’s exhausted—if you note the time she sent the script it was 2:30am—but she feels good about the first draft.  It is official.  We’re making a movie.  It’s on!

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…and don’t overestimate what you can actually create in one day.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media.

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