Well, dear readers, those of you with excellent memories may recall that the title of yesterday’s notes was The Creature is Locked. The title of today’s notes, for you keen observers, is Not Quite. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, just when we thought we were through, we’re not through. The reason is simple and actually a little irritating. I was having great difficulty finding the Naked Space DVD – I knew I had a bunch of sealed copies all together, but I couldn’t locate them. In going through a box I did find a Naked Space DVD – something seemed off about it, but that’s what I took to Marshall Harvey so we could get the Dirty Harry coming attraction off of it, and Marshall ended up using a few other shots, just because they had more clarity. But looking at those shots I noticed the image was stretched and we all had rather fat faces. That seemed odd to me and last night I found out why: Because that DVD was some cheeseball rip-off that was ineptly and improperly copied, most likely from the real DVD. I found the stash last night, and of course knew that was the correct cover right away. I put it in the machine and other than it being open matte, it wasn’t stretched and looked tons better. So, I asked Marshall to replace the shots using this DVD. And he may even be able to use a few more – we don’t want to go back and forth too much because that would be jarring, but if there’s a scene where the editing is exactly what I did originally, we can absolutely use the better image there – the entire last ten minutes is, I think, exactly what we did originally. But he’ll use his judgement, but I’m so happy I found this good DVD. And watching it last night, I realized that I asked for one edit to shorten something and shortening it kind of hurt the final beat of the gag, so that’s going back in. It shouldn’t take all that long and it will look much better.
Yesterday, I got almost eight hours of sleep. I answered e-mails, then had dopey telephonic conversations with PayPal and AT&T because despite the cancelled payment, the payment actually went through. So, we opened a dispute but that was going to take ten days. AT&T said they’d try and figure out what happened, but I took off the auto pay because I don’t trust them anymore. However, by evening, the payment had been credited back to my account, so thankfully that’s all taken care of now.
Then Marshall came by with the hard drive and we moseyed on over to Corky’s, which he’d read about in these here notes and wanted to try. He ordered my beloved Trousdale sandwich just as I order it – grilled. And he loved it and I loved it and there was just a whole lot of lovin’ goin’ on, Trousdale-wise. He had their excellent potato salad, and I had a few onion rings, which were very good.
After that, he went on his merry way, and I went and picked up a small, teeny-tiny package and came right back home. Then I began the hunt for the Creature folder I’d given the folks who did the CD release, so I have all that stuff now, but I have to go into our office/storage and find the stills – I know there are some color stills, too. That will all be used for the DVD packaging. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a favorite motion picture of mine on DVD – The Parallax View, a film directed by Alan Pakula, starring Warren Beatty, William Daniels, Hume Cronyn, Paula Prentiss, and other terrific character actors. I first saw it at a sneak preview, and despite a couple of scenes that didn’t quite work, I just loved everything about it – the style, the feel, the story, the paranoia, all of it. That was 1974. I saw it a few times during its run and have seen it five or six times since and I always enjoy it, and last night was no exception. I wish they’d do a nice Blu-ray, the DVD isn’t terrible. The score by Michael Small is fantastic, and the photography by Gordon Willis is also fantastic.
After that, I listened to music and that was about it.
Today, I’ll be up by ten, then I’ll mosey on over to Marshall’s home environment and bring him the right DVD and the hard drive. It shouldn’t take too long to do what he has to do, but there’s no real crazy rush. If I have it by Friday, then I’ll get it to the authoring house then. Other than that, I’ll eat, hopefully pick up some packages, do some stuff that needs doing, and then relax and watch something fun. I found another homegrown Highway Patrol DVD, so I’m sure I’ll look at those.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, and then come next Monday we finally begin our Kritzerland rehearsal week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, deliver a DVD and a hard drive, I must eat, I must hopefully pick up packages, I must do stuff, and then I’ll relax and watch something. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to say “not quite” if it makes our presentation better.