journal page 15

march 3, 2001
things get stranger..
i'll give you a dollar if
you stop taking my picture
4:40pm
woww quite a difficult week... somehow came out of it intact. everybody needs meetings, interviews, photos, promotional materials, now! now! now! and i am finally learning the value in saying no to people whom we can't possibly accomodate on top of everyone else, as well as the value of, "if it's important they'll call back". and for the record, after this week i no longer need to be photographed again for as long as i live. blaarrr.. <-- primal expression of photographic discomfort. somebody just wrote and said i use too many commas when i write and i thought that was an odd thing to mention.

was the 'keynote speaker' yesterday morning at the big animation creative conference thing in los angeles, sort of a spur of the moment invitation thanks to the nomination i imagine. i was scheduled to show 'rejected' in this big hotel ballroom and then talk for half an hour. i guess i didn't realize beforehand how much of a corporate/industry event it all actually was, as the panel onstage before it was my turn discussed nothing but character rights, happy meal deals, back-end percentages, making it big, distribution contracts, money, the best ways to sell product, representation contracts, money, money, money, money, and more money, to the audience of about a hundred or so studio ceos, bigshots, cartoon agents, licensors, and retailers in gray suits and animal print dresses. oh, boy... suddenly realizing this is very much not don's thing... refer to journal to read about how well don fits in with the hollywood animation machines and industry affairs in general... unable to crawl under a table, i go up on stage in my radiohead tshirt and wrinkled jeans and docs with my hair in my face, just rolled out of bed to drive down to LA so early, and introduce the film... 'rejected' begins to play on the video screen and... well... if you had read our accounts of the wilder shows a couple weekends back, now imagine the exact polar opposite. morning audiences are generally pretty dull and not ready to laugh, but these folks... oh my... dead silence... the first few scenes get stony faces... awkward chuckles and bewildered glances... the film reaches the second act... dropped jaws, much frowning... a few 'heh-hehs' here and there. then it all goes downhill real fast. i swear you could actually HEAR the fidgeting during the total silence throughout the final half... finally, strained applause. i guess it's not always a good idea to show a venemous anti corporate, anti commercial sell-out film to uhh... corporate folks who subsist on commercial sell-outs... 'consumer whore' jokes just don't seem to go over very well with them, you know?... the most hilariously worst-received screening of the film i've ever been privy to and now i get to talk to these people for a half hour. ha ha ha... so i get back on stage and figure there's not much left to lose and maybe i can still do some good... i take the mic off the podium and spend the rest of the time pacing around the stage lecturing the ceos and suits about the state of animation, the garbage everyone's producing, the bad technology and use of tools over basic storytelling, traditional film theory, and everything else in between... how the best animated films are not exclusively the films that are the best-animated - that animation isn't its own genre, but just a film medium that requires all the same forgotten elements of story, character, timing, and techniques that any live action film does... that it doesn't matter how well you render your flashy graphics if you have absolutely nothing to say in the first place. many suits get up and leave as i talk... a few nodding heads, a few glares, mostly puzzled expressions... my time's up and i'm off... wow... that probably did not go over very well at all... a handful of really nice artists say hi afterwards and say they were really happy to hear some honesty for a change. i then realize i was easily the youngest person in the room. many ask what software i use to make the cartoons. i tell them we don't use computers, it's all photographed traditionally. many don't understand what that means. you mean with... cameras?, they ask, confused. yes, i say, with the same sort of cameras that cartoons were shot on throughout film history. oh, they say... polite frown. somewhat luckily, i couldn't stay very long and had to high-tail it straight back to santa barbara in time for the local film festival that evening... on the drive back i wondered how much i probably ruined their industry conference... guilt... so i head out to the theater and was extremely happy to get to meet berke breathed, whose bloom county i'd read religiously every single day through high school. the screening went well, and as per tradition, it was then straight to the irish pub. when i parked the car earlier, i had realized it was plumb out of gas thanks to all the morning driving, so after the festival i had to fill up my plastic gas jug to pour in there. when i got home i noticed the gas jug thing was still about a third full. i didn't want to just put the jug back in my trunk because it could spill around in there, and moreover my trunk could get really hot which would naturally make my car explode (tired don logic). i didn't really want to pour gasoline out all over the pavement or anything so i sleepily figured i could just wash it all out in my bath tub. long story short my apartment really reeks of gasoline right now. in other news, rob reports that there is raw sewage and poopy coming out of his own shower faucets from his upstairs neighbor so i guess it's just not a good week for bathrooms. my train of thought seems to have derailed and mauled some innocent bystanders so i should probably wrap this up

february 19, 2001
(clock goes back on wall)
sigh
1:48pm
it was pouring rain this morning but is sunny now. had four screenings all weekend with spike's show at the arlington. thanks to all of our friends and new friends who made the many treks out to support 'rejected', it was a really swell time and i am spending the entire day in recovery. want to give a big thank you to everyone who has been sending us congratulatory wines, champagnes, flowers, and chocolates. i think i had about 30-40 friends in town thru this weekend so rest assured the bottles are in very good use. am plugging away with the thank-you notes as fast as i can... have been losing my voice very badly from talking to people nonstop since last tuesday and near the end of the week i was quite close to recruiting a friend to introduce himself as 'don' to everybody so that i could go take a nap... so the weekend was a much needed outlet to blow off some of the oscar steam, see friends, and witness some wilder screenings

friday night was a pretty good show and probably featured our most inebriated audience of the weekend. i rephrase: most everyone in there was blitzed out of their skulls. brian and i decided to spontaneously buy a giant stuffed floppy rabbit, easily four and a half feet tall with a frilly bonnet and pattern dress, and throw it out to the audience to see it get tossed around and crowd-surfed. bunny lasted about fifteen seconds before it was torn to absolute shreds, stuffing and limbs everywhere. nate was emceeing that night but the arlington didn't allow him to use any of their union sound equipment, which meant he had to shout the introductions to the program from the stage at the top of his lungs. which didn't work out very well because pretty much everyone just screamed back at him. brian reports hearing completely nonsensical drug-related chants and screams during "billy's balloon" which were sort of head-scratchers that neither of us could decipher. as "rejected" began, everyone in the theater is laughing along quite well except for this one sweaty fellow sitting right in front of me. sort of just motionless in his chair with a blank expression on his face. wow, this guy must not like the film very much, everyone else is laughing and cheering and he's just sort of staring at it sternly. the eye-explodey-blood-screaming scene begins to unfurl, and i see this guy's head and shoulders finally start to bob and up and down, and i'm happy that he's finally found a scene he enjoys. he continues bobbing and turns to his right but i see there's no smile on his face... blaaarrrrrgh, vomit blasts out of his mouth all over himself and the adjacent empty chair. i change rows. so friday was the very first time i saw one of my films induce somebody to puke, tho i think it may have just been the quick editing in the scene that startles our recreational drug friends. we escaped the show alive, retiring to the irish pub the moment intermission was over... the theater had the santa barbara symphony booked in there for the following evening, and i couldn't help wondering about the variety of discarded bottles, vomit, cotton rabbit stuffing, giant balloon remains, and controlled substance stains slathered all over the theater as we watched the oblivious kindly upper classes of the santa barbara fine arts community file out of their concert in lovely suits and furs.

spike arrived for the weekend on saturday and reclaimed the theater late that night. the audience was easily our friendliest of the weekend and nothing was thrown at the screen. many of the theater seats were now suspiciously draped with plastic sheets. i climbed onto the empty chairs in the front row with another giant rabbit to sacrifice and it actually surfed around for a good few minutes (which, from the back of the theater, pretty much just looks like a boneless floppy child flying through the air from row to row), before its head was torn off. i believe the head and body were still being separately hurled around the theater well through the first couple of films. thank you to albertson's for stocking their easter products so damn early. 'rejected' played really well that night and many in the audience sang the praises of the film as being "even funnier than last night!!" because they were trying out new drugs. you crazy kids! spike put a box on his head and continued his practice of writing his name on topless women. the giant rabbit i brought for sunday saw its ears, legs, and face torn off and worn as trophies. i guess there is a lot of aggression in this town. anyway, we escaped out the back to our irish pub at intermission each successive night and i don't need to drink guinness anymore for awhile, thank you. we hereby challenge the crew of 'erin brokovich' to come up with more festive first screenings of their film since their own nomination.

in other news, brian has almost entirely completed his dialogue-breakdown chores for the current production. three cheers for brian! altho this officially puts me in the zone to break out of pencil test mode and actually begin animating the new film, i don't believe i will have the time at all to seriously attack it until after the academy awards and people decide i'm not worth calling anymore. the agents have amassed a bunch of scripts to direct or rewrite for people. which is downright absurd because i haven't directed live action at all since beginning courses in film school. errrr... do i roll sound or camera first? slate? where do all these cords and wires go? not that i am terribly keen on directing these studios' new teen sex comedies...