Darwin’s Waiting Room

I know, I know, I’m a pain in the ass. Still no photos. I have other deadlines. Hold your horses.

This will keep you amused in the meantime. Shawn is performing with the comedy group Darwin’s Waiting Room for three weekends, and the local WMUR news channel did a segment for their magazine show NH Chronicle:

Darwin's Waiting Room – New Hampshire Chronicle – WMUR New Hampshire.

Behind the Scenes: Sam Coffin Dies Laughing

If you haven’t seen the film, I recommend watching it first, before the behind-the-scenes footage. The film is embedded at the bottom of this post.

Click for behind-the-scenes photos of 48 Hour Film Project: Sam Coffin Dies Laughing

48 Hour Film Project — unveiled!

The link to view our film is here or click on the photo below.

All the information about the 48 Hour Film Project can be found here.

Enjoy.

Click to view SAM COFFIN DIES LAUGHING

48 Hour Film Project

This past weekend, Shawn and I were Associate Producers on one of the NH teams for this international film competition. We had 48 hours to complete a five-to-seven-minute film that had to include a specifically assigned genre, character, prop, and line of dialogue. It began on Friday evening at 7 pm when we received the assigned information from the project headquarters, and the brainstorming began with nineteen writers pitching ideas.

The screenplay was written overnight by the film’s director, and on Saturday the film was shot from 9 am until 7 pm with many outdoor scenes in the cold rain. The film editors then took over and completed the editing of the film, music soundtrack and voiceover narration by late-afternoon Sunday. The film was successfully delivered to the project headquarters before the 7 pm submission deadline on Sunday.

All the NH films are premiering this Wednesday night, June 15, at the Cinemagic Theatre in Hooksett, NH. Our team name is the Purple Finch Moving Picture Society which is comprised of seacoast theatre colleagues, and our screening is scheduled in the second block of films that begin at 9 pm. If you’re interested in attending, ticket purchasing can be done here.

If you’re interested in seeing the film but can’t attend the premiere, the film will be available via this site for online viewing beginning Thursday, June 16.

Yours truly appears in the film in a few scenes, as well as Shawn, who also does the voiceover narration.

It was another intensely fun creative project.

Street a.k.a. Museum

Portsmouth Museum of Art

Click for photos from May 29, 2011

24 Hour Novel

On Saturday, May 28, I joined 22 other writers to complete a novel in 24 hours. The project was being featured at an art show in New Jersey, where patrons could watch the novel being written on screen in real-time, as 23 writers simultaneously edited the same document.

At 12:00 am that day, the novel’s outline was released to the writers, along with character descriptions and our chapter assignment. We had until midnight to write at least 2,700 words. At the end of the 24 hours I wound up having written 3,274 words.

I wrote most of my chapter from 1:30 am until 5:30 am.

Sleep wasn’t an option.

After a morning commitment in Maine, I headed to a coffee shop in Newmarket, NH where some of the writers were gathering, rotating in and out in different shifts as the hours ticked by.

Lesson learned that day: I write better in solitary silence.

I headed home to complete my chapter and skim-edit the chapter before and after mine, and skim other chapters for consistency.

Editing was a mad dash as the clock was counting down.

I made my final edit at 11:58 p.m.

At midnight, the novel was complete, and is available to read for free at this site.

Local press coverage was here.

Click here for photos from May 28, 2011

24 Hour Novel Project

Click here to watch me co-write a novel in 24 hours on Saturday, May 28.

48 Hour Filmmaker

Portsketch

These people know how to bring on the funny.

Click for information on PortSketch

These Portsketch folks wrote a sketch specifically for Shawn, and he appeared in their inaugural performance on Friday, March 11. The tailor-written sketch?—What if Sean Connery and Anne Frank traded places. Shawn was able to once again perform his Connery accent, this time for a packed house at Foobar in Portsmouth, NH.

Portsketch’s April performance will probably include another tailor-written sketch for Shawn. It seems he’ll be a semi-regular featured player going forward.

More Grammys for David

Some good news came during this snowy, stormy, treacherous, arctic blast winter—David cleaned up again at the Grammys two weeks ago.

My laptop caught a virus, so the news here is late while I use a different computer to update this site for the first time since early-January.

Michele wasn’t able to join David for the Grammy festivities because she had the flu, so there are no photos to share.

He won four more trophies, including Classical Producer of the Year once again (also winning it in ’04 and ’08), bringing his grand total to 10 Grammys sitting on their bookshelf.

In other news, we spent Presidents’ Day weekend snow tubing with visiting family from NYC, but those photos and videos getting posted will all depend on if I’m able to rid my laptop of its insidious virus, or whether I buy a new one. Since the infected equipment is more than six years old, I’m leaning toward buying a new one.

Hold on to your hats and be patient.