A Premiere, A Long jump, And Hey, Chekov (Walter Koenig) Likes My Upcoming Documentary

   First off, the kickstarter campaign for "The Gene Roddenberry Project" is almost finished (4 days left as of today, August 6th), and, as of this writing, we're a hair under $12,000 of our goal of $15,000. It's always a nail-biter when things come down to the wire like this, but yesterday we got a really amazing shot in the arm. We received backing by Walter Koenig (or his people, these things get a bit tricky in Hollywood), who played Chekov on Star Trek The Original Series. It's always a risk, as a filmmaker, when you put out there something that is built on top of the work of others. The last thing you want is to offend, or upset any of the people involved. and where I'm a great fan of the Star Trek universe, I was both terribly excited and terribly frightened about the project.
   Almost immediately, when the kickstarter campaign first launched, Rod, (Gene's son) vouched his support for the project and helped get things rolling for us in a tremendous way. And now with Walter Koenig, the campaign has gained its second wind, and none to early.

   Second, I competed in the 48 Hour Film Project this past weekend. Basically, each team draws a genre out of a hat and then has 48 hours to write, shoot, edit, and turn in their film (there are other required elements, like props, lines of dialogue, etc. to discourage cheaters). I've done the film race a few times before, but this was my first time being the leader of the group. I used my film students for my crew (and thy did wonderfully), and then cast our film from mostly local talent. We had some amazing actors show up, and ended up with a great film, if I do say so myself. Last night was our premiere, and soon we'll learn who the winners are. Then it's off to the festivals, and then to Youtube where everyone will be able to see and enjoy

   And last, I've been brushing up on my Parkour training (I've been out for about a year for a knee injury) and finally was able to make a good long jump to cat (leap from a ledge at high speed, and catch another ledge and hang, bracing with your feet...hmm, hard to describe, just go here for a tutorial/visual, though I'm hoping to be able to upload my own example soon-ish)