1500

1500.

Just now I sat down and worked out a rough (give or take a hundred hours) estimate on the amount of time I've spent in the last year working on "Bible Camp," the documentary I'd been assembling since June of last year. 1500 hours. That number means a lot of things to me. First and foremost (I hate that phrase... overused [kind of like "..."]) it means that it took me way way way longer than it should have to finish. I guess a freshman effort should ultimately not be terribly efficient, but seriously, 1500 hours is a long time. I suppose most people who make documentaries have a crew that they work with instead of the few people I had help for small portions (thanks especially to Jessica Clark who has worked so hard on the DVD cover, and to Tony for helping me record the Bible Camp theme.) Perhaps this says something about the body of Christ. Were I to have worked in a body of filmmakers, or a body of people who work in specialized fields, the whole thing would have worked more smoothly, to my mind. I was trying to be the entire body, though to my credit, it was somewhat of a necessity because my budget only allowed for me to work on it (though I'm sure the right people would have worked for free and still loved it. I know I did.) But 1500 hours, wow, that's a bunch. Much more than I would have thought possible. When I was still just theorizing how the project would work out, I was thinking it would all be done by the end of the summer of 2006, but that was certainly naive and unrealistic. Could it have been done quicker, absolutely. Hindsight being a golden 20-20, I could've easily taken weeks, even months off the thing. Next time, eh?

Speaking of next time, I had a funny dream last night. Last night, before I dreamed, I saw an interview with Simon Cowell, the mean-spirited judge from American idol. On the show they said he makes something like $36million for a season of Idol, about the same for a season of the British version of the show, and just signed a contract with Sony/BMG records as a consultant kind of guy for $100million. Those were extraordinary figures to me, and I think it carried on into my dream because I dreamed about Mr. Cowell a couple hours later. So in my dream, I think Simon lived in the same house as me, or at least nearby, and for some reason he was talking about ways to invest his money. I suggested that I wanted to make another film, and I can't remember how it came up, but I wanted to make a film about blind people who do visual art, not that I know anything about that. So I asked Simon if he'd be willing to invest in the film. He said, "Sure," like it wasn't a big deal, and then later made a deal with him that if I could get things arranged, he would give me a million dollars to make this film. The rest of the dream was a little less cohesive, something about chasing around a mentally-challenged friend of mine around this sort of classy food-court (contradiction in terms? Perhaps.) He needed tape to hang something up. Actually, maybe I was the mentally-challenged one. I can't remember. It was a little stressful. So when people say "In your dreams" to thoughts of million-dollar filmmaking budgets, it happens. Also, it's incredible I remembered a dream at all. Maybe happens once a month. Mostly because I am a soul-less monster.

My apologies for the somewhat scattered nature of this blog. I wrote it at two different times, months apart, and now I must move on. Hope it all finds you well. Well and good. Wood.

Oh, and check out the new Bible Camp trailer.