A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Hi there, Dear Reader. It’s been a while since I last posted, but since I have been focusing on A Certain Point of View, Too – you know, the blog on WordPress that I had to create in late March of last year because this one is blocked on Facebook – it can’t be helped. It’s hard coming up with good posts for one blog – at least, it is for me; so coming up with good material for two is doubly so. I tried coming up with a workable scheme – at one point, I thought about writing on one blog on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and writing on the other on the other four days, but I’m just not that organized.   Anyway, yesterday I started working on a new screenplay for my friend Juan Carlos Hernandez’s small indie film company, Popcorn Sky Productions. I have not come up with a title yet, so I’m calling it Project X until (a) I break the story and (b) somebody at either end of the pipeline (Tampa or New York City) comes up with one. I have no idea how long its gonna be, but I do know that

Illustration by Mohamed Hasan via Pixabay "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." - Murphy's Law Well, Dear Reader, I had high hopes this morning about the release - on YouTube - of Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss. My partner-in-crime, actor-director Juan Carlos Hernandez, texted me late yesterday afternoon to let me know that he thought he would be uploading our short movie this morning. He even sent me two screen captures of the "Special Thanks" cards at the end of the credits sequence; "I have done all I can with this project," he said. Image Credit: Radio Maria Ireland As it turned out, during the process of creating the DVD, Juan noticed a digital artifact on one of the last shots. A digital artifact, per Wikipedia, " is any undesired or unintended alteration in data introduced in a digital process by an involved technique and/or technology." A good example of a digital artifact, in this context, is an

My screenwriter's credit as designed by director Juan Carlos Hernandez. Photo Credit: Juan Carlos Hernandez © 2020 Popcorn Sky Productions "Coming Soon to a YouTube Channel Near You...." The saga of the making of Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss is almost over. Eight months after I opened a new file in my copy of Write Brothers' Movie Magic 6 Screenwriter and typed "FADE IN: EXT. NEW YORK CITY- SKYLINE - DAY,"  actor-director Juan Carlos Hernandez (who has been my friend since we met as drama students at South Miami Senior High in the 1982-1983 school year) is putting the finishing touches on our new short (less than 30 minutes) film. Here's what I know: Principal photography is complete Reshoots and pickups, which are done when a director redoes shots that didn't come out as intended or does new ones if and when adjustments to the story are necessary, are done Automatic Dialogue Replacement (ADR), which involves getting the

Photo Illustration: Pixabay Hi, there, Constant Reader, and welcome once again to Bloggin' On, the no-reviews, no-politics space of  A Certain Point of View. It's Saturday afternoon in my corner of Florida, and as I look out my study's window, it's a grey and somber day. Presently, the temperature outside is 64℉ (18℃) under mostly cloudy skies. That's not too bad; it reminds me of late fall in Sevilla (Seville), Spain when I was a participant in the College Consortium for International Studies' Semester in Spain program almost 32 years ago. However, I was hoping to go out on the front porch, a book in one hand and my Amazon Fire tablet in the other, to get a bit of fresh air and sun while reading for a bit. If it was sunny I'd still try to do that now, but the skies are dark and the sunlight is thin and dim, so I think I'll just stay in my cozy study. Juan Carlos Hernandez, my friend from high school and the actor-director with whom I collaborate a

Illustration Credit: Pixabay Hello there! Welcome to another installment of Bloggin' On , my blog-within-a-blog where I don't write reviews or dabble with political commentary. It's early afternoon on this Monday in my little corner of Florida, and the weather outside isn't frightful; the current temperature is 66℉ (19℃) under cloudy skies, and the low tonight is expected to reach 55℉ (13℃). It was supposed to rain this morning, but there's no evidence outside that any precipitation fell here, so that part of the forecast was off. My friend and filmmaking partner Juan Carlos Hernandez updated me over the weekend about the progress of our film Ronnie and Her Two Nincompoops. (That's the working title Juan chose; I don't know what he and our producer - and Juan's wife - Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez will choose.) The "shooting" (principal photography) phase is over, now Juan, Adria, and their son Anthony are doing post-production work: editing,

Portrait of the Screenwriter As a Young Man, circa 1986. (Photo Credit: Peter C. Townsend) Hello, there, Constant Reader, and welcome once again to Bloggin' On, the blog-within-a-blog section of A Certain Point of View where I don't "do" reviews or the occasional bit of political commentary. It's Wednesday, January 22, 2020, although because it was a three-day weekend due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, it feels oddly like it's Tuesday...and a spectacularly cold Tuesday at that. Right now (it's mid-morning as I write this) the temperature outside is 36℉ (3℃) under sunny skies, although the wind chill lowers the feels-like temperature to the freezing point. The temperature will rise a bit as the hours pass; the forecast calls for a high of 60℉ (16℃) and some cloudiness, but overall, by Florida standards, it's going to be  c-c-c-cold out there. Yesterday I got (via text) an update on our comedy film project from actor-director Juan Car