A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Luke Skywalker is my favorite Rebel character from the Original Trilogy.  Photo Credit: Hasbro. © 2021 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd.     Hi, there, Dear Reader. Long time, no see, right?  This won't be a super-duper long post; I already wrote a super-duper long review of Hasbro's Star Wars The Black Series Chewbacca & C-3PO deluxe 2-figure set and I don't feel like sitting here at my desk for another two hours writing.  Photo Credit: Hasbro. © 2021 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. I do, of course, want to let you know that my collection of Star Wars The Black Series figures will (or should, depending on the reliability of a third-party seller on Amazon) grow by one more figure by Thursday the 22nd. You see, a few weeks ago I bought Han Solo (Endor ) , a 2021 Star Wars The Black Series figure and a modern counterpart of Kenner's Han Solo (in Trench Coat) figure from 1984.  I then wrote a review of it for my WordPress blog - you know, the blog I had to start a year ago because

 Hi, there, Dear Reader. It's me again, with a quick update on our fundraising efforts to finance Popcorn Sky Production's next film, the one to which I am attached as screenwriter and associate producer.  Well, as you may have read in my previous post, we had passed the $500-in-donations (we need $50,000) in our GoFundMe campaign last time I wrote. Well, that was enough to get the clock running on the project; that means that the screenwriter was officially paid to start the first draft of the script. Since we don't have the money to begin production any time soon, I'm not rushing through the process - I am still trying to work on the outline for Act One and I have already written the first shot. No action or dialogue; I am not that far into the script, but at least I know how the film should start.  Most of my focus, like it or not, has been on raising funds, which is why I am an AP as well as the designated screenwriter. And so far I have been somewhat successful; ou

 Happy Easter, Dear Reader.  This is just a quick update to let you know that the GoFundMe campaign for Popcorn Sky Productions' next film passed its first milestone - the $500-mark - this weekend.  As of this morning, the campaign has received 11 donations for a total of $525. This is a good start since it means that the screenwriter can now start writing the first draft of the script. I estimate that it will be around 90 pages long (or enough material for a 90-minute feature). I'm not sure how long it's going to take to write, but I will be working on the screenplay five days a week until the first draft is finished.  While this is a positive turn of events, this is only the tip of a huge iceberg. The budget we've drawn up calls for a minimum of $50,000; thus, we still have $49,500 to go before we can say "Mission Accomplished."  If you would like to make a contribution to our GoFundMe, you can do so here .

A screenshot of our GoFundMe page.  Hello, everybody. I just want to update you on the status of our new film, which doesn't have a title yet, so we refer to it as Untitled Sequel to Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss.  As you know, this time the folks at Popcorn Sky in New York City want to make a true feature-length film, with multiple locations, a larger cast, and a story with a running time of around 90 minutes.  This, of course, is a far more ambitious project than our previous ones. So far, we've managed to do four films of varying lengths with minimal budgets and small casts; the ones I've written on my own - at least as far as first drafts go - have two, three characters at most.  The film to which I contributed the least -El Grande de Corona - has a cast of five:  Juan Carlos Hernandez Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez Steve Arons Matthew Martin Ward Natalie Hernandez Clearly, we're not quite ready to compete with Cecil B. DeMille in size of cast or scope of s

Ka-Boom! A Chinese fighter burns in its handstand in Cold Waters' Strike from the Sea Single Mission. © 2017 Killerfish Games  I've been playing Killerfish Games' Cold Waters for nearly nine months, and all this time I've thought that there were only eight Single Mission engagements in this 2017 submarine combat simulator and spiritual heir to MicroProse's1988 classic, Red Storm Rising.  How wrong I was.  There are 17 Single Missions in all, starting with the relatively easy sub-versus-sub  The Duel all the way to Foreign Trade , a sub-versus-convoy mission. In addition, the last six missions allow players to take on the burden of command of either Soviet or Chinese subs and pit their boats against the best antisubmarine warfare (ASW) forces in the U.S. Navy. I have to admit that I would have discovered the nine missions that follow Junks on Parade had I bothered to read the manual (I've glanced at it a few times, but since it's a digital PDF document and no

  A screenshot from the script of Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss Hello there, Dear Reader. I’m writing this post because the folks at Popcorn Sky Productions – including this blogger – are starting work on a new film project that follows the characters from Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss into the realm of feature length films. The entire cast of that short film – Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez, Anthony Hernandez, and Juan Carlos Hernandez – who’s also our director – will be back in their roles of Ronnie, Jerry, and Guillermo Ronderos. I will return as well as one of the writers, plus I will be doing double duty as associate producer. While we do not as of yet have a title, much less a complete screenplay, we have a good idea about the story, its themes, and its characters. Here’s how Adria and Juan describe the project: The film is to consider the issues of political extremism (which we satirized in Ronnie) but this time around, let's look at the costs

  A "beauty shot" of a 688-class (Los Angeles-class) SSN in the North Atlantic. (Screenshot from Cold Waters. All game elements in the screenshots on this post are © 2017 Killerfish Games.) Well, Dear Reader, I did it. After nearly a week of playing through Cold Waters’ North Atlantic 1984 campaign, I fought the Soviet Red Banner Northern Fleet ( Severnyy flot ) as a U.S. Navy fast attack boat skipper – and won. This time around, I had a better success-to-failure ratio in the campaign, compared to my performance in the South China Sea 2000 scenario, even though I commanded Flight I Los Angeles- class SSNs (the best boats [1] in service in 1984) and didn’t benefit from the more advanced “flights” of the class or the larger, better armed Seawolf (SSN-21) submarine. Commander, Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet (COMSUBLANT) sent me on 15 or 16 missions (I don’t keep a detailed log when I play Cold Waters, and the game only lists completed missions on the Achievements to Date s