Gray Barker, an Apple and the Men in Black…

… sounds like a good idea for a Disney movie except we can exchange the gay man for a brunette princess. And oh yeah the Men in Black can be Dwarfs.

“Insert the FINAL CUT STUDIO instillation disk…”

The new edit system arrived today, decided to take a crack at a Screenplay and the snow that is falling as I write brought back memories of the first step on a long journey to where I am today. I have to say that the hour that I’ve spent with my new Mac Book Pro has sold me on Apple. First it was an iPod, then the iPhone and now the Mac Book. I’ve been a skeptic all along but I’m now a full-fledged junkie or whatever term is hip to apply. Now only if Final Cut is as good as Avid. I’ve spent the last 9 years cutting on an Avid edit system at WVPBS and own my own Avid Express system that I work on from home. The same system that I cut “Shades of Gray” on and “Adopt a Jesus.” I can only hope that Final Cut can stand up to the Avid program… To be continued

Not that I’m busy or anything but I think Charessa (my wife) and I are gonna begin working on a screenplay. All of the research is stored in my head so the easy part is out of the way, now its time to put it together in an entertaining fashion that resembles nothing of the true events. You know based upon a true story. We’ve got the index cards out and the opening scene ready to go, should be a fun process... updates to come.

This next few paragraphs should be titled “The road to where I am,” or “The first step in a journey I had no idea I was about to begin. As I get in the way back machine, I think I was a senior in High School or maybe a Junior, and one of the biggest snow storms to hit the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia in my lifetime had just passed through. The only bigger storm I can remember I had to walk home from school with my dad and almost got frostbite. My mom used warm wash cloths or maybe a hair dryer, memory in the way back machine is hazy, to keep my ears from falling off. Anyway… I got snowed in at the Thaxton’s house, which was good planning; I got to hang out with my future wife Charessa while the snow melted. I ended up spending a lot of time on that hill in high school and we ended up buying a house and living there the first ten years or so of our marriage.

So during the snowstorm I call up the local video store and see if they are open and how long. The guy on the other end of the phone tells me he’s about to close. I tell him I can be there in 10 minutes, we have to walk because of all the snow, he says OK. That was the first time I met Jeremy Brightbill, to make a long story short we became instant friends, I got a job at the video store and we started a band together along with another friend of mine Antonie Zorio. We would be known as Watership Down after the Richard Adams Novel. Jeremy is now working on the soundtrack to “Romeo Must Hang,” I can’t wait to hear what he comes up with, he’s truly a great musician.

My time at the video store allowed me to study filmmaking and watch a lot of movies, and they paid me to do it. At the time my Favorite Actor = Dennis Hopper, Favorite Movie = Raising Arizona… It was a journey that began there and after a few detours I ended up studying film in college. I was fired from the job at the video store once and like a good producer I talked them into hiring me back, besides I had a lot more movies I needed to watch.

Well it’s 12:30 am and I’m on disk 3 of 7 of the final cut install… it’s gonna be a long night. I think I’ll go read A Clockwork Orange.