As of last week, I've officially signed on as an executive producer for a horror movie.  Why?  Well, I'm not exactly sure.  It feels much like that time I convinced Dinah to take mime classes with me; I suppose that filmmaking has been lurking in my subconscious as an interest that I haven't had the time or specific inclination to pursue until now.  About a month ago, the opportunity presented itself and after some lunch meetings and reading scripts, scrapping a project and starting a different, cheaper one...  BAM!  Next thing I know I wrote a check for a thousand dollars and this morning the director (Emil) and I dragged Dinah to every Village Thrift location on the South Side of Chicago looking for knick-knacks that a viewer might be convinced were part of an exhibit at a museum and for any jewelry that could have been worn by an ancient Egyptian.

More about the movie...    Essentially, it is the story of some museum employees who battle an ancient Egyptian god of the underworld after he is inadvertently brought back to life by the staff archaeologist.  The first week of my involvement has been extremely exciting for me.  While many of the team worked together on Emil's last movie, The Landlord , I am new to the business and have the naive enthusiasm of someone who has no idea what he's getting into.  Emil has put a lot of effort into getting things organized and, more importantly, budgeted.  We're using a project management software called "BaseCamp HQ" that handles communications, files, schedules, budgets, etc of the different departments (wardrobe, makeup, location, art, photography, casting, etc).  As a co-producer, I have access to everything and the right to hire assistants for certain departments.  Of course, we can't pay anyone...

The thrift store marathon this morning was a bit of a headache.  Village Thrift had a 50% off everything sale... so you can bet that the aisles were full and lines were extremely long.  But we found a lot of gold jewelry that *could* be Egyptian and about a garbage bag full of various pots, vases, and colored-glass bottles to use as pretend museum artifacts.  All for around $50.  We didn't shop for much else in the wardrobe department because until the actors are cast, we won't know their sizes.  Also, Emil tells me, it's good to work with the actor/actress on building their character and part of that is letting them pick out their outfit and accessories.  Anyway, I could go on for hours and hours but I'm going to try to keep these posts reasonably brief!  More later.