For a little over 2 weeks, we've been in production for Truth On The Line, the new project I'm directing (and wrote). It's been very exciting, and things are going quite well other than feeling like each shoot is very rushed.

We have been shooting at quite a speed - an average of 6 script pages a day. Usually 5 is a good rule of thumb for an "indie" project. We've been pressured by time constraints involving the location and the natural light, as well as my own inexperience at scheduling, but for other shoots coming up I'm hoping that we can have things be a little more relaxed.

However, as I said, things are going well, and I'm quite happy with the performances of all the cast, as well as the look of all the footage we've shot. I've started to put together some of the footage into rough edits to make sure I have what I need, and it is working! I'd like to have a little more coverage, and more takes, so that's another reason to try to relax the shoot velocity, if possible.

We've been blessed to have the help of 2 very cool local establishments here in Tucson: BICAS, the non-profit bicycle repair and education collective, let us use their 4-wheeled bicycle-car, which we put to work as a dolly and which functioned great as such!

Also, Revolutionary Grounds Books and Coffee was our wonderful location for the 3 cafe scenes in this pilot episode. Many many thanks to Joy, the generous proprietor, and to Matthew, the amazing barista who opened up early for us at 5am on 2 mornings, and also to Diana, another barista there who had utmost patience for us and makes a great iced americano.

I'm having a great time, it's wonderful working with all these actors and the extremely talented and helpful crew, and i'm looking forward to cutting it all together and seeing the story we're creating unfold.

See http://www.flickr.com/photos/steev/sets/72157620097751914/ for more production stills.

Here's a great behind-the-scenes clip (shot by Ryn) of us shooting at the cafe, which I hope will be a location for many great encounters and dialogues during future episodes of the show.

In the New Yorker this week there's a profile of Nora Ephron, the writer, screenwriter, and director. Her new film is "Julia and Julie," about Julia Child and so the article contained a lot about cooking, both Child's love for it and Ephron's. What I find inspiring is the idea that the film celebrates "... the pleasure of finding the thing you are best at, and devoting yourself to it with abandon. If you make a mistake, learn from it, then forget it... Don't complain, don't explain: that's the motto of Julia Child and Nora Ephron..."

I like that. Exemplary people are often very good at many things, though, and I would think that other criteria come up, besides just doing what you are very very best at, even if it's possible to determine what that is: things like "can I make a living from it?", "is it fun?", and "what will make the most positive difference in the world?" There are many reasons to devote oneself with abandon to a pursuit. But I like the idea of celebrating figuring out what to devote oneself to.

author: M.T. Anderson

name: Steev

average rating: 3.73

book published: 2002

rating: 5

read at: 2009/06/01

date added: 2009/07/01

shelves: fun, novels, politics

author: Shel Silverstein

name: Steev

average rating: 4.22

book published: 1974

rating: 3

read at:

date added: 2009/07/01

shelves:

review:

author: Mark Twain

name: Steev

average rating: 3.77

book published: 1884

rating: 3

read at:

date added: 2009/07/01

shelves:

review:

author: Douglas Adams

name: Steev

average rating: 4.04

book published: 1979

rating: 4

read at:

date added: 2009/07/01

shelves:

review:

author: Neal Stephenson

name: Steev

average rating: 3.87

book published: 1992

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2009/07/01

shelves:

review:

author: William Gibson

name: Steev

average rating: 3.73

book published: 1984

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2009/07/01

shelves:

review:

Yesterday a very sad thing happened in our little world. Jack Jibby Bark Undersun, the best dog in the world, Greta's constant companion and best friend fo 15 years, passed away.

When I first started dating Greta, over 2 and a half years ago, I met Jack and she asked me if I liked dogs. I replied "Well, I don't dislike dogs." She didn't view this as a very positive response, but all I meant was that I had been ambivalent to dogs so far. I had not ever had a very high place in my life for pets, and I grew up with dogs in the family that were not crazy but were also not really good with kids or "close" to us.

Jack taught me to love dogs. Jack and Greta taught me what a deep bond someone can have with their pet. He was a little puppy, wild on a farm in Virginia when 20-year-old Greta found him, the day after having a dream about him. Since then he was with her for countless adventures. He was there when she had nobody else to be there for her. And with her love and attention and care, he grew up to be the gentlest, kindest, most loving dog I've ever known. Everyone who knows him loves him, and he has many friends who will be sad to hear this terrible news. Our friend Peter drove up from Bisbee and the three of us are here in this house that seems empty, blown away by this sudden tragedy. Peter's dog Nori keeps looking around for Jack, her best doggy buddy, not quite understanding what has happened. Where did he go?

In the morning yesterday, I prepared his breakfast like I often do. On every other morning, he always would rush to the bowl and start gobbling away eagerly. Yesterday morning, he didn't want to eat it at all. I knew something was wrong. He was lethargic and panting hard and not walking very steadily. Jack has had a mast-cell tumor, a type of canine cancer, for over a year now, and we have known that this made his days numbered, even more so than his advanced age. But he's been on medicine and doing really great for a long time. We may have started to forget that at any time he could go downhill.
He started feeling better after we gave him a dose of his prednasone in a bowl of ice cream. He has always really liked ice cream. But then in the afternoon his condition got worse again. He was trembling all over, having trouble breathing and panting hard like he was in pain. We had called the vet and made an appointment for later in the afternoon, but when Greta offered him more ice cream and he refused, that was when she knew something was seriously wrong. She got him in the car and headed for the vet, meeting me on the way home from a meeting I had near campus. I drove the rest of the way with her in the backseat holding him.

They took him out of the car and into the clinic on a little doggy stretcher.

I can't really bear to continue at this level of detail. Suffice to say that the prognosis was grim. The cancer had clearly spread, and the mast cells were releasing histamines into his bloodstream that were causing him to go into severe shock. He passed away gently and with a minimum of suffering, in Greta's arms, at about 6pm.

We will miss him so much. Goodbye, Jack.

Truth On The Line is a unique film/tv/web project, telling the story of a varied group of characters who produce media and live their lives in the U.S./Mexico borderlands.

The show is currently in post-production on the pilot episode of TOTL. You can use this site to follow

read more