I am writing this in the Leaf and Bean…the best coffee shop in town. My hotel lacks an internet connection, which might actually be a good thing. I can come to Montana and decompress a little. Not post on all those forums. Play in the show that arrived right when I did…like it was welcoming me home. I love snow, and the state has seen darn little of it. Then BOOM…3 inches.

Wearing Converse Chuck Taylors wasn’t the wisest footwear choice.

ANYWAY…spent all day talking, a good portion of it to the graduate students who just started their filmmaking foray in Sept. I gave a general workflow talk on the steps I take in editing a project, the collaboration between editor and director, the changing face of documentary film…and then answered question. GREAT questions…very intelligent questions that bought up memories and issues I had forgotten about, or just don’t think about consciously.

Then they showed there films. All in all, I was impressed. A few were rough, but I was expecting that. My first film in film school is NOTHING I’d want to share with the general public…something about “cruel and unusual punishment” being against the law. Their first films, from people without film backgrounds…were better than I was expecting. A couple of them really impressed me. One I saw after class was particularly good. The students have this…humoristic approach to scientific and nature filmmmaking that was a joy to watch. Their professor said they need to capitalize on that and strive to be the “Monty Python” of scientific film. I think that is a great idea.

After that I got a call from my producer saying that the current cut was great, but that a few changes were in order, and OH, can we get a digibeta of Act 1 by Wednesday. Uhm…I’m in Montana. And on Wednesday I fly out of here, arrive at Burbank and then have to drive to LAX to catch a flight to Seattle. But…but…I have my CalDigit S2VR Duo with the ENTIRE project with me. So…we are seeing what we can do. Man, there is no escaping work.

Then I went to my second talk which was aimed at the undergrads, and it too went well. More about the Hollywood process when it comes to editing. And how to make it in Hollywood by hard work and determination. And about the power of the editor and what they can do.

It was fun. Scraping snow off the car wasn’t…because I had to use my bare hands. Brrrrr!