This was a most unusual week.
As I mentioned earlier, my friend Matthew Graves is making a movie based on a screenplay I wrote. We shot the short film this past week, in a three-day marathon run of night-time shooting.
I've agreed not to post any pics or reveal too many details. I will let it slip that I had a small part in the movie, which meant I got to experience make-up and be on the set for the filming.
It was a blast. One day I will post pics, and you'll get a laugh. But for now, I'll just mention some of the people who worked on the movie.
Johnny McPhail did an amazing job playing -- oh, wait I can't say. Same with Rhes Low, who truly brought the role of <redacted> to life.
Everyone on the set worked very hard to make the movie a delight. When it premiers on Halloween this year, I'll make sure to provide links. I truly believe you'll love it.
Watching Johnny and Rhes bring my characters to life was an experience I'll never forget. It's one thing to imagine the characters, to see them in your mind's eye. But it's another entirely to see an actor put on a costume and make-up and assume the role. When those first words come out, it's a genuine thrill.
My time on the set did teach me a few things about being an actor.
FRANK'S TIPS FOR BIG-TIME MOVIE STARS SUCH AS FRANK:
1) The other actors grow agitated if you try to claim the food on the craft table is yours and charge them two bucks a slice for the pizza.
2) Don't giggle and say the words 'the cheese' each time the director yells 'cut.'
3) If you try to make your own fake Screen Actor's Guild card, sharpen the black crayon first.
4) Shakespearean soliloquies are a staple of dramatic presentation, true, but impromptu renditions of the dagger scene from Macbeth are best performed within the actual play, and not during a coffee shop scene in a romantic comedy.
5) Prop toilets don't flush.
6) Keep up morale on the set by spiking the bottled water with LSD. When your finished film turns out to consist of one hundred and eighty minutes of lens cap with an audio track of slurred mumbling, sell it to the SyFy channel, because at least it's not about mutant sharks.
7) When you first arrive on the set, immediately begin shouting orders to the gaffer. The resulting limp, bruises, and swollen right eye will cut make-up prep time for your hospital scene in Act IV in half.
8) Break up tension buy secretly replacing a random page of every script with a page from a SpongeBob SquarePants script. Listen as classically-trained actors attempt to read Squidward as the suicidal failed heavyweight boxer.
And fear not, gentle readers -- my role is small, and non-speaking, so I had no chance to goof things up. I'll wager most of you won't even be able to pick me out.
I'd like to take a moment and thank Karen and Matthew and Melissa and Rhes and Johnny and Cookie Chris and Laura and Greg and Andy and Daniel and Ben and *inhale* everyone else who worked on the movie.
It was a pleasure, and I can't wait for everyone to see the fruits of our labor.
OTHER NEWS: REVIEWS IN THE WILD
Google Alerts let me know my book All the Paths of Shadow got another review! You can see the review by Olga Godim at Silk Screen Reviews. I was pleased, both with the review and the fact that Google Alerts wasn't showing me yet another torrent site where book pirates are stealing my books.
YET MORE OTHER NEWS: THIS YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE
All I can say about the following item is that it is in fact true. I kid around on this blog a lot, but this is no joke.
On Tuesday, I'll be giving a brief presentation at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS) here on the University of Mississippi campus. I was asked to speak as an author of speculative and fantasy fiction, and give my take on the uses of surveillance and intelligence gathering in science fiction and fantasy.
Now, at first, you may think to yourself 'What? Surveillance and intelligence gathering in fantasy? Are you into the mushrooms again, Tuttle?'
No. I'm not. I think I'll post the text of my remarks here next week, so you can see what I mean.
FINAL BUT MOST IMPORTANT WORDS
You're a reader. I'm a reader. We're both readers.
And what do readers love?
In my case, whole bags of cheeseburgers, illegal moonshine whiskey, and yodeling. But I'm talking about books. Good books.
Good books for free?
That's enough to make me drop my cheeseburger and spill my whiskey and push the yodeler off the cliff. And you can get some great free books by clicking on the link to Maria Schneider's Bear Mountain books blog, where she is making Under Which Ghost (A Moon Shadow series short) free for you to enjoy!
Please check out the series. They're great -- you've got witches and vamps and werewolves and love, but without all the sappy soap opera filling that is choking Certain Other paranormal outings (I'm looking at you, True Blood on HBO).
Seriously, grab a free copy! Maria is a great writer.
And now I'm out. It's back to work for me, as soon as I get this make-up scrubbed off my face...
As I mentioned earlier, my friend Matthew Graves is making a movie based on a screenplay I wrote. We shot the short film this past week, in a three-day marathon run of night-time shooting.
I've agreed not to post any pics or reveal too many details. I will let it slip that I had a small part in the movie, which meant I got to experience make-up and be on the set for the filming.
It was a blast. One day I will post pics, and you'll get a laugh. But for now, I'll just mention some of the people who worked on the movie.
Johnny McPhail did an amazing job playing -- oh, wait I can't say. Same with Rhes Low, who truly brought the role of <redacted> to life.
Everyone on the set worked very hard to make the movie a delight. When it premiers on Halloween this year, I'll make sure to provide links. I truly believe you'll love it.
Watching Johnny and Rhes bring my characters to life was an experience I'll never forget. It's one thing to imagine the characters, to see them in your mind's eye. But it's another entirely to see an actor put on a costume and make-up and assume the role. When those first words come out, it's a genuine thrill.
My time on the set did teach me a few things about being an actor.
FRANK'S TIPS FOR BIG-TIME MOVIE STARS SUCH AS FRANK:
1) The other actors grow agitated if you try to claim the food on the craft table is yours and charge them two bucks a slice for the pizza.
2) Don't giggle and say the words 'the cheese' each time the director yells 'cut.'
3) If you try to make your own fake Screen Actor's Guild card, sharpen the black crayon first.
4) Shakespearean soliloquies are a staple of dramatic presentation, true, but impromptu renditions of the dagger scene from Macbeth are best performed within the actual play, and not during a coffee shop scene in a romantic comedy.
5) Prop toilets don't flush.
6) Keep up morale on the set by spiking the bottled water with LSD. When your finished film turns out to consist of one hundred and eighty minutes of lens cap with an audio track of slurred mumbling, sell it to the SyFy channel, because at least it's not about mutant sharks.
7) When you first arrive on the set, immediately begin shouting orders to the gaffer. The resulting limp, bruises, and swollen right eye will cut make-up prep time for your hospital scene in Act IV in half.
8) Break up tension buy secretly replacing a random page of every script with a page from a SpongeBob SquarePants script. Listen as classically-trained actors attempt to read Squidward as the suicidal failed heavyweight boxer.
And fear not, gentle readers -- my role is small, and non-speaking, so I had no chance to goof things up. I'll wager most of you won't even be able to pick me out.
I'd like to take a moment and thank Karen and Matthew and Melissa and Rhes and Johnny and Cookie Chris and Laura and Greg and Andy and Daniel and Ben and *inhale* everyone else who worked on the movie.
It was a pleasure, and I can't wait for everyone to see the fruits of our labor.
OTHER NEWS: REVIEWS IN THE WILD
Google Alerts let me know my book All the Paths of Shadow got another review! You can see the review by Olga Godim at Silk Screen Reviews. I was pleased, both with the review and the fact that Google Alerts wasn't showing me yet another torrent site where book pirates are stealing my books.
YET MORE OTHER NEWS: THIS YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE
All I can say about the following item is that it is in fact true. I kid around on this blog a lot, but this is no joke.
On Tuesday, I'll be giving a brief presentation at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS) here on the University of Mississippi campus. I was asked to speak as an author of speculative and fantasy fiction, and give my take on the uses of surveillance and intelligence gathering in science fiction and fantasy.
Now, at first, you may think to yourself 'What? Surveillance and intelligence gathering in fantasy? Are you into the mushrooms again, Tuttle?'
No. I'm not. I think I'll post the text of my remarks here next week, so you can see what I mean.
FINAL BUT MOST IMPORTANT WORDS
You're a reader. I'm a reader. We're both readers.
And what do readers love?
In my case, whole bags of cheeseburgers, illegal moonshine whiskey, and yodeling. But I'm talking about books. Good books.
Good books for free?
That's enough to make me drop my cheeseburger and spill my whiskey and push the yodeler off the cliff. And you can get some great free books by clicking on the link to Maria Schneider's Bear Mountain books blog, where she is making Under Which Ghost (A Moon Shadow series short) free for you to enjoy!
Please check out the series. They're great -- you've got witches and vamps and werewolves and love, but without all the sappy soap opera filling that is choking Certain Other paranormal outings (I'm looking at you, True Blood on HBO).
Seriously, grab a free copy! Maria is a great writer.
And now I'm out. It's back to work for me, as soon as I get this make-up scrubbed off my face...
