Finally found a way to be up at six o'clock in the morning...

Should be asleep.

Talked to Kyle today. He's doing well, swamped with school work, but that hasn't kept him from starting something up for "Trendsetter" that has the possibility of a being a very big deal. Check back here, and the "Trendsetter" movie blog, for more as it becomes available.

Few other things he mentioned. Looks like video and video chat auditions will be possible, which opens up the field from local people to just about anyone we want to try out for a part. Particularly a relief for me, as Kyle's New York trip now seems to be in doubt.

Kyle also suggested the possibility of a "Trendsetter" reading, just a round table thing with anyone available working off hard copies of the script. He thinks it might break up the sound of things in my head, and help me move closer to a final draft. While I haven't really been feeling any monotony of voice when I go through the scenes myself [I tend to hear them as the people I wrote them as, as odd and unexplainable as that is], it is an exciting prospect to get a table reading of something I've been working on, just to see how other react to it. I've never really done anything like this outside of my "Intro to Playwriting" class [unless you count Steven Bach loudly repeating my dialogue in the Barn], so I'm pretty jazzed to hear it.

A suggestion I made to Kyle was that he read the part of Brandon when we do it, and furthermore actually try out for the role of our protagonist when auditions come around. While I don't want the movie to become an auteur sort of flick, with Kyle acting and directing in it, I know Kyle's been on camera before, and I've felt like he's wanted to do this since the beginning -- and as much as I'm curious to see what an actor unattached to the part would bring, I know Kyle gets the character, and more importantly, gets how the character looks at, and moves in, the world of the "Trendsetter." I'm really interested in that aspect more than any apprehensions I have about my director taking on multiple roles in what looks to be a massive project.

Of course, Kyle says if he's going to do that, even just the audition, he's going to need an Assistant Director, which, hey, could wind up being me before all this over. I mean, maybe not, I never took a single directing course at Bennington, and don't know much about the technical side of movie-making [barring Friedkin-esque priest-slapping], but at this point I'd consider it if Kyle suggested it to me. Likely he has someone better or more experienced in mind, and I should really only be focused on this damn script right now, but my want to facilitate TS getting made is high.

Kyle also told me our producer Robert Pralgo would probably be our casting director. Pralgo has some experience in that area, and it's encouraging that no matter what the film's hierarchy will look like, that role will be well-filled. Casting remains the part I look forward to the most, and am most nervous about. How in the hell are we going to find real people to match up to the insanity in my mind?