Author: Heath

It recently dawned on me that despite the fact that I’m still in the “not making any money at it” phase, I definitely have at least the illusion of what seems like a burgeoning career.
I’ve done numerous smaller student films this year (4 that I can think of off the top of my head) and of course had a starring role in the independent feature film, “Deadly Obsession”. Larry and I have completed two of our own shorts, “The Ruse” and “Sal Monella” (we still have one re-shoot and the editing to complete), plus we still have a stack of short films written and ready to go that we will continue producing. We are also working with a producer friend on a feature idea as well as pitching some ideas for some internationally syndicated TV shows that could be a real opportunity at some real money (which would be purely commercial fluff with no substance, which is what his contacts are looking for). We also have an idea for another possible TV show that I’d like to write up into a treatment and pitch to someone somewhere.
Aside from that I have 4 features lined up, 2 starring and 2 smaller roles as well as another short. Now if I can just get paid for more of my work, I might have something. At least I’m staying busy, getting my name and face out there and meeting tons of people.

Last week I was discussing with a friend certain chord changes and melodies that I particularly like in songs. We also got to discussing Bon Jovi power ballads because I had borrowed a tape deck to go through all my old cassettes and see if there was anything I wanted to save and I ended up rediscovering all kinds of songs I’d forgotten about. The next day I was in the shower (which is also where I came up with the idea for “The Ruse”…apparently the shower is my creative haven) when all of these factors came together with a title that I’d come up with back when I was writing some demo jingles for a studio here. Once all these combined, suddenly a song started forming in my head. When I got out of the shower, I immediately started writing the song. Over the next few days, it was all I could think about. Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I just wanted to get back to working on the song. I would write verses while I was out and hope that I could remember them later.

2 days after starting the song, I finished writing it. I then decided that I wanted to record just a quick demo of the song so I wouldn’t forget it. I thought it would just be acoustic guitar and vocals. I laid down 2 acoustic guitars. Then I started playing with the drums and found that it really added a lot so I went ahead and laid those down. After that, it just sounded incomplete without bass. Next thing I knew, I had pretty much fully produced the song. At first, I was kind of frustrated because since I had only set out to make a rough demo, I hadn’t really spent the time to really do things right so I thought I’d probably have to just go back and re-do everything later when I wanted to record it properly. The more the song progressed though, the more I thought that it might actually pass as a finished work.

This has now become what I think is my best song to date. I am incredibly proud and satisfied with it. I can actually listen to it and enjoy it as if it were not my own. I have, in fact, been addicted to it.

For your (hopefully) listening pleasure, I present “Fall for Me“

Our latest short film, The Ruse, has been completed and may I say, we are damn proud of it. This was our first production with something resembling real production values. We had a lot of real equipment at our disposal and a small but immensely talented crew working with us. It was all very exciting. We learned a lot, and though it is far from perfect, we are very satisfied with it.
Read on for the full story including in depth technical film making crap.

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