The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

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A normal week in the life...

Finished, at last, a half-way decent synopsis and got it off to Jane, along with some PAL dubs of the sample. She'll be at MIP to talk to European broadcasters about a presale.

Talking with people here about buying a used Avid (Media Composer 400). Most asking in the range of $20,000. Talking with finance companies about a 2-year loan, I dick with the figures. $1,000 a week for 2 years. They call it 10% interest, my accountant calls it 18% and says to get it down to at least 13%, or what a bank would charge.

I've managed to make it through almost 44 years on this planet without having to get a loan and deal with this shit. It may be time to grow up now. I need an Avid.

Turn my attention to the budget, more dicking with figures. I need an assistant badly. Adrianne is leaving the IFP today and she'd be great but where's the money to pay her? Esther wants to get together next week. She'd be a great help, especially to get the film launched, but where's the money to pay her?

The smart cookies at Sin-i-max, in their best "protect the investment" mode, dole out their presale payments in stages -- so much on signing the deal memo, then signing of the contract, approval of the rough cut, the fine cut, then delivery of the master.

Once the contract is executed, I'll have less than $50,000 to see me through the edit of the rough cut. Even if all goes well, that's not until September. We started editing in January, so that 50 grand has to see me through 8 or 9 months, plus pay the Avid, the editor, Adrianne, Esther, Jane's expenses and everything else.

I've gotta start paying myself something, too. D-Wife's getting pissed. It's not so much the $11,000 or so I personally laid out over the past year to get this sucker off the ground. Or over not compensating myself for all the work I did as producer, director, cameraman, soundman, etc., on the entire production (about 40 days of shooting, all told).

It's more that now that there are funds coming in to the production, I should be paying myself. It's a sign of undervaluing myself, she says. I tell her it's a sign of a piecemeal payment schedule. The checks come in dribbles of $10,000 and by the time one finally comes there's always a heapful of payments to make.

Oh yeah, in the midst of this I'm trying to make a movie. I actually got to the editing room once this week, imagine that!

Last night I horsed around with Lucy at bedtime. D-Wife was out at a meeting of this Sex and Law Committee of the Bar Association that she chairs.

Lucy was standing on her bed in pajamas and I leaned over her just as she decided to leap in the air. Her head caught me flush on the bridge of my nose.

It was painful, but not as painful as seeing Lucy's face collapsed in tears. She was mortified. I reassured her over and over that I was okay, it was just an accident, she didn't do anything wrong.

She soon calmed down, but somewhere that 7-year old mind made a connection and she asked if she would ever have to live in an orphanage.

"Never," I replied.

"But what if you and mommy both died?"

"Well, you'd go live with Auntie Karen. It's written in our will."

She pondered that for a moment. "But I'd have to go to a new school. And live somewhere else."

"Ya know, Sweetie, the chances of that happening are really really really small. Hopefully we'll all live for a long long time."

She looked so sad. "Dad, can we stop talking about this?"

"Sure. It's just, it's sometimes good to think of these things. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because it makes you realize how lucky we are to be alive. To have a roof over our heads. To have food in our refrigerator. To have heat. To have our health. A lot of people in the world don't have those things."

"To have each other, too," she added.

I'll say.

Documentaries are a little like talking about death and that's why a lot of people avoid 'em at all costs. Who wants to be reminded that we live in a world where people go homeless, starve, develop AIDS, kill each other over sneakers?

I work and work and work to get my documentary finished and out into the world.

It's funny how sometimes you need a good jolt in the nose to enable you to smell the roses.

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