I did not drink the Obama koolade, I don’t think things will get better for out country overnight or over the next few years. As we slip deeper into the recession, I notice more and more of my friends and family are loosing jobs, loosing homes, some have even decided to leave NYC and return to greener pastures. We will miss you.

I do not want to give up on New York City yet, I refuse to. NYC will kick you down if only to teach you a lesson but the important thing is to get back up, I must keep reminding myself of this. Its a make it or break it kind of town and I admit I have been a little too close to my breaking point for comfort…but then again these are not exaclty times of comfort. Most of of my NYC clients are low budget indies, commerical work, and documentaries which all of the above have major cut backs and or get axed all together, not exactly recession proof….maybe I should take up bartending? What about LA…Hollywood or bust? Must make a decision. More to come.

Ranting aside, we set out to make a movie in 48 hours for a full house at the Sunshine Cinema and that we did…I believe Mr. P Sarni updated IMDB last night. Thanks to friends and family again for coming out to support. Will I do it again? Who knows…in the meantime I must keep writing.

“Everything in life changes… including our camera specs and delivery dates…”

This is why my post titles ends with “maybe”, but I feel pretty confident since they released the image above showing camera numbers 1751-2000 being prepped for shipping. You can not argue Jim Jannard’s honesty, not to mention the man is a hype master with his recent thread titled “PREPARE”, which is a brief post on the new firmware build 16…an example of how RED can improve system specs overnight. RED is controversial for stirring up a fire in not only the RED community, but the film industry in general. As a RED technician, or what I call a REDTek… I have worked with film crews who I find very bitter over all this RED hype and I can imagine it gets out of hand but what can I say…so far RED lives up to all the hype. After the break you will find where the RED delivery schedule currently stands in case your interested…

501-1000 begin shipping in February
1001-1500 begin shipping in March
1501-1750 begin shipping in April, through May
1751-2000 begin shipping in June
2001-2400 begin shipping in July
2401-2900 begin shipping in August
2901-3400 begin shipping in September
3401-3900 begin shipping in October
3901-4400 begin shipping in November (current orders)

This is a snippet from this thread here http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7464 and while I am at it, here is a recently updated RED FAQ.

I feel exhausted, have been working insane hours all through the holidays and I just have not had time to post on the GothamGuerrilla, still digging myself out of debt and just happy to get any work this F@&#*d economy. I am going to update some of the previous post now and play a little catch up so there is lots of content coming to the Gotham Guerrilla soon! Thanks for sticking around.

I am spent, tomorrow the RED digital mags are Offhollwood bound to Mark and Aldey for some LTO backing up…saftey 1st. I have no idea what’s on my plate for next week, but I do know that tomorrow the Gotham Guerrilla has a special date with Doctor Jones…Indiana that is.

To make matters worse, I over budgeted due to recent RED ONE investments, leaving my pockets pretty empty….if you walked into my bank account you would here the echo of your foot steps. One of the main reasons you should never turn down work is cause the seeds you plant in your past gigs often times grow to lift you up in your future…this month I celebrate those seeds. Documentaries for example will often result in repeat work and last week Richard Cummings Junior called me up to DP another one of his Subway Busker Documentary shoots that he likes to refer to as his “Crack Habit”….keep at it Richard, I believe in your Project!

Then Mark from OffHollywood Studios gave me the opportunity to be a RED TECH this week for a PBS shoot so I could brush up on my RED experience before I take delivery of SPUTNIK, RED # 1781. I enjoy being a RED TECH, all those hours spent researching this new emerging technology is finally paying off. I love watching the crew be enamored by RED’s capabilities. I enjoy downloading the shots off a CF card the size of a matchbook and watching the images come down the pipeline making me feel giddy like a school boy each time, thinking…”ok, this is the future of Cinema” …F^&*@ing PHENOMENAL. I would like to get permission 1st before I post any details about this particular shoot but I will report to RedUsers that RED firmware build 15 is holding up strong, completely stable…unreal, look forward to 16…it just gets better.

So thanks John Mitchell, Jessica Lambert, Patrick Sarni, Ryan Morris, Kendall Smith, Mark Pedersson, Richard Cummings Jr, Jim Jannard and the RED team, my father Richard Haskell My mother Ann Richardson, My aunt Ann Haskell, Lainie Gratz my sister, and last but certainly not least, my wife Anabel Bouza…and everyone esle for all being little seeds that grew in the month of May. I will not give up, just keep pushing forward….more to come.

Speaking of, you really figure out what your not missing in life when you can’t afford it…like television (the home seams much more peaceful without it) paper towels (wasteful, a rag works just as well) and I am learning to take my espresso without sugar…soon there wont be espresso.

As a freelance filmmaker I always book my gigs at least one month in advance as a cushion in case I fall to hard times. Fortunately the recession does not effect this industry too hard but it really depends what part your working in, cause IMO just about all my commercial clients are extremely financially tight these days. May has arrived and my big May job which involved traveling to direct a commercial in Costa Rica for an Ad agency (whom I will not name)…was delayed until August, maybe for good? This was not the Agency’s fault, their client can’t pony up the budget either…wow, thanks Bush. Now I am left scrambling for day jobs I had originally cleared for Costa Rica.

On a good note, the wire went into RED DIGITAL CINEMA today for our new RED ONE, I have tapped every resource dry and I am officially more broke then I have ever been in my life…so cheers to RED ONE #1781 coming home, may she prosper and bring me back to the surface. This has been a humbling experience no doubt, but the truth is…being a starving artist in New York city is not glamorous or romantic as the cliche goes. I got to run, there is a boiled egg with my name on it.

Indie filmmakers embrace the digital age mainly cause it is the one brush they can afford. I grew up watching film, learned how to cut on film and somewhere along the line the digital boom took place. Naturally I adopted it. We were were quick to jump on the train, to get our feet wet and start making movies cause we could, cause it was cheap and where you will find profit, you will eventually find Hollywood. Who cares if Steven Spielberg refuses to let go of film, its his preferred medium, to each his own. Hit the jump for a to see what Mr. Spielberg had to say.

“Sadly, in twenty years, movies will all go digital. There will be no photochemical steps – no film, no developing, no correcting the color in the lab and having a hellacious time doing it. It will all be too easy and very clean and very slick and, I think, very souless. The little imperfections are what make film a great art. When it loses that -

Home sweet home, unpacking everything and time to make sense out of all this NAB Shwag. A little iSpy anyone? Speaking of swhag, thanks Stephen Pizzo and the Element Technica for hooking me up with the fine ET grip bag and cap…shwag I will actually use.