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Please read the explanation first.

Episode #6 -- I had lunch with Wolf today, and we selected August 8, 2009 for the next entertainment industry Dinner Club 7, with the cuisine this time being Japanese. Location tba (soon).

Item of Note -- If you find yourself in Borders or Barnes and Nobles, look in the new Creative Screenwriting Magazine for a piece that I wrote on a balcony in France one night ...

Random Career Thoughts on a Wednesday

In addition to spending some quality time with my family last week, I spent time pouring over and refining my personal entertainment industry business plan. Although on a day-to-day level I enjoy spontaneity, I've always carefully planned things out when it comes to long term goals, with two recent examples being the plan to be in and teach Vanguard (1982-1994), and the plan my pals and I put together to get the Renegades off the ground back in the days of two horn players (1999-2002).

My current entertainment industry plan started on a napkin in a coffee shop in the San Francisco Marina ... and continues to this day here in LA.

The key of a personal business plan, IMO, is to constantly learn from books and those around you, and continue to refine your plan as circumstances dictate. For me, the big push of 2009 was to spend less time on creative or business endeavors that were not productive, and put more time and effort into those that were. I am not sure I am putting that the right way, but basically it came down to focus and time allocation. I made some hard choices coming into this year, but my progress has sped up considerably as a result.

One key goal of this year is to move one of the three motion pictures I had a hand in writing into production. The process is taking longer than I anticipated, but it is going well. I am currently in discussions with German production companies about My Immortal, and the "drum" project has experienced progress. Soon, I will put some time into Sympathy for the Devil to get that project into a more prepared state. I'm not sure of the time line, but I know that I will produce a vampire film in Berlin, and bring the drum and Sympathy projects to life. The lack of qualification on that statement does not come from over-confidence or cockiness, but rather that I just know it's going to happen. Why, I have no idea. I just do.

In terms of ongoing productions, Dark Woods has just finished post, and 1,001 Ways and Greyscale are close behind. Harimaya Bridge is in Japanese theaters with the US deal probably coming soon. The new film, Lords of Chaos, is generating buzz in Hollywoood, as we added a killer director and one of the stars from Twilight. There are also a handful of other films I am working on that I can't yap on here about yet, lol, but the production end of things is going well.

Anyway, I am not sure where I was going with this post, lol ... but that's the state of the union for now.

If you are going through a rough time in this awful economy or are in a dead end job, don't worry about it, we've all been there.

Sit down with a nice beverage, pull out a napkin and a pen, and devise your plan.




Lee

Hey Cats -- welcome back to Blog 7. I hope that you enjoyed the pictures from New York ... which is a fantastic city, but also about as different from LA as you can get.

In any event, being back in New York and PA for a few days was a nice change of scenery. I will have a bunch of updates, semi-deep thoughts and random comments to put on Blog 7 later today ... in the meantime, have a nice day, and try not to poke anyone in the eye. :)


Talk to you a little bit later -


Lee


p.s. Are you on Facebook?

Scenes from NYC.

More Scenes from NYC on Facebook.

Blog 7 will return on Tuesday, June 30, 2009.

At the invitation of the Director of 1,001 Ways, I went to a film distribution and financing seminar/panel discussion last night, sponsored by "CAPE," the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. It was a great discussion, good food and wine, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of people who I knew there, including the casting director of Death Ride, the first film I ever worked on.

As part of the constant refinement of my entertainment industry plan, I am doubling my networking efforts ... this week was a good start.

Baffled.

I understand and appreciate the indignation that Iranians have towards what appears to be a brazenly stolen election in Iran. But for the life of me, I cannot understand why Iranians are protesting the Iranian election results in front of a Federal Building ... in Los Angeles.

If I was living in Berlin, for example, and I thought the US election had been rigged, and I wanted to protest, I might go over the US Embassy and protest in front of it. If I was riled up enough, maybe I would fly back and protest in the US. But it would never occur to me to protest the US election in front of the Reichstag or the Brandenberg Gate in Germany -- these are buildings and monuments of a completely different country.

Am I missing something?

Vyshehrad, Prague, 2001

Groovy Progress.

Yesterday's Sir Groovy board meeting was at the Mondrian Hotel in Hollywood. A place that, in true evil Hollywood-esque fashion, is an ultra cool and expensive hotel that has absolutely no sign or other distinguishing characteristics on the building to let you know that it's even there. You either know the place exists, or you don't ... you can literally walk right by it and have no idea that there is a hotel there. Which is either "zero" marketing ... or Genius.

The board meeting itself was great, not only because it was held on the West Coast for the first time, but the brain trust assembled was incredible, and included investors, executive producers from top-rated television shows, and high level denizens of the music industry. The meeting was eye-opening, and I was certainly not alone in the "amazement" category when Vic Sarjoo demonstrated the new Sir Groovy technology that has developed in stealth-mode over the last two years. Following the meeting, we retreated to an Argentinian restaurant on the Sunset Strip for never-ending bottles of wine, perfectly cooked steak and great conversation. All in all, it was a fantastic evening, and a good chance to catch up with the team from NYC.

Debut of the 1987 Santa Clara Vanguard, at the Concord Pavilion