'Citizen Prophet' Movie Posters!

There are only 4 days left before we start shooting 'Citizen Prophet', and I've been rushing to finish the screenplay. I've been staying up till 4am trying to find the perfect ending to this movie, but I'm making slow progress.

The other night I was working on setting up my very expensive but rarely used XLR mic (from my imaginary rock band days) as a boom mic. It even looks like one. Sadly, I'm not so great with audio equipment, but the book I'm reading insists that audio is the most overlooked part of making an indie film. The book is 'How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000 and Not Go to Jail' by Bret Stern. My goal? $0. But that isn't working out so well.

As I was saying. The camera I am shooting with is a Canon Vixia. Not exactly professional, but the perfect camera for a guy like me. It has a very nice $200 external mic mounted on the top that I'd use for outdoor, action and car scenes—but I want to feel professional. So I thought, why not make my mic into a boom? I already spent several hundred dollars on it and the mixer. So I'd be putting it to good use. However, my little Canon Vixia has a 1/8'' mic jack. And my so-called boom has an XLR adapter and it can't power itself. So I have to run the boom through my mixer box, no big deal, it has a thousand inputs, outputs and nobs and I only need one, so what? Makes me feel that much more professional.

The output on the mixer is a 1/4'' adapter. I need a 1/8''. I have a little thinger-ma-jigger that can transform 1/8'' to 1/4'', but not vise-versa. After ordering a 1/4'' to 1/8'' transformer off Amazon, realizing I didn't need it because I could just use a 1/8'' cord with the 1/8''-1/4'' transformer plugged into the mixer, not being able to send the Amazon transformer back because it'd cost more than I spent on the damn thing, making two trips to Walmart, realizing I didn't need what I bought at Walmart because I already had one—I spent $20.

Which brings us to today. I woke up, and began painting obscure messages on my front door with car chalk (which costs $6) at the risk of people thinking I'm schizophrenic. I took a picture of each message, half way through realized that the flash was leaving a glare, and started over. Then I went to Walmart, returned the cord I bought the night before and got my $10, and went to the camera section to get my photos developed.

Walmart doesn't have one-hour photo here. What happened to that? When, in this century, did people forget that: One-hour photo GOOD—War BAD? It was too late to go to Walgreens. Before leaving Walmart I spotted a camera case with a metal-frame and lock. It looked so professional, I had to buy it. $30. Are you keeping track of my budget? Am I boring you?

So the boom works, but I need to do a sound test. I still need to go to Walgreens. And I'm not quite finished with the screenplay. BUT despite all the things I should be doing, I made movie posters instead! They give pretty good clues to the movie's plot. Click to enlarge.

Like them? Maybe I'll take them to Kinkos this weekend and have them printed so I can hang them up. That'll only be another $50. Hopefully, by next Friday we'll have 'Citizen Prophet' completely shot and ready for editing. But knowing me, the screenplay won't even be done.