Callback has a camera. For all you tech heads – I did not get the Canon XL2 but at the last moment went for the Panasonic DVX1OOA. It was more affordable, requires less gizmos to get set up, and has an easier to use manual focusing system which, as DP Quickly won’t have a focus puller, is a big issue. Quality of the final product will not be compromised and I remain on budget. We also have a brand new set of legs, some filters and a nice blue carrying bag. And after spending all that hard-earned cash I got a free coat too! Thank-you Steve and everyone at Birns & Sawyer.

Insurance is proving to be a Catch 22 – unless I want to spend about 15% of my budget on insurance. And without an insurance provider I can’t start my SAG paperwork…and I have to file the paperwork three weeks before production can start.

I’ve been given a good address where to buy a wig for Joseph Wilt.

Frank Collison (The Village, Dr. Quinn, Hidalgo) has confirmed he’s going to play Karl O’Tour for us.

Unlike the storm, which has dumped more than 9 inches on us in five days and crippled my web connection, everyone who came to our first casting session shone. There were surprises too – dark horses emerged from the least expected places and after only one session I’m already in the initial stages of Director-Guilt / Subsection – casting.

If I hire person A (who might best suit the intended demographic of the movie) then person B (who might be a better actor) will be ignored. Person C (who was very good and needs a break) will be gutted if I hire person D who already has some decent credits and might help me get financing later on. If I hire person E then my friend, person F, might never talk to me again. Needless to say when I hire person G, people A through F will band together, hire a hit-man, and have me rubbed out on a dark street corner in righteous vengeance for not picking them. What ever I do I’m screwed.

After a long chat with the nice man at Birns & Sawyer I think it’s going to be the Canon XL-2.

I’m strangely petrified – tomorrow will be our first official day of casting. Even with 450 productions under my belt this feels like a big step. I certainly have a new respect for casting directors – it’s taken me 2 days of phone-calls, e-mails and faxes to organize a schedule and get sides to just ten people.

I still can’t decide what camera to buy.

As Bob Geldof once said to an unhelpful TV producer while we were getting Band Aid together (OK so he did most of the work!)…anyhow as Bob said, “I have a double-page spread in the paper on Monday. On the left hand page will be a list of all those people who have helped and on the right hand page will be a list of all those who haven’t helped…and right now yours is the only name on the right hand page!”

The thanks page on our site (the left side) will be up soon and it’s going to be a freakin’ nightmare keeping it current. Just today I’ve been given major favors and time by 10 people I know and by about 20 actors I don’t. What’s even more remarkable is that none of these folk stand to gain a damn thing from this movie other than a stab at glory and securing my undying gratitude – though I’m sure that some people might tell you that the shelf-life of my undying gratitude is roughly the same as a packet of defrosted shrimp.

To those left-pagers I say “Thank-you!” (you know who you are). To those right-pagers amongst you I say, “I have a double page spread in the paper on Monday….etc.”

(Feeling bored? Check out the BAND AID story in the DICK’S DIARIES section)

I am pressing onwards into the foothills and I sense my first view of the movie mountain is still many days walk away. However, like any mountaineer will tell you, this sherpa-like zen-test is not to be shirked or treated lightly: I am acclimatizing. But on some days I become more, rather than less, confused.

I am collecting a host of information on cameras. Canon XL2 – great, tried, tested, and has 24p and interchangeable lenses. The new Sony HVR-Z1U is HiDef and highly touted BUT it only has a fixed lens and is a new unit. There’s a commonly held opinion that a funny movie needs funny lenses – my bet is that the zoom on the Sony isn’t that funny. What’s the word people? Feel free to share…

Word is getting out about our plans and the letterbox is filling up with actors eager to join our team. My guess is that E-mail is making your average actor’s life easier: they point and click and I get a resume and a head-shot. Winners: the environment. Losers: USPS and printers all over the LA basin. However I will not be paying $29.99 to open the headshot I received this morning. I’m not a compu-genius but Adobe, Word and some other stuff has me covered so I’m saving that 30 bucks for something already in the budget!

I am definitely not 29 anymore. The cold dawn of this realization was delivered to me outside the Improv one night last week. I went to check out a highly touted stand-up guy for the movie, bought my ticket stood in line, and stood in line, and stood in line. After 45 minutes of listening to the guy behind me acquaint his buddies with the intracies up his upward career path and how he’d been ‘conversating’ all afternoon with this cool chick in a voice so loud that people in the Groundlings Theater (which is 10 blocks away) could hear him I split. a) I was in no mood to have someone make me laugh and I felt the stand-up guy inside was probably a stand-up guy and deserved better and b) it was late and I wanted to get my beauty sleep in before we get into production.

A word to describe me at this point. Four letters rhymes with gimp. Onwards people…