Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: We made a movie!

It's not a feature or anything, and I don't really know what it will look like when all the past-production stuff is done, but that thing Ernesto asked me to work on was actually a ton of fun!

I have to admit, I was kind of thinking of backing out.  Ernesto is the first guy I've fucked where I would be seeing him again whether I liked it or not, and based upon how hook-ups with people I know went for me in my original life - usually terrible, both during and after - I want sure that spending that much time with him was something I wanted to do, especially since that last week or two of fall term was uncomfortable.  That time in Hong Kong was a good reset, though - the fun pays were crazy and intense enough to make me certain that I could handle anything friggin' Boston could throw at me, and the scary parts...  Well, shit, what's hanging out with a guy you've had sex with compared to that?

It was a fun thing to bring to life. Ernesto had written a script about a guy and a girl on a date that's not going well, so as things go on, Ernesto (he played the leading man) starts to see me as some sort of vampire succubus and I start to see him as a zombie.  Something seemed a bit off about it to me at first, so I asked Benjamin to take a look at it, and he said that the cynicism was too simple, that we should still see each other as tempting and desirable. We could still wind up fighting, but it would be more interesting.

Ernesto wound up liking the idea, although the director took some convincing, telling him something about not letting his little head do the thinking. Ernesto and Cesar have been friends since they were kids and I get the impression that I'm not the first girl whose opinions he's dismissed, especially when they arrived via Ernesto. That this advice was coming from a girl who used to be a man after consulting with a man who used to be a girl would probably melt his brain.

Once we got Cesar onboard, it was a lot of fun. Really hard work, though in a completely different way from the play:  Where that was a nerve-wracking marathon for me even though my part was tiny, this was an often-frustrating series of long nights and weekends and afternoons when enough of us didn't have class, doing the same thing until Cesar thought it was good enough, then doing it from another angle. Then, the next day, we do it with one or both of us wearing prosthetic makeup, then switch it up. There are folks on set making sure that all the little details match from day to day, right down to how tight the corset I had stupidly agreed to wear when I was supposed to be a complete sex demon by the end was.

I kind of loved it.

I fucking get the whole deal where you run something, get the bugs out when it fails, and then run it again. And the tech was so much damn fun - one of the producers somehow got a Red camera on loan, and while that made the shoot really tight - along with basically only being able to shoot the restaurant scenes from nine to midnight and the other restrictions - We could only shoot the restaurant scenes from nine to midnight along with other restrictions - it was amazing how good everything looked.

There's still a lot more work to do - Cesar and Ernesto are still editing a month or so later, someone's writing a score, and I've used some of Yuan-wei's money to buy a pretty killer graphics workstation so that we can add some more blood to a few scenes. I usually hate CGI blood, but it's kind of fun to work on, and apparently restaurant owners' charity only goes so far, and they don't like arterial spray all over the place.

Hopefully I can get that finished soon - Cesar was kind of upset that I didn't get it done by spring break, and now Ernesto is already teasing me about how Cesar's going to want to oversee the rest of the effects work personally, and use my new machine to work on the editing, saying he'd have to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't fuck my way into a bigger role.  Not really bitter, but kind of poking at me to see just how much my brain runs in that direction.

Or maybe jealous.  Kind of neat, that.

-Jordo/Missy/Yuan-wei