The Cinematic McJuly Monthly

Making a movie, mostly!

IN THE MONTH OF JULY, I:

• crafted 4 more cardboard houses

• finished two house commissions

• directed a show

• filmed a movie

---

IMMINENT STARDOM

I have been bitten by a bug named Cinema. I spent the last two weeks shooting a horror movie in which I am the villain, the leader of a cult-ish consultant group. And I loved it so much. Now, I would like to be a movie star

I got involved in this project last fall when the director, Jake Myers, asked me to be in a short film called Kombucha!. The short film met with success at film festivals and they were able to secure funding to shoot the feature-length version. I was hopeful it would all work out, carefully planning my summer around the shoot, but also holding the opportunity gently in my open palm, because I know how film projects can fall through or get delayed into oblivion. So I’m pleased and surprised to say that I just wrapped 11 days on set. It happened! I curl my fingers covetously around the memory.

Things that were difficult: walking in stilettos, waking up at 5:45am, remembering the ultra-corporate lingo laced through my lines after ten hours of shooting.

Things that were lovely: being so tired at night I fell asleep within a minute, observing the intricacies of all the departments on their walkie-talkies, talking to Terrence and Jesse between scenes like we were gabbing at a sleepover. 

Getting into it in the office where we shot all the scenes during Week 1.

I also LOVED screaming! I don’t think I have screamed at the top of my lungs since I was a kid. I got to scream, lie, die, give birth, have sex and storm around. I won’t reveal the order, you’ll have to wonder.

Also, I wore Terrence’s Crocs during takes where the camera couldn’t see my heels.

---

HOUSES (2D AND 3D)

This month I finished two house commissions

.

I made a little art studio on my deck so I could appreciate the summer, while being tethered to my apartment, meeting deadlines. I like painting in the sunlight because it gives me a better read on the colors. My apartment is dim in the afternoon, and I never paint at night because my ceiling lighting is very orange-y. One day I will get better lamps, but in the meantime...

Speaking of houses, I also made four more out of cardboard! Here is the littlest one:

A purple sneak peek.

The cardboard houses are for a web series I wrote, which the wonderful Will Sonheim is directing. We had our first shoot day this month as well. Relatedly, I went into a smoke shop for the first time and bought herbal cigarettes. I am rebellious and unknowable.

I’ll share more about this web series as we complete it. I’m excited.

---

THE DAYS ARE NOT BALANCED BUT MAYBE THE YEAR WILL BE

Boy, I’ve been swinging between all-consuming projects. I spent the first half of July turning my apartment into a cardboard workshop, squatting on the floor with a hot glue gun, a dull exacto knife, and a rotation of rulers while Frances slept nearby on a pillow. Then the second half was totally occupied with filming, whispering my lines on the train, Divvy’ing to set all over the South and West side, splashing coffee at every speed bump. All the while, shoving as much disposable time as possible into my freelance writing contracts.

When I picture the ideal life, especially ~My Sabbatical~, I imagine balanced days. Writing for a couple hours, making/producing for a couple, then relaxing in the evening. This has never happened to me. As I scrubbed fake blood off my calf in an Uber on my way to the Den, to stand backstage and hand Audrey her wigs during her solo show which I directed, I thought: huh, I’m stretched a little thin.

Audrey, post-puffer fish explosion.

But this seems to be how it goes. And I wonder if rather than resisting it, I can accept that swinging from project to project, getting consumed and slightly crushed by each in it’s own way, is balance in the long run. Sometimes I won’t write much because I need to make cardboard houses and sometimes I won’t draw at all because I’m filming a movie. But over the course of the year, or five years, I’ll end up doing it all.

Hmmm. Is this a beatific, grand, zoom-out way of looking at life, or is it justification for running myself ragged over and over again?

And now I’m in the airport in Munich, heading into five weeks of travel– an even mix of resting, performing, and exploring. I was fretting a bit to my boyfriend last night because I haven’t been writing much, which feels wrong. But I feel so exhausted from filming and preparing to leave that I don’t want to task myself with another project, to make my brain rack focus on something new.

So, I’m not going to. I’m going to head into this chunk of my sabbatical with no specific goals.

When I went to the Netherlands in May, I was loosey-goosey about what I was going to work on, but I did have the intention to work on something. I bolstered that by putting a big list in the front of my notebook of things I’d like to write, outline, flesh out, polish, etc.

This time around, Europe Part II, I’m going to follow the ebb and flow of my interests and not swing right into a new thing. Maybe I won’t write at all. I mentioned this to TWWS (the Wonderful Will Sonheim) and he called it “crop rotation.”

Yes! Fallow field August, please.

Wow, this is such a long-winded way to say: I need to chill.

chillfully,

Claire