Making a Movie!

The mystery project is revealed-- We're making a movie!

I mentioned it a few months ago, but now we're actually doing it. My family is entering a short film contest at the library called "Quiet on the Set!" We started filming on Saturday, and we got lots of great footage at the library.  My mom is the main character in our film, and a friend from church agreed to be the dreamy librarian, who imagines my mom as characters in the books she checks out. So my mom got to be a scientist (hence the chemistry), a detective (wearing a trench coat), a cowgirl, and a spacewoman (what the white gloves were for)! We made the books shown in the last post, one for each of the aforementioned characters. 

We had to have one scene where all of these characters are in the same shot, so we needed a few stand-ins to pretend to be my mom. I ended up being the scientist for that scene. I don't know if I'll show up at all in the film, but it was fun anyway. :)

Honest Abe watched us the whole time. I believe he thought we were quite entertaining.

We spent four and a half hours at the library, but we still have a lot of filming to do. The finished product has to be less than five minutes, including credits and such. And the deadline to enter is July 15th, so we have less than a month to finish it. *Gulp*

Here's a picture of the cast and crew:

The Mystery Project...

Here are some snapshots of what my family is doing today:

Spray painting a pair of gloves white-ish...

...a little chemistry...

...and some light reading!

How are all these things connected?  For mystery like this, I had to break out my trusty trench coat. (Which is also related to the other things, by the way)

So, what do you think we're doing? 

Cute Chicks (the fuzzy kind)

My mom's new chickens arrived yesterday! They're only about three days old, but they already know everything a chicken needs to survive- it's embedded in their fuzzy brains. Isn't God amazing? His handiwork is evident in even the tiniest birdies.

No, we're NOT going to eat them. 

More Math

I finally finished reading that horrid article about Algebra, and then I moved to Algeria.

I'd love to dive into some of my other projects (like editing my novel, building a treehouse,altered booking, making a movie, etc...) but since I'm apparently graduating this year, my mom has proclaimed that I need to finish Geometry. *gulp* 

Since it is on my list of Big, Fun, Scary Adventures for 2009, I really can't complain. I just need to change the deadline from the end of the year to the end of June. Bother. It's not impossible --I only have ten lessons left-- but it means I can't do much else. 

Once I finish Geometry, I'll be free to study what I'm interested in, and though my high school days will officially be over, I'll continue learning till the day I die. But not in college. 

But that's another story...

Big Ideas, Big Books

Early in the year, I mentioned my big, fun, scary adventures for 2009, but now I think it's time for an update.  They're all pretty big goals, and I haven't completed any of them. Yet.

Ahem.

The first one on my list is READ THE ENCYCLOPEDIA. Most people ask me, "What? Are you crazy?"

Yup. 

It was really fun for the first few months. I took notes on interesting subjects that started with "A," and I Amazed my family with my Astoundingly Accurate knowledge of Articles from Aardvarks to Alfalfa.  Unfortunately, then I hit Algebra. Ouch.

But I'm still working on it, and though I don't think I'll finish reading the entire set of volumes in four years, I'm optimistic that I can do it in at least twenty.  Maybe twenty-five years. Fifty, max.

Meanwhile, maybe you can help me solve for a.

Summing-up Script Frenzy

Well, I did it. I completed my first screenplay on April 30th with 104 pages. Not only did I learn how to format a screenplay, but I learned a lot about persistence, plot, and wombats. Yes, wombats.

I did no planning whatsoever, which resulted in a wild adventure, both for me and my characters. An interesting allegory began to appear, which surprised me, because though I am a believer in Jesus, I've never attempted to put the full Truth of the Bible in a fiction story.  I guess all those books I've been reading are rubbing off on me-- Dragons in Our Midst, Binding of the Blade, The Door Within, The Restorer, etc.

The allegory was only one of the unexpected aspects that turned up. My main characters started out as quirky and comic-bookish, but as the month went on, they began to grow and mature into people with deep and painful secrets, and they revealed strong moral convictions.  All very astonishing when I don't even know what's going to happen next!

But, despite all these wonderful gems I discovered, I know this is one rough story. I may take my newly-developed characters and put them in a future novel someday, but my Script Frenzy manuscript will hide away on my laptop for now, while I turn my attention to bigger projects...

Script Frenzy!

The funny thing is, I wasn't planning on writing a script in April. I have no idea what I'm doing. I always thought it would be cool to do Script Frenzy, another of those crazy Office of Letters and Light programs (like NaNoWriMo, for example), but I didn't think I would do it THIS year. It just happened that I recently found out about a short film contest that Minnesota libraries are having, and I decided that I wanted to enter. 

The only problem was, I didn't have a script.

So, I decided to take the leap and do Script Frenzy. I'm starting with a "practice" script, a crazy, seat-of-the-pants adventure about an 18-year-old girl who is named, strangely enough, Author Gal. *cough* I'm learning how to format a screenplay, and waiting until I have more information about the contest before I start my REAL project-- "Secrets at the Library." More on this later...