With this post, I’m happy to announce the end of Hand Held Hollywood’s summer hiatus. I call it a ‘hiatus‘ to make it seem as if my absence was planned, which in fact, it wasn’t. The truth is, I am just now catching my breath after the events of a very turbulent summer. Here are a few highlights:
I wrote a book called Hand Held Hollywood’s Filmmaking with the iPad & iPhone! It will be hitting bookstore shelves, real and virtual, in a little over a week (makes a swell holiday gift for your fellow filmmakers). The process was intensely challenging (and time-consuming), but the book turned out even better than I’d hoped. I’m excited, and nervous, about sharing it with the world. More details to come.
- I produced a feature documentary called Spinning Plates! It’s about three extraordinary restaurants (including Alinea, the #1 restaurant in North America) and the incredible people who make them what they are. The film recently premiered at the Austin Film Festival, and then played at the Naples Film Festival a few weeks later. It won the Audience Award at both! Sweet! Spinning Plates will soon be coming to a Landmark theater near you. In the meantime, check out the clip embedded at the bottom of this post. You can also find the film on Facebook, or follow the film on Twitter.
- I was hospitalized with a mystery ailment! Ok, this one wasn’t really a ‘highlight.’ Hours after I finished giving an HHH presentation to the Los Angeles Post Production Group, I wound up in the emergency room. I was minutes away from an appendectomy when a skilled radiologist determined the real issue — a rare, painful, temporary, and ultimately harmless abdominal issue that didn’t require surgery (just a boatload of painkillers). Hooray! Just another reason to welcome our future robot overlords and our eventual transition to android bodies.
On a more serious note, I also lost someone very close to me during this time — a strong woman who is largely responsible for my path as a filmmaker (she put an 8mm film camera in my hand when I was four years old). She will be missed.
While these past 6 months were rife with challenges, both personal and professional, it seems the dust is finally settling. Thank goodness. Now I can get back to what’s truly important — making thinly veiled fart jokes while excitedly posting about iOS filmmaking. It’s a blast! See what I did there?
Now, here’s that clip I promised.
