Hi Everyone,
I just joined the group the other day but haven't received any messages
yet. So I checked the website today and found: "I convinced him to
join the list, but I see I didn't convince him to introduce himself."
"Looks like he's working with INdTV -- that's their streaming Flash
player."

Oops!

So, I'm Michael Verdi. I live in San Antonio, TX and I'm a filmmaker.
I don't make enough money at it to pay the bills so I also freelance as
a editor, motion graphic designer, DVD producer, graphic designer, web
designer, computer consultant - whatever I can get paid for and not
mind doing.

I've been working with video since 1990 when I started using it in my
performance art. From there I moved on to creating stand alone video
pieces - "video paintings" that were literally very slow moving video
versions of paintings that I was making. Soon after that a member of
my theater company asked me to create some video for one of his plays
and we've since worked together on about 12 productions. Working on
these projects is what interested me in creating narrative pieces. So
I produced my first narrative short "The Nosferatu" in 2000. It was an
modern vampire story inspired by the 1922 Nosferatu. It had no
dialogue (not even title cards - nobody talked) and live music
performed at each screening by local musician James Cobb.

The next year I really started on my journey to make feature films. I
started to learn to write and over the last three years I've made four
short films. I figured at that rate, it was going to take me 142 years
to turn myself into a feature film director.

Then last month while I was putting together my application for INdTV
(I did not get the job by the way and the flash player is the standard
one included with Flash), I got excited about filmmaking all over again
and came up with this game to see if I could move things along a little
faster.

So from now until Dec 31, 2005 I'm going to:
1. Write every day like my life depends on it.
2. Write 3 screenplays by the end of 2005.
3. Make a short and post it here every week until the end of 2005.
4. Make a feature film by the end of 2005.
5. Win a film festival by the end of 2005.

Like I say on my website, I've failed at each of these things one at a
time. But my thinking this time is that if I'm serious about writing I
need to do it everyday and If I do that it's possible (not easy but
possible) to write three screenplays in 13 months. I'm doing the
shorts for practice and because they're fun. Somewhere I read "Look at
how good you've gotten at your stupid job just by showing up every
day." So I'm figuring if I show up and write and make shorts, at the
very least, I'll get a lot better. As far as a feature film, I'll just
take the first one I'm working on and film it next summer. Between
that and all of the shorts I'll be making I've got to be able to win
some festival, even if it's local.

That's my story or part of it at least.
Thanks for listening,
Michael