My life be like...

It's good, that's for sure. I lost sight of it all the time, but yep, there it is when I bother myself to actually look.

I filmed a MOVIE this past weekend. Yes, my friends. It was an honest-to-goodness short film. How do you differ between a home movie and our awesomeness of a film? Regard the list:

• We had a camera that's actually HD and not crappy and uses little tapes
• We had a boom (a BOOM, I tell you!) and external sound equipment which sounds SO nice
• We hired actors (we didn't pay them, but they weren't just, say, my mom) and they actually came
• We didn't know the actors before they came (except one, but that was a change in plans--more on that later)
• I bought lunch for my workers and did not send them home to get lunch, or tell them to bring lunch
• We had an actual location, not just my house
• I was working with a director! AAAAH!

And on the list goes! It was such an experience, and I never want to forget it. I usually get so stressed out about these things. I even forget to breathe properly (if you want to reference an old post of mine) and hyperventilate. This time it was different. I think it was because I had an awesome, most splendid director who has been a part of/worked on the crew of what I define as REAL films before. She was so helpful, and I'd like to think we helped each other, too.

Filming was crazy, of course. The actor we hired (whom we didn't know) came to location, found the doors locked (she was supposed to call us to have us let her in, cause we were there) and turned around and went home. This would be fine, except for she lived an hour away. We didn't have a cell phone number with which to contact her, and by the time we did the runaround through my director's mom to get it, she was 45 minutes away. And she couldn't come back.

MAJOR setback! We had location and an actor for this ONE DAY. Our other actor wasn't coming. Solution? Get your friend who was supposed to do continuity for the day to play the part! Crazy lines memorization and lots of frenzy ensues.

It worked out well, though, and the director and I were really surprised at HOW well. It was one of those instances where we were basically, "God, this is yours. We give it to you; it'll work out the way you want it to."

I loved filming, every minute. Being a producer this time around was great. Five hours filming for a five minute film was great. And doing post production this week? That is and will be great too.

I'd love prayers anyhow, though! This is a big business, it is, it is!

-Tina, Producer extraordinaire! :D

If I die young

What if I did? You know, I can say that "I could die tomorrow", but it never hits home for real. What if I was just gone? I'm only seventeen, and death seems so far away from me, like it's reserved for the old. I don't really think about it.

"If I die young,

Bury me in satin,

Lay me down on a bed of roses.

Sink me in the river

At dawn,

Send me away with the words

of a love song"

Life is precious. Strange, but I barely ever think of that life as extending after death. Yes, I believe that life should be preserved here on earth and that the right that babies and impaired people have to life should be protected. Yet death-- it's not so bad, is it? When you die, it's not a state of being. It's like a tunnel. Once your body dies, you-- not those around you-- will go through that door and I think that it won't be a long, extended ordeal. You'll go into a new state of being, a different kind of life.

"Lord, make me a rainbow;

I'll shine down on my mother"

I'm not obsessed with death, as you may have concluded from seeing that this and my last post are concerned with it. I've just heard a song by The Band Perry written from the perspective of one who could die and am reading a thought-provoking book called Choosing to See about how death affects those left behind. These things bring it more into my mind; the idea that I could be gone from here soon.

Gone. What if I was never on earth any more? I don't suppose I would mind, if I was in Heaven. The real question is if I think I've lived well and completely for God; if I would go to Heaven. Those who are Protestant, don't think I'm depressed about this. I'm trusting in God totally here. I'm not drawing it up that my works are the only things that give me my salvation. I believe that God had given me the way to get to Heaven by his death and it's my day-to-day living that presents me with choices, over and over, on whether to accept his gift or not.

What a gift. Yet if I die, did I truly do my best to accept it? I'd like to think so, but thinking of dying young makes me believe that every day counts. I want to live my life to the fullest and be completely for my God so that I'll get to Heaven and be filled as full of joy as possible. You know, people seem to say alot that if they knew such-and-so was going to die, they would have lived differently. I want to live differently today. It's gonna be hard, but I'm going to try anyways.

"Well, I've had just enough time"

-Tina