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by Michael D. Sellers
One event in my life I’ll never forget is when, while living in the Philippines in 1994, I got hold of the July 24, 1994 edition of Time Magazine. Here’s the cover: 
I still remember how, for me at least, the internet at that point was something I only kind of dimly understood. I was still faxing and hadn’t really made the transition, and didn’t fully understand it — but that edition of time opened my eyes and made it clear to me that the internet was going to change everything going forward, and I changed my own habits and ways of doing business accordingly.
So when I came across the current edition of Time entitled “10 Ideas That Are Changing the World — What’s Next 2008″ I settled in with the magazine to read it very carefully. And I was rewarded right away with Idea #1, “Common Wealth”, written by Jeffrey Sachs who is the head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Keep in mind that the core thing I’ve been struggling with at WeEarth is how to make WeEarth be rooted in environmental awareness but also make it larger than that — make it be about how we are all connected. This has been a delicate balancing act and one that is not always easy to articulate. Sachs, in this article which Time is putting out there as the #1 Idea that is changing the world, says it for me better than I have been able to so far. This is very exciting.
by Michael D. Sellers
The three days since I got back from the Bahamas have gone by in a blur, and I apologize for not blogging on Wednesday and Thursday. I’ve just been going nonstop from 5:30 AM each day……but it’s Friday now and one thing I will try to really always do is put out a Friday end-of-week wrapup, especially if I’ve been at all light in my blogging during the week. Read the rest of this entry »
by Michael D. Sellers
The three days since I got back from the Bahamas have gone by in a blur, and I apologize for not blogging on Wednesday and Thursday. I’ve just been going nonstop from 5:30 AM each day……but it’s Friday now and one thing I will try to really always do is put out a Friday end-of-week wrapup, especially if I’ve been at all light in my blogging during the week.
WeEarth
The level of intensity of the WeEarth enterprise right now is almost as high as being in the middle of a film production. And in this I’m not even referring to the WeEarth site that’s visible now — this is about the “real deal” final full-on WeEarth that is being developed offline in the background, and which, when it launches on Earth Day (April 22nd), will combine all the functions of webzine/portal, social network, ecommerce, and video hosting. There are essentially three legs to the WeEarth development group — our team here in-house, the Stir Communications Team, and the Onesite team. To facilitate communication we have everyone on an “extranet” and there are over 100 messages, comments, file uploads, etc happening every day and at least 2-3 conference calls a day. I am very proud of our team in pulling this together, and am very excited about the prospects. Here is a screen grab which gives you a sense of how the “real deal” site is shaping up (click on the image to see it full sized)
by Michael D. Sellers
Last stop on our trip to the Bahamas was to screen Eye of the Dolphin for the townspeople of Smith’s Point — the tiny town that is featured in the film. We set it up outdoors just outside the town hall and almos everyone in the town was there. It was a great evening and set the stage for the next film.
by Michael Sellers
Quick notes is all I have time for…..we’re off an running in fifteen minutes:
Yesterday was another long and fruitful day. We did crew interviews all morning and are finding some good local crew — more than were available the first time. We feel we have found at least a half dozen whom we can hire but we still have to bring quite a large contingent from the US. We are committed as part of our effort to help develop the film industry here to use Bahamians whenever we can.
Mid-day, we took another trip down to Smith’s Point where we met with 93 year old “Ma Flo”, the matriarch of the town. She was in good health and spirits, and “held court” with us sitting in a circle around her for half an hour.
In the afternoon we spent 3 hours going over the budget line by line, making adjustments and identifying areas that need more attention.
Late afternoon it was back to Smith’s Point where we made a great find — a house for Hawk and family that is much better and more convenient than the one we had last time. (The one last time was not actually in Smith’s Point – it was in a place called Barbary Beach which is a 25 minute drive from Smith’s Point and is very difficult from a number of perspectives.) This house has a terrific, interesting interior that is very suitable for Hawk and family so that’s a major box that is now checked.
We also looked at half a dozen other houses in Smith’s Point and nearby areas — possible crew housing and office space.
Last stop before coming back to Port Lucaya was to look at boats — we saw three that are being proposed.
And finally back to Port Lucya in time for dinner with Chris Herrod, who played the attorney in Eye of the Dolphin and is a native of Nassau, and some of the marine department from Pirates of the Carribbean and Sea Wolf, a German film that is shooting here in April.
Here are some pix from yesterday:
by Michael D. Sellers
We spent the morning at UNEXSO, re-familiarizing ourselves with the surroundings and planning out which of the areas we will be wanting to use. It was great to be back with our dolphin friends — all are doing well and the two “babies” — Bryland and Salvatore — have grown up now and are big enough to be getting into scrapes with the adult males. We had a nice long opportunity to talk with head trainer Veronica Cucurrullo, and we’ll be meeting tomorrow morning with Marc Bauman, the overall COO of UNEXSO. (Veronica is head of Dolphin Experience, but UNEXSO has other divisions — regular diving, shark dives and research, etc.)
I’ve posted my photos from this morning at the following URL: UNEXSO Photos 4.12
That’s it for now. Lunch break is over. More later today or tomorrow morning.
by Michael D. Sellers
A long and very productive day yesterday — and now a huge one looming today so I’ll have to jam through this pretty quickly.
LOCATIONS
We spent three hours at UNEXSO and were able to nail down a number of location issues. A major one concerns the need this time around to depict a Navy dolphin facility that is theoretically on another island. We had to figure out how to use a section of the UNEXSO facility that we’ve never shown before and, with a little help from minor set construction and digital effects, make it look like an entirely different facility. We figured it out and this is one major headache that has now been taken care of.
We also spent a great deal two hours in Smith’s Point during the afternoon and had one major find — a rundown abandoned Elk’s Lodge that we can use for our studio set for the underwater lab. This is a big find on a number of levels. First, it’s a steal, price-wise, because we can have it for free as long as we are putting in minor improvements to it. Secondly, it gives us a “cover set” right in Smith’s Point so that any time it rains, we can just go there and shoot scenes from the overall load of lab scenes. That’s a luxury we didn’t have at all last time. And finally, by finding this site in Smith’s Point, it increases the number of things we’re doing there and that in turn helps our program to try and have a positive economic impact there. The more work we do in Smith’s Point — the more the crew will eat there, have a few cold beers after work — all of it putting money into the town.
Later in the afternoon we went over across the island to West End where there is something that I really wanted to put in the first movie, and still want to put in this one.
UNEXSO DISCUSSIONS
We also had discussions with UNEXSO head dolphin trainer Veronica Cucurrullo concerning the training issues — these were “get started” conversations and there will be many more while we’re here.
FISH FRY
We ended the day at the Smith’s Point Fish Fry…….the pix of this speak louder than anything I can say. It was pretty much a full house at all the Smith’s Point homes and restaurants that do the fish fry. More than 2,000 people in all were there — all shapes and sizes……
by Michael D. Sellers
Susan Johnson and I arrived last night and we’re off and running this morning to Smith’s Point, UNEXSO, other locations, as well as looking for crew accomodation, meeting some boat owners and marine suppliers. I will provide a more substantive update later at the end of the day. In the meantime … I’ll upload a few pix from last night and my beach hike just after dawn this morning.
(In Part 1 of this post, we left off at 3am on the morning of the first day of filming of Umiyak Pati Langit, a Filipino film that was my first feature film as a producer. My 50% partner had just driven away after telling me that his money hadn’t come in and he was dropping out, and as he was driving off my girlfriend, 9 months pregnant, informed me that her water had just broken.)
Filming Begins
There are times in life when the ridiculousness of what is going wrong rises to a level where you just have to shake your head and grimly hang on. This was one such a moment. Read the rest of this entry »
Once a decade or so a movie comes along that is so outrageously dumb and filled with folly that the idea pops into your head–could this be the worst movie of all time? 10,000 BC is such a movie. At a minimum its among the most unforgivably dumb movies of all time, if not the ‘worst’. It’s not just that it’s dumb–it’s consistently mindless on a grand scale, in fact it so far out there that the one way it could have saved itself would have been to wink a little bit, add a bit of humor instead of a certain kind of pathological earnestness that seems to say “We think we’re making something wise and wonderful here”, in so doing undermining it even further. Read the rest of this entry »
