Welcome to or back to the Daughter of Godcast, episode 011. Dan Kelly here with the whispers from the wonderful, hints and portents, the handbook for humanity masquerading as a podcast about movie making. This probably has already got you rocked back in your control consoles, but buckle up, there's a worm hole ahead.

Dorothy Gale walks out of her aunt and uncle's house post twister and from a black and white world she emerges into another dimension, color. We'll here we go, upping the dimensionality of the Daughter of Godcast. We're now offering both an audio and video version! (Available 11-11-16)

This is a big step. I was recording Daughter of Godcast in my studio's sound booth, where I do voice acting and narration, for other podcasts like StarshipSofa or Clarkesworld. Kind of a cool environment, isolated, dark and very quiet, except when there's a cricket invasion. The crickets! That was the clue, 10 weeks back. If am narrating a story about traveling to a distant galaxy for a science fiction podcast, crickets kinda break the suspension of disbelief. But Daughter of Godcast doesn't require carefully controlled conditions. In fact, the actual conditions here and now are relevant to the story! They are fun. So I am moving the recording out of the booth and into the various other creation spaces.

So another new dimension is not only being able to see me, but to peek at the places where much of the magic happens. A remote studio tour, every week! Yay!

For me this means my life is even more available, more public. But hell, why not? I'm an artist, and artists create for fun and to share. So now I'll be creating even more, my life will be an almost constant act of creation. Isn't that the point folks? Shouldn't we all be deliberately creating our bliss, doesn't bliss for all beings sound lovely? Rather than just accepting some arbitrary default? Especially if the default is anything short of stellar?

When I was a kid, I used to wish for things to be better, but eventually I stopped believing that I could have what I wanted. Feeling that way made me want to not want. Because I thought, what's the point? Frustrating to want things and just know I'm never going to have them.

Ever since  I found this magic crystal sphere hidden in a remote irish cave, this crystal sphere that grants all my wishes, oh wait, this one reverses the aging process. This one grants all my wishes. I always get them mixed up. Anyway, ever since I found THIS crystal sphere, I know that I can have whatever I really want, eventually. I just have to hold this crystal sphere in my left, no wait right hand AND decide to feel the way I am going to feel when I have whatever it is I want. and poof, eventually whatever I want with all my heart shows up.

Now, this is MY magic crystal sphere, so I don't know what you're going to do about living your dreams. That's not my problem. I don't recommend you come to my house and try to steal this sphere from me because I know kung fu and own a lot of guns. Plus a crack crew of valkyries, wind gods, water nymphs, uplifted field mice and other uncommon allies you just don't want to fuck around with. You've just got to find your own sphere, or ring or staff or whatever. Enchanted tiara. Or you could just try feeling great for no reason. As if you knew all your desires or something even better were for sure coming true. Like the entire universe is itching to be of service.

Anyway, watch and see how I pull this expanded sharing off, and with the project momentum continuing to snowball, we'll share some full living together. Getting virtuosic at playing the human game. This world wants more wizards!

Episode 011 Time Travel Efficacy

In episode 010, I initiated a time travel experiment, drifting back in memory to whisper in my own ear. The text and audio of episode 010 appears to be just as I remember from last week. I have not yet equipped the fabrication studio with a temporal isolation vault, so we won't be able to publish the results in Nature this time around. I'm asserting episode 010 didn't change because I'm still talking about the time travel experiment outlined there, otherwise I'd be talking about how much my actors and make-up artist napped on location, they were like the ninja warriors of napping. At least they WERE ninja warriors of napping in that previous timeline.

So now we look for evidence to back up Ann's version from 008 - that the production was frenzied, I was burning with over wrought intensity, the cast and crew were gritting their teeth at my frantic directorial style. If my time traveling caper was a success, then we're won't find much evidence of all that, because we'll have slid over to another timeline.

Y'all with me? Promise I won't go into more theory, I can already hear snoring from the cheap seats.

So based on the episode 008 narrative of inexperienced director, scheduling and staff constraints, here's the scenario we would have expected to find...

With no time to waste, the plucky Daughter of God team immediately started production, unpacked the vans, gathered incidentals from local merchants, deployed gear, set an ambitious shooting schedule and bam! Roll camera, speed, action!

That's not quite what happened.

After checking the accounting records, watching the performances and the out takes and reviewing other artifacts of that long ago, here's what the evidence shows.

I lollygagged. I gestated. I pondered.

So, if you've been following along, that means the time travel thingy... worked. Look, I was fully in accord with Ann's version back in episode 008. I admit not really remembering the cast grousing to her, but my being a 100 watt bulb burning at 240 made perfect sense. We were late to the location, we had lost a member of our tiny crew... of course I would have been harried and stressed. Plus I've been building up that drama since episode 005.

Now that I've tinkered with the timeline, the current artifacts indicate another history entirely. The grooviest bit about this time travel technique is the altered artifacts are presaged by a consistent chain of causality. In other words, not only did the results change, but it's totally obvious why they did.

For a seasoned director and full crew ten days is a long time to pull off 10 pages of screenplay in just two rooms.

I was an experienced visual artist and cinematographer. Also an experienced actor. I was fully aware that I was an inexperienced director. My directorial debut was designed with leeway to learn while doing, to adapt my existing skills. I wanted to be able to take my time, to experiment and play.

Yes, we started getting ready,  but I was assimilating the scope of challenges for the first 4 days, I didn't even attempt to get usable dialogue takes until 5 days after arrival. 5 days! The crew was getting a bit antsy wondering when we would actually start shooting.

VO Here's the first test shot and run through in Christina's cabin 5 days after we arrived, we were doing full costume takes later that day.

I scheduled more time than I needed.

I had anticipated doing most of the technical work myself. After two years documenting live performance in NYC, I knew how to light and shoot competently, record sound and set up / breakdown quickly and efficiently.

People can bring energy to a project but they also take energy to manage. Back then, I hadn't yet learned how to optimize that formula. I had the habit of letting people suck up my cognitive space. Too many people would drag down my autonomy and nimbleness. I did reach out and recruit, but once I had a couple of other raging polymaths on board, I was satisfied.

I brought a tiny crew on purpose.

Inexperienced directors are often advised to surround themselves with expertise. I preferred to surround myself with amazing problem solvers who resonated with me, rather than experts who might not.

In a distant incarnation, I developed experiential software for hands on museum exhibits, or games. Way before I became competent writing my own code, I had collaborated with other coders. As the technical experts, they would often tell me this or that idea was impractical or couldn't be done. This felt frustrating and discouraging. Ultimately a good thing, because I eventually gave up on experts and became a badass coder myself. Guess what? I found there was never anything I couldn't figure out how to do.

The takeaway is best offered as an Einstein quote. "Imagination is more important than knowledge." I love expertise, but I don't let experts define what's possible.

My inexperience was a super power.

Loosing Eiji sucked not so much because he knew how to do critical technical stuff but because he's cool. I wanted his vision and sensibilities. An extra pair of hands for moving things would have been helpful, sure. But, oh well. I taught Melonie the protocol for digital capture and sound monitoring, she's a fast learner. She ran one laptop and I ran the other. When we weren't shooting she was propping and fabricating.

Loosing Eiji just meant my margin of error was reduced. I would be working a slightly more intense schedule and there would be less experimentation. Otherwise, totally doable. Leeway reduced but still extant.

We ended up with just the right number of people.

So, here's a summary of what changed on the big boat production back in April of 2006, after I traveled back in time and tweaked things.

I scheduled more time than I needed.
I brought a tiny crew on purpose.
My inexperience was a super power.
We ended up with just the right number of people.

In this current or to be more precise for those of you who transitioned with me, this remediated timeline, if we rewind back to April of 2006, I had fashioned an ideal environment for making my first featurette. I chugged along at a comfortable pace, was   surrounded by resonating comrades, had all the resources I needed and was feeling capable and confident. Clearly time travel works.

As we explore this tweaked timeline in 012, I'll occasionally point out details that contrast with the left behind overwrought timeline. So enjoying this sweet merging and upgrade of my memories.

We're going to zip this episode up a little early, because we've got a hunk of production theory and practice next week, with luck we'll unpack all the gory details while deftly avoiding spoilers. We've got 5 scenes to do, two with dual cameras and extensive coverage, or multiple angles on the action. A goal I have for next week is to explain some of the intricacies of the process to non-movie makers while keeping the content interesting and relevant to those in the biz.

I didn't get a call from President Donald thanking me for all my hard work duping democrats to vote Green. OR wait, was that President Hillary who didn't phone to thank me for conning conservatives to vote Libertarian. I'm a little mixed up, these two timelines are so tough to tell apart! The results of the US elections are completely out shone by the ineluctable blooming of global compassion and rapport that's a consistent feature of every nearby now, all the timelines in our local bundle are tinted gold with dawning of planetary consciousness. Winslow who didn't set  off a flare in my 2nd grade of St Patricks Parochial School has tagged me as an Orwellian bloviator but I don't presume to take sole credit for this ubiquitous blossoming across the adjacent timelines. Sure Daughter of God may be contributing, but as I've stated before, there are strange attractors all over the planet configuring the freaks, long hairs and ne're do wells into exciting new gestalts.  No matter what boogey man or boogey woman we choose to play the role of national nemesis, as our excuse to feel funky, our wild wonder cannot be blocked for very long. We are the thrive. But you might need a magic crystal sphere. Just find a hidden cave, sunken citadel or non-euclidian temple over grown with kudzu and get in there.

You've been listening to the Daughter of Godcast, Episode 011. You're in on an epic 11 year odyssey of audacious mistakes on the fringes of credibility,  making the movie that made me. And who am I? I am Dan Kelly, writer, director, savory spook, lollygaggist, hologram, stargazer, self navigator. Oh, but you are the listener and ultimate creator, inviting these sound waves into your experience and instantiating another now. With just a smidge of cognition, you've teleported some version of me into your moment. Hello!