I was sitting on the subway typing on my computer (yes, I’m one of those people. It makes a 45-minute long train ride the perfect email response time.) A little kid walked up to me. I later found out that he was named Dylan. He had big wide eyes, was a little bit chubby, and super talkative.

Dylan: How do you TYPE so fast??!
Me: Well, it takes years of practice. I’ve been practicing for many, many years.
Dylan: How many years? Like, since December?
Me: Since.. wow. Since 1990.

His eyes went wide as saucers as he contemplated such an eternity.

Dylan: Wooooow. That’s a LONG TIME!!
Me: Yeah. How old are you?
Dylan: I’m… (he holds up five, and then switches to six, fingers)
Me: Wow, six years old? Cool! You look a lot older!
Dylan’s mom, proudly: Everyone thinks he’s a lot older. He’s the biggest kid in the grade.
Me: Cool! Everyone must look up to you, huh?
Dylan: Yeah they do!
Me: That means you were born in…

It’s at this point that I realize I am having a reasonably intelligent conversation with someone who was born in 2006. I was in college then. I remember (not so long ago) when it was strange to think that there were people alive who don’t remember 9/11.

Me: …2006.
Dylan’s mom: Yep, you got it right!
Me: Cool man! What’s your name?
Dylan: Dylan.
Me: I’m Michael.
Dylan: (looks excitedly at mom) his name is Michael!! Now I know three…five Michaels! My cousin Michael, Michael Jackson…
Me: Hey man, this is my stop. Nice meeting you. Take care!
Dylan’s mom: Dylan, let the man off, he’s got to go.
Dylan: Byeeeee! Nice meeting you!

As I walked to the subway door about 10 feet away, I turned back and waved. Dylan, a wide grin on his face, threw his hands up and waved at me. He yelled across the train:

Dylan: I’ll keep practicing!!

Kids. So fucking cute.

(Also..Shabbat Dinner now has a fancy new website. I left out the Under Construction GIF, but you get the idea..)

Image by Mark Grabiner.

Monday, January 30 | 5:30 – 7:00 PM
Jerome Greene Hall, Room 101
435 West 116th Street
New York City

Please join HRI & Rightslink for a panel discussion on the role of film and filmmakers in human rights advocacy. Panelists from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Video Volunteers and FilmAid International will discuss the creative approaches these organizations have taken to human rights advocacy and present clips from their films. We hope that this panel will be the first of a series about innovative approaches to human rights advocacy.

Panelists:
Jennifer Nedbalsky, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Dina Madhani, Video Volunteers, India Unheard
Michael Morgenstern, FilmAid International
April Hayes & Katia Maguire, Independent Filmmakers

Refreshments will be served. Contact hri@law.columbia.edu with questions.

It’s been getting much easier though, because I’ve felt the feeling of reward. Three times over the past few months, I’ve had many-day periods of painful writers block, each time when trying to express something complicated, which ended in several-hour bursts of MiraLax’ed expression, writing that was somehow cogent and fully formed.

Now that I blissfully expect to be sitting in one of those periods, have I thwarted this unconscious process? I’m sure that in theory, expressing complex ideas in narrative form can happen without a feeling of pain. I’m just not sure if I’m there yet.

I’ll keep writing this screenplay, starting over again each day with a blank page and a new plan of attack, and see where it goes. And I’ll let ya know.

I still had faith in American justice. I believed my captors would quickly realize their mistake and let me go. But when I would not give the interrogators the answers they wanted — how could I, when I had done nothing wrong? — they became more and more brutal. I was kept awake for many days straight. I was forced to remain in painful positions for hours at a time. These are things I do not want to write about; I want only to forget.

I went on a hunger strike for two years because no one would tell me why I was being imprisoned. Twice each day my captors would shove a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so they could pour food into me. It was excruciating, but I was innocent and so I kept up my protest.

In 2008, my demand for a fair legal process went all the way to America’s highest court. In a decision that bears my name, the Supreme Court declared that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” It ruled that prisoners like me, no matter how serious the accusations, have a right to a day in court. The Supreme Court recognized a basic truth: the government makes mistakes. And the court said that because “the consequence of error may be detention of persons for the duration of hostilities that may last a generation or more, this is a risk too significant to ignore.”

Five months later, Judge Richard J. Leon, of the Federal District Court in Washington, reviewed all of the reasons offered to justify my imprisonment, including secret information I never saw or heard. The government abandoned its claim of an embassy bomb plot just before the judge could hear it. After the hearing, he ordered the government to free me and four other men who had been arrested in Bosnia.

Everyone had an opinion, from fans to sports writers to radio hosts. Sports Illustrated reported that some people suggested Abdul-Rauf be deported. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was born in Mississippi, however, and deportation from Colorado to Mississippi is rare. Two Denver-area radio hosts even walked into a mosque with a stereo playing the Star Spangled Banner. One was wearing a turban. And a Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf T-shirt. While broadcasting live, on air.

Abdul-Rauf claimed in a 2010 interview with HoopsHype.com that “[a]fter the national anthem fiasco, nobody really wanted to touch me.” He played only three more seasons in the NBA before going overseas to play professionally. In that same interview, he discusses how his home in Mississippi was burned down just a few months prior to Sept. 11. He eventually left the state.

So Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf stood up (or in this case, sat down) for his religious beliefs. He made his religion a visible aspect of his life and a visible aspect of his professional basketball career. Just like Tim Tebow. The difference of course being that Tim Tebow was satirized on “Saturday Night Live.” Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had his home burned down and felt blacklisted from the NBA.

Don’t see it at New World Stages.

Audience reaction was quite mixed the last time

Well, the edit is almost done. The color is quite close. The sound is off and the music is temp, but let’s never mind about that. What matters is that we are 90% done and we need your fresh eyes and ears to finish the job.

January 3, 2012(!) / 9:00pm at my place in the East Village / LES. Email rsvp@mjmfilms.com for the location. We have about 10 spots for this one. And of course, there will be wine!

I’m looking for 1-2 bright, talented interns for the Fall semester to help on a number of projects,including the following: Shabbat Dinner, a short film that is almost completed and is being submitted to film festivals; a short film about dealing with death that is in development; a nonprofit startup web site devoted to improving the lives of those living in refugee camps; and a t-shirt company startup.

The right intern will gain invaluable skills in starting projects and getting results in the media, web, and startup worlds. The internship demands flexibility and creativity, as the scope of the projects is likely to shift. The position is a minimum of 3 days/week and will begin on January 17. End date flexible, but I’d request at least 3 months.

I’m looking forward to seeing what we can create together! Please forward to anybody who you think may be interested, and have them email resumes to michael@everythingiseverything.com

Thanks!

But whatever they know about worldly things, like the rest of us these people have literally no clue about the deeper questions of life. They may be directed and driven, but they don’t know why we are on this planet, what the purpose of existence is. Merely because they invoke in us a sense of wonder does not mean that they are intimate with the wondrous. They, too, experience that fleeting existential vertigo. They, too, lurch from the precipice of the unanswerable. (And they are lying if they say they don’t.)

For the most part I find that comforting. We’re united in our cluelessness.

The worst and most insidious, though, is the idea of some technique or set of techniques as pure and fundamental to making films. “If you don’t use actual film, you’re not really making a movie.” Another one I heard last night, referring to punching in on a 4k image to reframe shots: “It’s cheating.”

Cheating is a funny word in a profession whose goal is to create the illusion of an artificial world that doesn’t actually exist. Cheating implies that using technology to the fullest is lazy and implies poor preparation – that there is something sacred and important about doing things the way they were done by previous generations. But that is not in line with the history of this great medium.

The history of film is the history of the down and dirty hack. Lights can be strung up with duct tape or on professional stands – what matters is only the final work you produce, and in producing that work film is about utilizing all your assets to the fullest. If a new tool makes one thing easy, then use the extra time or money you’ve been given to do something else better.

I love the look of 35mm film, though I rarely want it for my own work. Compared to digital, film to me feels like it sits between the viewer and the characters. It’s a (now expensive) stylistic choice, and if that works for you then do it..but don’t pretend your work is more important or correct from having made that one choice.

I punch into shots when I am editing. I relight scenes in color correction. (You can see a before and after of that here.) I shoot a bunch of takes and roll during rehearsal. Because of this, when a singular acting moment shines through on an actor’s face, I can use it…purity be damned.

Whew! We filmed on November 12-13 and I’ve been editing ever since. We have a good rough cut, and because we are trying to hit some festival deadlines in TWO WEEKS, we’re fast tracking the editing of Shabbat Dinner. This means that we need to lock the picture by the end of this week.

At this stage of the edit (for the next week), your feedback could be incredibly helpful in shaping the film and making it the best it can be. Having fresh eyes and creative responses is what we need to take it to the next level.

We’ll be holding two test screenings of the film – one on Monday (Dec 5th) at 8pm, and one on Wednesday (Dec 7) at 9:30pm – at my apartment in the East Village. We have to limit it to about 12 people per screening. It’s a great opportunity to see how a film evolves through editing. We’ll talk about what works for you and what doesn’t. Oh, and did I mention there will be wine?

To RSVP, send an email to rsvp@mjmfilms.com and you’ll get a reply with the details. If you’re not available let me know and I may be able to make a version available online for screening.

Eye'd love to see you there.

This really just reflects how I feel about myself.

Don’t buy a new computer for the holidays. First try bringing your old one back to the speeds you remember it having!

Even with the beautiful OS that is Mac, the system accumulates a whole bunch of crud and slows down over time. It turns out that there are tons of hidden places that crud builds up, and with a little knowhow you can find it! This is for advanced users only, and thanks to Adam Lewin for making the request that began this list.

1. Uninstall junk that runs in the background – any and all junk. Shouldn’t matter at all how many apps are on your computer, only how many are loading things into the background, so look at that top bar for things that are running.
2. Remove startup items – read these two guides for a rundown.  (there are more than you think you have – google the items and launchdaemons that look suspect and be very careful removing. it’s always better to use a program’s uninstaller to remove these, but this process is especially useful for apps you have uninstalled but are still stuck in there, or updaters…)
3. restart your computer with your install disc, go to utilities -> disk utilities, repair disk and repair permissions (if you dont have install disc follow these instructions.)
4. download Cocktail and run everything you can. Clean the caches too…
5. download Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner and run it all too. Restart whenever asked.
6. Open Font Book, select all the fonts with command-a, right click and choose validate fonts. Delete all fonts with errors, consider removing ones with warnings. (But check the fonts before you do!) Also right click fonts and choose “resolve duplicates”
7. Download Font Finagler 1.5 (link in middle of page, not top) and clear the font cache.
8. If you can bear to do it, get a new profile in firefox.
9. clear icons from the desktop – they can slow down the computer a bit.
10. Or to really clean your computer, create a new user account and start over. To *really* clean your computer, format your hard drive and reinstall.

Good luck, and enjoy your like-new computer in 2012!

Well, thanks to your support, we filmed last weekend over Saturday and Sunday. The shoot went fantastically and I hope to put up some video from it soon, but for now I am steadily editing, editing. I’ve got a rough cut of the first few scenes done and hope to get the whole film broadly edited by the end of the week.

Don’t let that make you think this thing is almost done! After the rough cut, the real work begins. We’ll speak to musicians about scoring the film and refine the edit in conjunction with them. Then comes an advanced, detailed process of sound editing and color work. Especially on a quick and dirty production like the one we’ve done, it benefits a lot from meticulous work done in editing.

We’ll probably be having some test screenings to get feedback on the film – watch this space for an invitation!

Still hoping to have the film done by end of January, at which point we’ll have a premiere party and begin releasing it to festivals. More important than getting it done on time, though, is getting it done right, which we aim to do!

Much love and a happy Thanksgiving. I know what I’m thankful for…

I did, and Kirsten Gillibrand’s mailerbot responded:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for writing to me regarding S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act of 2011.  I understand your concerns.

I am a cosponsor of this legislation because I believe that we must protect American intellectual property against foreign websites that infringe upon our rights.  By empowering the Attorney General of the United States to go after foreign infringing websites, this legislation becomes a necessary tool to ensure that U.S. companies remain competitive in the world marketplace.  I recognize that there are technical concerns with the enforcement of this bill that need to be addressed.  I am committed to working with my colleagues in the United States Senate to ensure that this legislation protects the Constitutional rights of Americans and does not stifle lawful free speech or innovation on the internet.

My response to her:

I don’t think that this will really reach any decision makers, but please understand that the concerns are not technical. Censorship in any form is unacceptable, but the attempts of the US government to censor the internet are beyond appalling and on the wrong side of history. Granting broad and unregulated powers of censorship on the basis of a dubious intellectual property argument is terrible because it opens the floodgates for censorship of all sorts. You will not win out in your quest to control information.

I will vote for anyone who opposes you and actively encourage others, over facebook and twitter if they have not yet been censored, to do the same.

I think that perhaps this email came across as emotional…I assure you that I am a calm, levelheaded person with strong opinions on the subject, and you will find that many others in your consituency feel the same.

Best,
Michael Morgenstern

And I meant it. This is really, really bad and the fact that it might pass very scary. Do something, and for the love of god don’t vote Gillibrand back in if she supports this.

As much as our busy production schedule lets us, we’ll be keeping you up to date on the progress of the film, which will happen fairly rapidly from here. You can follow Michael’s facebook and twitter for quick updates, the kickstarter for production-related updates, or Michael’s blog for detailed updates along with a whole bunch of other junk.

Here’s our timeline:

November 6 - We completed a read-through of the script. We rehearsed with the actors, worked on character and delivery, and did a costume fitting. It was the first time all the actors had a chance to meet each other and it went great.

November 7 – Final draft of the script was completed and circulated to actors.

November 8 - Makeup test with Dan and costume fitting with Eva, who just got back to New York from Chicago

November 9-11 – equipment search and set decoration.

November 12-13 - THE SHOOT! A whirlwind journey through the world of Shabbat Dinner

That’s only half the magic. Then post production begins: editing, sound design, and color correction. By December 1 we will have a rough cut, and a full finished film should be complete by mid-January.

Stay tuned for more updates, and we’re looking forward to sharing the experience with you!

Portrait of Ale and Dina – there’s a lot of things in here.

And since we’ve been kicked out, my friends and I have been pathetically wandering, trying to have a coherent conversation across multiple platforms, email, IM – a conversation that would have been so easy on Reader. We’re holding out for Hivemined, a replacement that is being built (Another one to look into is ridllr,)  and for now we are slogging through with Google+.

For those doing the same, I made some tools to make your reading easier. I’ll go through my Firefox toolbar to show you what I made and what I use. From left to right:

• Subscribe in Reader plugin (download from me) – Now that your friends’ shares are no longer shown in the Reader interface, it’s harder to subscribe to new content. This button loads the first RSS feed of whatever blog or news site you are on and displays it in Reader, allowing you to subscribe. Perfect to build up your subscription lists.
  To use, download the xpi file and then drag it into the Firefox window. If you don’t have Firefox, then drag this link to your bookmark bar: Subscribe in Reader
• Video Downloadhelper (download from Mozilla) – When you are watching video on a site like YouTube, Vimeo, or listening to music on a site like SoundCloud, etc., this icon lights up and lets you download the source file directly. Best way I know to grab YouTube videos or SoundCloud MP3s.
• Share on Facebook plugin (download from me) – Click this to share something directly to Facebook.
  Same usage instructions as Subscribe in Reader plugin above. If you don’t have Firefox, drag this link to your bookmark bar: Share on Facebook
• Share on Google+ plugin (download from me) – Share to Google+. Once you click it, click inside the little box on the page that pops up and you’ll be able to select which circles you want to share it in. I created a “Readers” circle for my old Reader buddies. It seems like it remembers the circles and uses them as defaults for the next time you click the button, but I haven’t tested it enough to be sure.
  Same instructions as above. Here’s the bookmarklet for those without Firefox: Share on Google+
• Send as email (download from Mozilla) – Sometimes I want to share on Facebook or Reader, sometimes I want to email a post. I like having everything together.
• Read It Later (download from ReadItLater) – I love this app, and it’s better than instapaper. Click the yellow arrow in the address bar to add a page to your list of things to read later, which automatically makes it available offline on your computer (by clicking the button at far right) and Android/iPhone. Works flawlessly and is very helpful in queuing articles and closing browser windows.

Credit for the plugins I made goes to the codefisher plugin generator (I had to open the xpi files to tweak the compatibility versions.) Here’s where I got the Reader, Facebook, and Google+ bookmarklets.

Whew! Who knew it was so complicated to read and share things on the internet! God do I miss Reader.