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Well today is the first day of classes after Thanksgiving break. I'm a little fried and wish I had more time. The costume fitting for "355" was productive, and it looks like things are going to look great when they're finished. We finished the production trailer, and if you're interested in seeing it (and you're an executive for a major motion picture company) just send me an email.

I bought JonKline.com when the domain expired, at some point this blog will be moved to that domain. You'll also see my reel, as that comes together. I've got so many domains I don't know when I'll ever get to making content for them all. The resource site for p2 drivers and utilities has been doing very well, with major traffic coming from search engines. It's my first real resource site and it's doing as well as I'd hoped.

Killing don't take much feeling.
- Redcloak

My IMDb page has been getting a little action lately, now that my credit for The Tailor is up. Alveraz didn't like the one color palette I used for about 75% of the movie, which means I have to retime a bunch of footage. It's going to delay things a bit. At least I don't have much from Signal Fire on my plate right now. With our shoot for December pushed back, I just have to sit tight and take a few pictures.

I'm wondering what effect the writer's guild strike has had on the productivity of America. I know I haven't been watching as much Comedy Central as I used to. The ratings are just starting to shake up as shows are going off the air. In a few weeks we'll be almost completely out of original prime time programming. Scary!

I'm so tired of hearing everyone go on and on about which high-def format is going to end up on top, and invariably comparing it to the VHS/Betamax war. Do your research, people. It doesn't matter who has the porn industry, who has the larger capacity, who has the cheaper manufacturing costs, or who has the backing of what studio. Both HDDVD and BD are 12cm discs. That's what's going to change the playing field in 2008.

Let's look for a minute at a more recent format war, the DVD-R vs. DVD+R showdown that ended in consumer ambivalence. Any DVD player you can buy today supports multiple formats. Any respectable new disc writer can use at least DVD-R and DVD+R, and most can even write to DVD-RAM. Don't forget, all these drives can also play your old-school CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, and just about anything shiny and circular since laserdisc.

"But Jon, licensing costs, proprietary technologies, different lasers, studio pressure, disc capacity, or [insert random excuse here] will force the industry to pick a side." B.S. There are plenty of junk electronics companies like Sanyo and ILO that will cobble together HD-DVD and BluRay set-top players, and it's not going to be long before they realize that:

1. Economies of scale mean that the blue laser will become cheaper, and

2. The same hardware will eventually be used to play back both discs.

For a few pennies per unit, the manufacturers will be able to provide the capability to play back both disc formats in a single unit.

Why didn't this happen with VHS and Beta? VHS and Beta cassettes are different sizes, have different tape widths, play back at different speeds, stripe data at a different angle, and are relatively mechanical playback devices. There are very few parts you could take from a Beta deck and add to a VHS deck. In any optical disc system, the majority of the parts are interchangable. The biggest difference is the wavelength of the laser. As blue lasers become ever-cheaper, even CD player manufacturers could consider using them in high-end devices.

So yes, this year, someone may win the high definition battle...but the war will be won by the 12cm optical disc and its ubiquity.

"Six Bullets" was accepted to another film festival, the B-Movie Festival in Syracuse, NY. This is the most prestigious B-Movie festival in the world, and only seven short films were accepted this year. I'm very proud and it's our most notable accomplishment yet. We also just got a Six Bullets IMDB page and I got my own IMDB page. Very good for my ego, and I'm told it's a great resume booster to be listed. Hopefully I'll have credit for "The Tailor" pretty soon.

That's four film festivals so far, and we're almost completely done. If we get lucky we'll find distribution, and if not, "Six Bullets" is probably going to go somewhere dark to die.

Next week, Thursday July 19th, Graham and Steve will be on "The Morning Blend", the morning show in Milwaukee on channel 4. I booked it for them, and I'm feeling pretty proud about it. I was really hoping for another opportunity but nobody else wanted to pick it up. I'll have to try again next week.

We did get our press release into Google news search, so if you're bored, you can go to news.google.com and put "Six Bullets" in the box. I'm hoping we'll get a little extra internet traffic from the news.

We just got the news that "Six Bullets" is the official selection of not one, but two festivals so far. I could go on and on, but most of the juicy details are in the press release.

Of course, thanks to everybody who believed that I could actually shoot a movie that could get some national attention. I'm going to see about clearing my schedule and heading to Houston for our WORLD PREMIERE!

Earlier this week I finished the electronic beast I began. It is a fully-integrated 2.4GHz video receiver and 7" Philips monitor, running from a single power supply. I also created a power supply for the transmitter so we can power the unit from batteries instead of wall current. The total budget for my project was about $100, which is amazing considering that an equivalent solution could have cost five times as much. The system even works through walls and over more than 100 feet. I'm looking forward to taking it out for field testing next month!

Our production meeting with the actors went very well. With most of the contracts signed, we're looking forward to having the paperwork behind us and enjoying the brief moments before things really get started.

My Associate's Degree only took me nine and a half years!

I just finished the exam on the last class I need for my Associate's Degree. It feels wonderful, although I'm a little nervous about starting at UW-Oshkosh in the fall.

Well the time has come for me to do more work on the Signal Fire Films website, and it was high time I made a blog entry as well. I'll try to keep you up-to-date on the technical considerations going into this project. Graham will be giving you information on the artistic side. If we get lucky, we might even get Sean to blog about producing this beast of cinema.

The cost per minute of 6 Bullets was roughly $800. Our early budgets for 355 come in at under $200 each minute.

The last two months have seen me finishing my parts of the budget, overseeing some script revisions, and experimenting with some technical projects. To cut corners in the budget I've got some ideas for non-traditional lighting equipment and a fancy wireless video monitor that I should be able to get working for under $150, with luck working in my favor.