1/18 was my anniversary, so I didn't get much done with anything relating to Heist.

James and I had a great talk the other night about the film. He's fully on board, which I'd hoped for.

He's recommended that rather than shooting on the DVX 100A, we shoot on the Panasonic HVX200. Based on what I've read thus far, it sounds like a great idea. I do have that book on the DVX coming in, but I'm guessing that there'll be a decent percentage of the information that will hold true for the HVX - we'll see. I'll also very likely use the DVX on other projects, so its not like ordering the book was a total waste of money.

The only thing that's unclear at this point is what the rental rates will be. If you were to extrapolate based on the cost of the camera, it seems as though it may (at least initially) end up in the 250-300/day range, nearly twice that of the DVX, but it may be worth it.

I've had a couple of people read my draft in progress of Heist so that I could get some early impressions. The general comment is that it's good, and leaves people wanting more. Great, I'm on a good track, maybe. The ultimate test (the Mitch test) will be the real wake up call.

One comment that I heard today was that it was good, they were left wanting more, but there wasn't anyone that was "likeable" yet. I can remember having felt the same way about Vincent Vega and his cohort Jules in the first 30 or so minutes of Pulp Fiction. I thought they were funny interesting characters and I liked them for that reason, but they didn't really have me cheering for them. It was more like I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I was disappointed when Vincent was shot by Butch only because I thought that was the last we'd see of him and his antics with Jules. It was great when he was brought back for "The Bonnie Situation"...

I was talking with someone regarding script review and they were saying that they had someone locally that would read for them. I asked if the reviewer had ever sold anything or had any of their work produced, to which they replied no.. I was later thinking that while its good that they're at least having the script read by someone else, I still think its better if you can find a writer that's either sold something or had something produced by a real studio to do your final reviews. Not that they're always going to have the best (or even the right) advice, but I think they may be more likely to have a better sense of what's a good idea or not than someone that's never sold anything... I mean, would you have someone that's only practiced doing brain surgery on cadavers remove your tumor? Perhaps that's an extreme example, but you get the idea.. :)