I read recently that making a movie is like making war. At the time I read it - an eternity ago - last week, in fact - I didn't see the analogy. After this weekend, I finally understand at least one reason why the author made such a statement. In both war and movie making, you have to get a large amount of people and equipment to a specific location at a specific time. And you can't afford casualties, since the whole operation is dependent on so many different kinds of skills. In moviemaking, for example, when you have only one day to shoot, you can't afford to lose your costar and Director of Photography just days beforehand. Which is what happened to me. Cecilia lost her voice, and, 9.30 the night before the shoot for my class movie, my camerawoman called up and said she'd twisted her knee and couldn't walk.

So. You have to improvise. One of my classmates agreed to play Cecilia's role, at the last minute, and the Production Assistant (who was going to double as boom-operator) had to take a crash (that is, on-the-set!) course in cinematography, while the First Assistant Director ended up holding the boom microphone for the shoot. We made do, though. We spent five hours filming on Saturday morning, and got it all in the can. Imagine - five hours shooting for a 3 minute short movie!

A still from the movie.

Peter didn't show either, come to think of it. He was due for a 2 second, shirtless flashback scene. So I filmed that on Sunday afternoon, using Jed as a fill-in for Peter.

It's all much more complicated than I even imagined. For example, a large part of the movie consisted of Cecilia teasing Keith (who could that character be based on I wonder) with a photo of a cute guy. She delays giving it to Keith until towards the end. But since you shoot scenes out of order, I'd forgotten to write down for each scene in the shooting script who was supposed to be holding the photo at any one point. It was only when I got home and started to edit the thing on my computer, when I realized that in two scenes, I was holding the photo, even though Cecilia wasn't to give me the photo until a later scene. This is where I had to get very creative, and dabble in special effects.

It's all great fun, though, I must admit. I suppose at some point I'll have to decide what I like most. But, for now, I have the luxury of playing at being director, star, screen-writer, producer and editor. And, to be honest, the hardest impulse I had to restrain, while we were shooting, was wanting to be the cinematographer too!

I had cheapie tickets to the Symphony yesterday afternoon, and went with my friend Jaxon. It was a special performance of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and, since it was open seating for once, and we arrived late, we grabbed front-row seats right under the conductor. I've never understood why these seats are the last to fill in a concert hall. Sure, you receive a distorted mix of sounds, but you also receive the full force of the orchestra, and can pick up on the tiniest nuances in the play of the strings.

The orchestra had certainly set themselves an immense challenge in Mahler's 2nd Symphony. Not only does it call for a massive orchestra, but also two diva soloists, the pipe organ and a 200 person choir. It's a varied work encompassing titanic orchestral convulsions, ethereal moments of bliss, a climax of extreme triumph, and even bucolic Austrian waltzes.

I have a special love for this piece since it's the only classical piece in which I've ever performed in public. I was about twenty years old, studying at the University of London when I heard that another college was performing the work, and that they were very short of chorus members. So I went along to the audition, my only qualification being that I could speak German. Well, I was drafted in, and I, along with two hundred other voices of dubious distinction, performed for one night, yelling out the final "Auferstehen" with gusto.

This performance of the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra, though, was far more accomplished. There were only a few dodgy spots in the high brass and wind. Otherwise it was a tremendously powerful, moving experience, and I spent the last ten minutes in tears. The tears came from many different sources, not just the sheer emotive power of the music alone, though that would be sufficient. Since the finale deals with Christ's ressurection, I also felt a kind of reminiscence of my own days as a born-again Christian, and my own (and it's not easy for me to say this) love of Jesus at the time. Coincidentally, this was round about the same time I was singing the piece with that college choir.

The final component of the emotional mix that brought me to tears was more complicated. It had something to do with the youth of the players, and their struggle to interpret the complicated, extremely adult music of Mahler.

So now it's the Monday morning after an extremely busy and satisfying weekend. And believe it or not, I'm sitting here waiting to be interviewed by the BBC for a documentary. Since the documentary's subject will be a serious look into contemporary mores on nudity and exhibitionism, it's going to be a pretty serious interview with a very serious woman named Joan Bakewell. I confess that I hadn't heard of her, when I was told who the interviewer would be. But I looked her up on the Internet, and, apparently, she's well-known in England, particularly for her program on religious-affairs. I've been told to expect some searching questions.

I just hope that I don't make a complete fool of myself! I'm not at my best when I'm put on the spot like this. I still remember how simply dreadful I was when a CNN reporter accosted me in the street last Fall and filmed my mouth opening and closing wordlessly, somewhat like a big, particularly silly goldfish, after he asked me how I felt about that day's happenings in the electoral recount saga.