I played hooky from work yesterday. Shhh - don't tell anybody. The previous day had been so soul destroying that I couldn't face going in. I'd spent the day slaving over some hot computer code that I'm not even sure anyone is interested in. But that wasn't the reason it had been soul destroying - it was more that I hadn't spoken to a soul all day long. In general, my job does require a lot of isolation. And that's exactly the wrong kind of job for me.

Anyway, I'm still here at home this morning, as you can see, although I am eventually going to go into work. I thought I'd jot down a few words about the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and the movies I've seen so far. As usual, quite a mixed bag. With each year, I'm getting better at reading between the lines of the festival program, and, as a result, I'm seeing fewer weak movies than I used to. (Reading between the lines of this journal entry you can assume that I'm no longer going to see movies just because it looks like there's a cute guy in the movie.)

My first movie was a collection of shorts on Saturday. Really, none of them leapt off the screen for me. Which, on the one hand, is good, since it's exactly the program we'll try to get our short movie into next year. It looks like all you basically have to do is show up with a movie, and it gets in the program. One thing I did get from the program, though, was a list of "not to do's" for our shoot next week.

On Sunday, I saw something you're not likely to see any time at your local cineplex: a Norwegian documentary about somebody's transvestite father. It was beautifully filmed, using a mix of black-and-white film and rich color, with moments of surreal fantasy thrown in (like a shot of the father dancing with his transvestite-self). But what was astounding was the self-honesty, revealed not only by the father, but also by his intellectual, insightful wife, who likes to go shopping with him while he's made up as a woman. In some ways, the movie felt more like a Bergman movie: the distinctive vocal cadences of Northern Europe, and the soulful, searching interpersonal dialogue.

The movie I saw on Monday is still sticking in my head. Although it had tons of serious problems (awful sound quality, poor picture quality, and a weak ending), it had an extremely strong story to make up for it, as well as strong performances from two of the lead actors. The story was so nuanced: about a young guy pretending to be someone he wasn't, and about another guy buying into that, even though he himself was pretending to be someone else too. It was filmed in digital video, with the super wide screen split into three separate views of the same scene, filmed from three different cameras. Although that technique was interesting, I'm not sure that it really helped the movie. Too often, I found myself trying to figure out how the director hid the three cameras from each other's viewpoints.

Last night I saw what was undoubtedly the finest movie so far, in terms of pure production values: "Food of Love." Unfortunately, there was precious little emotional truth to the story, and more than a few people left before the end. I have to say that the only reason I stayed until the end was because of the beguiling eyelashes of the lead actor, young Kevin Bishop.

The director was sitting in the audience, and at every moment of excrutiating falseness, I looked down at him and wondered if he was cringing too. I'd guess not. I mean, if he thought it was a weak movie, I'm guessing he wouldn't sit with us in the audience. You can't help wondering how so many weak movies get made. But actually, when you think about it, there's no mystery. There are so many egos involved in move production. Once a movie starts going off the rails, its very difficult to save it, because it would take everybody involved in the movie sitting down and admitting that they'd wasted weeks going in the wrong direction. And people find it hard to be truthful. I'm seeing that even with our little movie. You want to be honest about how you feel about some aspect of the production. But at the same time, you have to continue working with each other, and so you're unwilling to be completely frank in case you piss them off.

Of course, I'm wondering, does our little movie have emotional truth? Or will people look at it and cringe? The truth is that I don't know, yet. I think some of this will come out this evening during our first rehearsal. I slept poorly last night, because the rehearsals were so much on my mind. I have this idea that I want to slow down the dialogue, and have the actors have a strong idea in their mind about every individual word of dialogue. I want the camera to see what's going on inside each charactor's mind as they speak. I have no idea if this will work or not. It could all come across as being a collage of disconnected "Moments".

The contrast between the soulless work in my office, and the rich work on the movie is so strong in my mind right now. Yesterday, playing hooky from the office, I spent the day either working on the script, or going round to art and photo shops picking up stuff for the shoot. Since I've been in the business world for most of my career, I've never had the feeling of myself as an "artist", although I've always envied other creative people. Now that I'm finally involved in the creative arts, I like that picture of myself. Very much. The problem is, of course, that you can't pay for your apartment with that nice happy picture of yourself as an artist. Nor can you buy motion-picture equipment. That's the crux. How the hell can I break out of the 9-to-5 and inhabit the creative world full-time?