June 15, 1996

Spent a lot of the day wandering around with Bill looking for locations in Central Park and Brooklyn. Location hunting is harder in New York than it was in Los Angeles, because we don't have cars here. Our friends Dennis and Roseanne are offering their very pleasant loft apartment as a location, and I think I've decided that the male lead can live in a loft.

As the beginning of the shoot approaches, my anxiety continues to escalate. Which is a sad thing: ideally one should enjoy the process, inasmuch as one wants to do it as a career. I think that I've learned how to enjoy being a director, but I can't distance myself from production worries. The big obstacle now is that we have very little of the crew in place, and are having trouble filling such important positions as sound mixer and gaffer, due to our small budget. There's a lot of film production in New York this summer, and crew and equipment are scarcer than usual. These practical matters sometimes fall together at the last minute, but I haven't got a last-minute temperament. I was one of those jerks who always finished their papers a week ahead of time in college.

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