Hot Samadhi! I just started blogging again over at My Samadhi is Hot with post entitled, “100 Days of Practice” that talks about a practice vow I’ve recently undertaken. Read about that here and subscribe to hear more about my process and experience over the 100 days.

Love is Under Me. As usual, I continue writing and posting poems on my poetry site, Love is Under Me. If you’re new to that site, you can start with reader’s favorite poems and you can subscribe to get updates.

New Film. I recently wrote and directed a short film for my good friend, Lindsey Wilkinson who did an amazing job editing the film. Her first time, which is so hard to believe. It was shot for a class she took and had to be 5 minutes or less. “Tension of Immanence”. Watch below:

Love’s Invitation from Ryan Oelke on Vimeo.

This weekend I shot my first short film with an amazing team of talented friends for the Boulder Shoot Out Festival. The film, “Love’s Invitation”, placed in the Top Ten and I won the award for Best Screenplay. I am so very honored and grateful to everyone on the team and everyone who gave feedback on the screenplay. A few quick notes about the film:

• It was shot in 24 hours!
• There was NO EDITING. You had to do “in-camera” editing, which basically means – shoot a scene, keep it or rewind the tape, shoot it again, move to the next scene!
• We had to use 5 out of 11 possible items in our film, which we didn’t find out until the start of the 24 hours.
• Had to be 7 minutes or less, including title and credits.
• We didn’t do any post on the audio except the music and the voiceover.

Even without mentioning those parameters, I love our film as is. I hope you do too.

Credits:

Written by Ryan Oelke

Directed by Ryan Oelke, Jason Digges

Cinematography by Jason Lange

Starring: Stuart Davis, Hokai Sobol

Cameos by Sharon Rebek, Ryan Oelke, Abby Bader

Music by Stuart Davis

Boom by Charles Gammill
Sound Design by Ryan Oelke
Production Assistants - Lindsey Wilkinson, Seth Harris
Titles and Credits by Abby Bader
Special Thanks to Chelsea Brady

Other details on the festival: you can only do in-camera editing, which really means NO editing. And that means you have to shoot every scene sequentially. Once you have the scene, you move on to the next. No going back to redo, no fixing it in post, no multiple takes. We have from 6pm on Friday to 6pm on Saturday to shoot a short film no longer than 7 minutes.

The awesome crew includes:

Directing: Jason Digges and I

Cinematography, In-Camera Editing: Jason Lange and Jason Digges

Production Assistant: Lindsey Wilkinson

Boom: Charles Gammill

Unemployment
In the past I might have thought about unemployment as this completely horrible, depressing, and degrading experience. Completely the opposite for me. I was happy to receive the government’s help:) It allowed me a period of reflection and redirecting in my life. Falling Fruit’s “failure” was just the opportunity I needed to clear the way and see who I am and what I want to do. I’m an artist, not a business person. I want to create art, film and music. Had I not had some pressure free space to realize that, I might still be pushing on in less meaningful way.

Freelancing
I also had the opportunity to venture out as a freelancer, which also suits me much, much more than working a regular 9-5 job. ugh! I’ll take the rewards and challenges of freelancing without hesitation. I spent the summer and unemployment creating PowerUp Productions, setting up my studio, and creating the foundations to be successful. Got a fair amount of gigs in audio, including freelance content editing for Sounds True, thanks to my buddy, Vince. My studio has been on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder and is now at the loving and exciting home of Boulder Integral.

Sex, God, Rock ‘n Roll
This is THE most exciting development of 2008 for me and it ranks up as one of the best experiences of my life. I’ll actually dedicate several posts to my experience, but here’s a brief wrap-up: I was brought on as a Producer for Stuart Davis’s live TV show, Sex, God, Rock ‘n Roll. In addition to generally producing the show with Jason Lange and Jason Digges, I headed up the live elements of the show and was the sound mixer for post-production, which we just wrapped up. The show is on it’s way to Hollywood to be shopped to cable networks (and we’re already getting great responses). It will also be distributed on our shiny new website that will launch this month. It was an absolute blessing to work with Stuart and all of the crew. Wonderful and amazing experience.

Buddhist Geeks
Buddhist Geeks has done nothing but continue to grow and we have the most amazing listeners. We cracked 40,000 downloads this year, each month breaking the previous month’s record. We also started to live-stream our interviews, video and audio, which our hardcore listeners seem to really enjoy. Look for some exciting and new developments this year.

Contemplative Practice
Well, this has been pretty much shitty sauce:P However, there was one important discovery I made, thanks again to my awesome friend, Vince. I realized that in my solitary retreat two years ago I hit the dark night. Basically, it left me not very interested or motivated in contemplative practice or study, but I had no idea way. I now have a much better understanding and a renewed motivation to continue on the path.

Health
Overall, kind of weak. I did 75% complete the 12-week Strength for Life program, but I wasn’t able to go at the intensity I hped for and I let things drop (consciously) after I finished. Really looking forward to 2009 as a great year for my health.

Film Study and Experience
I’m extremely pleased with the development my film abilities and experience in only 6 months since directing my life towards this. In addition to being a Producer and Sound Mixer for SGRR, I spent a good deal time developing foundational skills in film, primarily screenwriting.

Experience is the best teacher for arts, in my opinion, and my goal has been to gain some knowledge and understanding through study, and then to put it into lots and lots of practice. Written a few sketches, filmed one. Read Story by Robert McKee, perhaps the best book on screenwriting and storytelling. Also studied a bit from a few other screenwriting books. Read some from Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics, as well as The Ultimate Filmmaker’s Guide to Short Films, both great books.

I’ll be sharing my 2009 goals in an upcoming post….after I figure them out:)

Recently I wrote a post about the new design of this site and its reflection of my new career focus. Well, turns out I was part mixing up terminology and part needing more time to get completely clear about things. So, now you can see that I have changed the tagline on the site and rewritten the about page.

Ryan Oelke is an aspiring film director and screenwriter.

Currently he is collaborating with a film crew to shoot and complete a short film each month for one year. They will also be participating in Shootout Boulder, a 24 hour film competition in October 2008. During this time Ryan is directing and writing many of the short films. You can view them on this site.

I realized how deeply I am moved to create art and I am drawn into film through directing and screenwriting. Producers do get to be involved in some of the creative process, but they are most logistical coordinators. While I have learned over the years how to handle that side of things, it is completely life draining for me. Creating art gives me life. Film in particular pulls on so many of my passions, talents, and abilities. It’s the first path, aside from meditation, that I feel comfortable giving long days and hours to. I could write a book on how much insight I’ve developed over the last two months, but that’ll just have to come in small posts over time:)

I’m excited to both share my process in developing as a director and a screenwriter, as well as all the projects I work on. Last weekend I completed my first shoot that I directed and wrote for a contest. We should have the final cut before the week is over.