Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Here we are at the last day of the year. I’ve been getting a lot of grief for being so slow about blogging. I’ve had the hardest time trying to decide what to blog about. I used to blog a lot about independent filmmaking, animation and education. But, if you follow this blog, you already know how all of that turned out. So much of what has occurred in the last year has altered my life phenomenally. Some days, I hardly recognize my life anymore. It’s a funny thing to have happen in midlife. Sometimes I laugh because I think, heck, I didn’t have to have a mid-life crisis .. a crisis decided to have me. Total cataclysm. Force majeure. I’m quite certain 2008 will be quite transformational.

Alec went back to New York City today. He wanted to spend New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple. His flight got into JFK at 5:03 so he and Pacino and the rest of the gang will have plenty of time to get to the party. They’ve got a hotel room in SoHo (where he works) so the festivities should be well contained. I recall many wild and crazy New Year’s Eves in my past so I want him to have fun … safely.

My friend, Elisa, came to town over the weekend. We were talking about how different his life would be since he’d had this time in NYC. He says he loves it there. On February 15, it will be two years. Amazing since he just turned 20. I could never have done what he did. He had never been to the city when we sent him — with a one-way ticket and ten days in a B&B — to take a class, find a sublet and try something new. Seriously. We sent an 18-year-old boy to NYC alone and somehow believed he could figure it out. It was a little bumpy for a while but he figured it out and now he really likes life in the city. He also loves his work. He is still doing post-production, motion graphics … the thing he learned in his animation and film production classes at MCC. Another irony, to be sure.

As the year closes, I look back at all we accomplished and I feel quite happy and amazed. The films. First edit and second edit complete. Meetings with distributors. Working on the fine cut now. We also wrote the script for COYOTE — a nice, tight script. Now, we’re getting another script ready (one that I am so excited about, I can hardly contain myself) that for now has the titles AN EXAMINED LIFE or TWO LADIES — depending on what mood either of us happen to be in for the day — a story that I’m sworn to secrecy on. So, while preparing things for the hearings (I could write a couple of books about that experience), we kept doing our creative work. So, I feel quite good about that.

Today, Pamela Jo and I were discussing New Year’s Resolutions. She said she didn’t make them. That New Year’s Day was just an arbitrary, humanly-defined day of change. She said that anything that wasn’t in already in motion probably couldn’t manifest in the new year. So, I agree and disagree with her (what a shock). It is true that it is an arbitrary day but anything that helps to encourage commitment to change and growth has to be good. And, we do already have all of those things in motion so they have the possibility of unfolding in the coming year. Out with the old, I say, and in with the new. Starting right now.