OK, not everything is final as we still have to sign contracts and all that jazz, but here's some info on the rest of our cast:

Missy Crider: Missy’s career began as a child when she was named the Young Entertainer of the Year at the Ozark Mountain Music Awards. As a teenager, she earned a role in the mini-series “Lonesome Dove” later followed by an Emmy Award nomination for her acting in the TV movie “Love in the Dark Ages.” Her first feature film, “A Boy Called Hate,” won the Grand Jury prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1997. More recently, Missy appeared in Bill Paxton’s directorial debut “Frailty,” she played the waitress Diana in David Lynch’s enigmatic “Mulholland Dr.” and she had a memorable turn in the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez comedy “Gigli.”

Christopher Stapleton: A former University of Michigan punter with three Rose Bowl rings, Chris is an up-and-coming actor who has played lead roles in a trio of independent feature films – "Aurora," "Black Friday," and "Ides of March," the latter with Michael Madsen. Chris also played the title character in the popular Batman fan film, “The Death of Batman.” In addition to his film work, Chris has worked on numerous television shows, including "The Young and the Restless," "NCIS," "JAG", "According To Jim," "Providence," "Suddenly Susan," and "The X-Files." (www.christopherstapleton.net)

Chris Gann: Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Chris found his first calling when he discovered the sport of jet skiing. His professional career took off and in just 6 years he accumulated two world, five national, and six state jet ski titles. Parlaying his success, Chris went to work for ESPN and Fox Sports Net as a TV show host and from there made the leap into acting. Chris has now counts over 25 television and film credits on his resume. Most notably, he starred in Sony studios “xXx” and reunited with Vin Diesel again this summer while working on “The Pacifier.” In his last film Three Bad Men,” Chris played the lead and co-starred with Academy Award- Winning actor George Kennedy. (www.chrisgann.com)

Missed me, missed me, now you have to kiss me... get that song out of my head. I want it for the credits of the film... Amanda, if you read this, we want to use your song. We love it. It's Tuesday. Just watched Open Water following the recommendations of several friends who watched the special features and thought of us. Husband, wife, make movie on bare-bones crewless budget. Hmmm... No crew... There's an idea... Fire everybody... Of course it took them two and one half years to make their movie. A bit of insanity if I may say so. Apparently his corporate job didn't have quite the vacation time that my friends at Xcel Energy have provided me with. Rock on Xcel Energy! Even if you fired us as the safety family.

I'm ready to get into the nitty gritty details. Find the creative envelope and start pushing to get our little story across. I'm stoked. Crew is filling out nicely. Cast will be too, soon. Tomorrow in fact, according to my Hackett induced deadline. Sounds good to me. Time for a few folks to fish or cut bait. Put up or shut up. Fight the power.

I had a great conversation today with our would-be lead actor. Hopefully he likes what we've put on the table. If not, well... then on to plan B. It's amazing how many plan B's we've had to go through anyway... On nearly everything... Part of the fun I suppose...

Seriously, if you haven't seen nin in concert. You should go. Saw them again this week. I'm getting old though. We only made it through three songs in the pit before it became too distracting to the music and we decided to bail to the outer rim. Nin was also kind enough to put a GarageBand version of their new single on their website. If you like that sort of thing and have a lot of ram, download it and play. It's way cool.

The Dresden Dolls opened (www.dresdendolls.com). They were awesome. Thanks to our teenage neighbors, we now have the cd. It's awesome. This is a band that knows how to entertain. I want their music in my movie. I hope I can afford that...

So much to say... Been so busy lately with the chaos of preproduction... Let's first throw out some props:

Jefferson Arca became the first actor cast in our film. Jefferson rocks. Check out www.jeffersonarca.com

The second official casting was Catherine Sheehan in the role of Emily, the wife. Catherine completely rocks. Check out www.catherinesheehan.com

More casting news to come very very soon.

And, for the first time, I am now officially recognized in the industry. Check out http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1871694/ and see me! Thanks to Mr. Kelsey for getting all the Spotless stuff up. If you have a chance, vote for Spotless. The more votes we get, the better the publicity on the film will be, the more money Steve makes.

There's a backend to imdb called imdbpro and it has a "Starmeter." The Starmeter has some secret formula that ranks all of the people in the imdb database based on pr/searches/films and other proprietary stuff. Right out of the gate, I was ranked 907,119th. Out of everyone in the film industry, ever, I was the 907,119th biggest star. In a week, however, imdb recognized the true power of my rising star, and my current rank is 132,270th. Quite an impressive rise for just one week. So if you're bored, check out imdb and search for me. It will make me a bigger star. My goal is to break the top 100,000 by the end of the year.

On a side note, if you're an actor who has actually done some film work, be sure to get your contact/project info on imdb. Every resume/headshot we see that we have a vague interest in, we imdb. If your credits are fake, we will find out. If your roles are inflated, we will find out. There is no escaping here.

OK, so in watching reels from actors I've discovered something. It's difficult sometimes for me to differentiate between bad acting and bad writing. My advice to those actors out there who are getting started is put something of substance on your reel. If you're going to put theater stuff on your resume, put a clip of that on your reel. As far as short films go, be sure the script you work with is good.

I realize that this is a catch-22. You have to get experience and the only person who will cast you is some geek fresh out of film school who thinks he's Fellini and writes like he's Big Bird. Once you have experience, then you can work with the Steve Mudds and Charlie Kauffmans of the world (ha!).

You know, the world is in such a reality TV craze, that might be a better type of reel. Have your little brother follow you around with a video camera for a couple of days. Show me you. If you're interesting, we can make you a good actor. If you're vacuous, then I really don't want to spend a lot of time with you anyway.

(Note to actors who have sent reels: the criticisms in this blog do not refer to your reel, but another actor's whose reel was much worse than yours.)

Fighting self-imposed arbitrary and capricious deadlines. Killing rednecks. Needing sleep. Must go to bed. Soon. Now. New draft nearly done. Almost. Damn day job.

I finally took the plunge. Bought myself an iBook. I'm enjoying it immensely, especially with the Airport Express thing.

We had some make-up auditions today. Now I have to schedule some callbacks and deal with all of the reels we expect to be seing soon.

We were stranded in Colorado Springs this weekend after our kids' DI function. Had a great time letting the kids run rampant while the adults all drank wine in the lobby. Made some new good friends. Need a 4wd. And a nap. Feel like I'm falling behind on everything. Need to rally the troops. Finish the script. Check my voice mail. Charge the phones. Damn the torpedoes. Slowly but surely. Drop the leash. Get out of my fuckin' face. (Name the song, win a prize.) Off to bed. Happy blizzard.

So after we went the craigslist route, we posted our project on a couple of other sites, www.nowcasting.com and www.actorsaccess.com. Both sites have given us an unbeleivable number of headshots, primarily from the LA area. We have taken a first look through all of these and identified our top candidates. We will be holding auditions in Colorado this weekend. For obvious reasons, we have a preference toward home-grown talent. However, if we don't find what we need locally, we will be determining if we need to come to LA for auditions or figure out an alternate way to audition long-distance - probably have folks videotape auditions for us.

On the location front, we spent Monday and Tueday in Breckenridge and Fairplay scouting. We saw some amazing homes. Without giving away our top choices, we found a number of amazing places from some cool websites: www.paragonlodging.com, www.southparklodging.com, www.vrbo.com, and www.breckvillas.com. If you're looking to rent a home in the mountains, visit one of these guys... As soon as we get the owners' permission, we'll announce the location here.

Yo yo yo. I gotta be throwin' out some props to my homeys as craigslist.com.

We were sittin' around tryin' to figure out how to reach the LA talent market for our casting and a lightbulb went on. loasangeles.craigslist.com. Since we posted, we've been getting about six headshots per hour, yes, one every ten minutes or so. Now if only Campbell Scott or Kevin Bacon read craigslist we're in! Hmmmmm... maybe we should try the NY craigslist too...

Note to our LA friends: Our challenge, as a Denver-based production, is that auditioning you may be difficult. If you have an online reel or an online trailer or a recognizable credit (recognizable to us in flyover country), please tell us about that. We may be asking some of you to send a reel in lieu of being able to meet you in person inexpensively, but please continue sending the headshots first.

Note to my boyz (and ho's) in the Colorado hood: Don't worry about this whole LA thing. We jus chillin' in the hizzy. We know there's talented people here and we're going to use as many of you as we can. Colorado auditions will be scheduled soon, we now have a location.

Peace out.

There I go again. Waiting a whole month before blogging. Damn. Consistency. Momentum. Blah blah blah.

It's snowing here. I'm hoping for a blizzard.

If you signed up to receive Security Threat Film email updates, we've lost your address. Or rather, Edmund lost your address. All of them. Gone without a trace. Damn Edmund. So much for guerilla marketing. Sign up again. We won't let Edmund close to them this time.

The casting ball is rolling. We've sent out feelers to the local agents. If your agent hasn't felt you, you may want a new agent. All I need is a place for auditions and we'll be set on our local folks... Now if we can only get someone who can help us sell this damn project... Or at least someone who can attract some more dollars for our project...

New nin on ktcl tomorrow. I can't wait. We got tickets for the Fillmore. We rock. Out.

All-Star weekend is all around us. The All-Stars are all staying at the Westin downtown, across from my day job. That was cool. I saw Melo, Shaq, LeBron... A whole bunch of the Sophomore team that I didn't recognize. We have an inappropriately acquired room key from the Westin and aren't afraid to use it. At least to get in the lobby of the hotel and have a Starbucks. The same Starbucks that Shaq went to. Maybe I'll also use the same bathroom that some NBA groupie chick will throw up in tonight.

From this whole Westin experience, I now have a new favorite Great White Hope. Of all the players I saw, Chris Anderson, currently of the New Orleans Hornets. I wasn't really paying attention when he played for the Nuggets, but this guy was cool. He actually acted like he liked the crowd in front of the Westin. He actually smiled. Very few of the other players even looked up, heaven forbid acknowledge the crowd. No wonder I didn't recognize them. Always remember the audience.

We also went to the Jam Session thing here today at the Convention Center.

Note to the NBA: lose Build-a-Bear as a freakin' sponsor. There is no connection. None. Not even a tenuous one.

Second note to the NBA: If you're going to have a Celebrity shoot out, have a celebrity or two that people actually know. Now that one guy you had or that other one. And the token local celebrity. Reminds me of a local celebrity golf tournament where they had Jake Jabs as their celebrity. Weak. Very weak.

Third note to the NBA: If you want people to recognize the people that were getting on the bus, have them show up at the Jam Session. Do you understand the brand loyalty you would have created with me and my son if you actually had more than one NBA player signing autographs? Nothing against the WNBA, but who wants a WNBA autograph? Not my son. My daughter would I suppose, but she didn't come today.

Tomorrow, thanks to my good friend Doug, I will be attending the NBA All-Star Game. Watch for me in Row 6. Of section 324.

Wow! What a response. Thanks to everybody who has sent us resumes and reels and stuff. You're all awesome! Some of you may be wondering, what the hell are they doing? I sent my stuff into those bastards days ago and I haven't heard anything. Well, fuck you. Be patient. Everyone will get a response. Please keep in mind that Edmund isn't paid very well and gets a little moody.

Specifically as to where we are, we sat down Sunday and reviewed the various DP reels and websites we've received. We're still getting a trickle of these and are evaluating them as they come in. We've narrowed the original list of 40-50 DPs down to less than 10. We also have some referrals from friends and trusted associates that we may try and contact. We are evaluating the DPs based on feature experience, logisitical ease to work with, artistic compatibility, available equipment, and cost.

On the script side, I've completed a new draft and have that out with some trusted associates to get feedback for one final polish.

We're still looking for that perfect location.

More to come on this, but there is currently a bill in the Colorado House of Representatives that would give film investors a 50% tax credit of their film investment. As a film investor, I can't tell you how excited that makes me. As someone who relies on other film investors, I really can't tell you how happy that makes me. If you know any Colorado legislators, please contact them and have them call me so I can tell them how happy they can make me.

Our notice went out to the CFVA and we have received many many resumes from many many people. For those of you who have wandered far enough into our site to find this blog, thank you for your submission. For those of you who did not make it to this page, screw off.

One important lesson we've learned thus far: the power of saying "I want this job." With so many people to look at and sift through, finding the ones who are applying because they really want to workwith us - and I mean work - is a joy. Thank you for your blind faith.

If you're curious about our process, for the short term we're focusing on requests from DPs, production companies, and people whose resumes blow us away. Everyone else, we will talk to later.

(Crap, that blog wasn't philosophic or clever or anything. Fuck. Today we had our highest number of pageviews ever and all I can come up with is some cheesy "thank you for your submission" bullshit. Sorry.)

There is that point they say where opportunity and preparedness meet. I feel like I'm there today. There are challenges ahead, but I have every confidence they will be overcome. No shread of uncertainty.

Sometimes, you push one button, expecting one door to open, and another one does. Feed the lion, make the tiger happy. It doesn't all make sense, but it does work that way. Pure confidence is the fuel of alchemy.

It's like there's a club. Of smart people. Of achievers. It's like a secret club, but it's not all that secret. It's just that the people who aren't apart of it aren't aware of it. They throw rocks at it, but they don't know what it is. The trick is to find other people in the club, who are aware they're in the club. Who recognize the inanity of it all. Find those people who know that mountains can be moved.

[For an audio copy of this motivational blog, contact Edmund Vest]

What a brilliant day! Thanks to everyone who made this day so brilliant. You know who you are. We may great progress today, receiving resumes, nailing down funding, and interviewing potential crew. All in all, I'm stoked. I hope tomorrow is half as good.

Great birthday party today! Nice girls all the way around.

Drinking, eating, and piano later. I'm going to announce for crew and stuff on craigslist and CASA now. We'll see what develops. I've had a few promising leads on department heads, but not enough to keep me comfortable.

Great week. Lots of meetings. Lunches and the like. Coffee meeting tomorrow.

Saw Troy tonight. What a crock of cinematic shit. Bad writing. Bad acting. Bad directing. Horrible score. Bad editing. I can forgive some things, but not bad writing. Why I put that on my Netflix list, I'll never know. I'm trying to remember if Brad Pitt's been in a really good movie since Fight Club. I don't remember. I spent the whole movie trying to remember who played Agememnon. It was Brian Cox. I recognized the voice, but had forgotten where I heard it. He was great in Adaptation.

Coffee meeting tomorrow, then birthday party, then dinner. Maybe poker later.

Happy to welcome Edmund Vest to the Security Threat Team. Edmund will be writing his own blog soon.

'Night.

We went location scouting this weekend. Found some strong possibilities in Summit County. Lots of stuff happening now. Trying to balance work and film and freelance and family and stuff. I am obsessed. The film is going to happen probably in June. Met some cool people in Keystone. Found some cool houses. I'm going to call the owner of this one particular house tomorrow. We have a lot more leads. Thank you Craigslist.com.

This week should see an email to our investor friends and potential investor friends explaining our current situation, then a press release to whoever we can think of announcing our presence and looking for people. Rock on.

Location scouting

One song in my head. All day. For days. Breathe by Anna Nalick. If you haven't heard it, please visit www.annanalick.com and listen to the song. Buy the CD. We saw Anna open for Ari Hest (www.arihest.com) here in Denver at a little dive bar. Great show. Neither of these performers will be spending much more time in dive bars. Buy the CDs. Now.