Cerebral Flotsam And Jetsam - My Mental Maelstrom

13
Feb
2004
20:23

Dude. The Darkness.

One of my lovely Valentines gifts was “Permission To Land” by The Darkness, which I had listened to, and wanted ever since.
The Darkness so totally rocks. You’ll simultaneously be laughing your arse off and wondering if this band is a joke, but at the same time you’ll be rocking out to some kick ass songs. You’ll also start saying “arse” if you don’t already. They’re like a mystery in an enigma, in a paradox, wrapped in a tasty tortilla.
We’re going to see them here in Austin in April.

09
Feb
2004
20:33

That’s a wrap!

So we had our last day of filming on Friday night. It went well, and I’m excited to be done. Now onto editing. I think our movie will be lacking a bit in the visual/production areas, but I’m happy with the material and most of the performances (I really hate watching myself, which is a bad trait to have as an actor). Hopefully the humor will outshine the amateur look of the film due to lack of equipment, people and budget.
I read about how to get some great lighting for very little money. Unfortunately, this was a few days after we had finished shooting. More and more, I’m wondering if writing is really what I should do, mores than acting. Then again, feedback on my screenplay has been almost non-existent, which naturally makes me paranoid as I think that everyone just wants to avoid the subject so they don’t have to lie or else tell me how much they think it sucks, even though I genuinely want honest opinions. Oh well, I like it, and I’m really the only person who really has to live with it. I already have ideas for some more projects to film. Hopefully you’ll see some video content appearing on my website as I complete projects!

08
Feb
2004
21:52

Brain waste for sale.

My cousin and I come up with so many great ideas. If only someone would purchase them and do something with them.
First off, the new Mario Kart game should have been called “Mario Speedwagon”.
Secondly, someone needs to open a restaurant called “Suppernova”.
Also, PC-ness aside, there’s Hitler’s U-boat Sandwiches.
Give us a few minutes. We’ll have many more. We’re frickin’ machines.

31
Jan
2004
19:06

Keeping Austin Weird, Part Deux

We had our second day of filming today and it went great. The morning started with what I knew would be one of the most difficult scenes to shoot. To complicate things, I was supposed to have 2 “men in black” who were parodying the Agents in The Matrix, and one didn’t show up. I quickly initiated my backup idea of using the one guy in both roles and trying to splice it together later to have him playing against himself. After filming all the complicated scenes to make this work, the second actor called me and had only just seen the email. He rushed down, and we filmed it all again with the both of them to avoid the editing headaches later.
After running a bit late on that shoot, we ran around town during our lunch break, gathering up props and such that we needed, and grabbing a quick drive through lunch. The second two shoots of the day went amazingly well, as I suspected they would. We had a great scene with a long coordinated sequence which we shot in one continuous take. It went great. Giant thanks to Andrew Fraser who came on board as Director of Photography and Camera Operator. We could not do this without him there. Also Big thanks to Dan Eggleston, who not only runs the Yahoo mailing group where I got a lot of my cast and crew. He also came by and played a small role for me, and hung out on the other two shoots of the day taking a buttload of pictures! Very cool! Thanks Dan! He was very covert too. I had no idea that he had taken that many pics throughout the day.
The one big snafu was that at the end of the day we realized that we had forgotten to shoot the last line of the entire film. Doh! We quickly re-thought it and came up with a solution that I think will work excellently.
One more day of shooting either next week, or the week after, and we’re done filming! Then it’s on to editing.

19
Jan
2004
20:41

Action!

My cousin and I did our first day of filming on Saturday. We decided to start out easy, since we weren’t sure what we were doing, so we set out to film several Austin landmarks for the opening credits. I luckily figured the camera out fairly quickly, and found that all the experience I had picked up from my crew work came in handy. I had picked up many little tidbits about operating Mini-DV cameras, what settings to use, and various other little pointers that had osmosized into my brain. We ended up getting some really great looking shots. I was quite happy.
Then I put out a call for cast and crew on a local E-mail list that is and extremely popular and widespread tool here in Austin. There’s something like 3500 members on it. After being deluged with headshots and resum�s, I started casting. It was weird to be on the other side of that scenario. Normally I’m the one sending in my info and hoping to be called. I also felt a bit bad having to be the bad guy and not being able to use everyone, or deleting someone’s E-mail because they just didn’t have the “look” I was going for in my head. However overall I’m quite enjoying being the captain of the ship and making my very own project as opposed to trying to get onto other people’s projects.
If all goes as planned, we will shoot our first actual scenes this Saturday! This train is a rolling, baby! Let’s just hope I can keep laying the track down in time!

17
Jan
2004
9:45

Kinetoscopic Wonderment.

Long time, no update, eh?
So I’m about to embark upon my first film making endeavor. My cousin works for the computer science department of the University of Texas, and his department decided to create the “Kinetoscopic Wonderment Festival”. Anyone can submit a 10 minute or less short film into the festival as long as there is someone affiliated with UT on the team. I whipped up a script based on the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan that’s popular here, and we’re going out to scout some locations and possibly film some opening establishing shots today. The deadline is in March, and we probably will only really be able to film on Saturdays, so we gotta get a move on!
In addition to writing, I’ll also be directing and starring in it. Jess will also be starring in it, as will my cousin, some of my actor friends, and anyone else I cast for the various other roles. I already have various bits of music I had recorded for other purposes that will work great as soundtrack music. I’m excited and nervous as I really have no idea what the hell I’m doing. Well I do, but I don’t. At this point, I’m just hoping we actually get through it and end up with a cool finished film.
My world domination plan continues.

30
Dec
2003
9:13

Da na na na na naaa…

I say it’s my birthday! [/beatles]
Well it was, on December 28, and a good one it was. A small groups of my good friends and I gathered at the Hard Rock caf� and had good fun just talking, eating and laughing. I got some cool booty too! Jess got me this thing that I’d had endless fun with in Sharper Image. You hum in it like a kazoo but your voice comes out sounding like either a Sax, Tuba, or Clarinet depending on the setting. It also has backbeats you can turn on to jam with. This goes well with the little toy accordion I got for Christmas. We spent X-mas with me figuring out various songs, and Jess and Casey, my cousin, trying to name the tune I was fumbling to figure out. I eventually got the Spongebob Squarepants theme, One of the Lord of the Rings songs, and a few Weird Al Yankovic tunes down.
Back to my birthday, Jess also gave me the coolest page-a-day calendar ever. Each day has a new origami project, and you use the previous days page to fold it! Very cool. My friend Nathan gave one of those cool glass static electricity discs. It’s currently among the stuff decorating my space at work.
Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes!

19
Dec
2003
21:45

My latest geeky find; spam filtering for Outlook

I have been using Popfile with Outlook Express for a long time now. Basically, Popfile allows you to set up “buckets” and then filter mail into them. For example you could have the buckets “mail”, “spam”, “work related”, and “family” to filter emails that fall into those categories. It’s totally customizable, and you can configure buckets for anything you want. It uses “Baysean filtering” to intelligently learn what mail goes into what bucket. If it gets something incorrect, you reclassify it, and it learns. I found it to keep a roughly 98% accuracy after it’s initial learning curve. Very cool.
Well in my recent email client experimenting I decided to give Outlook a closer look instead of Outlook express. One reason was that I could use Pocket Mirror to sync my Palm Vx PDA up with Outlook, thus keeping my addresses and calendar easily synced up between the two. I was thrilled to find Outclass. Which adds this functionality into Outlook. You still have to install Popfile, but that’s it. You don’t run or configure Popfile at all, just merely have it installed. Outclass then takes over and does everything natively within Outlook, including adding buttons to the tool bar to easily reclassify mail and access settings and such. I’ll still be keeping an eye on Mozilla Thunderbird, but for the moment, Outlook, along with Pocket Mirror, Popfile, and Outclass, has definitely taken over as my mail client.

19
Dec
2003
18:05

No time for blogging!

So tired. I’m not used to this working crap. So I spent the week training for my new job doing phone support for lottery ticket machines. All in all it doesn’t seem like too bad of a job, but I’m not jumping for joy either, except for the fact that we once again have money. I’m just so frustrated at the whole job thing. It sucks so bad that so many of us have to do something we’d really rather not do, only because we have to survive. More than anything I just want a job even somewhat related to something I love. I can’t think of any job in the entertainment industry that I don’t think I would love. It’s amazing how you can do the exact same job in two different industries, and you may hate it in one instance, but love it in the other merely because it’s related to something you feel passionate about. I feel like I have so many varied talents that could be put to use, but all the things I do aren’t things you can just apply for. I have friends who are movie and sitcom writers, Creative Executives, game level designers, TV/Film crew positions, and so many others. I would kill to be able to pay the bills doing something vaguely creative, or interesting, or just in the general field. So once again, I find myself gainfully employed, yet tired all the time with seemingly no time for anything else but a job that I do only because I have bills to pay. I try to remain an optimistic and happy cheery person, but as of late I find it so hard. I feel so much urgency in getting to where I want to go. I feel like I’ve wasted too much time already and now I’m trapped. Sometimes I feel a bit cheated by life and wonder why fortune has not smiled upon me as it may have on others who may not even really appreciate it or feel the passion for what they’ve been given. Sometimes I feel I deserve more. I always realize afterwords how silly and selfish that sounds, but never the less, I feel like this undiscovered treasure packed so densely with potential that may never be discovered. I just wish that everyone, not just me, could make a living doing something remotely related to their inner passions or interests. Grrrr! Frustration!
I would happily move just about anywhere if an opportunity presented itself. I think I may resume what I call my “Lottery Ticket” technique. This is where I write letters to celebrities I admire hoping that my words will be infused with enough magic to perhaps sway them into taking a chance on me and giving me a job of some sort. Production Assistant, Personal Assistant, Secretary, Creative Consultant, whatever. I’m not picky. Anything. I know Mike Judge is a local here in Austin. I love his work. If anyone has his address, let me know. Robert Rodriguez is a local too, as well as Sandra Bullock sometimes. If you see them, give them my information. I think I’m going slightly mad. er…madder. Well, mad in the not cool and fun way. Damn you life! Where are my just rewards! Cough ’em up!

14
Dec
2003
10:46

Whoa. Employment.

So I start a new job on Monday working for G-Tech. Basically I will be doing tech support for lottery machines in many states (the machines that they run your bubbled in lottery card through after you fill it out). Supposedly this is a really great company to work for, so we shall see. While I am a bit scared of re-joining the workforce, I am also excited to perhaps not have to live a life of poverty and financial emergency any more. The only real downside is that, being a support center, I could work a shift anywhere between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. 7 days a week, 365 days a year including holidays.
Also on the job front, I had a second interview this week with a video game company! If I got that job I would be doing support for several video games! Even better, there’s no phone support, only email, chat, and in game support so part of my job would be to play games and be available for support within that game. Very good opportunity, and a cool job, BUT they’re open 24/7/365, so shifts generally rotate every three months so no one gets permanently stuck with a crappy shift. Never the less, it could be a very cool job if it comes through.
We’ll just have to see how my artistic pursuits can co-habitate with either one of these jobs, unfortunately. So, again, I have quite the mix of trepidation and elation. I’m trying to concentrate on the good. MONEY! Besides, once I sell my screenplay for millions, and direct and star in it, I’m home free. [blind optimism]

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