My Blog is Boring

So I just realized that my blog is totally boring. So I'm putting a picture up. This is a picture I took of Jeanie when we went to her grandmother's in Vancouver, WA for Thanksgiving. She's seven months pregnant here.

I may even go back and put pictures on some old posts just to spruce things up.

kthxbye

Super 8 Project Filming

So I did all of the filming for my third super 8 project today. The editing won't be done until January 10th though. That is the day I will submit it to the NW Film Forum for the current film challenge.

I think I wrote about the current challenge before but is case you're lazy and don't want to look at my previous posts -- here's the lowdown. The current film challenge is for bunch of filmmakers to use the same actress in their movies. But it's not actually the same actress it's a pair of identical twins.

So today Cara Stacy came and acted in my project. I was a little nervous about working with someone that I didn't know. I thought she would think my tactics were terrible or that I wasn't organized. That wasn't the case. She was awesome to work with. It was great to have her on set and she gave an amazing performance.

And of course I couldn't have done it without my crew: Mike and Laura from school. The were a tremendous help. Wifey totally helped me out a ton on this one also. And JJ and Alisa for letting us totally disrupt their lives for a day so we could use their apartment.

no iPhone for me

So I was thinking about getting an iPhone. But I didn't because I couldn't use it the way I wanted without re-hacking it every time Apple came out with an update. I even had a chance to get one for $120. (Don't ask how -- it was a special deal.) But it just wasn't worth it. Who wants to buy new technology that you can't use to the fullest? Don't get me wrong, I still love technology but the way some companies present their products sooooo frustrating.

America's Top Anti-Tech Orgs

My favorite blog is boingboing.net. I agree with so many of their opinions about technology. They have so many posts that are the equivalent of the Readers Digest "That's Outrageous" column relating to technology and digital media. I particularly like the article this post refers to. It talks about the top anti-tech organizations.

4. Verizon, AT&T, Progress and Freedom Foundation
Issue: Broadband Penetration...

A study by the Communication Workers of America finds that the average download speed of Internet connections in the U.S. is 1.9 megabits per second. The cost of DSL or cable connections in the U.S. ranges from $15 to $40 per month. Meanwhile, Tokyo residents can buy a 100-mbps connection for the equivalent of $10 per month.

Link to Boing Boing post.
Link to PC world article referenced.

next project

So I've been racking my brains for the last couple of weeks to come up with an idea for my next project. This project will be on super-8 just like the last two.

It turns out that the Northwest Film Forum's film challenge (January 24th) for this quarter is due at almost the same time as my project. So I am going to combine the two efforts.

So that has put a little more pressure on me. The film challenge involves contacting and using a specific experienced actress. So it's cool to have someone experienced but that means they may be impatient with my inexperience.

I finally came up with the idea while in the shower today. It's a much darker theme than my previous two. That's all I'm going to reveal for now so you'll have to come back to watch it when it's done. It will be posted in late January.

Well I'll reveal one more thing. It is a Christmas movie. Which leads to a question I have for you. Do you think it's too late to show a Christmas movie in January? Or should I just go for it?

Will Work For Love

So for my first movie I was very conservative. I took two shots of everything and always ran the camera for 10 seconds to make sure I had a lead in and lead out. For the second one I needed to get a lot more shots. So I only took one take of most things and sometimes ran the camera for much less than 10 seconds.

On my first project the editing was a breeze. On this one it was a nightmare. But it's finished. For now. Later I will probably make another cut--once I can stand to start looking at the footage again. (My all day editing spree Monday really burned me out.)

So here's the movie. For now it sort of turned into a music video. I didn't really want that to happen. So the next cut may have very different music. We'll see what the audience reaction is first. (That means leave comments!!!!) I'm not going to email out the link for this until Friday but those of you who actually check my blog will get an earlier viewing. (I think that means Amin is the only one who will see it early.)

It's called Will Work For Love.

all day editathon

So my second 8mm project is due tomorrow and I put off most of my editing until today. That means that I get to spend the whole day editing. I'm mostly done with the video. (It's 4pm.) Now comes the sound, my least favorite part. I think the sound is so hard for me because I want it a certain way but I can't compose it myself. So I end up spending tons of time looking for the perfect song that I never find.

This project has been particularly difficult for me also. I had major camera failure that caused me to miss some shots that I wanted. I totally forgot to get a shot that was pretty important. And the whole project is my backup idea anyways. (I couldn't do the movie that I had originally planned because of location problems.) These factors contribute to me not being very motivated to work on this project.

But I have no choice. It must be done. So I'll just keep working on it. If you're lucky I'll post the finished product tomorrow.

new compy

I am currently posting this message on my new iMac. Yeah buddy! Wifey and I were talking about how we needed a new computer for work. We are planning on purchasing the Adobe CS3 design edition soon and poor little minimac definitely isn't up for that. Plus we are both working freelance right now and our computer times have been conflicting. But no more.

I have one of the fancy new apple keyboards also. I read a couple of reviews on it that weren't too flattering but so far I really like it. And of course I finally have a mighty mouse. Who can resist cracking a little smile when they are reminded that their optical input device is named after a cartoon superhero? (Seriously tell me who.)

I named my computer iPenguin. Mostly because I've been into penguins lately. Not happy foot penguins with political agendas--oh no. I'm talking about penguin logos on my clothes and cool graphic penguins. (I say cool but Wifey would say cute -- I'll let you decide which adjective you prefer.)

I noticed that there is a feature in the network settings (I'm running Leopard) that allows remote users to see and potentially control the desktop. That may be cool. I'll let you know once I figure out how to use it.

Volunteering II

I'm back at the Northwest Film Forum volunteering again. Today I didn't have to do any manual labor. I spent most of my time searching the web for the aspect ratio of the movies that will be showing here in the next 3 months.

I also answered a lot more phone calls today. The answering isn't the tricky part -- its knowing what to do once you've answered that gets me. Once I remember everyone's name it will be a lot easier. In the meantime I just shout out whoever the phone is for and hope they say something.

I also tried (for the first time) to transfer a call to someone's voice mail. I failed. You wouldn't think it would be hard. I followed the instructions they gave me and it didn't work. It's a good thing I went to school for 5 years to get an engineering degree. I guess I should have taken the "Phone Systems" class. Signals and Systems is not helping me here at all. (I'm joking here but you never know--there could be a phone systems class at a community college.)

preview

Here's a little preview of my upcoming movie:



I'm still in the rough cut stage of the editing but I thought you might like a little taste of what's coming.

This will be my second super 8 project for school. I'm going to have to do some creative editing on this one. There were some shots I just didn't have enough film to get, some I didn't get because of camera failure, and one I didn't get because I forgot.

Well I didn't completely forget. We rehearsed the scene. Then I realized that I didn't have enough film left on the cartridge that was in the camera. So I put the shot off to get some shorter shots with the remaining film. Then I forgot to come back and get the shot when I put in the next cartridge. (Doh!)

24 Hour Fitness helps facilitate identity theft

So a few weeks ago my wife joined 24 hours fitness. They gave her a free guest pass with her membership. So she asked me to come swimming with her.

Before she joined I had done a little research and found out that 24 Hour fitness employees will quite often put pressure on you to join when you use free passes. So I was prepared for that.

Sure enough they called a "membership counselor" as soon as we got to the front desk. I was already irritated by this when wifey calmly told them we were just there to swim and that I wasn't interested in joining.

To my surprise there were cool with that and let us go. But they did manage to upset me in a way I wasn't expecting. They had me fill out a form with all my personal info. I didn't like that. But I didn't say anything because I wanted to be able to spend some time working out with wifey.

Then they asked for my ID. That was a bit much. So I asked "why do you need to see my ID?"

"So we can make sure you're you."

(Now of course this question begs to be asked -- What if I wasn't me? Would I not be able to use the free guest pass? Or what if I was someone else pretending to be me?)

So I gave them my ID. Then they photocopied it! As you can imagine this really made me mad. If I wasn't looking forward to the workout with wifey I would have demanded the photocopy and my ID and left. As it was I had to let it slide.

So now I have to trust that 24 Hour Fitness will not abuse my personal information.

I think I need to go now so I can order a credit history report.

flash development

So I've been working for the last couple of days on a flash application for a new client. I'm pretty excited about the deal. Freelancing definitely beats working for the man.

I'll make sure to put a link for the app on my blog once it's up and running -- which will be a couple of months from now. I'd put up links for my progress as I go but in this case I don't think the client would be too happy with me if I did that.

In the meantime if you want to see something else I've been working on Click Me

That site is not functional yet but hopefully soon. (Meaning I have no idea when I will be able to finish it.) I did all of the Flash work and wifey did all of the illustrations.

commenting

I just changed my settings so anyone can leave a comment. Enjoy.

visiting random blogs

So no one left any comments on my video post. So do you like it? Have any of you watched it? Am I talking to myself? So because of the lack of comments on my blog I've decided to visit some other random blogs and leave comments. I wouldn't have visited random blogs but it turns out that there isn't a blogger specific search engine (at least not that I could find.)

So I'm going to choose likely URLs and enter them in and see what I get. Like this: www.(likely-title).blogspot.com

My list of likely titles includes:

• jamesbond -- this blog was last edited in 2001. I'm not so sure they'll check the comment. But you should : linky
• wolfmother -- empty blog
• moviefan -- pwn3d. They turned the comment option off. I would have said, "How is Cathy doing these days?"
• halofreak --another dead blog but I left a comment anyways. If nothing else these comments will give Amin something to do at work. linky
• superhero -- one entry no comments allowed. What a waste of a good blog URL.
• barakobama -- I thought this blog might be live with the whole Internet campaigning thing but alas to no avail. I was able to leave a comment though. linky

So I've tried every likely URL I can think of and none of them are live blogs. Has everyone quit making their own blogs because they realized that boingboing is the best so they might as well quit now?

Now I'm using the next blog button because it leads to live blogs.
Here's where I've been if you care to see what randomCommentGenerator(randomBlogPosts) returns.
My Blog
Fichter
Shiny Robot Studio -- I left the comment on the November 7th post.
Tao of the Turtles

Okay I'm done for now. My timeLeftToWaste thread just returned.

Invisible Man

So here's my new movie. This is my first school project. It was filmed in super 8. I was only allowed one super 8 cartridge to make this movie. That means only 3 minutes of footage to get all of the shots I needed.

The music was done by Jacob Cooper. Enjoy. Plz leave comments if you watch it. I want to know who is checking the blog.

I was going to embed the movie using a flash video but the flash video encoder was messing the movie up. So until I get that figured out you are going to have to deal with my movies being embedded with Qicktime.

If you can't see the video leave a comment and let me know what browser you are using. For some reason blogger was being picky about me using an object tag. So I didn't.

i promise...

I promise that I will put my new video up tomorrow. It's a super 8 project that I made for school. Check back for that one. It will be much better than the banana phone. Which by the way if you haven't seen it click here

volunteering

Today I volunteered at the Northwest Film Forum for the first time. I'm hoping that I can make connections there that will help me in my future as a filmmaker in Seattle. Also it seems like they do a lot for filmmakers as an organization.

There are some immediate benefits also. I get a free membership and discounts on training courses and movies. Tomorrow I am going to take a course there that will teach me how to use their film to digital transfer equipment. It's a frame by frame transfer process. I'm pretty excited about that because I want to better transfers for my film in my super 8 projects.

So today I was emptying garbages and sweeping out theaters. It was pretty interesting to be back in that position. It's been a while since I have had to do any manual labor.

Fortunately there are other things you can do to help out there besides cleaning. I am hoping to help them out with their website in the near future.

The end.

favicons

So I've been doing a little reading so that I can spruce up the look of my blog. The first thing I did is add a favicon to my blog template. It was much easier than I imagined.

So look up in the address bar and you should see this picture:


I know it's not that cool but it's a work in progress.

Links to references so you can do it yourself:
photoshopsupport.com -- favicon tutorial
photoshopsupport.com -- blog template tutorial

First Post!!

So I meant to start a blog as soon as I started film school. But I didn't. I have since repented of that and now I am starting this blog.

I am currently attending Seattle Film Institute. The wife and I recently moved to Seattle from San Diego. We left perfectly good jobs to come here and be unemployed students. Well not completely unemployed. I am doing freelance Flash development and Jeanie (who will hereafter be referred to as Wifey) is working as a freelance graphic designer.

Wifey and I are expecting an addition to our family at the end of January. We are having a girl. We plan on naming her Jewell, after my grandmother.

This blog is going to about my life, film school, my independent film projects, Flash, Final Cut Pro, any other software I feel like talking about, and your mom.

Enjoy.