Heroes doesn't suck

I'll leave the more detailed analysis of the Heroes season 3 premiere to Girl-Morgan, but I wanted to state for the record that it didn't suck. If nothing else they gave her shirtless Mohinder, so she should be happy too.

The Fringe

It's been a little while since there was a show that I was truly excited about seeing the day of. All day today I've been reminding myself that The Fringe is on tonight, and all day it's made me happy.

Today has been offering me a second chance at Monday type experience. That is to say, yesterday was Monday and it was kinda harsh the way Monday's are. Today feels no different even if it has the benefit of not actually being labeled as a "Monday." So on a day such as today (where I'm just now taking my lunch at 3:30 pm) it's important to have something to look forward to.

The show has a bit of mystery, a bit of the sci-fi, and a nifty characters. What's not to like? So far this is my favorite show of the new season. Too bad it's on Fox. With Fox's record of killing off shows that I love I'm a bit weary of actually loving this show. So far I'm only willing to look forward to it being on tonight.

new Jenny Lewis

I'm listening through the new Jenny Lewis album right now on good ol' MySpace. The spiffy trend of bands posting their entire album for preview is a fine trend indeed. I believe the Magnetic Fields did it as well before their last release "Distortion."

Fair enough that it's leaning towards the alt-country side and there's already plenty of that crap out there. But it's really good anyways, so I'm going to be buying this puppy.

I saw in concert last time around, with the Watson Twins, and if the tickets aren't too expensive I'll gladly catch her again (although this album sadly appears to have nothing to do with the Watson Twins).

I'm only part way through the thing, but I can safely say that if you liked her last album, you should own this one as well.

Stump the genius with lyrics

At a party I overheard boasts being thrown about that someone knew the lyrics to any song... really? We're going there?

Look, no matter how many lyrics you think you know in your particular genre, there's always going to be some chump at a party who has friends who were in bands, or a great collection of obscure indie bands, or something. It was clearly my turn to be that chump.

I started with asking if he knew the lyrics to "Catnap" by Kaito the UK band. Then we went to "Why do you let me stay here" by She and Him. I feel strongly that you need at least three to make a pattern so I completed the pattern of failure with "Sometimes" by My Bloody Valentine (does anyone know all the words to that song?).

I've been there too. I thought I was suave until someone started hitting me with modern hip-hop lyric requests one day. Decidedly not my genre of choice you could make me a pattern of failure several city blocks long.

The bottom line is that if your brain is good enough with memorizing to remember every song out there, don't you think your time would be better spent solving world hunger or some other platform that wins beauty pageants in the interview portion? No, really, go save the world now and stop trying to impress people at parties please.

"This looks professional"

Ok, so I made my own little three minute film for the three minute film festival. Some people may be sick of me talking about it already, understood and fair. I might be a little too proud of it or something, but that's the way it goes.

I wanted to share the thing with a few friends and family types, so I made some copies on DVD and packaged the thing up all nice like. It even says "not for sale" cause I used music in it that I don't technically own.

I justify this blatant piracy of music by 1) not making any money on the thing whatsoever, 2) only using songs that I purchased on CD, and 3) only sharing them in the context of this art project of a short film. Neither song used appears in its entirety either. (I work for record labels to it's a touchy subject.)

I bought a pack of DVD cases to put them in. Not the CD jewel cases, but DVD sized cases. It's an important distinction for me for some reason. I'll have to explore that later, when I get a shrink.
I made an insert to go into the DVD case, and hand numbered them for authenticity. I even made up a little logo using the cute face of a kitty I once had. It's a whole package thing, you know.

The hardest part, apparently, is finding print-at-home disc labels that are reliable. No, seriously. I bought the cheap-o ones at Office Depot (may have even been the Office Depot brand) and the damn things cracked and the print rubbed off even as I was trying to apply the label to the disc. It was horrible.
A friend had some Avery brand labels which held the ink much better. Lesson learned. Use the expensive labels.

So once the thing was done I showed the thing to a couple people who had expressed even vague interest in what I'd made. More than one person commented on how it "looks professional."

It's at this time I'd like to explain that I worked for a record label designing packaging and art directing for nine years. I currently manage the brand for an independent university. Dude! It's what I do for a living! How did you think it would end up looking?

I politely reminded people that it's within my professional scope to design packaging and that it's kinda what I do, but in my mind I was wondering what people that I work with thought I might come up with?

Then again, how many people come up with a complete packaging solution for their three minute, one second film?

Getting people interested in working on no-budget films

I'm currently working on an interesting task, but no one has told me I can't do it so I'm doing it anyways. At least no one whose opinion I value in the least.

I'm looking at doing what I'm calling a no-budget film. This means no one is getting paid, and I'm doing pre-production, production, and post-production myself.
I have a very skilled friend who is script savvy, who is working on it. I have a friend who was in my first film attempt who wants to act in it (specifically requesting that she be soaked in blood since it's leaning the way of the horror genre) and is excited to assist with production.
Ok, that's just two so far, but it's not like I've advertised or anything.

I'm actually learning that there are people who are out there willing to do this crap for fun. Not because they'll make any money at it ever, but for fun. I guess it stands to reason that if I'm willing to do it for fun why wouldn't there be other people?

Logistically it may be a bit of a nightmare, but I'm game anyway. That is, if I'm not paying them to act in the thing and they just don't feel like showing up for filming one day there's not much in the way of incentive for them to come. There will be contracts signed (for liability and license for me to own the finished product reasons), but what am I going to do? Withhold their pay of $0.00 if they don't show or perform? Wag my finger at them and give them a stern lecture?

For that reason every actor "hired" is going to be an exercise in trust. They trust that I wont make them look dumb and I trust that they'll show up and let me put fake blood on them. It's a two way street you know.

On the back side I also need to worry about little things like music. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a sometimes odd, sometimes too-easy-to-please, but still somehow picky taste in music. I can't insert music that I have on CDs at home because I want to own the finished product.
This is the part where I'm glad I know a couple/few people in bands. No one has agreed to offer anything up yet, but that's because I haven't asked yet. Maybe I should ask then eh?

Ode to a record store

I recently got an email from an old friend lamenting the number of independent record stores we used to visit in Portland, OR, which are no longer there. It seems that in the digital age it's harder and harder for indie record stores to make any money. Needless to say, they need to make money in order to stay open.

The shocking part for me was that part way through my email I found myself ok with their demise. I'm all for the independent business owner, and yes it is sad that independent record stores have trouble staying afloat. But I think that there's a huge, shimmering silver lining to what caused their downfall. The internet.

Why? Am I insane? I don't think so. If some of my freelance clients read this they'd likely be gravely disappointed in me. More than one person has complained to me about how "disposable" the music has become. (I've seen the bargain bins and give away piles. It's always been a little disposable I'm afraid.)

But again, I'm seeing a silver lining. I think that this horrible, evil, vile replacement is actually benefiting the bands. It used to be that if you had a band you had to have a manager and a label with a deal and even then you had to be really really lucky. Most independent record stores worth their weight would, admittedly, sell any band who came in the door with a CD they wanted to sell. In some cases that local indie business could be what kept that record store afloat. Still promotion and distribution depended upon you having money and more time than any one person should have.

Today any schlub, whether or not they should be making their own recordings, can. Not only can they record, but they can promote and even sell their recordings on line to anyone around the world. Suddenly we've gone from maybe hitting a hand full of teens at the local record stores, to being able to literally sell their music globally. That is ANYONE.
Should everyone make recordings and sell them? Probably not. When I worked at Arhoolie Records we would get demo recordings in from all sorts of wacky people. Some of them we'd put on and cheerfully laugh while occasionally dancing or singing along. Other times you couldn't turn the "music" off fast enough.
No, not everyone should record. But that's not my point. My point is that everyone CAN, and I think that's pretty damn cool. There is some reasonably cheap recording software out there that'll do the trick for most home recording enthusiasts.

Once you've recorded your music you need only have internet access to start selling your particular brand of genius (and digital file sales are far more ecologically sound). A MySpace page, a PayPal account, there are any number of options and there are any number of ways to get word out about your band and sell your songs. It's brilliant!

I'm pretty sure that if the networking sites and software were in their current state a good 15 years ago then I'd be right there, selling my songs to anyone who would listen, world wide. The market is wide open.

As a listener I love it too. I can effectively browse hundreds of potential artists just by wandering the pages of MySpace. True, they don't need me advertising for them. But seriously, I have actually discovered bands that I had no idea existed, that I love, and who would never stand a chance of me ever hearing them, on friggin' MySpace.

So let's examine the trade off again. Indie record stores are driven out of business. I can no longer wander the isles aimlessly while the music-snobs behind the counter snicker when I want to buy punk, hair metal, and new wave all at the same time. Yes I know they contradict one another, and I don't care.
In their place is a system where the bands (remember those guys? the ones with the "talent" who the record stores were supposedly for?) can get world wide exposure for a sliver of what such exposure used to run.

You know what? It's a huge, awful, soupy mess of indie music on the web now and I love it. I'm sorry that the independent record stores are having such a hard time. (It should be noted that any number of my friends have, at some point in their questionable pasts, worked at indie record stores.) I'm not sure that we're getting the bad side of the deal in the end. That's all.

Wow I hope Ted doesn't read this...

Wii will rock you

I've been known to waste perfectly good time playing video games from time to time. I'm old enough to remember Pac Man, in its original incarnation. We had one at the local 7-11 called "Lady Bug" which we preferred, possibly because it's what we had a the local 7-11, but it was just more or less the same game.

When I was 11 or so my father had his Intellivision, which blew the neighbor kids Atari out of the water. I spent many the mindless hour skiing, ruling my own continent, or running half-baked football plays.
More recently I've had a Playstation 2 since shortly after they came out. No need or urge has hit me to step up to the Playstation 3 yet.

You could say I'm a little old school with my video games, I suppose. I like a controller with buttons on it that you use to tell your little guys where to go with. I like pushing buttons to punch or shoot or jump. So this Wii phenomenon that's been going on for a while now just struck me as silly. They expect you to stand up and do stuff to play their games? HA!

So at a recent birthday party I half expected to laugh at it and be bored in minutes. I was wrong. The damn thing is fun.

I had no idea of what I was doing half the time (Boxing seems like luck as much as skill to me to be honest, and I'm the one who was winning it). I avoided my previously lamented competitive Yoga, but Wii Fit offered other gems like tightrope walking, running (in place) skiing, and something similar to Mable Madness of olde where you use your ballance to tilt the platform for the marbles.

I tried a bit of the Mario Kart, tennis, bowling, etc. The damn thing even made golf kinda fun. So that's why the damn thing sells? It is actually kinda fun.

I'm not sure when the last time was that I laughed so hard. Watching someone get high score in Hula Hoop? It's safe to say that it's a really good thing that they closed the front curtains first.

Next thing I knew it was after ten and I had to go home. So once again I was wrong. I've been wrong before, so I'm no stranger to this feeling. But it's a little hard on the fan of the standard hand controller to admit that they enjoyed a wireless controller that requires a wrist strap to keep you from putting it through the TV. And being up and moving while playing a video game? It's just such a strange concept to my old world brain.

I get the feeling that if I owned my own I might well not get anything done... ever.

Drawing women in the supermarket

I recently watched the 2006 film Cashback. I'd never heard of the thing, ever. When I was done I couldn't help but feel like I'd just seen an incredibly beautiful film. A quick check of the IMBD message boards clued me in quickly to the notion that not everyone felt the same way about it. WARNING: Spoilers.

Does it have lots of nudity? Yes. It does. Admittedly the the male to female nudity ratio is 1 guy to dozens of women. But I think it's fair to say that a sleep deprived art school student in his early 20s is fairly likely to look at things just as the lead did. So is there cause for women to be offended by it? Only they can say. I kinda can't help but feel like that completely misses the point of the film. It has the nudity, but I'm not sure that I'd agree that it's about the nudity. I think it's really just a love story that happens to have a lot of nudity.

To contrast with the main characters somewhat questionable pass times while at work, he has a friend who is consistently either having his face slapped or having a drink thrown in it. Then there's the coworkers who boast about sleeping with women they've never had a chance with, and the store manager who does a fine job of hitting on employees with a pat on the ass or asking them up for a shag (it's an English film). All of the guys displaying the piggish behavior are made to look like the idiots that they are. I think it's all rather fairly treated.

If you're offended by dumb guys acting dumb and nudity then it probably wont be your bag. If you've ever lost sleep for someone you may well relate to the film more than you think. In either case, I loved the thing.
I'm pretty sure I'll be watching this love story again.

Nothing to write about?

I just realized I haven't posted in here for a week or so. See, this is what happens when I don't have anything to say, really. I just end up saying nothing.

You win some, you lose some

I went to my second ever three minute film festival this last weekend. The first one I went to was a show I'd "acted" in. This time it was because my film was showing. Fun!

Attire ranged from full dress up (a few of us were in suits and one lady was actually wearing a snood), to hoodies and jeans. The full spectrum.

We didn't win jack (well to be clear we did win a couple swell raffle prizes, but nothing for the film) and still it was fun and worth it. It was also educational.

NOTE: In a three minute film festival your three minute film is going to be seen amid a batch of a bunch of other three minute films. Subtlety will not be what is going to win. You need to bonk the audience over the head with the cartoon rubber hammer, or have what a dear friend refers to as a "bah-DUM-bum" ending. Something obviously clever.

I had none of that. I had long plot (crammed into three minutes), and loaded it with allusions to literature, anagrams, and movies we like. When your three minute film is between two other three minute films and you're subtle, I'm not sure you can expect people to remember your stuff.

There is, then, perhaps a decision to be made. If you're making a film for a film festival because you want to win, or because you want to have fun and/or do something YOU want to do? Even being a looser I think I'm still in the latter category.

Interestingly I got recognized as someone from one of the other films... which I wasn't. I guess I just have that kind of face. Fun!

My advice? Get a camera and enter the film festivals. It's fun.

LOL cat speak translator

I have no idea how I hadn't seen this before, but I just recently located this fantastic tool for understanding what exactly it is that my cats are saying to me:
http://speaklolcat.com/

I should probably add, for anyone who has been living in a cave for the past year, that LOL speak is heavily linked to LOL cats which can be found in places like icanhascheezburger.

Bands that actually engage their audiences? No way!

In recent years I've noticed a few bands actually asking their fans to give back, you know, other than just their hard earned cash spent on albums or downloads.

Case 1) Rasputina: Years ago Rasputina had a contest where they asked fans to submit their lies. The winners lyrics were assembled into the song "Our Lies" which appeared on their 2002 album Cabin Fever. Winners also received something special from the band for their efforts. "Our Lies" continues to be one of my favorite of their songs.
Later they had a coloring contest, which I entered but did not win. It may have been one of the few competitions where coloring inside the lines did not help me in the least.

Case 2) OK GO: OK GO had a great success with their treadmill video for "Here it Goes Again." Rightfully so. They also held a contest where they asked fans to video tape themselves performing their own version of the bands "A Million Ways" dance video. Winners apparently got to perform the dance on stage with OK GO at a concert. Nifty!

Case 3) The Foo Fighters: The Foo Fighters were performing "The Pretender" on the 2007 Grammy Award show. Someone had the idea to get fans to perform in the orchestra they added for the show. I don't know if there were My Grammy Moment contests before or since, but it's a pretty cool way to encourage kids/fans to keep playing that oboe, even if it's not very cool most of the time.

Case 4) Nine Inch Nails: Nine Inch Nails had the audacity to actually let their fans make videos for their double album of instrumentals Ghosts I-IV. The album, with purposefully vague track names, is a sound track for something and apparently they wanted to see what the fans thought it was a soundtrack for. This one strikes me as particularly amazing in how the album appears to have been created as a blank slate for the fans to interact with. I don't know if anyone wins anything, and maybe that's not the point? The film festival appears to be still ongoing, so perhaps I should break out the camera this weekend?

Granted, helping bands write songs, or filming your own home videos to their songs isn't for everyone. But when bands encourage fans to be interactive, or even creative, I think everyone is better off for it.

Sure sign of the apocalypse

I recently went to dinner for a friend's birthday. The food was good and the people were good. I got to see a few people I hadn't seen in far too long, and they appeared genuinely happy to see me which is always nice even if a bit baffling.

I was in one conversation, and suddenly found myself overhearing another conversation about playing a yoga game? I can only assume that it's associated with the Wii Fit deal.

I actually heard them discuss who was "winning at breathing."

I proposed at that time, and still do, that when we have somehow turned yoga into a competitive sport, that it is a sure sign of the impending apocalypse. That's it people, game over.

Indie film making at its finest

I recently decided to enter a local three minute film festival. I'd been asked to give it a try by my friend, the organizer, before. Without a camera, or a clue, I'd always thought it was out of my grasp.
I went ahead and splurged on a nice MiniDV HD camera, a spare wide angle lens, and an external microphone for it. The whole package was around $1000 or so. Not the most carelessly used money I'd ever spent, but hardly cheap.

The first bit of luck I had was finding an actress who gave a damn about her character. The second bit of luck was that she was interested in the story I had in mind, and actually improving upon it.

We filmed over 70 minutes of footage, mostly in two days, and I edited, and edited, and chopped, and edited until the thing was a lean three minutes, one second long. Mind you I was doing all this in the iMovie HD that came bundled for free on my Mac. Not exactly top of the line software, but it worked out ok.

If I, in the future, mention any thoughts about filming my expertise can, thus far, be distilled into and out of this one filming experience. (read: I'm making it up as I go along so don't believe half of what I say.)

I'm proud to say that I have a final edit that both my lead actress and I like, and I've turned the damn thing into the festival officials. Woo hoo!

Unfortunately I've also caught a bug. I'm now talking with a friend of mine who has been known to write from time to time, with a rough story in mind. Now, is it sane to go straight from a three minute film, to a feature length film? Probably not. Do I care? Possibly. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes! I'm a fool and proud of it.

Onward and upward!

The Dark Knight is... dark?

Today I went and saw The Dark Knight. It seems like everyone and their dog had seen it but me, and I wanted in on the action. It's a good movie. A very good movie.

If I were to chose between the old rubber nipple Batman movies, and the new super-dark movies I'd pick the new ones. Ledger was fantastic. Bale was too. It was all good.

Then I realized that someone had brought their wee ones (that's kids for those of you who don't follow my vernacular). I looked it up (I couldn't remember) and the bloody thing is PG-13. Maybe I was a wuss and a mama's boy, but at 13 I was not ready to see that movie.
This is the part where I could go on my standard tirade about why you can get away with the violence and disturbing behavior and still be sub R, but show a nipple (or worse) and you're suddenly too adult for the wee ones. But I'll spare anyone my soap box now. Instead I'll remain quietly baffled.

Then again I was the kid who saw Jaws and became afraid to swim in my grandparents pool at night... in the San Fernando Valley. Ya, definitely a mama's boy.

Anyways. The Dark Knight is good... and dark.

Back for more?

I haven't touched this blog in years. Why am I doing this again? No clue. Let's see if I can keep it up ok?