Yo. I’ve added another project to my “Working Title”… (Current Projects) Page.
The beginnings of my image collection for the film I’m designing for this weekend. Check out:
PRODUCTION DESIGN FOR A .45 CALIBER FILM…. Click Here.
Thoughts on PD-ing in a weekend:
-Don’t let the time intimidate you… It’s still important to explore the big, complicated themes… the key is to find POIGNANT, ECONOMICAL, SUBTLE and SMALL ways to represent those themes because that’s all you’ll have time to do.
-Understand that your value lies in your fresh set of eyes and objective, somewhat unattached view of things. Be honest…. and remember that your new look on things could be really valuable, and be prepared that it could be going in a completely opposite and therefore unrealistic direction than those who’ve been working on it a while.
-Remember there are no rules in a created alternative universe. Take full advantage of Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
-Small and consistent is almost always better than big and dramatic.
-Look at design like writing: vomit out all your ideas before you begin decided which are good and relevant and which aren’t. Get it out.
-Undivided support of the DIRECTORS vision. You’re providing the visual language as another way for the audience to SEE what his message and intent are.
So… Karl Blau was in town tonight I guess… and I missed him. I’m pretty bummed, but instead of going to the concert I was working on this pretty fantastic project with my mentor and friend… So sorry Karl; even in your hipster, groovy weird sounding lullabies… you can’t compare.
Karl Blau:
Watch all the way to the end… the ending is pretty great.
I love the throw back style of that old video. A LOT. Ironically, it reminds me of some pretty good youtube fodder that I stumbled upon alla newsfeed, filmed like 20 years earlier and just about the same quality. NIRVANA playing at my alma mater: THE EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE.
So cool!! Kurt in my college library’s basement. In this thread of videos you can find them playing in K-dorms at Evergreen as well… so crazy!!! I love my college.
This is a band called BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY… I saw them play live in Tally about a month ago in this really quirky house. (large VHS collection….. sword fish made of rusty saws above the mantel… mismatched furniture will beautifully obnoxious fabric… you get the picture). AWESOME brothers with a barbershop sound and the jolliest disposition in two musicians you’ll ever find. Very kind, passionate and talented guys. I bought their album and I highly recommend it. More info can be found about them HERE.
(Mr.) Spacemen
Also at that same show, a local Tally band… that from what I can tell, has quite the following. I’ve seen them play twice and they are pretty fantastic. Probably the most inspiring lyricists I’ve heard recently. I love the imagery in their songs. This is HaHa Hospital’s Lighthouse… a song that I youtube quite often.
Now get ready for Flight Facilities. This song “Crave You” It speaks for itself. I listen to it a lot. to much. I’ll probably get sick of it soon.
the Cartographers – Concrete and Outerspace – One of the most innovative EPs I’ve heard in a while. The lead singer’s voice coupled with poignant and as an itunes reviewer says “subtly epic” lyrics… I’ts kind of a juxtaposition between something mundane and obvious with something otherworldly. Hence the “concrete and outerspace” perhaps? It makes me think of a map hand drawn on the back of printed out mapquest directions… or scribbled “rights then lefts” on Columbus’s sea log. I’m kind of addicted. I’ve played it at work the past few days and my students REALLY like it as well. You can buy it on itunes for less than five bucks… just make your screen look like this.
Really exciting, creative music.
I feel like enough people don’t know about this band. Ozma. A friend burnt me the album that these songs are on when I was in high school. I remember listening to it for the first time SO vividly. The sound is happy but sort of mischievous and ironically or sarcastically optimistic. It’s Weezer’s pinkerton meets, as a youtube comment put it, “8th grade in 1988″? I don’t know it’s hard to articulate the sound of something that has impacted my taste in music so much. I LOVE this album.
and… remember how good this album is? I used to have it on an old computer… just got it again. I really love it.
There were more bands I wanted to talk about…. that get me excited about scoring my films in the future. But these are on the mind right now for sure.
Also: I have learned something about myself: I am seriously intimidated by musicians. What a cool talent to have. I’m infatuated with what it would be like to be one. It’s one of my favorite day dreams. I should really learn more about music.
So lately… and by lately, I’d say the last two weeks…. I’ve heard from many people from my past. It’s exciting… but also strange and overwhelming. It’s when I start to wonder about the ramifications of FB… How has rekindling relationships through social networking sites changed the way society operates? Is it a bad thing, or good?
Is it easier to develop “friendships” or an expectation to regularly talk with people from our pasts on Facebook Chat than to cultivate true and lasting relationships with people in our day to day lives? How lost would I feel if these online rendez vous ended abruptly? Or, how settled and connected to my life would I find myself???
Is it best, sometimes, just to let friendships go? The natural ending of close friendships is something that I’ve become accustomed to. It’s part of moving around so much. I guess… If i were to polyanna this whole train of thought… I would come to this conclusion: How lucky we are to live in a time where the end of a friendship can be remedied with a click.
Maybe just maybe… I’ll walk away from over analyzing this one and call it a day at a positive outlook???
I sense a Facebook fast…. coming soon…
And this is the shape of the world....
Polyanna
Hayley Mills playing Polyanna... And yep, that's who I'm named after.
My Mom and I were going on a walk and we walked up on an orange cat and she said
“Well hello little cat! How are you?” and before a moment had gone by she changed the tone of her voice and spoke for the cat “I’m a cat, lady… I can’t talk.”
One time we were at the gym, and I was running next to my Mom. We had driven together so I asked her how many more miles she wanted to do before we left. “Well we have to hurry because I have a pie in the oven.” I looked at her confused and she said “Well I don’t but It was very real to me.” Hysterical laughter began then.
My Mom would tape SNL on Saturday nights when we were little and we’d laugh and watch it together before church on Sundays. If we were out of milk she’d make cereal with ice cream. When she taught her third graders about Michelangelo, she’d tape pictures of the Sistine Chapel under their desks so they could lay down on the floor and look up at them. My Mom woke up one day and said that she wanted to run a Marathon. 6 months later she ran the original marathon in Greece.
My Mother can do 6 different Munchkin voices from the wizard of oz. She talks to animals and they listen to her. My Mom dresses like Doris Day. My mom made all of our Halloween costumes including my weird ones like when I wanted to go as a Marine Biologist. My mom pulled countless all night-ers to support mine and my sister’s interests. She never stopped fighting for us to have a life that was safe and sustained.
My Mom taught me how to love Museums. My Mom showed me my first Rousseau, Matisse, Monet and Van gogh. She told me stories of Gaugin and sketched lillipads with us in Gieverney. She told me why Warhol was famous, and read us stories like Babar and Madeline. She gave me my first copy of The Little Prince. With her I watched my first Alfred Hitchcock movie.
One time she encouraged me to enter this writing contest that Oprah was holding.
She organized a whole trip to Poland so I could see Auschwitz and Krakow after I read and wrote about Night.
My mom sewed a prom dress onto me an hour before I was supposed to be there because it was to big. My mom makes me a cake every year on my birthday… whatever theme I want. Palm trees, guitars, and whales.
My Mom woke us up to watch meteor showers. My mom woke us up and wrapped us in quilts to watch the sun rise over the ocean. My mom taught us how to love the beach. She taught me how to make drip castles and sea shell necklaces.
Basically… how to be whimsical and laugh at things and myself.
I love it when things unquestionably work out. When you get to a point where you feel stagnation creeping up, monotony tightening its handcuffs, or the blues setting in, and then SOMETHING very inspired happens to yank you out of it.
Well… that’s happened for me…
I’ve been asked to work on a film as a production designer. It means a quick trip up to Seattle very soon. This opportunity feels like a HUGE blessing and it’s breathed new life into me! I feel inspired to be organized and diligent to be worthy of this gift and to fulfill its responsibilities. I. AM. STOKED.
I will get to have that feeling that only comes from being on a real live movie set. I’ll get to learn more from a brilliant filmmaker and mentor, which in turn, will light a fire under me to be as ready as I can be for Film School… AND!!! I’LL GET TO SEE MY BEST FRIEND. P.H.!! I am lucky to have a friend like her.
Who knew that this is what I needed? Who knew that this would get me all kinds of productive? I guess… I know who knew. I’m just very thankful.
Yesterday there was something very beautiful in the sky… something that I haven’t seen in a while: gray clouds.
It made me miss Washington. I miss how honest Washington feels…. how real people look, and how the air smells. I miss the feeling of knowing people well, and seeing them on a regular basis. I miss being a “regular” at places. I miss feeling familiarity and I miss the feeling of being articulate and less socially awkward.
I miss the Oly Farmer’s market. I miss taking a train up to Bellingham on the weekends. I miss the cod burrito at QB and I miss the chevire omelet at New Moon Cafe. I miss playing pool at the Eastside and seeing the guy with the long white beard and hair who was obsessed with ping pong and who carved gnomes on his free time. I miss going to the lake on the weekends. I miss the smell of coffee every morning at work. I miss the Hey Day gang. I miss Groc Out, and Oly 2nd Ward, and The Evergreen State College’s Library. I miss the coloring room in the basement. I miss people watching at the transit center. I miss seeing Kimya Dawson doing mundane things around town. I miss Percival house. I miss Kevin.
I miss my best friends P & C H. My visits to their house and the powder blue walls and the room with the white shaggy rug and the classly paper lamps where my life changed. I miss their paintings of jazz singers, and C’s pep talks and P’s advice. I miss feeling their example.
Space is important, and privacy, even if only for a few minutes and anywhere, is essential to one’s personal growth. Without it we become distracted, self-absorbed (having to steal away moments from those we’re spending time with to think of our own needs). We become irritable and lesser. I want to cultivate the diligence and discipline to constantly have the initiative to create those things which I know I need to be whole.
Will his death make him a martyr or will this end an Era? I agree with the guy that I’m listening to on CNN… that perhaps this is the end of a historical period. The new decade could be defined by Arab unity and democracy.
Egypt did it… Libya is close… Is the death of this one man as momentous and important as the wall coming down a few decades ago; a symbolic keystroke in the prose of power struggle?
This man whose spent most of his life in caves and desserts… in geography so desolate and unforgiving… who lived his life in undisclosed isolation, periodically broadcasting his topical opinions of world events on a rudimentary satellite network, masterminded the most devastating attack on our soil… an event that we will grow up asking each other ‘Where were you on September on that day?”
We can thank this angry man every time we go to the airport and spend an hour going through security. He has changed the way, and the frequency in which we travel.
What retaliation will we feel from a mass of impassioned followers who pledged their lives to do this man’s bidding… who believe that his message was one of significance and necessity?
Will the pundits shut up long enough to let the President talk?
Threat levels will be very high…. Will Al Queda try to prove that it’s still relevant? Assert it’s strength despite the loss of its leader?
All of the soldiers who’ve spent tour after tour after tour looking for this man… What will this announcement mean to them at this point? After years away from their families, after the PTSD has settled around them? After they’ve seen friends die?
I hope that, despite the negative legacy this man has left, something positive can come from his death.
The world will be different now… We’ll have to see how in the morning.
Hello blog, It’s been a while. It’s been an incredibly insane year. Film School is just as insanely busy as it promised to be, and I only went to the ER twice the first semester and only once in the winter… so new record for me I am thinking a lot about stress. With such [...]
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When you walk into the High Museum in Atlanta, you buy your ticket and then you’re directed to the entrance which comes in the form of a long hallway. At the end of that hallway, you see the evidence of an atrium: through the darkness and past the back-lit silhouettes of other visitors, you see [...]
I’ve come to the same conclusion over and over again: to be a good writer, and therefore filmmaker, I need to experience as much as I can. Breadth in experience I think directly translates to breadth and understanding of human emotion. I also have a somewhat hidden obsession of music… Don’t get me wrong: I [...]
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