I’m going to talk a lot about television again, but this time it’s about some of my personal likes & dislikes, as well as the current news. Let’s face it, what we grew up on and even loved as kids in the genre of situation comedy has died, but some shows just didn’t realize it. There were remnants of the vanilla, stale sitcom format that were little more than poorly made clones of the COSBY show, recycling the same plots and family friendly nonsense with no sense of risk, subsequently no sense of freshness either. The two most blatant ripoffs that also lacked any kind of humor (to me anyways) were THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JIM with Jim Belushi and Damon Wayans’ MY WIFE AND KIDS. Thankfully both have been cancelled as of this week. Sometimes God does smile on me, even though she throws me an occasional left turn.
My single most favorite show, 24 with Kiefer Sutherland has been renewed for 2 more seasons. As I explained to this cool German guy who works for Wikipedia I met in Europe in March, I don’t take the show seriously. It’s practically a farce in that the concept of 24 hours of “real time” (where mystically, no action scenes can take place during the commercial breaks, and yet the counter still goes on), and that so much happens to this one single guy that it borders on being its own situation comedy. Originally, the show was conceived as a single season, 24 episode mini series. It was so popular and so well made that they are on their 6th season, only minus the original director who brought so much style to the look and feel of the show (Stephen Hopkins), and Jon Cassar as taken over the director/executive producer reigns and does an amazing job. Now, strangely, this season has been uneven. The first 4 hours were some of the best TV viewing I’ve ever seen, but then it has staggered on the rest of the year. Since I don’t take the show that seriously, two more seasons won’t be bad. What was most odd was hearing how the German Wikipedia guy viewed the show ever so seriously and thought it was indicative of the American “cowboy” mentalities and that the violence on screen had a palpable effect on viewers. Then that bastard almost spoiled that week’s episode that I had TiVo’d to watch at home and I almost went Jack Bauer on his ass!
Lost has redeemed itself this season. Although in the minority, I thought the 6 episode season start, then long break until a February return for consecutive episodes was a GOOD idea, and it worked for me. After getting back in the groove, the stories and episodes were starting to feel like maybe the writers/producers MAY have a plan (jury is still out for me). These last few episodes have been revitalizing to me. They come on the heels of the formal announcement last week that they have absolutely set an end date for the series. Three more seasons, each one (following 24’s plan) start in January and run consecutive to May sweeps. They are also abridged seasons of only 16 episodes each year (as opposed to the usual 20-24 eps of other series). In January the Exec Producers were publicly stating they wanted to end the series at a specific date to pay off the larger storylines. When ABC announced the official end date agreement, they were more surprised than anyone… Most writer/producers want a successful series to run until it falters and dies a horrible death, but everyone made as much money as possible before that point. Here are some people who wanted to tell a story and not be embarrassed when it “jumped the shark”. As long as they keep finding excuses each season to show Kate in a bra & panties, their ratings will never slip too far, although they are down as much as 10 million views less this year.
Those are my thoughts on TV so far, although my love of the American version of THE OFFICE is not mentioned, all I can say is that next year they will be cranking out 30 episodes, some of them being 1 hour specials. The quality has maintained in every single episode over 3 seasons so far, and that is encouraging. THIS is how a sitcom gets re-invented.
11 million views so far on GROUPER.COM and that is A LOT. GROUPER.COM is owned by Sony Pictures and the people running the site like Sonnyboo movies , so that helps a lot in that I do no promotion for it, really. Some movies only have 20 views, and then there are the 3 big hitters with over 3 million views each.
My intern Rachel is widdling away at making some new HORRORS OF WAR web docs, that may get totaled up with the other docs and make an entire feature length documentary. We have over 17 hours of footage behind the scenes of the shoot, and then close to 20 hours of interviews shot over the course of a year after the movie was made. I am still fed up with anything HORRORS OF WAR, but a feature length documentary on the movie and how it was made may be a nice gift to the people who worked on it and invested in us and the movie. A 75-90 minute documentary, especially getting the educational, basics of filmmaking angles I like might make this a worthwhile venture overall. When we made the 39 minute documentary for the DVD release (which may or may not even be included on the DVD), John Whitney and I were a bit rushed and hurried. It also had the connotation as being a “DVD extra” so the music, titles, etc. were all made more for that. Plus, a lot of people who were taped in interviews never even got a line in the documentary. A total re-edit of all the interviews and clips so far would be in order and this is a tall order. In many ways, I think the journey to make the movie sums a bigger whole than the movie itself.
Goodnight Cleveland continues to be edited here too. This feature is odd. It was a bunch of comedians improvising and as happens, they tend to go more dramatic than to the funny. We (the subjective “we” since I am not involved directly in the edit yet) are also editing it scene by scene because there was no script, so no definite order of scenes, plus the director and producer both now live in California. I edited a scene last night myself to help get the amount of footage edited sped up. I didn’t want to get too involved and see a rough cut before diving in on a fine cut.
More news soon. I’m gearing up to go to Wheeling to see THE COURIER from Greg Sabo and Mark Burson. I liked everything I’ve seen so far.
Peace to the world, especially the Acolytes of Boo.
- PJR
Thursday, May 17, 2007
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED!
May 17th, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Whirlwind Evangelical Monstrosities
May 3rd, 2007
My dear acolytes, your faithful narrator has remained as busy as ever. I’m so busy and also quite tired that I shan’t go see the midnight show of Spider-man 3 tonight. I’m going to wait until tomorrow like so many others. I prefer to see the midnight screenings of the big “event movies” that are to my liking because the anticipation and audience reactions are quite fun. I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, but a midnight screening with dorks dressed in school boy (and school girl) outfits always make for an entertaining event. Experiencing a movie with all the fandom separates the movie-going from just seeing it plainly at home on a DVD.
Maybe the Friday late afternoon crowd will be still pumped….
I re-watched SPIDERMAN 1 and the new SIPDERMAN 2.1 DVD. I like these flicks. The comic book lived as a staple in my childhood. I recall the exact issues when the new black suit came out and when it eventually morphed into VENOM, and even my first issues ever were the first ever appearance of the HOBGOBLIN. I have long since sold my collection, but I kept some graphic novels and trade paperbacks because the storylines heavily influenced my writing and stories. Chris Claremont and John Byrne in particular greatly affected my interest in long form storytelling.
I got a book on the making of GRINDHOUSE, the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez ode to drive in-style movies. By the time the announcement of the fake trailer came about including the “S.S. Werewolves” one by Rob Zombie, I was numb to any potential similarities to HORRORS OF WAR. One element that I had completely not gotten was that in January 2006 when we premiered HORRORS OF WAR, I had made a DVD of old grind house style trailer and drive in movie theatre interstitials to play in the theatre leading up to the screening to set up the “mood” for our “B” movie. I had hit the trend before it was trendy, but then again I was equally influenced by the same movies and styles by watching “Super host” on WUAB on Saturday afternoons and “Big Chuck and Little John” midnight movies before anyone had cable TV. Sonny Chiba, Bruce lee, and King Kong were staples of my youth. Reading this book reminded me of all the things I had in mind with HORRORS OF WAR, except now that their movie GRINDHOUSE has bombed entirely, none of it is a useful marketing tool. Oh well.
I’m still doing a lot of film and video work for other people. My freelance is at an all time high, which is good, but the waiting for pay really sucks. It’s hard to plan your finances when you have no clue if a check is due in 3 days or 3 weeks. This lifestyle is NOT for everyone. I need to make the money, so all I can do is keep astute records of money owed and wait until the cash cow starts mooing.
Luckily, there’s nothing new to report in the realm of stalkers, freaks, geeks, or drama. Everything seems to have faded away on those fronts. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the time to give a rat’s ass, or maybe they have found someone/something better to fixate on. Either way, my life has less weirdness.
Well my new car, a 2005 Ford Mustang GT is not all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, I knew I was getting a used car, but I was hoping something this new would have less trouble. Thank god I’ve been making butt-loads of cash money to cover all the repairs that have already come up. I think I’ll sell it off early next year once I’ve gotten some miles on it, but the new jobs are paying it off quick. I might give it to My Sexy Fiancé Veronica, if she’s a good girl.
The cats have complained that the media is not portraying their country fairly. All these blogs ever do is focus on the strife and trouble, but never anything positive. The army has built bridges, and some of the younger cats love the soldiers. It doesn’t matter that several hundred innocent civilians die a week. It’s all about balance. Our congress has put forth a bill that would basically pull troops out of Rossdonia this fall, but let’s face it, that would let the terrorists win. Then again, I think that if I don’t give them milk every morning that this would let the terrorists win. They also said that if I didn’t play with a string with them, then that would let the terrorists win too. Politics are a strange and ignorant game to play.
Last week a new $75 hard cover book about the making of the original STAR WARS was released to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of the film, May 25th 1977. STAR WARS was the first film I ever saw in the theatre and it changed everything about my life. The first 45” record I ever owned was the STAR WARS Main Title and B-side Cantina Band. The first album I ever owned was the 2 LP soundtrack. John Williams’ score made me want to be a musician and I was for over 20 years. The movie itself opened my mind and imagination into believing that ANYTHING is possible. If that crazy geek named George Lucas could get those visions from his imagination onto a movie screen where anyone can see it, then that kicked ass. In the years since, my mind has been avidly interested in HOW he got his vision on screen and that later translated into becoming a filmmaker myself. I know the prequels were a disappointment and I don’t care. It doesn’t unring the bell for me. I want the book and I ordered it today. I thumbed through it at Barnes and Noble and it rocks. The hardback edition has 30+ more pages of storyboards and other interesting bits the soft cover edition does not. I’ll save over $30 ordering it online.
Speaking of books, I did read & finish THE CHILDREN OF HURIN, the last JRR TOLKEIN book to be published posthumously and also, the most completed work since THE SILMARILLION. It’s actually a story told in summary form in the SILMARILLION, but this is a pretty full and clear account of this story. It’s my 2nd favorite SILMARILLION tale and it is a good story. This book rocks my socks and even though it lacks the depth of emotion that reading the SILMARILLION carries in terms of impact, then again neither does THE LORD OF THE RINGS, to be quite honest. There are some characters that are affected and changed (or killed) in this story that without the spine of history the SILMARILLION gives it, the level of tragedy somehow gets lessened, but not enough that the casual reader won’t get it or get something out of this story on its own. Hopefully some people will get this, and then go back into THE SILMARILLION to get the back story in full.
Well, the big big big news is that over at GROUPER.COM, old Sonnyboo shorts have exceeded the 10 million views mark. Three of the movies have over 3 million views each, and that rocks. I’m a little bit blown away by the exceptionally high numbers. I haven’t been promoting the movies. I just upload them and see what happens. With so many sites like YOUTUBE, METACAFE, IFILM, UNDERGROUNDFILM, MOTIONBOX, and a slew of other clone sites, I’ve tried to keep up, but then again I have a life outside of the Internet (and that is a shocking revelation to most Acolytes of Boo). Regardless, 10 million is a big number no matter how you cut it. Sony Pictures owns GROUPER.COM and some of the people behind the scenes there have taken note of the numbers and have contacted me.
My dear acolytes, your faithful narrator has remained as busy as ever. I’m so busy and also quite tired that I shan’t go see the midnight show of Spider-man 3 tonight. I’m going to wait until tomorrow like so many others. I prefer to see the midnight screenings of the big “event movies” that are to my liking because the anticipation and audience reactions are quite fun. I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, but a midnight screening with dorks dressed in school boy (and school girl) outfits always make for an entertaining event. Experiencing a movie with all the fandom separates the movie-going from just seeing it plainly at home on a DVD.
Maybe the Friday late afternoon crowd will be still pumped….
I re-watched SPIDERMAN 1 and the new SIPDERMAN 2.1 DVD. I like these flicks. The comic book lived as a staple in my childhood. I recall the exact issues when the new black suit came out and when it eventually morphed into VENOM, and even my first issues ever were the first ever appearance of the HOBGOBLIN. I have long since sold my collection, but I kept some graphic novels and trade paperbacks because the storylines heavily influenced my writing and stories. Chris Claremont and John Byrne in particular greatly affected my interest in long form storytelling.
I got a book on the making of GRINDHOUSE, the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez ode to drive in-style movies. By the time the announcement of the fake trailer came about including the “S.S. Werewolves” one by Rob Zombie, I was numb to any potential similarities to HORRORS OF WAR. One element that I had completely not gotten was that in January 2006 when we premiered HORRORS OF WAR, I had made a DVD of old grind house style trailer and drive in movie theatre interstitials to play in the theatre leading up to the screening to set up the “mood” for our “B” movie. I had hit the trend before it was trendy, but then again I was equally influenced by the same movies and styles by watching “Super host” on WUAB on Saturday afternoons and “Big Chuck and Little John” midnight movies before anyone had cable TV. Sonny Chiba, Bruce lee, and King Kong were staples of my youth. Reading this book reminded me of all the things I had in mind with HORRORS OF WAR, except now that their movie GRINDHOUSE has bombed entirely, none of it is a useful marketing tool. Oh well.
I’m still doing a lot of film and video work for other people. My freelance is at an all time high, which is good, but the waiting for pay really sucks. It’s hard to plan your finances when you have no clue if a check is due in 3 days or 3 weeks. This lifestyle is NOT for everyone. I need to make the money, so all I can do is keep astute records of money owed and wait until the cash cow starts mooing.
Luckily, there’s nothing new to report in the realm of stalkers, freaks, geeks, or drama. Everything seems to have faded away on those fronts. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the time to give a rat’s ass, or maybe they have found someone/something better to fixate on. Either way, my life has less weirdness.
Well my new car, a 2005 Ford Mustang GT is not all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, I knew I was getting a used car, but I was hoping something this new would have less trouble. Thank god I’ve been making butt-loads of cash money to cover all the repairs that have already come up. I think I’ll sell it off early next year once I’ve gotten some miles on it, but the new jobs are paying it off quick. I might give it to My Sexy Fiancé Veronica, if she’s a good girl.
The cats have complained that the media is not portraying their country fairly. All these blogs ever do is focus on the strife and trouble, but never anything positive. The army has built bridges, and some of the younger cats love the soldiers. It doesn’t matter that several hundred innocent civilians die a week. It’s all about balance. Our congress has put forth a bill that would basically pull troops out of Rossdonia this fall, but let’s face it, that would let the terrorists win. Then again, I think that if I don’t give them milk every morning that this would let the terrorists win. They also said that if I didn’t play with a string with them, then that would let the terrorists win too. Politics are a strange and ignorant game to play.
Last week a new $75 hard cover book about the making of the original STAR WARS was released to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of the film, May 25th 1977. STAR WARS was the first film I ever saw in the theatre and it changed everything about my life. The first 45” record I ever owned was the STAR WARS Main Title and B-side Cantina Band. The first album I ever owned was the 2 LP soundtrack. John Williams’ score made me want to be a musician and I was for over 20 years. The movie itself opened my mind and imagination into believing that ANYTHING is possible. If that crazy geek named George Lucas could get those visions from his imagination onto a movie screen where anyone can see it, then that kicked ass. In the years since, my mind has been avidly interested in HOW he got his vision on screen and that later translated into becoming a filmmaker myself. I know the prequels were a disappointment and I don’t care. It doesn’t unring the bell for me. I want the book and I ordered it today. I thumbed through it at Barnes and Noble and it rocks. The hardback edition has 30+ more pages of storyboards and other interesting bits the soft cover edition does not. I’ll save over $30 ordering it online.
Speaking of books, I did read & finish THE CHILDREN OF HURIN, the last JRR TOLKEIN book to be published posthumously and also, the most completed work since THE SILMARILLION. It’s actually a story told in summary form in the SILMARILLION, but this is a pretty full and clear account of this story. It’s my 2nd favorite SILMARILLION tale and it is a good story. This book rocks my socks and even though it lacks the depth of emotion that reading the SILMARILLION carries in terms of impact, then again neither does THE LORD OF THE RINGS, to be quite honest. There are some characters that are affected and changed (or killed) in this story that without the spine of history the SILMARILLION gives it, the level of tragedy somehow gets lessened, but not enough that the casual reader won’t get it or get something out of this story on its own. Hopefully some people will get this, and then go back into THE SILMARILLION to get the back story in full.
Well, the big big big news is that over at GROUPER.COM, old Sonnyboo shorts have exceeded the 10 million views mark. Three of the movies have over 3 million views each, and that rocks. I’m a little bit blown away by the exceptionally high numbers. I haven’t been promoting the movies. I just upload them and see what happens. With so many sites like YOUTUBE, METACAFE, IFILM, UNDERGROUNDFILM, MOTIONBOX, and a slew of other clone sites, I’ve tried to keep up, but then again I have a life outside of the Internet (and that is a shocking revelation to most Acolytes of Boo). Regardless, 10 million is a big number no matter how you cut it. Sony Pictures owns GROUPER.COM and some of the people behind the scenes there have taken note of the numbers and have contacted me.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Another Total Computer Geek Report
April 23rd, 2007
Another blog so soon? Why yes, Acolytes of Boo, another. Since my previous entry a great tech discovery occurred that I wished to share with the masses and anyone looking for this type of help since it was miraculous for me. This is aimed primarily for the video editors and graphics/animators out there, but the principals can be applied elsewhere. I also have an epic for lovers and haters of Microsoft ™ alike.
As I already described, I have had a lot of work lately, a large portion of it being post production work. My tasks have ranged from the most rudimentary editing to 3D animated titles to emulating fire to creating whole animations. During all of this, I also had multiple computer crashes and other miscellaneous hardware/software problems.
First off, one day at the Tavares Teleproduction studio, I allowed the Microsoft “Windows Automatic Update” run. When it finished it asked me if I wanted to restart. I clicked on the Yes, and off it went. And then it never came back… This lead to a lengthy reformat/reinstall of not only Windows XP, but all the programs and hardware installations, all of which was during one of my busiest weeks in years.
The next day at my home studio, I let the basement computer install the automatic updates and when it asked me to restart, I cautiously clicked yes. On yet another computer within 24 hours, it failed to start back up into Windows XP. This lead to a 3.5 hour phone conversation with Microsoft…. In India where a gentleman with decent English (asking me where I was located at in the United States so he could use the appropriate American accent I am told). We get a fascinating error message telling me that the new “Windows Genuine Advantage Tool” says my copy of Windows XP is a bootleg copy… even though I’m using the real disc with the real packaging to recite the serial #. Even more interesting is that they are claiming it’s a stolen copy from me at my current home address and phone number. Funny… except that the most recent update that caused this ruckus was in fact the Windows Genuine Advantage Tool. Nice one Microsoft. Anyone else think this is a coincidence that I’m getting told to potentially “up sell” to the new Windows Vista?
After multiple attempts to boot in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and ever other basic option I had tried before calling, we finally went booted with the original disc (which I own a legal, legit copy) and used the REPAIR CONSOLE to try to copy over the initial boot files. Once that failed, we used the REPAIR installation and then I was able to boot into Windows XP. Elated, seeing my desktop as I left it, I thanked my new Hindu friend and said good night. I should have checked more.
None of the desktop items were linked to anything. My registry was wiped clean. In the CONTROL PANEL, it showed all of 2 items. So I could salvage files from the C: drive, but I’m still looking at a reformat, reinstall. Another one. This prospect made me as sick as I would soon become. My setup on the basement, “B” editing machine, is simply a 2.5 Gighertz Intel Pentium iV with 768 meg of RAM and a 60 gig C: drive, a 250 gig video storage drive, and a 160 gig video/audio storage drive, that currently are all IDE and quite full with a feature and many other projects being edited in Rossdonia.
Given the way Adobe Premiere Pro currently handles TEMP files and conformed audio files, it places them wherever you want, but I have them going to the C:. 60 gigs used to be a lot, but when you are dealing with a feature film with 13 DAT’s worth of audio without even taking into consideration the music and sound design, then it quickly dissipates. Now on my main editing machine upstairs, I have a motherboard that has SATA drives, which are faster than IDE, but I have a single 160 gig IDE drive up there along with the 160 gig SATA C: drive and a 300 gig SATA video storage drive. My idea was to buy a cheap new SATA drive and pull out the IDE 160 and make it the new C: drive in the basement, thus retiring the 60 gig.
I go to Microcenter intent on spending $79 on a SATA 250 gig drive, but they have a 200 gig for $59. I weighed out the $20 for 50 gig and though to myself, this wasn’t about a big upgrade and that I need that $20 for taking My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ on a fancy dinner at some point. I get home and am too tired to consider the hardware switcharoo I have in mind. The box sits next to the machine upstairs for days.
An interesting sidebar was that one night I was sitting in the living room with a client working on a title sequence when the dastardly mister “V”, my oh so spoiled kitty, got mad he was not the center of attention and demonstrated the extent of his brain power. He got behind the desk of my main editing computer, used his teeth and pulled out the power strip from the wall. Lesson learned? Buy a UPS power supply as soon as possible to save your work. And also, lock up “V” whenever you have a client over.
Once Micah and Jeff, my intern from OSU, come over to work on Goodnight Cleveland, the 16mm feature being edited downstairs, I quickly re-install Adobe Premiere Pro so they can work because I have not yet reformatted and reinstalled, nonetheless put in a new C: drive. They can work, but the computer limps along with so little space on the C: and also with what seems to be a scant 768 meg of RAM. COMPUSA is going out of business, so I attempt to buy a single 512 RAM chip so I can get this machine up to 1 gig of RAM for a modest $50. I know I need PC2100 chips and the salesman (a cute term for a 19 year old with an attitude in an Izod) that the PC3200 chip will work on this board with my current RAM.
Of course, all sales are final as they shut down all of their Ohio stores. Upon putting this RAM in, the motherboard will only recognize 1 of the 512 chips in every configuration I try. With frustration, I try to put the 256 back in with my original 512 chip and then the board STILL only recognizes 1 of the 2 chips. The next day, I have to go and buy ANOTHER 512 Meg of RAM in the PC3200 so that I can have a full gig and the 2 chips match. Frustrating it is.
I get the new RAM, I put it in and I get it to work with a certain amount of giggle. I know have 768 Meg of PC2100 RAM with no place to put it. I also spent more $$$ than I ever intended. I thought I knew what frustration was. Then I tried to reconnect my DVI to VGA adapter to hook up the monitor on this (basement) machine. Most of the pins are bent, some are even broken off. I need to get a new AGP graphics card. Great, MORE money spent that I can’t afford.
I walk across the street to STAPLES to get the only AGP model card they still carry as they are phased out in favor of the current PCI Express cards which none of my motherboards have. I get all the way home on foot when I realize I need to check the card since the box says nothing. It’s VGA only with 2 ports, but no DVI output, which means, I have a video card that still does me no good since my big monitor only takes DVI and my adapter is busted. I have about 3 minutes of freak out until I make a realization.
In my main editing computer upstairs I have 2 monitors running from 1 nVidia graphics card that has 1 DVI port and 1 VGA port, but both of these monitors are VGA only, and one of them has a DVI to VGA adapter. I can put this brand new AGP card into that computer and take the one in it with DVI to the basement machine. All the monitors will be running native with no adapters, and they both will have 256 Meg of RAM on each card.
I decide that since I’m cracking open my main editing machine, I might as well get the new drive in at the same time. God doesn’t hate me that much does she? My luck has to change, doesn’t it? I pop in the new video card, connect the new drive (leaving the IDE drive in to copy everything off of it before making it a C: drive downstairs). It all works, and works well. Sometimes you get lucky. I take the DVI card downstairs and plug it in, and that not only works, but that big ass monitor looks better than it has in months. DVI has a substantially better, brighter look to it than VGA, which is essentially an analog signal whereas DVI is purely digital.
Instead of putting in the 160 gig drive to replace the 60 gig and start the whole format/install process, I put it off. I tempted fate too much and I’ve got until Wednesday when work resumes on the feature downstairs. So far, this is as much as my little brain can take.
One interesting side note to all of this and the new AGP card I bought, thus sending my expenditure far far beyond my intent and budget would allow, came about just last night. I was working on a unique project where I was creating an animation for a company that bought product placement in an animated feature film. They wanted their logo animated for a billboard in the animated film, but I had to create it in full 2K resolution (that’s 2048x1524 pixels for the uneducated).
Recently I have been working more and more in HD (High Definition) at resolutions of 1280x720 and 1920x1080 so I’ve been seeing the limitation of my current edit systems on these projects. It’s not impossible, but it takes time to get these done.
It reminds me of when I worked on my short NEW WORLD, an atrocity to filmmaking with its crude 3D animations (except the ones done by Don THE DRAGON Drennan). Doing the animations in Caligari TrueSpace and the compositing on machines in 2000-2002 took many many hours to render. To render is the process of letting the computer actually calculate between the key frames. You can set certain points so you don’t have to animate every single frame yourself and the computer does the hard work of working out the difference in perspective, shape, lighting, etc. in between each key frame.
Working in standard definition (aka SD or 720x480 for NTSC peeps) on my current machines goes pretty fast. I don’t even have any dual core processors in the house and I can still rip through most SD projects pretty quickly. Now with HD and especially with this 2K animation, I was experiencing 11-16 hour render times for a 22 second piece with only 4 layers. Previewing a single frame of my key frame animation could take up to 29 minutes to render by itself because of the complex lighting and effects.
Once we had the animation set in SD and approved by the client, the producer who hired me said we were a go to create the 2K version. This entailed just making the Photoshop source files at 11,000x7,000 so we could get the sun ray effects to appear to shine outside the area. Well, making files that size seemed to make the producer’s graphics computers beg for mercy at every attempt to render. Finally, I asked that we try to render here since my main editor was a faster machine with more RAM (1.5 gig to be exact). Upon the first try, 6 frames in on a 568 frame animation, it crapped out. I tried resizing the canvas of each Photoshop file down to something more manageable and found that 3,000x1,500 was too small and the light rays didn’t extend off the edges, and that 6,000x3,000 was still too much for the CPU and RAM to handle. The compromise of 5,500x2,800 worked like a champ, but the render time was still going to be 11 hours.
I noticed a button on the current release of Adobe After Effects that said, “use OpenGL render”. I knew little about OpenGL, but knew enough to know that it was an aspect to video cards that enhanced 3D gaming. Now my rudimentary knowledge of product boxes of graphics cards recalled something about how you tap into the memory and processing of your card rather than the computers CPU, or somehow share these resources when you use OpenGL. I checked the box and let a new render fly. My 11 hour render of the nights before got cut down to 44 minutes on the exact same computer, at full resolution and full color. That’s a pretty significant time difference and I don’t technically know exactly why beyond my aforementioned theory, but who really cares? I can get my work done significantly faster now, even at HD and 2K film resolution.
I wish I had known or even experimented with that button 2 weeks ago because it could have saved me many hours work and render times. Like all things that speed up the process in this type of work, it doesn’t really buy you “time” back, but allows you more time to be CREATIVE, which is the most fun part of this.
There. I got my geek on. I hope the techies and computer nerds enjoyed this little stroll down loser alley. Thank god My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ already said yes. After a blog like this, my only hope would have been MySpace Porn Profiles for any kind of inter-gender correlation.
Peace out, and may the farce be with you, Spock.
- PJR
Another blog so soon? Why yes, Acolytes of Boo, another. Since my previous entry a great tech discovery occurred that I wished to share with the masses and anyone looking for this type of help since it was miraculous for me. This is aimed primarily for the video editors and graphics/animators out there, but the principals can be applied elsewhere. I also have an epic for lovers and haters of Microsoft ™ alike.
As I already described, I have had a lot of work lately, a large portion of it being post production work. My tasks have ranged from the most rudimentary editing to 3D animated titles to emulating fire to creating whole animations. During all of this, I also had multiple computer crashes and other miscellaneous hardware/software problems.
First off, one day at the Tavares Teleproduction studio, I allowed the Microsoft “Windows Automatic Update” run. When it finished it asked me if I wanted to restart. I clicked on the Yes, and off it went. And then it never came back… This lead to a lengthy reformat/reinstall of not only Windows XP, but all the programs and hardware installations, all of which was during one of my busiest weeks in years.
The next day at my home studio, I let the basement computer install the automatic updates and when it asked me to restart, I cautiously clicked yes. On yet another computer within 24 hours, it failed to start back up into Windows XP. This lead to a 3.5 hour phone conversation with Microsoft…. In India where a gentleman with decent English (asking me where I was located at in the United States so he could use the appropriate American accent I am told). We get a fascinating error message telling me that the new “Windows Genuine Advantage Tool” says my copy of Windows XP is a bootleg copy… even though I’m using the real disc with the real packaging to recite the serial #. Even more interesting is that they are claiming it’s a stolen copy from me at my current home address and phone number. Funny… except that the most recent update that caused this ruckus was in fact the Windows Genuine Advantage Tool. Nice one Microsoft. Anyone else think this is a coincidence that I’m getting told to potentially “up sell” to the new Windows Vista?
After multiple attempts to boot in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and ever other basic option I had tried before calling, we finally went booted with the original disc (which I own a legal, legit copy) and used the REPAIR CONSOLE to try to copy over the initial boot files. Once that failed, we used the REPAIR installation and then I was able to boot into Windows XP. Elated, seeing my desktop as I left it, I thanked my new Hindu friend and said good night. I should have checked more.
None of the desktop items were linked to anything. My registry was wiped clean. In the CONTROL PANEL, it showed all of 2 items. So I could salvage files from the C: drive, but I’m still looking at a reformat, reinstall. Another one. This prospect made me as sick as I would soon become. My setup on the basement, “B” editing machine, is simply a 2.5 Gighertz Intel Pentium iV with 768 meg of RAM and a 60 gig C: drive, a 250 gig video storage drive, and a 160 gig video/audio storage drive, that currently are all IDE and quite full with a feature and many other projects being edited in Rossdonia.
Given the way Adobe Premiere Pro currently handles TEMP files and conformed audio files, it places them wherever you want, but I have them going to the C:. 60 gigs used to be a lot, but when you are dealing with a feature film with 13 DAT’s worth of audio without even taking into consideration the music and sound design, then it quickly dissipates. Now on my main editing machine upstairs, I have a motherboard that has SATA drives, which are faster than IDE, but I have a single 160 gig IDE drive up there along with the 160 gig SATA C: drive and a 300 gig SATA video storage drive. My idea was to buy a cheap new SATA drive and pull out the IDE 160 and make it the new C: drive in the basement, thus retiring the 60 gig.
I go to Microcenter intent on spending $79 on a SATA 250 gig drive, but they have a 200 gig for $59. I weighed out the $20 for 50 gig and though to myself, this wasn’t about a big upgrade and that I need that $20 for taking My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ on a fancy dinner at some point. I get home and am too tired to consider the hardware switcharoo I have in mind. The box sits next to the machine upstairs for days.
An interesting sidebar was that one night I was sitting in the living room with a client working on a title sequence when the dastardly mister “V”, my oh so spoiled kitty, got mad he was not the center of attention and demonstrated the extent of his brain power. He got behind the desk of my main editing computer, used his teeth and pulled out the power strip from the wall. Lesson learned? Buy a UPS power supply as soon as possible to save your work. And also, lock up “V” whenever you have a client over.
Once Micah and Jeff, my intern from OSU, come over to work on Goodnight Cleveland, the 16mm feature being edited downstairs, I quickly re-install Adobe Premiere Pro so they can work because I have not yet reformatted and reinstalled, nonetheless put in a new C: drive. They can work, but the computer limps along with so little space on the C: and also with what seems to be a scant 768 meg of RAM. COMPUSA is going out of business, so I attempt to buy a single 512 RAM chip so I can get this machine up to 1 gig of RAM for a modest $50. I know I need PC2100 chips and the salesman (a cute term for a 19 year old with an attitude in an Izod) that the PC3200 chip will work on this board with my current RAM.
Of course, all sales are final as they shut down all of their Ohio stores. Upon putting this RAM in, the motherboard will only recognize 1 of the 512 chips in every configuration I try. With frustration, I try to put the 256 back in with my original 512 chip and then the board STILL only recognizes 1 of the 2 chips. The next day, I have to go and buy ANOTHER 512 Meg of RAM in the PC3200 so that I can have a full gig and the 2 chips match. Frustrating it is.
I get the new RAM, I put it in and I get it to work with a certain amount of giggle. I know have 768 Meg of PC2100 RAM with no place to put it. I also spent more $$$ than I ever intended. I thought I knew what frustration was. Then I tried to reconnect my DVI to VGA adapter to hook up the monitor on this (basement) machine. Most of the pins are bent, some are even broken off. I need to get a new AGP graphics card. Great, MORE money spent that I can’t afford.
I walk across the street to STAPLES to get the only AGP model card they still carry as they are phased out in favor of the current PCI Express cards which none of my motherboards have. I get all the way home on foot when I realize I need to check the card since the box says nothing. It’s VGA only with 2 ports, but no DVI output, which means, I have a video card that still does me no good since my big monitor only takes DVI and my adapter is busted. I have about 3 minutes of freak out until I make a realization.
In my main editing computer upstairs I have 2 monitors running from 1 nVidia graphics card that has 1 DVI port and 1 VGA port, but both of these monitors are VGA only, and one of them has a DVI to VGA adapter. I can put this brand new AGP card into that computer and take the one in it with DVI to the basement machine. All the monitors will be running native with no adapters, and they both will have 256 Meg of RAM on each card.
I decide that since I’m cracking open my main editing machine, I might as well get the new drive in at the same time. God doesn’t hate me that much does she? My luck has to change, doesn’t it? I pop in the new video card, connect the new drive (leaving the IDE drive in to copy everything off of it before making it a C: drive downstairs). It all works, and works well. Sometimes you get lucky. I take the DVI card downstairs and plug it in, and that not only works, but that big ass monitor looks better than it has in months. DVI has a substantially better, brighter look to it than VGA, which is essentially an analog signal whereas DVI is purely digital.
Instead of putting in the 160 gig drive to replace the 60 gig and start the whole format/install process, I put it off. I tempted fate too much and I’ve got until Wednesday when work resumes on the feature downstairs. So far, this is as much as my little brain can take.
One interesting side note to all of this and the new AGP card I bought, thus sending my expenditure far far beyond my intent and budget would allow, came about just last night. I was working on a unique project where I was creating an animation for a company that bought product placement in an animated feature film. They wanted their logo animated for a billboard in the animated film, but I had to create it in full 2K resolution (that’s 2048x1524 pixels for the uneducated).
Recently I have been working more and more in HD (High Definition) at resolutions of 1280x720 and 1920x1080 so I’ve been seeing the limitation of my current edit systems on these projects. It’s not impossible, but it takes time to get these done.
It reminds me of when I worked on my short NEW WORLD, an atrocity to filmmaking with its crude 3D animations (except the ones done by Don THE DRAGON Drennan). Doing the animations in Caligari TrueSpace and the compositing on machines in 2000-2002 took many many hours to render. To render is the process of letting the computer actually calculate between the key frames. You can set certain points so you don’t have to animate every single frame yourself and the computer does the hard work of working out the difference in perspective, shape, lighting, etc. in between each key frame.
Working in standard definition (aka SD or 720x480 for NTSC peeps) on my current machines goes pretty fast. I don’t even have any dual core processors in the house and I can still rip through most SD projects pretty quickly. Now with HD and especially with this 2K animation, I was experiencing 11-16 hour render times for a 22 second piece with only 4 layers. Previewing a single frame of my key frame animation could take up to 29 minutes to render by itself because of the complex lighting and effects.
Once we had the animation set in SD and approved by the client, the producer who hired me said we were a go to create the 2K version. This entailed just making the Photoshop source files at 11,000x7,000 so we could get the sun ray effects to appear to shine outside the area. Well, making files that size seemed to make the producer’s graphics computers beg for mercy at every attempt to render. Finally, I asked that we try to render here since my main editor was a faster machine with more RAM (1.5 gig to be exact). Upon the first try, 6 frames in on a 568 frame animation, it crapped out. I tried resizing the canvas of each Photoshop file down to something more manageable and found that 3,000x1,500 was too small and the light rays didn’t extend off the edges, and that 6,000x3,000 was still too much for the CPU and RAM to handle. The compromise of 5,500x2,800 worked like a champ, but the render time was still going to be 11 hours.
I noticed a button on the current release of Adobe After Effects that said, “use OpenGL render”. I knew little about OpenGL, but knew enough to know that it was an aspect to video cards that enhanced 3D gaming. Now my rudimentary knowledge of product boxes of graphics cards recalled something about how you tap into the memory and processing of your card rather than the computers CPU, or somehow share these resources when you use OpenGL. I checked the box and let a new render fly. My 11 hour render of the nights before got cut down to 44 minutes on the exact same computer, at full resolution and full color. That’s a pretty significant time difference and I don’t technically know exactly why beyond my aforementioned theory, but who really cares? I can get my work done significantly faster now, even at HD and 2K film resolution.
I wish I had known or even experimented with that button 2 weeks ago because it could have saved me many hours work and render times. Like all things that speed up the process in this type of work, it doesn’t really buy you “time” back, but allows you more time to be CREATIVE, which is the most fun part of this.
There. I got my geek on. I hope the techies and computer nerds enjoyed this little stroll down loser alley. Thank god My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ already said yes. After a blog like this, my only hope would have been MySpace Porn Profiles for any kind of inter-gender correlation.
Peace out, and may the farce be with you, Spock.
- PJR
Saturday, April 21, 2007
SOMETIMES I QUESTION YOUR COMMITMENT TO SPARKLE MOTION!
APRIL 21st, 2007
Well, what can I say? I have been so freakin' busy lately, I don't know where to begin, or what might be monotonous or interesting. One thing's for sure. I have been incredibly ill that last few days. It's called "Hay Fever" because the pollination of plants in the spring time have greatly agitated my sinuses via the allergies. I have had a high fever for the last 2-3 days, but it seems to finally be passing. I even did 2 commercial shoots during this time, so I have been making some headway into the world of monetary stability, albeit temporarily. Freelance work is never truly "steady".
In the past few weeks, I have done post production work on 2 features, no less than 4 commercials, and a cable TV series. I have also been on 7 shoots ranging from sports to plays to guest speakers describing the histories of cultural phenomena in the work place. I did a 10 day stretch of no time off, including some pretty hard core double & triple days.
I am due to have a new car this week. The hard work pays off in that I will be mobile again thanks to my pops. He's got a line on a reliable vehicle that I've waited months to get. I don't care about make & models; it's just not my thing. It gets like dick measuring with guys or comparing minivans with house wives. I have no use for it.
Life as an engaged man has not changed anything, except that my Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I are getting along fantastic. She just dropped her 2 weeks notice at the restaurant and will soon become a sexy stewardess. I hope to join the mile high club and live out my airline fantasies in the very near future.
I still have not gotten caught up on my spindle (yes a 50+ DVD spindle) of movies to watch. For some reason I can't get into a movie right now. A 4 episode disc of a TV series like THE SHIELD season 4, sure, but a 90 minute movie seems like a hefty commitment. I can't explain the lack of logic, but I am enjoying well made TV series more than films at the moment. My attention span is in a different realm.
The single movie I made the time for was to show someone DONNIE DARKO : THE DIRECTOR's CUT. I have only seen this movie one time before (never saw the theatrical cut) and God, this movie rocks. It's the most cleverly concealed super hero movie ever made. Isn't is ironic that this came out the same year as UNBREAKABLE (also a great film)? Now I have been told that I need to check out HEROS on NBC, which I have not seen a single Ep of… come on DVD's!
The world has gone topsy turvey. With the videos of that weird kid in Virginia plaguing American television and even the Internet, all I can say is the disappoint I have in our own President's first words, "While I respect our citizens rights to bear arms, they do have to follow the rules…." Followed by the head of the NRA saying, "If more student had firearms, the could have stopped this tragedy before it went as far as it did…" all of which makes me both nauseous and sad. Combine that with the medias non-stop coverage out of pure desperation to justify 6-7 24 hour news channels and we've got ourselves the most shallow and pathetic popular culture to have existed in human history. This makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like the Vatican.
I have many plans for my film projects this summer. I no longer wish to share details until after things occur at this point. As I enter more formal phases of pre-production, I may write about it, or I might not. I have a big mouth, both figuratively and literally. It's high time I focused more on the work.
Sorry, no real dramas to report on. Nothing significant is happening in those arenas.
The cats are locked into a mortal combat of "V" of the front claws versus the mutant kitty named "Cousette" of the 6 Toed Feline Clan. They fight for affection, the fight for love, they fight over their territory. Cousette recently withdrew her entire set of elected officials from the newly formed government. This was a blow to the government and the Prime Minister of Rossdonia. Will our country fall into despair and civil war? Haven't we been in a perpetual state of civil war this entire time? What complete morons think this ISN'T civil war already?
Stay tuned for more after these important messages. The WAR IN ROSSDONIA, brought to you by: HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS! Buy this or your kids will becomes psychopathic delusionals!
- PJR
Well, what can I say? I have been so freakin' busy lately, I don't know where to begin, or what might be monotonous or interesting. One thing's for sure. I have been incredibly ill that last few days. It's called "Hay Fever" because the pollination of plants in the spring time have greatly agitated my sinuses via the allergies. I have had a high fever for the last 2-3 days, but it seems to finally be passing. I even did 2 commercial shoots during this time, so I have been making some headway into the world of monetary stability, albeit temporarily. Freelance work is never truly "steady".
In the past few weeks, I have done post production work on 2 features, no less than 4 commercials, and a cable TV series. I have also been on 7 shoots ranging from sports to plays to guest speakers describing the histories of cultural phenomena in the work place. I did a 10 day stretch of no time off, including some pretty hard core double & triple days.
I am due to have a new car this week. The hard work pays off in that I will be mobile again thanks to my pops. He's got a line on a reliable vehicle that I've waited months to get. I don't care about make & models; it's just not my thing. It gets like dick measuring with guys or comparing minivans with house wives. I have no use for it.
Life as an engaged man has not changed anything, except that my Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I are getting along fantastic. She just dropped her 2 weeks notice at the restaurant and will soon become a sexy stewardess. I hope to join the mile high club and live out my airline fantasies in the very near future.
I still have not gotten caught up on my spindle (yes a 50+ DVD spindle) of movies to watch. For some reason I can't get into a movie right now. A 4 episode disc of a TV series like THE SHIELD season 4, sure, but a 90 minute movie seems like a hefty commitment. I can't explain the lack of logic, but I am enjoying well made TV series more than films at the moment. My attention span is in a different realm.
The single movie I made the time for was to show someone DONNIE DARKO : THE DIRECTOR's CUT. I have only seen this movie one time before (never saw the theatrical cut) and God, this movie rocks. It's the most cleverly concealed super hero movie ever made. Isn't is ironic that this came out the same year as UNBREAKABLE (also a great film)? Now I have been told that I need to check out HEROS on NBC, which I have not seen a single Ep of… come on DVD's!
The world has gone topsy turvey. With the videos of that weird kid in Virginia plaguing American television and even the Internet, all I can say is the disappoint I have in our own President's first words, "While I respect our citizens rights to bear arms, they do have to follow the rules…." Followed by the head of the NRA saying, "If more student had firearms, the could have stopped this tragedy before it went as far as it did…" all of which makes me both nauseous and sad. Combine that with the medias non-stop coverage out of pure desperation to justify 6-7 24 hour news channels and we've got ourselves the most shallow and pathetic popular culture to have existed in human history. This makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like the Vatican.
I have many plans for my film projects this summer. I no longer wish to share details until after things occur at this point. As I enter more formal phases of pre-production, I may write about it, or I might not. I have a big mouth, both figuratively and literally. It's high time I focused more on the work.
Sorry, no real dramas to report on. Nothing significant is happening in those arenas.
The cats are locked into a mortal combat of "V" of the front claws versus the mutant kitty named "Cousette" of the 6 Toed Feline Clan. They fight for affection, the fight for love, they fight over their territory. Cousette recently withdrew her entire set of elected officials from the newly formed government. This was a blow to the government and the Prime Minister of Rossdonia. Will our country fall into despair and civil war? Haven't we been in a perpetual state of civil war this entire time? What complete morons think this ISN'T civil war already?
Stay tuned for more after these important messages. The WAR IN ROSSDONIA, brought to you by: HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS! Buy this or your kids will becomes psychopathic delusionals!
- PJR
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Sonnyboo & the Spooner Weasel do Europe 2007 Part II
Sonnyboo & the Spooner Weasel do Europe 2007 Part II
Okay where I left off at was en route to Poland, stopping in Berlin for a few hours to wait for the train to Warsaw. After a night of very little sleep, it was painful… and freezing. Once I got on the train and we got our seats, I was out for the majority of the 6 hour train ride. Once we got in, a driver picked us up and took us to the hotel. Unlike the hotel that I booked in Paris, Brandy picked this one and it was high class with wireless Internet and nice showers, etc. We ate a nice meal and passed out.
The next morning we did our tour of Warsaw, Poland. Brandy's interest was in the World War II Jewish aspects. We saw what was left of the Warsaw Ghetto and several buildings and areas that were left from the war. Very little is left since the city was nearly demolished and raised almost to the ground in rubble by the Nazi's and then the communists. On a funny note, we wandered right into a film shoot and a grip truck.
From Warsaw we went to Krakow, and from there we went to several smaller towns around southern Poland, including Krosno. Mostly we went to sites where the Nazi's committed atrocities. In Krakow, we went to all the real locations of Oskar Schindler and the set locations of Schindler's List. Krakow strikes me as the tourist & vagabond location of Europe that Prague used to be 10 years ago. It's incredibly inexpensive, there are over 100,000 students there and most young people speak English very well.
Later we went to Auschwitz and the concentration camps. Now this was a humbling and eye opening experience. I barely spoke for over 6 hours. The tour begins in Auschwitz II Birkenau, the larger part of the camp. It was huge. The entire process of debarking of people and their systematic elimination or torture into slave labor, plus the "living" conditions in which they were forced to live – it all boggled my mind. One oddity was that the tour guide seemed to be saying things as if to convince us that this all actually took place. I wound up doing research on the whole "Holocaust deniers" movement, which is baseless since there is plenty of verified documentation that these death camps were in fact death camps.
Next was the original camp, of the three, where they had exhibitions of really bizarre and yet compelling evidence from the concentration camp. There were shoes, human hair, luggage, teeth, photos, records, and many other things left over from the camp when it ran full tilt. In the end, the Nazi's had tried to erase any proof of the camps, but Auschwitz was just too large to completely destroy. All they managed to get done was mostly the gas chambers and some of the wooden buildings. Only one of the gas chambers survived, but they had to re-create the ovens, which is of some controversy because it was not original.
What permeated in my mind the whole day was that the systematic eradication of millions of people took place. That someone in the 20th century could devalue any human life, regardless of creed and belief system, to the point of genocide. I don't understand the motive, or even worse, the will to make this a horrible reality. How and why could human beings tolerate this injustice? What motivated these atrocities? I have no real answers. Nothing I could ever read will make enough sense to me to make any of this feel comprehensible. I'm not a very spiritual person, but the weight of the ghosts and what happened there could be heavy on the shoulders. We chose to take very few photos out of respect.
After that, we went through a few smaller towns and made our way to Gliwiz, an important part of Brandy's research. The hotel has a Pizza Hut in the lobby. We checked it out for fun, and much to our dismay it was really classy. I mean high brow with candelabras and crown molding. The pizza was even classy and well made.
From here it was basically a 3 day trek back to home. We did a train to Warsaw that arrived at Noon, and then we had a day to kill before a night train to Berlin. We put everything in a locker and wandered the city. There was a brand new HARD ROCK CAFÉ in Warsaw and we ate near the Prince Cloud Guitar. That night we actually got a bed on the train, my first ever on a Eurorail. I slept well, but Brandy was annoyed with the snoring.
The next day was a 14 hour layover in Berlin before another night train. Berlin was boring for us because we had a limited time and everything was more modern and metropolitan, less historical or fun. We found out later we needed to go to the former East Berlin to see what we wanted. Oh well, we were dragging by this point in the trip from lack of sleep and a lot of walking around.
Another night train, all night, this time in a regular 6 person room along with a German who worked for Wikipedia and a Greek guy who is convinced the secret service of every country is after him. We discussed politics (again) and eventually I had to sleep. We arrived in Paris and pretty much went straight to the airport to come home. That means we were 3 days without a shower by the time we got home.
It's good to be home again, but good god, I have learned to hate our President and how America is viewed in Europe. I missed the cats. A few people checked in on them while we were gone, but I was curious how "V" was going to react. Cousette has been through this a few times. She understands. "V" is too young and has never had his humans leave for an extended period. He's so spoiled, I thought he might freak out.
He did. Upon our return, it took almost an hour before he'd let me pet him or tough him. By the time I went to sleep, he was on my shoulder & purring. I was happy. We're back, and we're engaged, and it's all good.
Time to get to work….
- Ross
Okay where I left off at was en route to Poland, stopping in Berlin for a few hours to wait for the train to Warsaw. After a night of very little sleep, it was painful… and freezing. Once I got on the train and we got our seats, I was out for the majority of the 6 hour train ride. Once we got in, a driver picked us up and took us to the hotel. Unlike the hotel that I booked in Paris, Brandy picked this one and it was high class with wireless Internet and nice showers, etc. We ate a nice meal and passed out.
The next morning we did our tour of Warsaw, Poland. Brandy's interest was in the World War II Jewish aspects. We saw what was left of the Warsaw Ghetto and several buildings and areas that were left from the war. Very little is left since the city was nearly demolished and raised almost to the ground in rubble by the Nazi's and then the communists. On a funny note, we wandered right into a film shoot and a grip truck.
From Warsaw we went to Krakow, and from there we went to several smaller towns around southern Poland, including Krosno. Mostly we went to sites where the Nazi's committed atrocities. In Krakow, we went to all the real locations of Oskar Schindler and the set locations of Schindler's List. Krakow strikes me as the tourist & vagabond location of Europe that Prague used to be 10 years ago. It's incredibly inexpensive, there are over 100,000 students there and most young people speak English very well.
Later we went to Auschwitz and the concentration camps. Now this was a humbling and eye opening experience. I barely spoke for over 6 hours. The tour begins in Auschwitz II Birkenau, the larger part of the camp. It was huge. The entire process of debarking of people and their systematic elimination or torture into slave labor, plus the "living" conditions in which they were forced to live – it all boggled my mind. One oddity was that the tour guide seemed to be saying things as if to convince us that this all actually took place. I wound up doing research on the whole "Holocaust deniers" movement, which is baseless since there is plenty of verified documentation that these death camps were in fact death camps.
Next was the original camp, of the three, where they had exhibitions of really bizarre and yet compelling evidence from the concentration camp. There were shoes, human hair, luggage, teeth, photos, records, and many other things left over from the camp when it ran full tilt. In the end, the Nazi's had tried to erase any proof of the camps, but Auschwitz was just too large to completely destroy. All they managed to get done was mostly the gas chambers and some of the wooden buildings. Only one of the gas chambers survived, but they had to re-create the ovens, which is of some controversy because it was not original.
What permeated in my mind the whole day was that the systematic eradication of millions of people took place. That someone in the 20th century could devalue any human life, regardless of creed and belief system, to the point of genocide. I don't understand the motive, or even worse, the will to make this a horrible reality. How and why could human beings tolerate this injustice? What motivated these atrocities? I have no real answers. Nothing I could ever read will make enough sense to me to make any of this feel comprehensible. I'm not a very spiritual person, but the weight of the ghosts and what happened there could be heavy on the shoulders. We chose to take very few photos out of respect.
After that, we went through a few smaller towns and made our way to Gliwiz, an important part of Brandy's research. The hotel has a Pizza Hut in the lobby. We checked it out for fun, and much to our dismay it was really classy. I mean high brow with candelabras and crown molding. The pizza was even classy and well made.
From here it was basically a 3 day trek back to home. We did a train to Warsaw that arrived at Noon, and then we had a day to kill before a night train to Berlin. We put everything in a locker and wandered the city. There was a brand new HARD ROCK CAFÉ in Warsaw and we ate near the Prince Cloud Guitar. That night we actually got a bed on the train, my first ever on a Eurorail. I slept well, but Brandy was annoyed with the snoring.
The next day was a 14 hour layover in Berlin before another night train. Berlin was boring for us because we had a limited time and everything was more modern and metropolitan, less historical or fun. We found out later we needed to go to the former East Berlin to see what we wanted. Oh well, we were dragging by this point in the trip from lack of sleep and a lot of walking around.
Another night train, all night, this time in a regular 6 person room along with a German who worked for Wikipedia and a Greek guy who is convinced the secret service of every country is after him. We discussed politics (again) and eventually I had to sleep. We arrived in Paris and pretty much went straight to the airport to come home. That means we were 3 days without a shower by the time we got home.
It's good to be home again, but good god, I have learned to hate our President and how America is viewed in Europe. I missed the cats. A few people checked in on them while we were gone, but I was curious how "V" was going to react. Cousette has been through this a few times. She understands. "V" is too young and has never had his humans leave for an extended period. He's so spoiled, I thought he might freak out.
He did. Upon our return, it took almost an hour before he'd let me pet him or tough him. By the time I went to sleep, he was on my shoulder & purring. I was happy. We're back, and we're engaged, and it's all good.
Time to get to work….
- Ross
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sonnyboo & the Spooner Weasel do Europe 2007 PART I
Sonnyboo & the Spooner Weasel do Europe 2007 PART I
We arrive at Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris, which is one of 3 airports, but the only one I've ever seen. We easily make our way out of there, but we wound up taking a cab because of a problem just getting to the subway system. We go to our hotel straight away so we can drop off our bags and make our way around. It's 9:00AM Paris time, and we can't check in until 9:00PM. After the drop off, we wind up being all of a few paces from a Metro stop. I have a theory that you can get anywhere in Paris in no more than 2 subway trains. This is no exception and we decide to see the Eiffel Tower first. It's symbolic of Paris in everyway, and being from Ohio Brandy brings up the KING's ISLAND 1/3rd scale Eiffel Tower. Once you see the real one, you find the Cincinnati replica kind of silly and for me, in bad taste. This proved true yet again. Once we got street level near the military school, it was freezing and raining. We stopped into a cafe to wait it out a little. One of the joys of Paris is just chilling in a cafe to talk & people watch. We did this well since Brandy was still very sick and on the flight over my sniffling became a full on runny nose.
We hobbled our way over to the park just east of the Eiffel Tower and slowly approached the iron giant. After marveling and also deciding NOT to stay in the freezing cold wind with drizzle, we moved on up the hill to the west of the tower and again stared at the city from the hill. I had told Brandy many times about this place and the view from here. Brandy has never been to Europe before, aside from England. She also studied French since high school and she used everything she had remembered. Lots of "uhs" and "argh", but basically she did a far better job than I ever could. We made our way to the nearest metro stop and headed back to the hotel since it was nearing 2:00PM and all we could both think about was sleep.
The flight over was pretty sleepless, which was odd because our flight was only half full. The snowstorms of the week before cancelled all flights leading up to ours to and from anywhere on the eastern seaboard. We got very lucky and we managed to get on each flight and pass many disgruntled travelers. Once on the final leg, the 7.5 hour flight from Philly, I was intending to sleep as much as I could. I stayed up late the night before and was hoping this would adjust my body clock. Instead, I could barely sleep and when I did it was horrendously discomforting. I was starting to contract Brandy's virus and maybe biologically something changes in you that prevents sleep in less comfortable situations, but I was having very little sleep. One cool new thing - video on demand for the little LCD screens in each seatback.
Now that we made it to the hotel dragging horribly, we both took showers and then passed out by 2:15PM. I was thinking we'd take a nap, then go to dinner. When my Brandy-Weasel is hungry, feed it. Her stomach has no tolerance for slackers or humor. Feed the Brandy or beware. Sometimes her tummy says things the Brandy's brain does not mean when it hasn't been fed. I learned this years ago. Of course, what no one could predict was that our mutual lack of sleep and now recent tiring from a simple jaunt would wipe us both out. The next thing I know it's 12:Noon the next day and the maid is trying to see if we want things changed. We slept for nearly 22 hours.
DAY 2
This day, we trog out and make our way to the Louvre. This is my favorite museum on the planet. It's got a lot to see and it's set in an old French palace, but with a very modern, controversial glass pyramid out front that still causes a ruckus with locals. We go in and I remember where everything is, except the Mona Lisa has been moved to a new wing in 2003. It's more visible, easier access, and interestingly appears bigger than it used to. It used to be behind several inches of bullet proof glass in a side wall. It appeared to be no bigger than an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper. It looks bigger now, but it's still behind bullet proof glass.
I was now under the full sway of the virus and Brandy was better, but not 100% either. We made our way around a few places that I love so dearly. We hear an announcement and find out that we only have 1.5 hours before closing. I pick up the pace and we move quickly to the Greek statues where I have planned for 2 whole weeks to make my proposal of marriage to Brandy. She has no idea what is in store and loves the two enclosed courtyards with their natural light and the larger than life marble statues.
I get down on one knee. She asks me to stop, but I say no. I ask the basic question and she has this look on her face like I'm confessing to a crime. Before it gets ugly, I start in on the whole pitch as I knew it. Brandy is complex and unique. I know everyone thinks everyone else is unique and that is true, but no one on the planet has a CLUE just how odd and unique Brandy is. Some people think outside of the box, well Brandy's not even in the freakin' WAREHOUSE. I have to let her know what I mean by marriage, I have to let her know I have an equal disdain for formalities. I don't want a church wedding. I don't want anything remotely traditional, and I don't want the core of our relationship to change. We have no expectations and we aren't setting a date. I gave her the ring and she said yes.
Then they kicked us out of the Louvre when the closed. Next up was the Arc De Triomphe down the street. A simple subway stop and we walk smack dab into a Veteran's day parade at the Arc. Brandy takes some more pictures and we move on down one of the district's streets. Another early night because it starts to rain again and we needed some alone time now.
DAY 3
We are taking a night train this night, so it's a light day of sightseeing before getting on board. We go to Notre Dame and for the first time, I set foot inside it. A marvel of ancient medieval architecture, seeing the site makes me also think that perhaps Christianity has too much arrogance and spectacle. Brandy wants to see another church called Sacre Cour, or Sacred Heart. We find our way up a very large hill and windy streets from the back. We find a bunch of old men playing a game with metal balls, then walk through a park to another enormous structure. When we round the corner to the front, we are taken aback by the view of paris from this distance and hill. You could see everything from there in a panoramic view all around. The church interior does not disappoint either with all it's history and design. Rarely am I moved by these things, but it was impressive.
DAY 3.5
I have taken many Eurorail night trains to get to my destinations. It's a great way to travel and I love it. It also saves one night's hotel expenses. We initially find a seat and nestle in. I even fall asleep quickly next to an African woman and a Frenchman that smoked like a chimney. Of course there is a downside to a Eurorail Pass. Of course we'd experience it. The flaw is that you are taking a back seat to people with reservations and a non-pass regular ticket for that train. In the case of this particular train, it means you take NO SEAT because there are none. We got bumped 1-2 stops later when people with reserved seating came in. We wind up sitting on the floor in the luggage section. Things are tense for a few moments, but we relax into it. It's not a big deal. Two hours later, a seat opens up in the cafe cart and I listen to my trusty MP3's for a bit. A guy from Germany reads my hat and asks me if I make movies on the Internet. He recognized the name SONNYBOO, thus making it official; I spend too much time online. I then go back to find the lovely Brandy surrounded by no less than 5 young men also displaced and hitting on her like she was a super model.
One of the guys has a laptop out & playing tunes from Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Marvin Gaye. I feel like I found Kindred spirits. We start to talk, as most people are supposed to on long train trips. We discuss politics first, as this is a necessity when you tell anyone in the outside world you are an American. Yes, we hate George W. Bush, No, we do NOT like what is happening in Iraq and don't believe our government has a clue. I believe the same thing as most Europeans which is that we had no business going into Iraq and that this war has devolved into a mess that warrants a pullout. Finding a group of older college kids en route to Berlin for a mock-Parliament event made for a long, fun night of discussion. Two of the guys were Iranians displaced and living in Belgium for several years. They were not outcast by their peers and had a sharp intellect. I was impressed in every way with them, not the least of which was their open mindedness of life and the world, but also by their maturity.
We talked about pop culture, music & movies. We all agreed the new Casino Royale was a great way to reboot the James Bond franchise. Justin Timberlake is viewed as a Michael Jackson wannabe even in Europe, and the Beatles will be timeless and relevant forever. As the night went on, we eventually moved on from baggage area to the cafe cart where seats had opened up when they stopped serving. The train trip was from 9:37PM and arriving at 8:46AM, so sitting on the hard floor for 6+ hours started to really really hurt. Once we all had proper chairs to sit in, some people joined and or left. This is what rocks about traveling by train and also by a bit of vagabond traveling. I love meeting people this way and learned this way of life when I first traveled to Europe 10 years ago.
I told the story of my first trip to Europe and was met with laughter, thankfully intentional. I asked a lot about everyone's history and perspectives on life in Europe. Each country here has so much history and pride, and it's all different from one another. Their proximity breeds better friendships and respect. American seems so self contained and isolated because of the oceans and just the way the chips fell in terms of economy and politics. By the early AM hours, it was just Brandy, me and the two Iranian brothers. By some fluke, they asked me if I liked to read, and then if I liked J.R.R. Tolkien. I didn't say anything, but pulled my paperback of THE BOOK OF LOST TALES from my coat pocket. I had found this treasure of unfinished writings at Half Priced Books before we left. I spent several years awaiting this book to be on paperback and then at the used bookstore. The older brother said that was one of the only books he had not read yet. I was only 12 pages in. We shared a mutual love for The Silmarillion, all of our favorite book. We discussed several of the stories and characters in detail.
Eventually the cafe cart re-opened for breakfast & we got booted from our only seats. By this time, we found enough actual seats that we all squeezed into a car and passed out for the final 2 hours of the journey. Once we got into the Berlin station, we parted ways, as many of these travels and chance meetings do. I shook hands with them all individually, and then I handed my Tolkien book to the Iranian. He said it was too much, but I insisted. I can always get it again sometime. It meant too much to me to not give them something. I can't explain it, but random selfless acts sometimes come back in the karmic greatness and you just do it when you feel compelled. I made him promise to share it with his little brother.
DAY 4
A long 4 hours waiting for the train to Warsaw Poland from Berlin. It seemed longer because it was cold and we needed a lot more sleep. Once on the train to Poland, it was really easy for me to pass out. I slept for hours. I needed it. English becomes less and less prevalent the further east you go. I have never had any real trouble getting around without any other languages, but it's different going to a former eastern block, communist country. Lucky for us, Brandy got a tour guide package and they are picking us up at the train station.
We got off the train and for 5 very long minutes we wait. A stranger asks us if we need accommodations, Brandy says yes, then I remind her that we already have them, and she says "Oh yeah..." and he wanders off. Then a young, chipper happy blonde guy carrying a sign that says "Brandy Seymour" walks up to us and escorts us to a Mercedes that carts us to the hotel. We order room service and munch on chocolate ice cream and french fries along with gourmet food stylings and dressings from the East. Again, I sleep like a log before starting a tour of Warsaw the next day.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-
I had a realization that part of who I am today was greatly shaped by my travels over the last decade. My worldviews were expanded; my ideals about people from places other than American have been opened. I was asked several times by several people here this trip what I thought of the differences between American and Europe. Sadly I barely notice the "differences", as I am looking at things with a broader view in life now. I don't think most Americans would agree with me. Most people I know in the U.S. would think they are having the most unique wedding because they chose the blue flower arrangements rather than the pink carnations on the tables at the reception, or that they have such a unique and interesting point of view because they had the DJ play "We Are Family" after the traditional "Chicken Dance". I think I hate some Americans more than Europeans do. Anyway, my point to them, and now you, is this - People are people no matter where you live. There are idiots and morons in Europe, African, Australia, Asia, as well as the plethora we have in the United States (and our government).
One thing that gives me hope is that when two Americans like ourselves are embraced by Persians, Asians, and Europeans without hesitation and with such a mutual respect between us all - I have faith in humanity, albeit for a brief time. More on this wonderful adventure when I get more time & sleep. Still not caught up and a bit woozy.
Peace & love with good happiness stuff,
Peter John Ross
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Engaging, Enraging, and the Etymology of the word ELBOW
Engaging, Enraging, and the Etymology of the word ELBOW
March 13th, 2007
Another week goes by. This past Friday and Saturday I was doing long days as a camera operator on a gig for Scott Spears. He has moved back to Columbus from LA and has been freelancing himself quite a little bit. I needed the gig since I need some extra money for the European trip coming soon. It will help a lot as I gear up for the next phase in my development as a human being. Because I know my girlfriend does not read my blogs, and only sometimes looks at the pictures, I think it's safe to announce a little secret here. I am planning on asking her some serious questions in Paris. Big questions. One might say that you "pop" this one, but that is an odd phrase that makes no sense to me. Don't tell her. She doesn't know. Plus maybe it's all a ruse to see if she really is reading my blogs and not telling me. I have been known to be that cruel on occassion.
It's still not hitting me that hard that soon I'll be on the other side of the globe again. My mind rarely bends outside of the focus I am on. I have been living inside the walls of Rossdonia and I need to open my eyes again to the world at large. Or maybe I just need cable TV. The things that entertain me are NOT what entertain most other people. I enjoy poking the psycho's who fixate on me with a stick when I should be ignoring them and watching the latest episode of HEROES, a show I haven't seen a single episode of. Part of the reason I don't have cable is because I'd waste time switching channels in the ceaseless effort to find something good. It doesn't help that in order to view things well, I'd need High Definition or I'd feel a bit cheated by the quality. Cable TV just looks awful.
I saw the movie "300" on Friday night on the "UltraScreen", which used to be an Imax, but now it's just "ultra". I liked the movie. It wasn't life altering or anything, nor would I say it was great, but I was entertained. I salivated after the trailers and I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't blown away either. It looked great, but the graphic nature of it seemed less real than say Gladiator where the violence felt far more real and the locations/sets were more earthly. For me, it would have helped if we had more time with the characters, developed a relationship with them as an audience before putting them into the situation. That's why LORD OF THE RINGS did this much more successfully in very similar setups; the difference being that we cared a lot for the characters. It was still a fun, mindless movie with great action scenes, and a little nudity.
Yesterday was a hard day. We took our man "V" to the vet to get fixed. It was difficult because, I have my testicles, and empathized with the loss of that part of your person because I never want to lose mine. He has become a part of our family very quickly, albeit with many hilarious troubles. "V" is a troublemaker, no doubt. He annoys, he attacks, he knocks things over, he has issues with authority, and loves to bite and chew. Lately, his sexual drive has gotten to the point where no one in th house is sleeping much because he's trying to hump Coussette at all hours and the fights ensue. We made an appointment for last Friday, but since both Brandy & I were working all day, it wouldn't have been fair, and we definately didn't want to leave him at the vet's all weekend. We re-sheduled for Monday.
So we got up at 6:00AM, an ungodly hour for all of us... except "V" who thought it was the greatest that we were all up when he was. Brandy went to get the car around front so the distance wouldn't be so bad. "V" has been staring out the windows & doors, and has made several escape attempts just so he could get out into the universe. He's a crafty one, he is. That is, until I took him into the universe. When I tried to pick him up, he assumed it was Chase Game, and hid. It took 3 minutes to get him and take him to the car. Once in, he ran to the back window, and got excited & curious. Then the car moved...
Brandy's driving is erratic and bumpy. Needless to say, this was unpleasant for "V". He freaked out and hid under her driver's seat. Then he crawled forward, under her pedals and she drives stick. We had to pull over, put on the hazards, and get him out. I put him by my feet and he hid there, but constantly tried to get back to her feet. Then he hid under my passengers seat. He howled and complained the whole time we were on the highway. We got to the vet's and they weren't open yet, and there were many cars waiting. We decided to let our man calm down & let the line go through. I pet his head and talked to him/ He popped his head out florm under the seat, and eventually, with much petting, came out all the way. He was not thrilled, but more calm. Eventually, I went in to fill out the paperwork and Brnady brought him in when I finished. "V" was calm until a dog started barking and barking. Then the shivering and claws came out.
We left him with the vets and went home. They called less than 2 hours later saying he made it out of surgery okay and we could get him anytime after noon. Knowing how stubborn and persistent he is, we had to get one of these "elizabethan" collars, the cone head, to keep him from licking his wound. "V" hates it. He is uncomfortable and whining. When he tries to jump through the arms of chairs like he used to, he gets slapped back down and falls disoriented. I slept with him in the basement last night and he purred on my chest. Today is babysitting day with him as he gets used to it. His pain seems to have faded and the drugs have all worn off. Our man "V" pulled through like a champ. We have to keep the cone on his head for a few days at least, but he really hates it. I feel it necessary to scratch his head all over once an hour because he can't. Imagine having an itch on your face and being physically incapable of scratching it. I imagine my creepy stalker-types reading this understand this feeling all too well.
I'm going to work on my 2 scripts for 2007 while in Europe, but mostly on long train trips, flights, and even off days. I want a part of this trip to be a vacation, a no stress, fun time. I can't wait. The excitement grows inside me everyday until I leave. Now I have the extra $$$ to pay bills ahead and not be stressed when I get home for April's bills, mid-month. I'm making more MP3's of director commentary tracks for my portable MP3 player. I'm trying to pick more stuff I hIaven't heard or haven't listened to as much of. I also got a 1 gig memory card for the camera I got Bandy for her birthday, in actuality my Mom gave it to me to give to her.It's a nice 5 megapixel camera, and with the 1 gig card, we can get over 800 pictures on it, plus the 512 meg card that came with it, puts us at 1,200+ pics for the trip. I need an abundance of AA batteries, plus AAA for my other toys, like the
I'm going to put a new door and a lock on the basement while we are gone. I'm going to move most of the valuable down there while we are gone. It will be safer if I've got everything locked up and taken care of. I just don't want anything too valuable stolen while we're gone for many days. I only have a few items that mean a lot to me. Thank god we have a few friends coming over to check on the kitties and our stuff every few days, but still... paranoia.
The weather here has suddenly gotten beautiful. My windows are open, the fresh air circulates through the house. The kitties smell the universe, and I can just feel that spring has arrived. Here's hoping that we can all stay up and positive as the year trudges forward.
More later, much later my acolytes. I have much to do, not the least of which involves entertaining a recovering kitty.
Peace and love and good happiness stuff,
PjR
Friday, March 02, 2007
Invariably Invested in Allure
Invariably Invested in Allure
March 2nd, 2007
Well, it took some time, but I finally have something I am very very happy about. I’ve been working on a script for a fairly thorough outline of a feature screenplay for well over a year. I’ve now worked with 3 additional writers, although the majority of material from 2 of them went unused. Now, I am fairly content and twiddling with the remaining draft.
The odyssey of getting the script into shape reveals the Indie process. I met with the two sets of producers last week to find out if we can all gel as a team and also if everyone was still interested in making this movie. We were, so that leads into budget discussions, which eventually ran into the script. I had only provided the first 57 pages. I promised delivery of a completed draft by Sunday morning.
The truth is I had not looked at the script in 6 weeks myself. Where we were at was George Caleodis was sending me pages, several at a time over a 3 month period. I’d read the pages, then cut and paste them from WORD to FINAL DRAFT. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even correct the formatting issues. So after this meeting on Friday, I opened up the file and started to read the script, actually this draft months in the making – for the FIRST TIME. Now, I didn’t find anything I didn’t like per se, but what I discovered was that there were mental notes to myself like “Oh, I’ve got to change that” or even real notes like, “Don’t worry George, I’ll re-write that scene” that I quite frankly – never got around to.
Then the real shock kicked in. George’s draft just ends at a certain point where the ending sequences begin. I asked him about that and he reminded me that I told him that I was going to use the earlier draft by Chris Gavalar as the basis and I was going to re-write that. Oh yeah… forgot about that, didn’t I? So now I visited a nearly 2 year old draft. The end sequence in the Chris Gavalar draft was exceptional. It flowed well, was exactly in the style I wanted and still want. Now the problem was there were several characters in that sequence that are not in our current draft. The pages refer to events that no longer occur in our draft. I needed to overhaul the entire end sequence now. And it has to be done by Sunday morning.
My faithful readers, the Acolytes of Boo, which sadly includes many naysayers looking for nuggets of negativity, already know that the main reason I have brought on other writers is because I have had writer’s block for some time. Not true writer’s block, as I have been able to write many a blog, write a book, and even write love letters to Avril Lavigne before her untimely engagement. I could write anything EXCEPT this screenplay. Now I very much wanted to collaborate with writers from now on with all of my projects, especially a comedy, but finding the right fit (write fit?) was not easy. Chris Gavalar did a great job, but we didn’t 100% see eye to eye on certain changes. Another writer made an attempt, but then got accepted to USC Film School and we never really got to work too much, and then George Caleodis stepped up to the challenge and we hit it off perfectly. Since George is a stand up comedian, and an accomplished improv actor, as well as dramatic actor – we were able to speak the same kind of language on this.
Now I was at the point where I needed to step back up to the plate and the deadline loomed over my head like a twisted grandfather clock. All my trepidations came at once. I stared at the keyboard a I have lo these many months, and then I finished my re-write by 3:00PM on Saturday. I did some touch ups and emailed it out 12 hours early at 6:33PM Saturday to the producers.
Now there are still tweaks to be done, especially after we do a “table read” with actors who may or may not ever play these roles. Everything sounds different when you hear it out loud. I’m still fiddling with it before I get to that point. I need a physical hard copy of a script to write notes on and work with to make revisions. It’s tactile, but important. Since getting my first hard copy of the latest draft this week, I’ve already decided to completely re-write a character, an ART CRITIC from the ground up. I feel like I have something to say through this character and want to make a comment on suburbia via this flamboyant non gender specific entity.
Looks like writer’s block went away…
I still shan’t reveal the name just yet, but the screenplay is a dark comedy that basically is set in one location, with a limited cast. If Quentin Tarantino and Neil Simon had an ugly love child – that would be the movie I’m making next. We’re now set for an August-September 2007 (tentative) shoot and things are coming together nicely in a myriad of ways for this project. Producers are on board, and even some of the crew is coming together.
Now one of the things that sucks is that since HORRORS OF WAR is not out on DVD yet, in many ways to investors it’s as if I’m still on my first feature. We’re missing the validity of saying to an investor, “He go to any BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO™ and see the DVD with my name on it.” So that sucketh greatly in that regard, but then there has been so much learned in the process, that some aspects are easier.
The Poor Man’s Trip to Europe preparation has begun. I have my new passport (renewed - $67). Brandy didn’t want to give up her old passport, so she claimed to have “lost it” and had to pay $97. It turns out, I got my old passport back when I renewed it, only with some hole punches in it and the giant words VOID across it. She could have saved $30.
We’re flying in and out of Paris, one of my favorite cities on the planet. I’ve been there a few times, but that was now 10 years gone by. Brandy has never been to Europe outside of England. Since we can make this trip on someone else’s dime, and Paris is the least expensive place to fly in, I intend to show her what I know of the city and find some new things too. Plus, I want European SPOONS. I’ve never had European Spoons, and now I want them.
From Paris France we head to Berlin, German, then the majority of our trip is research throughout Poland. Krakow to Warsaw with many little places in between. I am considering directing this movie about World War II that has no science fiction elements whatsoever. I’m going to go and see what I feel emotionally with the physical places and how it connects with me. This would be a movie for 2008-2009 and requires more than any movie I’d ever considered before.
Now to go with last months miraculous purchase of new pants (1 pair jeans, 1 pair cargo), I bought 2 new pairs of shoes, since my only black shoes are starting to fall apart. It turns out when I shopped at PAYLESS SHOES ™ I got the identical pair of shoes I was wearing. Then I went online to order a new pair of VANS ™ since not one store in the Midwest seems to carry the standard canvas shoes with laces, only slip-ons can be found. The last pair I bought was last May in Hollywood. Within days, I was on a shoot where I was in the rain & mud so that new pair was ruined. Usually a pair of VANS™ last me a 3 years or so. Again, I spent less than $50 for both pairs of shoes combined. So in the last few weeks I’ve spent less than $100 on clothes, but it’s more than I’ve spent on wardrobe in years. I really don’t care much about my attire.
For the trip, I want to go extremely limited in terms of baggage and clothes, etc. We got matching large backpacks for Xmas/Birthday so that’s all we’re going to take with us. No luggage, no laptops, and laundry detergent so we can wash some of what we take and not bring as much. Now I shan’t go without any technology. The aforementioned 1 gig MP3 player will entertain on flights and train trips. I’m also talking the Palm Vii Palm Pilot Scott Spears imparted to me. I’m loading that mutha up with direction to hotels, train schedules, phone numbers, contacts, info, plus it has a little portable keyboard so that if I need to type something I want in a data file – I’ve got it. If I choose to make script ideas or whatever, I can still do that without much hassle. This is one of those ancient; nearly Amish Palm Pilots, but I dig it. I also got a pre-paid cell phone that works in Europe, so we can get contacted if anything comes up, and also make calls in an emergency situation.
ROSSDONIA REPORT
The strife in Rossdonia has become palpable. Moods are tense, and the sexual tension could be cut with a steak knife. Our man “V” has reached sexual maturity and has started trying to hump everything and everyone in the house. We’re going to have to do the dreaded SNIP SNIP. I feel awkward setting this up. As a male with my genitalia in tact, there’s something just plain wrong about making this phone call. It must be done, but why can’t Brandy do it? Poor Cousette has been targeted as the designated sex object for “V” and there’s this constant hissing, attack, separation we have to do at all hours of day and night.
I said to Brandy I wished “V” could control himself better and she said the same thing about me.
This has been a bountiful writing experience, but less fulfilling that working on the script. I must return to that now, my acolytes.
- Peter John Ross
Now Wearing Pants
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Multiple Motives and the Mutilation of Emancipations
Multiple Motives and the Mutilation of Emancipations
Feb 25th, 2007
Most people know that Sonnyboo.com has free music & other downloads. It's odd, I get 15-17 emails a day (literally) thanking me for my generosity, and these days, a lone poster who feels that I am an evil bastard because I benefit from the promotion of my downloads.
Today I recieved my 17th email just on the ON THE LOT site alone since joining thanking me for the Royalty Free Music, I offer on Sonnyboo.com, which is my website. I was a musician from the time I was 5 years old. I started noodling with the piano, then the saxophone, then guitar, and everything else as I grew up. My sole purpose was to write music for movies. That's it. That was the sum total of my purpose in life until 1997 when I finally got my first chance to get my music on a soundtrack. The movie was AWFUL. I don't mean in a fun, Mystery Science 3000 kinda way, I mean in an ugly, so bad it can't even be laughed at because I want to put a fork in my eyeballs kind of way. I said to myself - "I can do better than that" and that moment redefined who I was. Everyone SAYS "I can do better than that", but I endeavored to do so. I spent a few years writing screenplays and trying to sell one so I could make my own low budget SLACKER/CLERKS/EL MARIACHI.
In 1997, I retired my songwriting endeavors. I had recorded 8 or 9 CD's worth of music where I played most or all of the instruments. I never really felt I connected with any audience at any time. Part of art, to me anyway, is to express yourself solely to get it out of you, and the other part is to express yourself in a way that communicates with other people. I didn't feel like a failure with my music, but I also didn't get fulfilled because I wasn't expressing myself in a way that other people understood.
In 2000, I started making short films. As crude and amateurish as they were, I seemed to be connecting to audiences much better. More people than not, understood what I was trying to "say" with this artistic expression. Going to film festival screenings, big and small (mostly small) really enhanced the experience as you get unadulterated feedback from the great amorphous beast known as an AUDIENCE.
After making short films for 2-3 years, I did what ever amateur does - I used © copyrighted music in my movies. Pretty quickly, I found the limitations in how littel you can do with a short with stolen music in it. The joy in working with musicians again and getting original music for my films. Original music made the films more personal and more unique, at least in a simple aesthetic way.
Once I was able to get TV distribution for several of my short films because I had obtained the legal rights to the music, as well as cell phone distribution, and other money making revenues - I wanted to make sure other people that want to further their careers were able to do so also. It's also a great promotion for my website & short films. Uh oh! The smoking gun! I admit that it is promotional!!!! As if this is something to be ashamed of. I genuinely want to help people AND I want to get name recognition for my site. I have been accused of being a marketing whore. Well, I am. But I don't see how that somehow negates the actual generosity of giving completely, true ROYALTY FREE MUSIC and other downloads for filmmakers on my site. I don't require anyone to watch my movies, and I don't even require any notification from filmmakers who choose to use my music in their movies.
Here's a newsflash - PEOPLE CAN HAVE MULTIPLE INTENTIONS!!!! I don' t have a problem giving away stuff for free and also use it to market myself. My dual intentions are not evil or wrong, at least I sleep okay at night knowing why I do things. I just don't understand why there are people on this site who stay awake at night, writing characters in their screenplays about it, and hounding my posts and blogs about it so I have to censor the replies.
Here's some irony - all I ever wanted my whole life was to have my music in movies. Years after I quit making music, that's when songs I wrote started appearing in literally hundreds of movies. I don't know exactly how to feel about that, but it's a mix of pride, jubilance, and of course a tinge of regret, but not enough to make me pick up my stratocaster and try to play again. I do NOT miss making music at all.
Ah, the spice of life. Differences of opinion.
In other news of the Boo...
I have been added as a guest speaker and on a panel or two with cinema greats Uwe Boll, Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), and more at the IT CAME FROM LAKE MICHIGAN film festival and indie film event. This will be a hoot. I'll get a table to sell my books and DVD's, etc. This will be kick ass. I love these kind of events and always have a ball. This time I want my woman there to help hock stuff. I always seem to sell more when a hot chick sits behind the table.
Thanks to the new GOOGLE ANALYTICS for website stats, I made an interesting discovery: Many Sonnyboo shorts are being used in educational institutions. Colleges like
uses THE LINE OF MASCULINITY and the "Best of Sonnyboo Shorts" DVD and the class has to write an analysis. There are also links and mentions of me & the Sonnyboo.com site in High Schools (like Smithtown in New York) and also Ohio University, both online & even to students. I got an email from a friend whose professor at Devry mention my site by name during class. I feel so wierd having my stuff mentioned in educational institutions. It kicks ass, but it's odd.
Anywho... We're gearing up for the research trip to Europe. That's right, France and Germany and Poland for 15 days. We're doing research for a feature for 2008-2009. This is a true story about the Axis and one girl's story (not Anne Frank). In many ways I'm just along for the ride, but another trip to Europe on someone else's dime never hurts. I will miss the cats, but then again, I just made MP3's of an buttload of director's commentary tracks and compressed them down a lot so I have 48 hours of audio on my 1 gig MP3 player. Train trips and long flights won't be so bad.
The Boo's world is spinning faster & faster. Let's see what else we have to see until next time.
- PjR
Feb 25th, 2007
Most people know that Sonnyboo.com has free music & other downloads. It's odd, I get 15-17 emails a day (literally) thanking me for my generosity, and these days, a lone poster who feels that I am an evil bastard because I benefit from the promotion of my downloads.
Today I recieved my 17th email just on the ON THE LOT site alone since joining thanking me for the Royalty Free Music, I offer on Sonnyboo.com, which is my website. I was a musician from the time I was 5 years old. I started noodling with the piano, then the saxophone, then guitar, and everything else as I grew up. My sole purpose was to write music for movies. That's it. That was the sum total of my purpose in life until 1997 when I finally got my first chance to get my music on a soundtrack. The movie was AWFUL. I don't mean in a fun, Mystery Science 3000 kinda way, I mean in an ugly, so bad it can't even be laughed at because I want to put a fork in my eyeballs kind of way. I said to myself - "I can do better than that" and that moment redefined who I was. Everyone SAYS "I can do better than that", but I endeavored to do so. I spent a few years writing screenplays and trying to sell one so I could make my own low budget SLACKER/CLERKS/EL MARIACHI.
In 1997, I retired my songwriting endeavors. I had recorded 8 or 9 CD's worth of music where I played most or all of the instruments. I never really felt I connected with any audience at any time. Part of art, to me anyway, is to express yourself solely to get it out of you, and the other part is to express yourself in a way that communicates with other people. I didn't feel like a failure with my music, but I also didn't get fulfilled because I wasn't expressing myself in a way that other people understood.
In 2000, I started making short films. As crude and amateurish as they were, I seemed to be connecting to audiences much better. More people than not, understood what I was trying to "say" with this artistic expression. Going to film festival screenings, big and small (mostly small) really enhanced the experience as you get unadulterated feedback from the great amorphous beast known as an AUDIENCE.
After making short films for 2-3 years, I did what ever amateur does - I used © copyrighted music in my movies. Pretty quickly, I found the limitations in how littel you can do with a short with stolen music in it. The joy in working with musicians again and getting original music for my films. Original music made the films more personal and more unique, at least in a simple aesthetic way.
Once I was able to get TV distribution for several of my short films because I had obtained the legal rights to the music, as well as cell phone distribution, and other money making revenues - I wanted to make sure other people that want to further their careers were able to do so also. It's also a great promotion for my website & short films. Uh oh! The smoking gun! I admit that it is promotional!!!! As if this is something to be ashamed of. I genuinely want to help people AND I want to get name recognition for my site. I have been accused of being a marketing whore. Well, I am. But I don't see how that somehow negates the actual generosity of giving completely, true ROYALTY FREE MUSIC and other downloads for filmmakers on my site. I don't require anyone to watch my movies, and I don't even require any notification from filmmakers who choose to use my music in their movies.
Here's a newsflash - PEOPLE CAN HAVE MULTIPLE INTENTIONS!!!! I don' t have a problem giving away stuff for free and also use it to market myself. My dual intentions are not evil or wrong, at least I sleep okay at night knowing why I do things. I just don't understand why there are people on this site who stay awake at night, writing characters in their screenplays about it, and hounding my posts and blogs about it so I have to censor the replies.
Here's some irony - all I ever wanted my whole life was to have my music in movies. Years after I quit making music, that's when songs I wrote started appearing in literally hundreds of movies. I don't know exactly how to feel about that, but it's a mix of pride, jubilance, and of course a tinge of regret, but not enough to make me pick up my stratocaster and try to play again. I do NOT miss making music at all.
Ah, the spice of life. Differences of opinion.
In other news of the Boo...
I have been added as a guest speaker and on a panel or two with cinema greats Uwe Boll, Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), and more at the IT CAME FROM LAKE MICHIGAN film festival and indie film event. This will be a hoot. I'll get a table to sell my books and DVD's, etc. This will be kick ass. I love these kind of events and always have a ball. This time I want my woman there to help hock stuff. I always seem to sell more when a hot chick sits behind the table.
Thanks to the new GOOGLE ANALYTICS for website stats, I made an interesting discovery: Many Sonnyboo shorts are being used in educational institutions. Colleges like
Anywho... We're gearing up for the research trip to Europe. That's right, France and Germany and Poland for 15 days. We're doing research for a feature for 2008-2009. This is a true story about the Axis and one girl's story (not Anne Frank). In many ways I'm just along for the ride, but another trip to Europe on someone else's dime never hurts. I will miss the cats, but then again, I just made MP3's of an buttload of director's commentary tracks and compressed them down a lot so I have 48 hours of audio on my 1 gig MP3 player. Train trips and long flights won't be so bad.
The Boo's world is spinning faster & faster. Let's see what else we have to see until next time.
- PjR
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Revisiting Re-Editing and Restitution
Revisiting Re-Editing and Restitution
February 13th, 2007
I have a movie for the IFC MEDIA LAB site, but it is 7 minutes and they wanted it down to 6 minutes, so that meant some cutting. I have never re-edited this movie & sure wasn't going to go back to the raw footage so I watched it to see if I could just make trims from the movie as is. Since there was no music throughout until the end section, it was pretty easy to just Razor Tool out some lines of dialogue, and some (invisible to me for years) awkward pauses. In one spot during the section with music, I had to make a cut, but that was easily overcome with a cross dissolve on the audio track.
Every now & then I tend to go back to my old shorts & re-edit them, mostly because I need to get some distance from my initial instincts of the first edit and sometimes from my own feedback during screenings. What's funny to me is that it's less what people say than how I perceive they feel during a screening. It winds up meaning very little to me actual criticism written or spoken, as much as how I feel the audience, as a collective whole, reacts to any given moment in a movie. When you edit your own material and you sit with it, you do lose perspective. It's when you show it to someone that somehow it renews your take on how the emotional intentions work or fail and you see how maybe a fresh eye can vicariously open your eyes to changes & mistakes.
So with this case, a short film about racism I made a few years ago called BITTER OLD MAN, I wound up making the movie a lot better. As I get more experienced as a filmmaker, I find that instead of being pretentious and making my "director's cuts" longer, I tend to make them shorter & tighter. Now that BITTER OLD MAN is now only 6 minutes, I've kinda fell in love with the movie again. It's not a light piece, but it's definitely the most personal movie I've ever made. I took elements from conversations with a good friend of mine, who has since passed (only 2 years older than me) and made this tribute to our many arguments of race and the fact that he went crazy when he found out I lost my virginity to an African American girl.
The only other time I've re-edited like this is when I got my distribution deal with BIG FILM SHORTS and they wanted more material, so I made a bunch of cuts and made shorter versions of my old movies as I felt they would play better shorter and some of the jokes weren't as funny as I wrote them at the time. I made money on every single short film I re-edited at that time, so it was definitely worth it to me, plus the movies seem to play much better since I re-edited them with a more experienced eye.
Well, I was just informed via Email that BITTER OLD MAN on the IFC MEDIA LAB is ranked in the current Top 10, so I feel even better about the re-cut.
I woke up today to see another mound of snow on the world outside Rossdonia. This caused me to cancel my editing class for the 2nd week in a row. This depresses me a bit. I'm sick of the snow and cold weather. It was late coming, but it sucks nonetheless.
Our little kitty "V" is no longer very little and has started to enter sexual maturity. Poor old lady Cousette has become his target of any urges he has. "V" has tried to hump her in front of many a house guest, so like me, he has no inhibitions. His fur matches his personality. "V" has mostly a dark exterior and a white underbelly, and his personality is mostly this troublemaking rogue brashness with a sweet and loving aspect when he gets tired. He hates to be held, at least until he gets tired and then he falls all over you to be held and take a nap on my shoulder (still). Cousette is just lazy, but finally getting completely over the loss of her brother, Spaz. Most of the day is spent policing the public displays of affection this week.
Poor guy is gonna get snipped soon…
Because of a few unexpected gigs, February has been a very good month for me. I've gotten on a few shoots, camera gigs, and other miscellaneous paid work. I was able to do something the other day I haven't done in a few years; I bought new clothes. Now, I didn't go hog wild, I only bought 2 pairs of pants (a shock to most who know me since I hate wearing pants) and 2 shirts. Clothes have been a very low priority to me for a few years. Since I have a girlfriend, the need to try to look more hip has lessened for me. Overall, I spent all of $40 on the new attire, but it was more than I've put out for clothes since 2003. Next up – a new pair of shoes! Come on paid gigs, daddy literally needs a new pair of shoes. FYI – I bought my first ever pair of cargo pants and a new pair of jeans that actually fit, since the last pair has been horribly oversized, and baggy and I always felt like a whigger-type with my pants always lower than my waist. I may actually wear pants more often since these new ones are both a lot more comfortable than I am used to.
I finally got my final illustration for the book. With it came the last spell & grammar checks, thus the near-final version is done. Time to send it off to publishers. I've only waited 4 months to finalize this baby. It needed fermenting, like a fine wine, only words and illustrations that needed less procrastination on my part. Now that I uploaded the latest version, along with a raise in minimum wage, I upped the price to $14.99 plus shipping. It's worth it. The book gives a lot of info and entertains; at least those who bought it so far liked it. A little over 100 books sold so far. The Boo is pleased.
As I await a little bit more info, my feature films will have more updates in the coming weeks. For 2008 I am considering a far more heavy and deep project. I want to direct a feature based on a true life book about the holocaust. Working on BITTER OLD MAN reminded me that I do like drama and like working with actors on the more emotional aspects.
We shall see what the future holds.
Keep warm & dry friends of Boo.
-=- Peter John Ross
February 13th, 2007
I have a movie for the IFC MEDIA LAB site, but it is 7 minutes and they wanted it down to 6 minutes, so that meant some cutting. I have never re-edited this movie & sure wasn't going to go back to the raw footage so I watched it to see if I could just make trims from the movie as is. Since there was no music throughout until the end section, it was pretty easy to just Razor Tool out some lines of dialogue, and some (invisible to me for years) awkward pauses. In one spot during the section with music, I had to make a cut, but that was easily overcome with a cross dissolve on the audio track.
Every now & then I tend to go back to my old shorts & re-edit them, mostly because I need to get some distance from my initial instincts of the first edit and sometimes from my own feedback during screenings. What's funny to me is that it's less what people say than how I perceive they feel during a screening. It winds up meaning very little to me actual criticism written or spoken, as much as how I feel the audience, as a collective whole, reacts to any given moment in a movie. When you edit your own material and you sit with it, you do lose perspective. It's when you show it to someone that somehow it renews your take on how the emotional intentions work or fail and you see how maybe a fresh eye can vicariously open your eyes to changes & mistakes.
So with this case, a short film about racism I made a few years ago called BITTER OLD MAN, I wound up making the movie a lot better. As I get more experienced as a filmmaker, I find that instead of being pretentious and making my "director's cuts" longer, I tend to make them shorter & tighter. Now that BITTER OLD MAN is now only 6 minutes, I've kinda fell in love with the movie again. It's not a light piece, but it's definitely the most personal movie I've ever made. I took elements from conversations with a good friend of mine, who has since passed (only 2 years older than me) and made this tribute to our many arguments of race and the fact that he went crazy when he found out I lost my virginity to an African American girl.
The only other time I've re-edited like this is when I got my distribution deal with BIG FILM SHORTS and they wanted more material, so I made a bunch of cuts and made shorter versions of my old movies as I felt they would play better shorter and some of the jokes weren't as funny as I wrote them at the time. I made money on every single short film I re-edited at that time, so it was definitely worth it to me, plus the movies seem to play much better since I re-edited them with a more experienced eye.
Well, I was just informed via Email that BITTER OLD MAN on the IFC MEDIA LAB is ranked in the current Top 10, so I feel even better about the re-cut.
I woke up today to see another mound of snow on the world outside Rossdonia. This caused me to cancel my editing class for the 2nd week in a row. This depresses me a bit. I'm sick of the snow and cold weather. It was late coming, but it sucks nonetheless.
Our little kitty "V" is no longer very little and has started to enter sexual maturity. Poor old lady Cousette has become his target of any urges he has. "V" has tried to hump her in front of many a house guest, so like me, he has no inhibitions. His fur matches his personality. "V" has mostly a dark exterior and a white underbelly, and his personality is mostly this troublemaking rogue brashness with a sweet and loving aspect when he gets tired. He hates to be held, at least until he gets tired and then he falls all over you to be held and take a nap on my shoulder (still). Cousette is just lazy, but finally getting completely over the loss of her brother, Spaz. Most of the day is spent policing the public displays of affection this week.
Poor guy is gonna get snipped soon…
Because of a few unexpected gigs, February has been a very good month for me. I've gotten on a few shoots, camera gigs, and other miscellaneous paid work. I was able to do something the other day I haven't done in a few years; I bought new clothes. Now, I didn't go hog wild, I only bought 2 pairs of pants (a shock to most who know me since I hate wearing pants) and 2 shirts. Clothes have been a very low priority to me for a few years. Since I have a girlfriend, the need to try to look more hip has lessened for me. Overall, I spent all of $40 on the new attire, but it was more than I've put out for clothes since 2003. Next up – a new pair of shoes! Come on paid gigs, daddy literally needs a new pair of shoes. FYI – I bought my first ever pair of cargo pants and a new pair of jeans that actually fit, since the last pair has been horribly oversized, and baggy and I always felt like a whigger-type with my pants always lower than my waist. I may actually wear pants more often since these new ones are both a lot more comfortable than I am used to.
I finally got my final illustration for the book. With it came the last spell & grammar checks, thus the near-final version is done. Time to send it off to publishers. I've only waited 4 months to finalize this baby. It needed fermenting, like a fine wine, only words and illustrations that needed less procrastination on my part. Now that I uploaded the latest version, along with a raise in minimum wage, I upped the price to $14.99 plus shipping. It's worth it. The book gives a lot of info and entertains; at least those who bought it so far liked it. A little over 100 books sold so far. The Boo is pleased.
As I await a little bit more info, my feature films will have more updates in the coming weeks. For 2008 I am considering a far more heavy and deep project. I want to direct a feature based on a true life book about the holocaust. Working on BITTER OLD MAN reminded me that I do like drama and like working with actors on the more emotional aspects.
We shall see what the future holds.
Keep warm & dry friends of Boo.
-=- Peter John Ross
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Antagonistic Tendencies
February 1st, 2007
Antagonistic Tendencies
Well, first off the first thing to take note of in the world of Boo is the new site for the BLOG and JOURNAL ENTRIES – www.PeterJohnRoss.com. This was a wonderful birthday present from my best friend. It's one of those surprise gifts you'd never ask for but has a lot of meaning and uses you never considered. Big shout out to the Moe for this handy gift of a domain and site.
More so than usual, I am incredibly busy. I've been hired and been steadily working on editing a DV feature for a Dayton filmmaker. It's a fun feature from a first time director and I am definitely making a contribution, it's someone else's vision. I started with a rough cut of the whole movie, so I am really just doing the fine cut and then final edits, plus sound mix & sound design. This is where a lot of my time has gone because it's a paid gig.
The days of generosity are not as fruitful as they once were. I've sacrificed a lot of my time, energy, passion, and soul to other people's projects, and I have no regrets, but it's my time. I feel I've earned respect and also the right to charge for what I do, even to filmmakers. There's enough in terms of equipment and experience that I offer that make me worth the meager amounts I'm charging. Besides, food needs to be put in the fridge and on the table.
I have just made my formal call for Interns to get some help with the many editorial endeavors I have on my plate. There's just more work than one person can handle, and sadly very little of it is actually for Sonnyboo Productions ® or me. These are gigs for the greater good and other filmmakers. There's a 16mm feature from my past that I was not involved with, but have agreed to help out on with the edit. There's a lot to be done with a feature like synching sound to 7 tapes of raw footage as well as separating the clips into scenes and creating a whole organizational pipeline so that more than one person can make sense of the muddled mess that is the raw footage, sound, music, titles, etc. that make up a feature film.
There will be 2-3 interns working alongside myself & Micah on these projects as we kick off 2007 with the mountain of work here. I've (miracle of miracles) had interns before. This is the first time I've solicited them, though. I need the help and don't mind giving some edit time for free, a chance to get some other people trained and involved in the editing process. Much to my surprise, I have well over 20 applicants and I will actually have to make choices. This surprised me because I didn't think I'd get more than 3-4 people interested. Lucky for me there is a strong movement at the Ohio State University with their new film studies major and some fans of the Boo there spreading the good word.
With Horrors of War, we have hours of footage and interviews that never saw the light of day. I'd like the more experienced editorial interns to take a crack at making something of those that can be found on the internet or on DVD for the cast & crew who got left on the cutting room floor. We still have no clue how much of what we turned in will or won't be used for the North American DVD release (although I guarantee that no foreign market will even know we have DVD extras). Myself, I can't stand to contemplate spending minutes nonetheless hours staring at me or listening to chatter about HORRORS of WAR. It's "of the past" for me, but there's still an obligation to the people who threw down for us to get their time in the light.
I shan't go a rant, but I will say that I am yet again a target of someone's deep seeded emotions. On the FOX network's ON THE LOT contest site, I locked horns with a local filmmaker. Funnily enough, I said nothing harmful or derogatory, but this guy lost his Shiite as if I told him to spend more time with his kids or something. I confess to a deep seeded interest in the wackos who read this very blog often, make mention of it, or write about it or your faithful narrator, and then claim they aren't obsessed.
Let's face some facts. When someone says they are basing a character in their script on you over the past 3 years; that sends a pretty clear message: YOU ARE OBSESSED. I don't even base any characters on myself anymore. I have to write about people who are more interesting than some guy who spends most of his time on the Internet writing to obsessed fanatics. The truth is I still can't comprehend or relate to the people who find me or my writings online and then become fixated on my and my goings on. When I don't like someone or something, I tend to ignore it or stop paying attention, and then they/it ceases to be a problem. For some people, and good God, I mean more than I can count on my fingers and toes now, they want to explore this further and make a confrontation. At that point, I get interested for brief periods of time because I can't see what's so interesting about me. I love a good debate and the impending scrap, but then I get bored and move on.
I don't care if you only spend 10 minutes a week writing about me or my stuff, but please dear God, I hope you find a more fulfilling hobby. Thank God I have My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ and a life outside of this virtual world where geeks are Gods and the sad & lonely find purpose in annoyance. You'd think I'd have a deeper understanding of the crazies by now, but I don't. I'm no closer to truly comprehending the mindset of the disturbed.
The great & powerful Scott Spears defines eloquently by saying that I am "polarizing". People Either love me or hate me and there's little in the middle. I am what I am, and I don't have a problem with who I am. I sleep well at night.
I was recently told that I will get what I deserve and that fate will play its role out. Sadly, this was meant to be a portent into the future for my demise, but based on the world I live in, I think I will get what I deserve, but my fate seems to be looking more positive. I've got financing for at least one of my features this year and the 2nd seems imminent, regardless it may happen too. When 2007 started, I was feeling the squeeze from a lack of paid work, but by Mid-February I will be doing well again, plus the Interns will help on the workload (who says they can't get help in Columbus Ohio???). In March I'm going to Europe on someone else's dime to do research on their feature, plus have a bit o' fun. In April, I get a new car that's been earmarked for me. Yup. I'm getting what I deserve all right.
The cats are dubious these days. I don't trust either of them for very long. Their alliances are fragile and our Rossdonia is held together by a thread of peace. Our troops are tired and want to come home, but the difference in beliefs is so strong, we can't let them police themselves. I tried training the cats to do their own security but they weren't trained properly. Our troops need more body armor, but the vice president failed to submit the proper requisition. Damn government!
Time to get back to the grindstone of editorial work.
Love and special sauce for all the peeps of Sonnyboo,
PjR, the real one
Antagonistic Tendencies
Well, first off the first thing to take note of in the world of Boo is the new site for the BLOG and JOURNAL ENTRIES – www.PeterJohnRoss.com. This was a wonderful birthday present from my best friend. It's one of those surprise gifts you'd never ask for but has a lot of meaning and uses you never considered. Big shout out to the Moe for this handy gift of a domain and site.
More so than usual, I am incredibly busy. I've been hired and been steadily working on editing a DV feature for a Dayton filmmaker. It's a fun feature from a first time director and I am definitely making a contribution, it's someone else's vision. I started with a rough cut of the whole movie, so I am really just doing the fine cut and then final edits, plus sound mix & sound design. This is where a lot of my time has gone because it's a paid gig.
The days of generosity are not as fruitful as they once were. I've sacrificed a lot of my time, energy, passion, and soul to other people's projects, and I have no regrets, but it's my time. I feel I've earned respect and also the right to charge for what I do, even to filmmakers. There's enough in terms of equipment and experience that I offer that make me worth the meager amounts I'm charging. Besides, food needs to be put in the fridge and on the table.
I have just made my formal call for Interns to get some help with the many editorial endeavors I have on my plate. There's just more work than one person can handle, and sadly very little of it is actually for Sonnyboo Productions ® or me. These are gigs for the greater good and other filmmakers. There's a 16mm feature from my past that I was not involved with, but have agreed to help out on with the edit. There's a lot to be done with a feature like synching sound to 7 tapes of raw footage as well as separating the clips into scenes and creating a whole organizational pipeline so that more than one person can make sense of the muddled mess that is the raw footage, sound, music, titles, etc. that make up a feature film.
There will be 2-3 interns working alongside myself & Micah on these projects as we kick off 2007 with the mountain of work here. I've (miracle of miracles) had interns before. This is the first time I've solicited them, though. I need the help and don't mind giving some edit time for free, a chance to get some other people trained and involved in the editing process. Much to my surprise, I have well over 20 applicants and I will actually have to make choices. This surprised me because I didn't think I'd get more than 3-4 people interested. Lucky for me there is a strong movement at the Ohio State University with their new film studies major and some fans of the Boo there spreading the good word.
With Horrors of War, we have hours of footage and interviews that never saw the light of day. I'd like the more experienced editorial interns to take a crack at making something of those that can be found on the internet or on DVD for the cast & crew who got left on the cutting room floor. We still have no clue how much of what we turned in will or won't be used for the North American DVD release (although I guarantee that no foreign market will even know we have DVD extras). Myself, I can't stand to contemplate spending minutes nonetheless hours staring at me or listening to chatter about HORRORS of WAR. It's "of the past" for me, but there's still an obligation to the people who threw down for us to get their time in the light.
I shan't go a rant, but I will say that I am yet again a target of someone's deep seeded emotions. On the FOX network's ON THE LOT contest site, I locked horns with a local filmmaker. Funnily enough, I said nothing harmful or derogatory, but this guy lost his Shiite as if I told him to spend more time with his kids or something. I confess to a deep seeded interest in the wackos who read this very blog often, make mention of it, or write about it or your faithful narrator, and then claim they aren't obsessed.
Let's face some facts. When someone says they are basing a character in their script on you over the past 3 years; that sends a pretty clear message: YOU ARE OBSESSED. I don't even base any characters on myself anymore. I have to write about people who are more interesting than some guy who spends most of his time on the Internet writing to obsessed fanatics. The truth is I still can't comprehend or relate to the people who find me or my writings online and then become fixated on my and my goings on. When I don't like someone or something, I tend to ignore it or stop paying attention, and then they/it ceases to be a problem. For some people, and good God, I mean more than I can count on my fingers and toes now, they want to explore this further and make a confrontation. At that point, I get interested for brief periods of time because I can't see what's so interesting about me. I love a good debate and the impending scrap, but then I get bored and move on.
I don't care if you only spend 10 minutes a week writing about me or my stuff, but please dear God, I hope you find a more fulfilling hobby. Thank God I have My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ and a life outside of this virtual world where geeks are Gods and the sad & lonely find purpose in annoyance. You'd think I'd have a deeper understanding of the crazies by now, but I don't. I'm no closer to truly comprehending the mindset of the disturbed.
The great & powerful Scott Spears defines eloquently by saying that I am "polarizing". People Either love me or hate me and there's little in the middle. I am what I am, and I don't have a problem with who I am. I sleep well at night.
I was recently told that I will get what I deserve and that fate will play its role out. Sadly, this was meant to be a portent into the future for my demise, but based on the world I live in, I think I will get what I deserve, but my fate seems to be looking more positive. I've got financing for at least one of my features this year and the 2nd seems imminent, regardless it may happen too. When 2007 started, I was feeling the squeeze from a lack of paid work, but by Mid-February I will be doing well again, plus the Interns will help on the workload (who says they can't get help in Columbus Ohio???). In March I'm going to Europe on someone else's dime to do research on their feature, plus have a bit o' fun. In April, I get a new car that's been earmarked for me. Yup. I'm getting what I deserve all right.
The cats are dubious these days. I don't trust either of them for very long. Their alliances are fragile and our Rossdonia is held together by a thread of peace. Our troops are tired and want to come home, but the difference in beliefs is so strong, we can't let them police themselves. I tried training the cats to do their own security but they weren't trained properly. Our troops need more body armor, but the vice president failed to submit the proper requisition. Damn government!
Time to get back to the grindstone of editorial work.
Love and special sauce for all the peeps of Sonnyboo,
PjR, the real one
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