Rotating the Axle of Confabulation

As I start to get creative again, weird things happen. Without exception, as I embark on the making of a movie, ancillary side effects occur. When I first made my first “shorts”, I eventually got fired from my job. Today, I work in the same industry, so the two things go hand in hand. The differences are the people I meet and the worlds that collide from the creative/artistic world those that call “The Normies”, for normal people.

More on that later.

Here is an update from Rossdonia, not to be confused with the old place better known as Rossdom. Our new government with the feline races has much more equality, but we still deal with terrorism. “V”, has made our “Most Wanted” list for destroying the corner of a couch, and Cousette remains a rebel leader, but since she’s soon to be 13 years old, she’s much easier to catch. This is a close to being a parent as I think I am capable of. Because I love these critters, I might be sharing some of their personality online. I haven’t quite found the niche I want, but I have some idea now what I’ll do.



TECHIE UPDATE – If you read this blog, you know that last year I made the jump to HD-DVD just in time to get burned by its loss in the High Def video war against Sony’s BLU RAY. I eventually relented and got a Play Station 3 ™ and kept my HD-DVD’s. At some point last year I sold my PS3 and got a Samsung HD-DV/BLU-RAY combo player so I didn’t have to change out cables every time I switched between the 2 formats. I’ve been very happy with the combo player and it has allowed me to scoop up some sub $5 deals on HD-DVD discs or buy 6-7 disc sets for $15 (like HEROES season 1 and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA season 1).



The rain in paradise came from the latest Sony and Disney Blu-Rays. Part of this new technology that makes it great is the new formats, like the “TRUE HD AUDIO”. Unfortunately, that means that discs that have ONLY the TRUE HD audio means I can’t hear any of it on my surround sound. That is, unless I upgrade my surround sound to SONY’s exclusive DTS surround sound. There is nothing wrong with my surround sound package whatsoever, but in order to hear the full 5.1 surround mixes on the latest discs like BAND OF BROTHERS, FIREFLY, or WALL*E, I would have to buy an entirely new receiver.



Now for MORE rain in paradise (starting to get pretty moist in this place), all the new receivers use a “passive” subwoofer that takes a coaxial cable, not regular speaker cable. So I not only would have to buy a new receiver with Sony’s DTS, I’d have to buy a new subwoofer. What’s the point? I can get a full surround sound “package” that has all 6 speakers and a receiver for about the same price.
So I collected up my 5 Best Buy gift card from Xmas, and researched and found the right system for me. I didn’t want to upgrade to the full HDMI setup because I’d be spending too much money that I don’t have to spend, so I priced out an inexpensive PIONEER set, of which that company has been very good to me in the past. The plan is to donate my old surround sound to my father who has ALWAYS wanted one, but my mother would never allow it. We have plans to secretly install it when she is playing bridge this coming week. My pops has become quite a bit more like me since he retired.

Yesterday I had to drive to Grove City in south end of Columbus to get the last known surround sound kit within 100 miles of us that matched my price and requirements. There was still some “risk” in that my HD-DVD/BLU RAY combo player allegedly converts the TRUE HD AUDIO into a Sony DTS signal, but I read it on some guys review on Amazon.com, so it may not work. I did the latest “firmware” update where they put some software out there you can download it, burn it to a CD or DVD and put it in the player and it will upgrade the internal software of your player.



It worked. I setup the new surround sound system, used my old cables, replaced all the speakers with the new ones, and then hooked up everything. The bass and subwoofer shake the foundation of the Earth. Meanwhile, I had bought years ago the 5.1 surround mix DTS versions of 2 Sting CD’s (Brand New Day and Ten Summoners Tales), which are amazing in surround. I also played THE BEATLES – LOVE 5.1 surround audio CD. Still, the true test will always be a movie, so last night I jammed out some DTS surround of Band of Brothers in a battle scene and I probably tripled the wattage from my old surround. If the neighbors hated us before, they will learn the meaning of despise before February.

For the past 2 years, I have not been “in the mood” to watch many features at home. I occasionally would get through 1 movie in a weekend, and usually something I rented from Netflix. I have been stockpiling cheap Blu-Ray’s and HD-DVD’s without watching them, thinking “I’ll have time when the economy crashes” or the usual “someday” feel. The economy has crashed, but I still don’t have that much free time, but for the last month I’ve been carving out more time and watching more of my discs.



Two weeks ago, My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I delved into the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA remake HD-DVD set that had the entire miniseries and also the entire first season. She was hooked and for me it was round two, but I had not seen them in High Def, with full 5.1 surround sound. Now I have often said, and still believe, that I will only ever own season 1 because it was near perfection and none of the other seasons are as consistently at this quality. We went from the HD-DVD marathon to my pre-recorded versions of the rest of the series all the way to the half way point of season 4 that is about to start up again, but still… not as great as season 1, but still good. I feel similarly towards HEROES, but I don’t think the 2nd or 3rd seasons are anywhere close to the mark they had in the 1st. I feel no need to buy additional seasons of either show.

Saturday night I watched Clerks 2 on HD-DVD and IRON MAN on BLU-RAY. God, these look and sound great on my 42” 1080P TV and I can turn around and edit on that same monitor at 1920x1080 or play Wolfenstein Enemy Territory full screen and immerse myself completely in another world. Last night we watched the season premiere of 24 in full surround sound and in HD off a $5 antenna. All of these things were fantasies beyond science fiction when I was a kid.

Sometimes you have to look back and realize that we’re living in the future today.

An Oligarchy in Place of Supercilious Skullduggery

No rest for the wicked. I am ensconced with post production work. I took on some extra projects this weekend because I now need to recoup a heavy loss this week. On Thursday morning, I awoke to the sensation of cold. First my hand froze, and then the rest of me started to go quite freezing. I awoke at 7:45AM and went downstairs to see what was happening. The thermostat read a warm 51 degrees. I felt the vents and cold air was blowing from them.

I attempted to see the pilot light, but to no avail. I called the service that read the most reputable and this guy came out within an hour and proceeded to spend the next several hours fixing our furnace. Two units had fried in it and I got stiffed with a $600 bill. It could have been worse in terms of cost – we might have had to replace the whole heating unit, but as is – a chunk of change I had not wanted to part with just blew away. It was 34 degrees in the house when the hot air started blowing again. I lost almost an entire day's worth of work helping this guy work on the furnace and of course the cats looked at me like I'm some kind of sadistic bastard for torturing them in the cold all day.



My cold has faded, at least the part that disorients you and makes you woozy. I can still produce record amounts of mucous, and that means spending more money on tissues. All this money keeps disappearing. I keep making it and it keeps going away. This is life. That is the grind, isn't it? Ce La Vie, as the French might say.

My HD-DVD's started arriving, as in the free ones as a rebate on the player. I now have 4 of the special edition High Definition Stanley Kubrick movies. 2001, CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE SHINING, and EYES WIDE SHUT are now in my collection. I started going through a lot of the extras and special features. There are documentaries galore. I had only recently seen the 2+ hour documentary "A LIFE IN PICTURES", and I subsequently bought it as a separate DVD from a used seller on AMAZON.COM. Some of the documentaries are even in HD.

One of the things that I have been contemplating as I watch a lot of these newly made MAKING OF's and BEHIND THE SCENES is that Stanley Kubrick would hate them. I think Stanley must be churning around in the ground. He detested any kind of commentary or theories or extras on the movies before. Kubrick was of the mindset that the movies were the movies – your own interpretation is what it means. Whatever the film meant to you is what it means. The End. To see film critics giving their opinion on an official DVD of Kubrick's movie somehow endorses these interpretations or validates them; Stanley would have hated that, at least that was his pattern for the past 45 years.

Now for those out there that know how much I love extras and even have made my own "peak behind the curtain" type videos – I am not Kubrick, nor do I aspire to be him. I appreciate all these insights into one of cinemas greatest minds, but I am not trying to imitate Kubrick, either in practice or theory. I can disagree with methods and technique with someone I truly respect and love. After seeing Vivian Kubrick's documentary last year on the making of THE SHINING, I decided I would never behave the way Kubrick did on that set. It was something that completely demystified Kubrick and made me completely believe you can find your own way to direct.

The only similarities I might have with Stanley Kubrick is in the form of a feline assistant editor.



There ends the similarities between me and Kubrick.




Peace to my homies in North Compton. Word.

- PJ