The election which has more of an impact on our lives than that of our own nation's happens tomorrow.
Finally.
I wouldn't say I'm worn out, but it's been getting hard to remember what I did with some of my spare time when I wasn't obsessively bouncing between the BBC, Crooks & Liars, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, fivethirtyeight.com and - when feeling particularly obsessive - any damn news source I can get my hands on.
I read three articles in the Toronto Sun today. The Sun for Christ's sake.
The way I see it is this, yes I can end up being pretty OCD with my interests but this is something else. Bush Jr came into power not long before I left home and his reign kicked into overdrive as I'd barely begun my University degree. So he has basically been the U.S. President of my adult life thus far. Say what you will about the coming end of American dominance, this has been and will continue to be one of the most influential individuals in the entire human race. And though he's a far cry in deeds, I can't say much more about our own slide from Chretien to the breif bit of Mr. Mediocre to Prime Minister "Fuck the arts, fuck the environment, fuck you" Harper. It's been an adult-hood where I've witnessed the bar just sink lower and lower and lower. Where I've repeatedly felt like the satirical warnings of yesterday have become the terrifying realities of today. I'm not some naive twat that thinks Obama is going to fly around the world dropping "Solve all your problem" vouchers. But good gravy, I think that he'll be a breath of fresh air after the last eight years. I even think there is a good chance he'll put as positive a tone to the next eight as W. has put a negative one to the last eight.
Turn off your cynicism for a moment and just try to imagine such a thing. It's rather pleasant and uplifting, isn't it?
I'm going to go to an election party at the Bloor Cinema tomorrow night and expect to get as wound up as I've often seen others get while watching the final game of the World Series or the like. The stakes are certainly high enough!----
In other newz, lord but I kind of want this but must pinch pennies for a camera or two and also other important things that are not an internet reference in shirt form.
Hooo boy Halloween was good this year. My buddy Victor saved me from coming to our party as "Jerk Without A Costume" by whipping up this little number.Alas, the nearest dollar store was all out of toy guns I could have done up to help complete the look, but I ain't complaining.The past week has been something of a blur thanks to the latest in my favorite video game franchise of all time. Once more I am reminded of a friend's suggestion that I look into writing for video games, given the overall trend to graft a cinematic storyline onto even the dumbest, most straightforward 'tard-with-gun simulators being produced. It's an interesting thought but:
I know very little about how to get to the point where I'd help write a game.
It would involve collaborating with an entire team of writers, not something I'm sure I'm keen on.
But who knows what the future might bring?In Handful news, I succeeded in finding an editor only to have a different rug pulled out from under me. My cameraman is, quite fairly, taking six weeks paid work on a production which will render him incommunicado for that period (for those who don't know how these things tend to go, my pal is due for days that will average ten to twelve hours and which will frequently go for longer. Understandably he will want to use his small amounts of free time to rest!).
So I am leaning even more towards accepting some debt and investing in a pair of cameras along with a pair of clip-on microphones. I desperately need to get more control over the means of production if I'm going to get the show coming out on a regular basis when I get into season two, instead of fits and starts.
But I am feeling encouraged today, thanks to a very kind gesture by a British fan who gets piles of traffic. A couple of days ago he set my "Not So Great Lakes" to be the featured video on his youtube channel page, which has resulted in it's views going to 1,826 as of five minutes ago. This in turn has led to some more subscribers and some kind, thoughtful comments - which are basically as rare an occurrence as air turning to gold.
Look up. So I followed through on my desire to take more pictures, but I guess I mostly got the desire to literally try a different way of looking at the city. Not to be mean to Toronto, but in London I could just spin in a circle, tap the button and get an interesting picture - if I put myself in the right neighborhood. I find that isn't the case here. But I don't want to give up on finding a little wonder where I live, just because it's more familiar. I haven't spent as much time here as I did in London, but we're getting there. In a little over two weeks time it will have been a year since I returned from London. To myself I have fairly frequently thought "A year ago I was doing X in London, today I'm doing Y in Toronto". No one comparison is enough to answer "Did I make the right call coming back? Did I make the right call to go in the first place?". So I keep checking and I guess I won't stop until November 14th, a year from the day I dragged my life down the Northern Line and into Gatwick airport. Trying to answer those kinds of questions is fairly asinine in my opinion, but necessary all the same. Between having received something of a steady kicking for the past couple of months and seeing several projects and working relationships change shape recently...I'm feeling that urge to try and draw out on a piece of paper the perfect diagram of what I'd like to make happen in the months to come. So take a picture why don't you.
These last two are from The Red Room, part of a pseudo-franchise which includes The Green Room, Nirvana and the Java Hut. They're all pretty good places if you want to get a tasty meal for less than $10, listen to good music and enjoy a casual ambiance. This made me piss myself laughing and has been added to my "Got to Paint" list...it is a funny little portrait of James Barry.
So yeah we've had a pretty okay weekend in Toronto, weatherwise, and after finally getting a new charger for my camera's battery I'm taking pictures again. And it's something I really want to take up again. Taking pictures for el bloggo here was certainly an important part of what would motivate me to get out and explore London - to make the most of it. It's often tempting to feel that, even though this is my first time living here and I certainly have not seen all Toronto has to offer, there isn't much reason to do this here. "It's Canada, whatever...I've seen Tim Hortons before. I've seen the architecture and heard these people before. La dee dah". But that's a pretty shit way to look at where you live and - frankly - a great way to get depressed! So here's to trying to make more of an effort to enjoy the city at it's fullest and to report back here with some decent pictures - I want to do more on-site stuff, when possible, for Handful and I reckon that ought to feed back into this as well.
Remember that lovely racist comment I got on the General Butt Naked episode? Well it turns out that arse features ripped my video, added some in-video notes and posted it as his own - where it has more views! AUGH
I flagged it as "infringing my copywrights" but I'm not sure what else I can do (other than start a useless flame war, I guess?). It's not the end of the world but it certainly gets up my ass a fair bit!
So yesterday I gave the Movie-Pix HD mini-cam a whirl to see if it might be of use for the next season of Handful. Amongst other muckings around, we have this spontaneous...interview?
It's not a bad little fellow, filming in a perfectly acceptable resolution...but it loses quality when there is any serious motion. My pal and sometimes cameraman/collaborator Mark theorized that this may be because it almost certainly only records one frame out of thirty - which would make sense since it's files are ungodly small for filming in high definition at a 1280 x 720 frame rate.
All this might have been okay, except the tiny mike inside it is kind of shitty? On top of that, for reasons known neither to man nor beast, the audio doesn't even show up at all in my editing software. The device comes with it's own proprietary video software but that sort of thing always makes me hell of wary. I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO TAKE A PEEK THOUGH.
On the plus side it can take an external memory card. 8 GB's get's me just over four hours at top resolution and the card only cost $20, which brought the total cost up to about the same as a Flip Mino (which I was first looking at).
In the end, unless I discover some rather cleverly hidden features which aren't even listed in the manual, I think I'll be taking this guy back. It's annoying though, since this is very close to what I want to try using for the show! FUGGIN' UNSATISFACTORY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS MAKE FIRST WORLD HULK MAADDDDDDD
It's bloody expensive, though I don't know how much of that has to do with the way the shirt was made and the fact that it is band merchandise, which is traditionally about 200% above usual prices.
Life has been rather mad for the past two weeks but the dust is finally starting to settle and so I hope to get something substantial up here in the next while. Perhaps a dissertation on THE HORRIBLE URGE TO QUALIFY NOT HAVING WRITTEN A LONG POST ON YOUR BLOG?
I'm usually not one for "Voting strategically", but when it comes to Harper I think it could very well be warranted. Anyone But Harper offers this interesting widget which helps you work out the candidate to vote for in your riding who has the best chance of cockblocking the conservative candidate.
There's a more detailed description here and I must say that this little group keeps good company.
Shucks howdy, I sure had me some fun joining my friends Victor, Paul and Ryan in The Board Meeting yesterday. I'll share some of the pictures when I can steal'em off Victor (man I can't wait to finally get a new battery charger for my own little beast in a couple of weeks).
So yes, I didn't really finish my thoughts in the last post.
The sabbatical was a success in many ways. I distinctly remember setting myself two goals. 1) Get paid for writing. 2) Make something, anything.
I achieved both and so I guess I'm pretty satisfied! I wish I'd been able to find someone else to do the editing on Handful. As much as I enjoyed challenging myself in quite possibly my weakest area, at the end of the day I'm not trying to become an editor/tech support guy...I'm trying to become a successful writer/director! So it is without any great dismay that I've begun looking for someone to take that over and, blessedly, I got a lead yesterday that might pay off.
I can also fairly say I made pretty good use of the summer weather, there was no languishing in a beige bin while gay children busied themselves under a shining sun. I wrote a fair deal while sitting under a tree in either Kensington or Trinity-Bellwood parks and so that was another little personal goal that was met.
But man I could have done without winding up in such dire money trubbles. I guess I could have escaped them if I'd been willing to go back to temporary office work to sustain myself, but I felt that after almost two years of the shit...well it's called temporary for a reason. Even though I've ended up back in retail to rebuild my coffers, it's at least at somewhere I can feel like an adult and maybe even a little classy at times. Plus I saw a rich woman punch her husband in the gut, then face...so I guess some of my friends predictions that this would provide good writing fodder were pretty apt. My coworkers are pretty A+ too, which is always key.
But I think that the next step is to focus more on writing, get the second season of Handful made and ready to upload before the first episode is put up and to start applying for writing grants like crazy. Money from the gubbermint to live on while I scriptwrite? YES PLEASE.
Grants are a side of the industry I haven't thought about since just after I got my degree and I might have gone longer still if my pal Mark hadn't started applying for some himself. Most government grants aren't open to folk who're less than a year out of school, so that mixed with my feelings that I didn't have enough "chops" to have a chance of getting anything and led to my ignoring grants for long enough to plum forget about'em.
But it's been a couple of years and now I've got film and show ideas bursting from a fat binder and several notebooks. I've got a little bit to show, between my trailer and Handful (and that short film I've gotten paid to write, once it's made). I'd also like to think my writing has improved!
You know what, I will.
I will think that.
I've slapped together a three to four month plan and as long as I don't eventually get up to a five-year plan I think life won't feel too fleeting.
We men sure like to draw them! It's part of how we try to own them, own them with OUR MAGIC OWNERSHIP EYES. Neither of these are done, but both were started this weekend and I'm finally returning to the reg'lar workforce this Thursday so I don't know when I'll be finishing them. Which I guess means my unintentionally extended writing sabbatical is over, having run about three months and three weeks. I am pretty okay with what happened, though I wish I'd done more but isn't that always the way.
As if in answer to my post yesterday - and I assume it is because I am AN ONLY CHILD AND THE WORLD REVOLVES ARRRRROUND MEEEE - there is this interesting episode of a new British webshow called Radioface.
....this phenomena is a big part of why I decided to leave England. I was lucky enough not to be victimized directly, but it had a profound effect on my psychological state at times and it was easy to tell when you were talking with someone who was wound up about it in one way or another - regardless of the topic actually being discussed. Folk often asked me about the cameras and what effect they had on my mindset, but really it was the effect they (and all that comes with them) had on people I interacted with. This is also probably why I'm overly quick to get fed up with the highly reported Toronto crime "scene". Putting out thirteen trillion images and twenty kajillion words worth of media for every dick who stabs another dick doesn't do anything to make me safer, you dicks!
...tend to be the lowest form of Internet discourse, just after a manatee slapping it's blubbery dick on the keyboard while reciting Mein Kampf. Check it out folks, the first highly offensive comment on a Handful video! (Speaking of which, there will be an update later today, I've decided some content with a forgivable error is better than nothing).You can go swear at this guy here, if you like. Anywho, I gotta go click "delete" now...
So I just saw this and I think it's worth a little blather. First I'll paste in the opening plot description from Wikipedia and then we'll get to my own thoughts. ----
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) visit Barcelona for the summer, staying with Vicky's distant relative Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and her husband, Mark Nash (Kevin Dunn). A Narrator (voice of Christopher Evan Welch), present throughout the film, describes the two friends: Vicky is practical and traditional in her approach to love and commitment, and is engaged to the reliable but unromantic Doug (Chris Messina). She is in Barcelona getting her masters in Catalan Identity, a project spawned by her love of the works of GaudÃ, and is emotionally moved by Spanish guitar. Cristina, on the other hand, is spontaneous and unsure of what she wants in life. She is just out of a relationship and wants to get over the bad time she had making a 12-minute film about Love.
First off, this is a good movie to get you talking afterwards if only because it is very difficult to watch this without being drawn to trying to figure out how much of yourself there is to be found in either of these two women who sit on different sides of the fence when it comes to love.
Secondly, even though it seems ripe for having a bunch of simple characters that embody certain arguments and nothing more...this pitfall is carefully avoided. Bardem is introduced as a musk-laden, life affirming Spanish Lothario to be sure...but as you get to know him, other sides to the man come out. The two girls may be presented by the narrator as basically being "the reckless, passionate one" and "the uptight, overly planning her life one" but they two show elements of the other (as best friends often do) while also showing sides that are something more than their core element or the exact opposite of said core.
Allen shoots their story in some of the most picturesque Spanish cityscape and countryside you'll ever see. I've often said that if you can't afford a trip to Japan, that renting Lost in Translation is a cheap substitute and I'll say the same about this film with regard to southern Spain. His knowledge of their art and architecture is frequently injected into the narrative without being overbearing or coming off as Allen wanting to show off.
His relatively hands off and trusting style of handling the cast pays off handsomely when you consider the talented roster. None of the drama slipped into melodrama and everything felt quite natural. The character of MarÃa Elena might be a bit much for some people, but I found that she was fleshed out enough for me to not just think "Here comes the crazy lady" every time she entered the room.
I've heard several people sing the old song about how "Woody Allen's finally got It back!", but given that this was said about Match Point and a few of hisotherfilms of the last fifteen years...well I just think that there are fans of his that need to move on from Annie Hall the way there are Radiohead fans who need to move on from OK COMPUTER. I feel it's a strong effort and I was pleased to see that all the work he's been doing with Scarlett Johansson seems to have helped her become a more interesting actress. Sure she's playing something of a sultry sexpot once again, but compare her character in this film to the one she played in The Prestige and I think you'll see what I mean.
I highly recommend bringing a friend with you and a partner if you've got one (certainly, judging by all the couples in the audience when I was there...I'm not the only one who thinks this is a good date movie) and to go for a meal or a drink after, somewhere you can discuss what you've just seen. Me? I'd see it again in theaters and I'm certainly going to have a peek at it on DVD if the price is nice.
and it was a good time, though both my friend and I wished more folk had come out. A lot of folk were busy, though my pal Rob still had me drop some dollars into the donation box on his behalf so hey, and the reasons were generally just.
But I caught through another friend that the reason some weren't coming was because they too led the Poor Artiste Life and that hey why should they come give money to a guy for his project when they need money for theirs?
GEE I DON'T KNOW FELLAS/LADIES, MAYBE BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU MIGHT WANT FOLK TO GIVE MONEY TO YOU?
Plus, Christ, it's not like these sorts of wingdings happen every day of the week or the suggested donation was more than the cost of seeing a movie - hell, it was actually a chunk less than going to see something at the AMC. Oh well!
It certainly got me thinking about what I'll do in months to come. I'm loathe to commit to anything just now, as I'm still wrapping up a couple of things, but I know that I want to push forward the feature length making of Tonight We Fall In Love. It's a fair guess that I'll need to raise "money" in ways other than tugging on the arms of organizations or individuals with large amounts of discretionary income. Heh, it'd be nice to think that Handful might have enough of a following by that point that I could raise some cash via an Obama style micro-payment dealie but that just MIGHT qualify as getting ahead of myself...especially since, though the technical problem has been solved, it was solved at a late enough point to make putting off the proper episode until next Friday a mandatory act (for the sake of quality).
It's been an adult-hood where I've witnessed the bar just sink lower and lower and lower. Where I've repeatedly felt like the satirical warnings of yesterday have become the terrifying realities of today. I'm not some naive twat that thinks Obama is going to fly around the world dropping "Solve all your problem" vouchers.
But good gravy, I think that he'll be a breath of fresh air after the last eight years. I even think there is a good chance he'll put as positive a tone to the next eight as W. has put a negative one to the last eight.
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