3 weeks off!

IT'S
CHRISTMAS
BREAK!!!

I finished all my crap! Eat THAT, procrastination! You're all like ooooh I'm gonna fart around and make you not do your stuff until the last minute. Not this time! I finished everything the night before it was due. Plus, you tried to distract me with that Mario game, but guess what? I finished that and then did homework, HA! And also, 3 weeks off! And also-also, CHRISTMAS! Suck it, Me! No matter how hard you try, I'm always gonna win. Just give up, do it, give up. Better yet, take a break over there on the couch for 3 weeks and do some online shopping for things you can use to distract me next semester. I hear there's good deals on eBay.

Official Internet Debut

3 hours writing
2 hours of revision
2 hours creating a shot list and shoot schedule
10 hours of shooting
14 hours of editing

What does it all add up to? The internet debut of Last night, I think she left, my final exam project for Communications 211. It's not the most fantastic of videos, but I'm pretty happy with it. I hope to get everyone else's videos from my class and post those as well. Last night was written and directed by myself. This is the first of what I hope is many future (and progressively better) video projects.

We're receiving such critical acclaim as:

"Yeah, I liked it." -Some dude in my class,
"Good editing." -Professor Sholle and, my personal favorite,
"It's depressing." Samantha Roberts

Without further ado:

The Beginning of the End

I finished up editing on my short film for Com211. I spent a lot of time in the editing studio. It's a grueling process, but it's actually pretty fun and interesting.

I planned on coming home and loading it, but I couldn't get the file to work right. I saved it properly (I think) but Final Cut is tricky. It'll only load on the computer I used to edit. I think I made a mistake by not copying the entire file, with all the raw footage and music. On every computer I've tried, either nothing happens or I get a message about missing video files. Luckily, I can play the audio perfectly. There's nothing quite like disembodied voices talking about god-knows-what.

This marks the end of my first day of finals. I turned in my English portfolio, so hopefully that goes well. I can't think of many reasons it wouldn't. I finished the video. And that's it for today.

We're convening tomorrow at 2:45 to watch everyone's videos. It's going to be awesome. Haley, Mike and I were in the studio together for 14 hours over the last two days. Both of their videos are looking great. Originally I thought Haley was insane, trying to do film noir lighting. Then I heard about a Model-T, and I was sure she was crazy. Today I looked over and saw her actors in period costumes, and I realized she was pulling it off. She's got the whole nine yards: fedoras, suits, a shoulder holster, a gun, a BADGE! I got a private viewing of her film, titled Watermarks, and I was impressed. It's funny how Haley thought her project was sucking, Mike thought his project was horrible, and I was sure mine was crap, but by the end of the night everyone was pretty happy with how things turned out.

I'm headed back in tomorrow to burn a DVD and turn everything in. Hopefully I'll have a viable copy to upload to Youtube and, of course, here on 8Ounce. Check back later for the online premier of Last night, I think she left.

If she gets kidnapped again, I'm gonna scream

(Spoiler Warning)

Mario and I just saved Princess Peach again, this time on Super Mario Galaxy. I must say, that was a good game. It's amazing that they still make Mario interesting. As I get older, though, I realize that I sympathize with Bowser more. He always has a grand plan, albeit evil, and things never quite work out. Although this time Nintendo decided to keep him alive, I guess for the sake of continuity. Seems like an odd choice. By now I think we're all used to seeing his demise, and then him popping back up to nab the Princess come Quarter 4 a few years later (just in time for Christmas).

In a related incident, while Googling the picture shown at right I came across something interesting. Note: make sure your moderate safe search is on before Googling "Princess Peach," unless, of course... well... nevermind. That wasn't the interesting thing. The sweet Princess Peach cuff design, hand cross stitched by some dude's mom was what I found.

I've never wanted a princess shirt so badly. Who's thinking of a new screen printing project over winter break? Oh, I am. I AM!

I couldn't help it...

Samantha went out for a run the other day, and posted about it.

Which reminded me of this:

It's funny because it's true.

Goodbyes are for losers

Today marked the end of the best class I've ever taken at Miami: English 320. It was a fiction workshop, and everything you could ask for from that type of class.

It's not often that you can have a room full of people all sharing their writing without anyone blatantly being competitive or trying to make someone else feel bad in an attempt to feed their ego. My last workshop class was like that. There were a handful of people who thought they were the best thing that ever happened to writing (one in particular, the worst of all, happened to write exclusively about getting drunk).

When class was over people lingered around and talked for a few minutes before we all left for our next classes. A few of us decided that we should keep getting together and sharing our writing as a source of inspiration. Like exercise, I need someone around to threaten me. If I'm not watching someone else put forth the effort, there's no way on earth I'll do it on my own.

Need to See:

Mike, Sam and I are drafting a list of movies we need to watch. The idea is to finally see some of the most famous and celebrated movies over the ages. If you have any suggestions add a comment. But not just any film, they need to be well known and celebrated. The Wedding Crashers, for instance, is a great movie, but it doesn't make the "rewatch" list.

Need to see:
Casablanca
Raging Bull
Schindler’s List
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Once Upon a Time in the West
Dr. Strangelove
Alfred Hitchcock:
-Vertigo
- Psycho
-Rear Window
-The Birds
-Dial M for Murder
-North by Northwest
Apocalypse Now
Lawrance of Arabia
Taxi Driver
Amelie
Amadeus
Chinatown
2001 A Space Odyssey
Alien
Pans Labyrinth
Mad Max
The Deer Hunter
Rashomon
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Rewatch:
Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
Leon the Professional
ChungKing Express
The Pianist
Donnie Darko
Reservoir Dogs
American Beauty
Braveheart
The Lion King
Almost Famous

A Portrait of Liberty

Weekends are lovely, in case you haven't noticed. I'm indulging myself with lazing around right now. If you haven't tried it this weekend, there are still a few hours left. Hop to it.

Today is Samantha's exhibition. Her class spent the semester in Liberty, Indiana taking pictures to create narratives about this small town just over the Ohio border. They are showing their work off today and the prints will be for sale. There are rumors that a few of Sam's pictures are already being eyed by a potential buyer.

She worked really hard this semester, standing out in the bitter cold. I'm not joking, I went with her a few times and it was cold.

I'm really proud of her. She spent the entire semester in various studios around campus, either perfecting her art or teaching. It wasn't easy, and sometimes I could tell it was the last thing she wanted to do, but she kept working. It's hard to spend days and days on something creative, only to realize your work is never over. A lot of times I finish something and never want to see it again. But Sam strives to make everything fit her vision, and this semester everything came out beautifully. She creates things I can't comprehend. How does she come up with these ideas? A lot of times I'm around when she does, but it's still amazing to see a vague idea jump from her head to a sticky note, to a sketchbook, to the computer and eventually to the wall of an exhibition.

That's the kind of attitude, the kind of perseverance, that I wish I could learn to maintain. That's the kind of woman I married, and I love everything about her.

Keep up the good work, Tick.

I wish I could draw

I hate it when I'm right

After e-mailing back and forth, and after several assurances that, in fact, she would be able to make it, my leading actress for my writing/directorial debut just e-mailed me and canceled. I called it.

Such a starlet, canceling less than 48 hours before the shoot. She was all about it until I sent her the script... hmmmmm... nah, must be a coincidence.

This means I'm going to have to convince someone from my group to step up. It shouldn't be a huge problem, seeing as their grade kind of depends on us finishing this project. I guess I could cut one part out completely. It's kind of hard to work out a vision when you've got 8 people, all of the students with different schedules at the crunch time in either their junior or senior year of college trying to get together and make a movie. But that's why we get paid the big bucks.

Well I'm off to e-mail the crew and let them know what's up. If there are any aspiring actresses out there who want to drop by and spend a few hours Saturday morning being on camera, let me know.

Hello out there

Laying in bed, I noticed that Sam was updating her blog, which made me think "Oh, shit, I have a blog."

So here I am.

....how 'bout that weather?

I'm not used to being busy and, let's face it, I'm lazy. So, needless to say, this semester has turned out to be more than I bargained for. I didn't sign up for college to work. Where's the endless party that Hollywood promised? You know, the one full of free beer, drunken frat boys and girls in skirts doing keg stands ?

It's actually across campus and married people aren't invited. Oh well. I did get to play ultimate frisbee this one time, but I kept almost passing out.

So in my endeavor to make college worthwhile by attending classes and doing homework, I spent a bit of time working up a script for my production class. Professor Sholle chose four from the scripts everyone in class turned in, and mine happened to be chosen. Mike and I had this grand plan to work together and make an awesome movie, but his was chosen too.

I've been spending a lot of time getting things together to produce the short, and a lot of time working on a short story for my fiction class. The story is done, or at least I'm sick of it. It's been a solid month of reading and rewriting. I've got the script pretty much squared away, a shot list all worked up, at least 2 actors from the theater department and a tentative shooting schedule for Saturday. Things are coming down to the point of Reckoning. I'm hoping all my work over the past few weeks has prepared me for for shooting the video and to have my story workshopped in class.

It's exciting stuff. I've got the next three years planned out: the short is a huge YouTube hit, which is where Wes Anderson discovers it. We spend the next year working on the screenplay and the theatrical release opens to critical acclaim. Meanwhile, my short story works its way through the hands of various english professors until one, who happens to be good friends with the fiction editor at Esquire, hooks me up with a run in the February issue (the one with Natalie Portman on the cover). That's where Wes Anderson discovers it, and we spend the next year working on the screenplay. The critics are mixed, but it's a runaway blockbuster.

I like to cover all my bases.