Hey blog about videos, it's been a while.

I can't believe I never wrote here about my video class. it's good stuff.

As a result I'm now working on a one-minute video. I've filmed half of it, maybe even the whole thing. Actors, man, actors are a pain. But the actress says she's astrologically aligned. I'm not very good at talking to girls, though, not good at it, no, not really good at it very much.

Do you wonder what my one-minute video is? I will post the idea sheet I sent to the professor.

Abstract:
In climbing a tree, a student progresses from what looks like overwrought unease to brilliant free-spirited hippie-type. He hops down from the tree a king.
General Specific:
A young man -- college-age and dressed as an ordinary student -- walks in apparently deep, troubled, and deeply troubled thoughts. He nearly breaks his face on a tree. It’s a rude awakening that strikes him dumb, and as he stares, or even gazes at the tree, his face registers with some kind of resolve. As though bumping into the tree had bumped him through some kind of mental barrier, he puts his things down and with an air of compulsion makes for an arboreal scaling. This is all too literally the rising action of the video. As he gains altitude and more branches pass under his feet, his appearance becomes gradually (but by some point obviously) less ordinary/bland. He slowly manifests the stereotype of the contemporary free spirit: a scarf, rectangular-black-rimmed glasses, a knit sweater or well-fitted tweed jacket, tighter pants, scene hair (http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Spring04/161A/projects/Ricky/hairstyles/hairstyle.html), maybe even a cigarette appear one at a time on his person. Approaching his destination of the highest possible branch on the tree, he pulls himself up – the tone is dramatic, by some accounts sensationalistic. Seating himself on the highest branch, he looks out at the beauty of the universe. He then hops down and continues the way he had been going, with a change in attitude.
Notes:
Alternatively, a boy and girl bump into each other in front of the tree, and then climb it together. All would be much the same, but with the romantic theme representing, for one thing, the practical idea that things one loves as a child, like tree climbing, aren’t incompatible with the things one loves as an adult, like a serious relationship. The idea being that a person can be child-like without being childish, that it can even be a good thing to be child-like (which is already an idea in the other version). However, the use of two people complicates the blocking and filming considerably, and so is more ambitious. Perhaps which tree is chosen will be important in deciding this.
Yeah, no tree has been chosen yet. That’s as of today, September 16, 2007. Between now and class, though, I hope to find at least some contenders. It ought to be big and suited towards climbing and stable in-tree filming, and ideally off relatively by itself (for long shots used at the beginning, highest point, and as the climber continues on his way). Professor Gallagher, if you know of any such trees, please direct me their way – or keep an eye out, anyways. But I think this campus has enough trees that there’s bound to be at least one that qualifies.

I am using the second options. I have a tree. I give this to you, anyways, because you don't have a choice now, do you? You don't have a choice, now, yeah, see?

Yes! As in, I actually exclaimed "yes!" when typing that. As in, I continue to yell it every time I read it.

I'm finally registered in my film production class. Ahhhh

which means I'm taking down priority on the Tokyo Police Club video and upping priority on the films for the class.

first thing we have to do is a one-minute enterprise. I have to submit what amounts to a treatment on my idea by email as soon as possible. I guess by the next class. One girl is already scheduling the thing.

No official ideas yet, but do you really think you'll be left out when I finally settle down on something? Oh, but I was thinking it would have to do with climbing trees.

Film Career

I just started looking into transfer applications for going from UBC to some other film school. I was looking at the top brass film programs: USC, NYU, UCLA, CalArts, Art Center College of Design, and then also SVA in New York (where someone particularly interesting from eighth grade is going). I glanced at Chapman. I hope I don't have to go there.

USC, UCLA, and SVA don't require portfolios. I think I could get into SVA. And it'd be a lot of fun. I mean, for one, it's a film school. You get experience directly from the get-go and it's highly technical, as well as artistic. You live and breathe filmmaking for four years. And, it's in goddamn manhatten (which is most of what distinguishes it from Chapman, which is in God damned Orange County). So, it'd be more than fun -- it'd be like the best and longest summer camp ever. But I'm not sure summer camp is viable on a resume.

UCLA explicitly states that it requires grades that I don't have (though I'd like to think of it as not having them yet). And probably USC is the same, although I've done a lot more in terms of what classes I've been taking in order to appeal to their tastes.

Meanwhile, the portfolio requirements for CalArts and Art Center are pretty reasonable, and pretty similar. But I don't meet them -- which is to say, my work is not of high enough quality and there's not enough of it. With Art Center (if I interpret things correctly, but I'm really not sure about this), the application is due all the way in March, which gives me time to build things up (especially if I do get into that production class I so desperately need). So, I could make a couple to a few one-minute shorts between now and then. Unfortunately, CalArts's deadlines fit more into usual university standards, and they'd expect a porrtfolio from my by November 11th or something if I want to be accepted into the fall term of 2008.

Before any of this, I looked at the UBC Film Production website.
So apparently, which is to say basically, I can't even apply there, it seems, evidently, is how it appears, or that's my interpretation at least. If you find a way there where I can apply, please tell me. But that is one barren webpage in as far as I can tell.

Did I mention this is all so terrifyingly huge that I have no idea how I'm going to deal with it all and deal with my grades and make some short films all at the same time? And this isn't anything like the totality of the schools I think I want to apply to, it's just the surface scratched. So I'm feeling, um. It's like... what do they call it? ...Stress? Is that the word? It's not one I use a lot... or at least, it hadn't been. I now expect to consider it a true and powerful force in my life, for the rest of the term and year, if not indefinitely. But I must have control over what happens in my life. I must be on top of things and anticipate things before they even know they're going to happen. Yes. I must be the least like I've ever been in my life.

Hey, so, I'm here, I'm in Vancouver.

I'm studying a lot and eating sometimes and there are classes.

When it comes to film, I have a roommate who's also interested in film. He's two or three or four years older than me, and he has a lot more material that he's done. He seems totally down on the video idea. Or pretty much any idea. So, I just have to finish outlining. But I think it's far enough along that we could actually jump into filming at any time.

But I'm awfully hesitant. It has to do with the fact that I don't know this guy, Chris, very well. Or something, something more debilitating and personally my fault, yet which I can't put my finger on. It's very hard to decide why I hesitate. I think I'd feel a lot more comfortable getting started if I just finished outlining it first.

But when it comes to that, it's hard to keep coming up with ideas. It's hard to set aside the time to work on it, too. But I'm sure that there's always more ideas, because there's always new approaches to things, I think.

Also, I'm trying to get into this film production class. It's the basic video production class that you pretty much have to take to get in the film program. It's full, and I'm on the waitinglist. I went to the first class last week, the professor is a really nice guy, absolutely correct about everything he says about film -- I mean, he's really got a handle on what it should take to make a good short, that's my impression. But my first impression was that he looks very similar to William H. Macy. Except that he's sort of a platinum blonde. As if William H. Macy didn't look strange enough, you know? here he is, although I haven't looked at the site or his bio at all -- maybe after I post this I will.

There's two other kids who came to the first class who're on the waitinglist. But in an email (because I'm such a go-getter that I inquired about another class of Gallagher's I could take but only with his personally making an exception for me), he said, "As you know FIPR 233 is full but should there be any drop outs you will be first on the list." So, I'm first on the list. So all I gotta do... is make sure somebody drops out. I will enjoy this opportunity to exercise some evil. Ehehehehehe...



I will also try to just keep coming to classes until he caves.

When you get it down into Final Cut Pro it seems so much smaller -- by which I mean more brief. Forgotten are all the hours and days and weeks of photgraphing frame after frame, erased from memory are all the mistakes and so are all the hours spent correcting them. In editing, it all comes down to a minute and eight seconds, stretched by correctional efforts and the addition of inserts to a minute twenty-five. 1:25! Ridiculous.

But, on the other hand, I'm very proud and satisfied to present this! Haven't been as proud for any of the few other films of which I've been so completely in charge.



Here's the description I give it on YouTube:

"Stop motion animation centered around a creature of Yiddish folklore, the Golem. This video was the biggest and most rewarding hands-on experience in film production that I've ever had. It's the first video I'm proud to have had the majority of influence over.
It doesn't come across so well in the smal, 320 x 240 YouTube size -- plus it's shaky animation to begin with. This was the first time doing stop motion for both of us. I hope it gets across what it's supposed to, despite adversity."

BH and I have a joke about how the Golem puppet (well, the Mark One version, not the one actually used in the film) is like our retarded baby. We had that ambivalent love for it. We would've hoped for something "better," but I mean, it's our kid. Can you really complain about what you yourself create? No, you can only love it. And it applies to the whole video, too.

And hey, the Mark Two Golem turned out to be something of a retarded baby, as well; more mildly, though. Actually, gimpy, clubfooted, and not retarded; needed crutches.

I guess talking about my dreams for and reasoning behind the music video project can wait. I fly back up to Vancouver the day after tomorrow. I'm in North Hollywood now, in the house of my parents, and I've been here since May 1st. I think maybe in preparation I should sleep for once.

BLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGRAVERAVERAVERAVEBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOG

This blog begins just as I finish an approximately minute-long stop motion video about a golem, one made from real clay.
If you've observed the Yiddish in my posting name "Eagle Macher Squid Shmegegge," then you've probably hooked me up with some sort of motif. I'm a pretty secular, cheeseburger-eating guy, though. Jewish stuff is not a must in my films. It is a big part of my background, though. If I marry a shiksa my parents will disown me. They're just as secular as me. My mom likes pork; even I don't like pork.

also:

One of some key things about me is that the importance of moderation in all things feels hugely powerful right now. Thus, my current Big Zen Question (one of at least some Littler ones) revolves around the idea that holding moderation as chief in importance is an extreme itself. For now, I settle with the idea that moderation in all things is one tenet among at least some others, like those having to do with the importance of honesty, for instance. I mention this here, in the film blog, because, well, moderation in all things, right? So that affects how I make films. It's another piece of where I'm coming from here.

also:

"Be Good" by Tokyo Police Club. It's a song. Soon it's a video. The real reason I started this blog was to give me someplace to get my ideas off my chest. The old livejournal just isn't focused on such technical things! (If what follows seems too long and stupid, I give you permission to skip to the bold text)

Another key thing in my life is the fact that my music taste is very eclectic, or at the very least, quite in tune with the indie stuff. One of my favorite musicians is Jens Lekman. I recently read quite a bit of his amazing blog (the strange second-language diction helps keep it so, I admit), and learned a lot about where his music is coming from. And apparently he's serious, sort of! To the point though, I confess I was pretty inspired. Which is to say, I'm ripping him off and making a blog where people can come to get a better understanding of my work.

I'm not much of a musician. I was listening to another favorite, Sufjan Stevens, that night in bed. I wasn't tired and with that comes a certain impulsiveness to do stupid things like listen to music in bed instead of forcing yourself to sleep. I listened deeply to a song I had never spent much time on before, "Pittsfield," because I'm desperate for more material from this pro. I've yet to really resort to his christmas stuff, though. But, moving on, I was very deeply moved by this song. It's not Sufjan's strongest, but if you give it a chance and listen to the words, it's a prime example of his strengths. "There was a flood in the bathroom, last May. / And you kicked at the pipes when it rattled, oh the river it made," he coos about his mother or step-relative of some kind. The chorus that follows is phenomenal (I'm no music critic, you'll have to hear the song to get an idea of how it sounds. but it's beautiful). Actually, it's a song beyond beauty, it's painted on a canvas where beauty is just one color from a palate of infinite hues, shades, and saturations. How does one get to be as good as Sufjan Stevens? I wondered. I went back and listened to favorite songs of his. But, happy as I was with the beauty and the skill and, most of all, with the art of it all, I was pretty tortured. Sufjan is amazing: now what?!

I need to make art. It's something I know. My feeling on art is that art must be original and it must reveal some larger truth about anything/the universe/nothing/whatever (even if this revelation is viewer-interpreted -- once anybody gets anything out of something original, that's art). People can have personal taste in art; some things are bound to appeal more to some people than to others, but that doesn't affect whether or not something is art to begin with. Now, back to music for a bit.

I'm not much of a musician; I've taken a couple stabs at songwriting, and I know have the pen for it, but if there's such a thing as talent, I lack it for music (we've yet to truly see if I have it for anything, which is another topic). I think last night I really accepted that, musically, I shouldn't even try. I can never make anything nearly as brilliant as "Pittsfield" or Joanna Newsom's "Only Skin" or Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot It In People" or even The Unicorns' "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?" I can hope for a few catchy songs that really speak to a strong select few. When it comes to art, bad art just won't do. Yeah, there's personal taste involved. But a lot of art sets out to say things, and makes it very clear that it sincerely wants to say them, but somehow, it just doesn't work within the medium used. As in, it's incapable of using the tools with which other people are more capable. That's what it would be like if I was to try to really make music: mediocre art at best.

I like to play with musical instruments, and yeah, talent is, I think, a thing that can be cultivated (as I say, it remains to be seen personally, though). I'm not giving up on music, so much as I'm giving up the hope of making music that truly lives up to my own standards.

I can understand what I like about music, though. Listening to music is hugely important to me, and an inspiration -- art at its best, for me, doesn't just tell you something you didn't know or notice before, but in doing so (or somehow, anyways) gets you thinking, so that you yourself drill up your own new ideas with which to lubricate your own pursuits. Music videos, though, are a disappointment, time and time again. I've never seen a music video for a song that's done for me what a good song does, let alone is better than the song. I've seen music video after music video where the director takes some fanciful film technique, uses it a whole lot, and calls that a music video. I've seen ones where the narrative described in the song is portrayed silently and disjointedly as the song plays through. I've seen ones where a narrative that has absolutely nothing to do with the song is portrayed the same way. I've seen ones where the band plays (these tend to be the most likable, but they never take advantage of all the things you can do with the camera -- some parts of music are better emphasized than just shown. similarly, some parts are better downplayed). There's an intense variety -- and yet none of them give me what I really want from a music video.

To me, a music video should be a work of film that not only matches the music, and not only shows what's sung, and not only has distinctive film technique, but is brilliant in film technique as to match and counter the musical technique. It should be a true combination of song and motion picture -- just as song at a high-art level is a combination of instrumentation and poetry, yet capable of having an effect on the listener which neither parent can independently. Music videos can be such, can't they? An art of their own. And if you think it's impossible to have an art form which crosses senses, just look at cooking. You have taste on one hand and texture (touch) on the other. Right, right? Do you dare call the culinary arts something else? Hmmmm?? Do I got this, or what!?

I think this about covers what's led me to make a music video. Why I chose "Be Good" by Tokyo Police Club can wait until tomorrow. I can say I've already outlined more or less the first 30 seconds of this two minute and six second song. More or less is key (the line that leads into the 30 sec mark is crucial, and fittingly difficult). But, tomorrow, I'll talk about it! Also, more theory on music video!

YAY I'M EIGHTEEN AND I HAVE THEORIES -- AM I TOO LATE TO BE A PRODIGY?! PLEASE, I NEED VALIDATIONNNNNNN, I GOT MOTHER ISSUESSSSSSSS... or more likely I'm just deranged. who's crazy enough to essay away like this?