CINEMAGICAL

I've been posting much more frequently to my blog "CINEMAGICAL!!!!"

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - VFX

Dino has has a hectic time of it, finishing visual effects work at his job, but he’s finally able to begin Alchemist VFX. Tonight he’s going to assemble the project into a Flame timeline and then we’re supposed to be meeting later this week to begin the actual effects and color correction work.

The Alchemist Makes Gold - Final Stages

On September 6th, 2011, which also happens to be my birthday, I dropped off my short film "The Alchemist Makes Gold" for post production work with Dino Tsaousis at Light of Day, VFX.

Alchemist Website!

The website for "The Alchemist Makes Gold" is now up and running!

‎"Hand me that glass of vodka, dear, my lips don't sing quite the same song without the touch of a different perspective."

The Alchemist Makes Gold - Final Stages

Dino is away on vacation until August 25th, which means that the color correction and graphics work has to be put on hold. In the meantime I'm prepping materials for festival submission.

Today I’m spending the day at the start of finalizing production packet materials for my alchemist film. I think I’ll make the production books essentially square with Peter Schafer’s alchemical chart as the cover to the book. Inside will be a few promotional images, info about the film, director’s statement, etc.
I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I often feel that way, ha!

I hope some of these festivals want hard copy materials and not just digital submissions. Hard copy is so much more enjoyable to make.

Hold. The. Phone.

Whoa, it's been a while since I even considered posting on this thing.

I've moved through(with?) a series of events recently. I was forcibly removed, along with my whole home community, from the large warehouse where I was living. There was no real notice(3 days, I think?), before the FDNY locked the doors to where we were living because the conditions we were under were supposedly "imminently perilous conditions". It's a fairly long story, one that has been well (mis)documented by various blogs, newspapers and magazines and it's gotten exhausting to talk about.

But, most recently, I've moved into a pretty awesome space with a full view of the river front. The rent is low, the company is awesome, and I'm hoping to settle in and re-dedicate my time to personal creative projects.

Helen is still moving along, so is Alchemist, and I have a few other projects in the works.

The Man in the Attic.

Photo by Cait Davis

This is where I live now

Moved into a trailer. Just hung some nice white curtains this morning.

I can't get over this song

Especially this version, I love the one guys voice. The highest voice.

Ah, Thanksgiving...

This year was interesting.

Every year I meet up with my parents and we drive to my aunt's house where we have a family meal, we're often joined by other family members. More recently, my parents have been sleeping at my aunt's house and staying a little longer. I'm very allergic to cats, asthmatic and all that stuff and my aunt has always really loved cats, she often has long haired ones. So, basically, when I end up sleeping there I have to get all dosed up on allergy medication and I use my inhaler constantly, it kind of sucks. This year, to make things simple, I decided to meet my parents at their house on Tuesday, stay there the night, they left for my aunt's on Wednesday and then I would drive up on Thursday (Thanksgiving) and meet up with them at my aunt's.

When I woke up this morning (Thursday/Thanksgiving) it was snowing outside. By the time I was leaving for my aunt's house the snow had turned to hail. I got into the car and drove out toward my aunt's house. I turned onto rt 220 and turned onto a downhill slope, I guess the car hit black ice because it suddenly lost control, spun out and whipped around so that I was facing the wrong way against traffic. Then it went up partway onto someone's lawn and began to tip over, everything in the car was thrown up into the air and then fell back down as the car slammed against a small hill and came to a stop. Nervous, I turned the car back around and started driving towards my aunt's again.



I realized my hands were shaking and then considered that I hadn't checked the car for damage, so I pulled over at the next place I could. I left the car running and got out to check out the side, I closed the door behind me. Everything seemed fine, so I walked to the front to get back in, but, as it turns out, the car auto-locks. All the doors were locked with the key in the ignition and the car running. I could hear the dull rhythm of the music playing from inside the car. I was standing out in the hail. I ran across the street towards a house, but then I spotted a car coming down the road. I flagged the car down and the woman driving it pulled over to the side of the road behind my vehicle. I ran back across the street and explained the situation to her. At this point I noticed that one of the back windows of my car was open about two inches(for when the dogs are riding), we couldn't fit our arms through the crack but the woman opened her trunk and found some random metal rods. After a bit of effort I was able to unlock the back door and get inside! I thanked the woman and she left. Then I turned the car around and drove back to my parents' house.

I spent Thanksgiving alone in the woods with the dogs. I gave them some of my steak.


Leiao


Rudy - he's blind, hence the far away look in his eyes

"IT OPENED!!"

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - Soundscape Design

Yeesh. I've been editing in Soundtrack Pro for hours now, my head feels foggy and my back is tired. I'm going to take a bath. I don't really know how to use Soundtrack, so I've been reading the manual and fighting with this program.

I've got 22 tracks of audio now, hopefully this will turn out fairly well. My plan is to do a bunch of "sound design" and then send it over to Jared and have him clean it up nice and add some extra touches to it, to make it sound better. Hopefully he'll add his own design to it.

Anyway, that's my plan.

Rockaway and the Surfers

My friend Chris is doing a documentary about the urban surfing scene in the cold weather, as he feels it is a practice that a lot of people don't really know anything about.

Today, I went out to the Rockaways with him to do some shooting. We set up an Ex1 on a motor controlled CineSlider and he did some video shooting with a Canon 7D with a 70-200mm lens and I shot with a Canon 7D with a 24-70mm lens. We got some nice stuff, I'm interested to see how it came out.

I brought out my GoPro but didn't really end up shooting with it. Here's a picture of Chris getting contact information from one of the surfers we interviewed.

"I just wanna ride my motosickle"

I took this picture riding back from Philly to NY. I love my motorcycle, I'd like to take it far one day.

And here I am in a gas station bathroom...

The Story of Mankind

In "The Story of Mankind," a film from 1985, the Devil is interrupted in a Universal courtroom by his portable telephone.

Bears Eating Corpses

"Russian bears treat graveyards as 'giant refrigerators'"

full story here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/26/russia-bears-eat-corpses-graveyards

Playing with sounds.

A good sandwich? Oh yeah, I'm a fan.

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - *Sound Design*

Jared finished a first complete sound clean up and it's sounding really great! I'm amazed at how much cleaner the audio is than it was. I watched it through and put together some notes with timecode markers which I sent his way. He's going to make changes and mess some more with the overall balance and then we'll be on our way to some serious soundscape design. Exciting!

Jay

By the way...

I bought a Go Pro camera, these things are pretty neat!

At the coffee shop

I met with Sara today and we talked about ideas for future projects. We may be collaborating on something in a little while, that would be great. Here she is at the coffee table...

A Few Life Movements

The whole of Project 61 fell apart yesterday, the other painter dropped out, so now it's just one mural artist trying to pick up the pieces. She's had the idea for years and still hasn't done anything with it, I don't imagine that she will be able to put it all together again. It's a shame, we were all really excited about the idea, but I think we had pretty differing views of what the idea was.

Now I'm trying to brainstorm a concept for a short film. I realized I haven't put anything new on my YouTube account in almost a year! And I did upload Astral Woman to Vimeo, so that's something, but looking at Astral Woman it feels almost like an exercise in aesthetic technique. That certainly has it's value, but I really want to tell a story that communicates something to people. It's bizarre to want to tell a story and then realize you don't have any stories to tell. The thing is, I do. I have plenty to say, but asking myself to structure it and put it into a container, that's where things get finicky. In some ways, it feels like anything is possible, but then that makes narrowing down the spectrum all the more difficult. I get overwhelmed by the breadth of possibilities and so instead I don't do anything.

I know that one thing lacking in a lot of my works is a connection to emotion. A friend mentioned that what I do is very cerebral, and that is something I have been noticing. I wonder if I start with defining an emotion that I would like my work to express, if I could then structure something around that expression of emotion.

Anyway, there's some stuff to think about.

Sometimes shit ain't simple...but it's always an experience, right?

As of right now, looks like there wont be any Project 61--or at least not anything that I'll be a part of. Things took quite the turn in a series of emails on Saturday, in which I was informed that one of the parties responsible for the project doesn't feel like the documentary is worth financing. She said if I want to make it, I'll need to take care of the financing myself. Since the documentary is the whole of what I had planned to do on the trip, I guess I'm not part of it anymore.

Mom: "I've been listening to the radio up in the pottery shop and, you know, we don't get much radio out here so I get to keep up on Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Haha..."

Me: "How do you feel about Lady Gaga?"

Mom: "Oh, she's a trip!"

"See the job. Do the job. Stay out of the misery."

Oh, David Lynch.

Project 61

A project that I'm starting with two friends is finally underway. We'll be departing for New Orleans on October 23rd and staying a week where they'll paint a mural of Dr. John and I'll document it on video. Our goal is to travel the whole Highway 61 for a few weeks and they'll paint murals to honor the evolution of blues along the way while I document (I imagine I'll help paint also). We're starting small to work on financing the trip. I'm excited about this adventure.

The website is http://project61.net , we have a blog also: http://alongroute61.wordpress.com

The Garage - MUBI / Vimeo Plus

I was contacted by The Garage at MUBI (http://mubi.com/users/133502) to link 'The Astral Woman' on their site. I did so, you can see it's project page HERE.

I updated my Vimeo membership to Vimeo Plus a little while back to submit 'The Astral Woman' to the Vimeo contest, it didn't get in. Anyway, with Vimeo Plus you can view Statistics of your videos. The whole thing is a little disheartening. So far, 'The Astral Woman' has 487 loads with only 19 plays and only 2 played all the way through! Now, granted, the credits are a bit long for a 4min video and I will admit to often stopping a video when the credits start (terrible, I know), but still! Only 19 plays out of 487 loads! Jeeze. I don't know what the general statistics look like on Vimeo, but that's quite the average...

The Astral Woman

Here is my 4 min short, 'The Astral Woman'.

The Astral Woman from Cait Davis on Vimeo.

In many cultures, The Astral Man or The Cosmic Man is a symbolic representation of the human beings potentiality towards wholeness. The symbol can also be seen as a symbol of Self. "According to the testimony of many myths, the Cosmic Man is not only the beginning but also the final goal of all life--of the whole of creation." (Marie-Louise von Franz, “Man and His Symbols”) This symbol is sometimes represented as a hermaphrodite, to show the joining of opposites, though quite often is represented by a white male human being. In “The Astral Woman” I have begun what I hope to be a small series of various short films that start to re-define the masculine dominance in our cultural history. I want to take strong and meaningful concepts and replace the dominant image with something different.

And so it begins...

Alright, I'd love to experience another thunder storm in the desert.

IFP and the steps to move along

Alright, so I've been preparing for IFP Independent Film Week. I created my business card and ordered 250 of those and I've been looking into how to market scripts and junk, so that I'll be better prepared when pitching to all the folks I meet there. I feel a little nervous about it, mostly I guess because it feels like there's this system in place and I'm navigating through it as an outsider. I like talking to people, but it feels uncomfortable when there's the sense of a bunch of unspoken rules that I don't really know much about. Or something like that.

I'm not a person who feels negatively towards the concept of 'pitching', or not anymore anyway. I understand why there is such a thing as pitching, it makes a lot of sense that with the number of projects consistently conceived of, a producer might want a direct and straight forward delivery of what they're dealing with. If they aren't interested, then they don't really have the time. However, understanding all of this doesn't mean that it's a comfortable idea. When I'm relaxed, I tend to talk a lot more, being relaxed also means things come more freely. I don't know how to both be relaxed and concise, and not being relaxed means an insecure pitch.

Anyway, in the end I'll figure something out, this is just where my head is now.

Goodbye Gerald!

It was nice knowing you! Someone confirmed purchasing my old 1980 Honda cm400t and I'm going to go drop it off in Harlem today. No more lawn ornament, Goodbye Gerald!

Mentally Unstable Toys

What a great idea!

A line of German stuffed animals with various mental illnesses.

Toys with Mental Illnesses

26 today.

Making Music from Old Children's Toys

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11176344

My New Baby!

Alright, I'm going to miss Gerald a little bit. There, I said it.

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION in stages...

Jared has officially begun sound design on The Alchemist Makes Gold!

"Rub your clitoris against the mountain!...Give yourself to the world!"

And then this happened...

Went to my parents house this weekend. My dad and I didn't talk much about the Helen script, mostly I just relaxed. I read a book, watched movies, took a bath, hung out with my dog and went out in the woods. I had an all around relaxing time.

In my last post, I mentioned that I would relay something further about IFP. IFP is Independent Feature Project and they host Independent Film Week. It's a week long event where filmmakers are introduced to agents, managers, distributors, producers, etc. to talk about a current project(for which the filmmaker submitted at an earlier date). My dad and I submitted to IFP film week back in...April, I think it was. They accepted 25 scripts in development for the Emerging Narrative section of the film week, and the script my dad and I have been working on was accepted! I submitted as writer/director, my dad as co-writer--though he wont be attending the film week. We are listed on indie wire here: http://www.indiewire.com/article/150_New_Films_IFP_Project_Forum/P0/

We're on the 2nd page, 8th project down.

I've been handling a few deadlines and prepping for the week event. I had my script consultation and I'm going to update the script soon. Most recently, I've been preparing "The Alchemist Makes Gold" and "The Astral Woman" to be burned to DVD so that I can share some 'past work' with any reps that might be interested in the projects I'm working on or have been working on.

The Alchemist isn't very far along. Well, I mean, it's edited--has been stitched together, but it doesn't have any sound design done and none of the graphics work or color correction. The DVD media is due by August 31! I've been doing some basic stuff and I gave all the sound over to some folks who said they'd be willing to help out, but as of yet we haven't been able to touch base about everything. It's a little nerve wracking to have all of this stuff going on and to be working a full time job, but I really feel like things are going well--or at least sometimes I feel that way. Today I feel that way.

Tonight I'm going to a meeting for an art project called "INTERSECTION" (project website: http://projectintersection.org/ ). I only joined forces recently and haven't really done a whole lot with them, but they seem like a neat group of people and the project is interesting. It's good to have some project distractions that aren't your personal burden. Plus, it's fun to spend some time with interesting folks.

Anyway...yep.

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION in stages...

The Alchemist is now in it's first official HD rough cut. I did a once over tonight, checking my cuts and tightening edits. Pretty soon we'll be starting on graphics and sound design. The goal is to complete at least one full, strong scene before August 30 so that I can submit a DVD for IFP. I'll discuss IFP another time.

Yay!

The Astral Woman - complete!

I found out about a festival Vimeo announced with David Lynch as one of the judges for the experimental category. As 'Astral Woman' is an experimental short and because I really respect David Lynch, I wanted to finish my short in time to submit it to the festival.

The short, mostly live action, involves a very short animated sequence that I planned to use After Effects to complete, but I really didn't know how to use After Effects. The short also was shot MOS, so it required an entirely fabricated sound scape. It took weeks for me to complete the animation as I stumbled over the large learning curve of After Effects and progressively decided how I wanted aspects of the image to look.

After completing the animation, I had one week to do all of the sound design. The short only came out to about 3mins, but I couldn't decide what I wanted it to sound like and I've been working a full time job and my work day ends about 6 or 7pm every week day. I'm also a morning person, my creativity happens mostly between 8am and 3pm. Basically, I didn't have much time and felt a lot of pressure to complete the film.

I started on the sound design and then called my friend Peter Schafer who lives in Rochester, NY and asked for his assistance with the project. From 7pm to 12am each evening, we sent files across the internet and updated the sound and image properties. Peter added sound to the sound I had in place and then I added sound to that, then I did the final mix, adjusting levels and adding filters. Peter created a quick animation for the opening title and I added the title itself. I completed the end credits, exported the video and finalized the upload to Vimeo at around 11:15pm on the day it was due(by 11:59pm). I paid the submission fee and officially submitted by 11:22pm. Then I biked over to Williamsburg and met up with a friend for drinks.

Whew.

I miss recording footage of dancers!

Alright, time to do the damn thing.

The Astral Woman - The Shoot

The shoot went well. We shot from about 7pm until 6am and then I had to go to work. It was a rough day, but I feel good about things. Because we had a small crew and not a whole lot of pre-production work, set-ups took a fairly long time and we had to cut a number of shots to get finished even by 6am.

Last night and this morning I started converting footage and laying it into a timeline. The shots we got look great, hopefully it all comes together.

The Astral Woman - shoots on Tuesday

Hello. It's Sunday and The Astral Woman project shoots on Tuesday.

I've gotten most of it together. I still need to paint a box red and remove this wooden divider from the inside.

I got the ostrich egg. Here's a creep photo of me holding it...

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION in stages...

I have a cut of The Alchemist that I'm pretty happy with, but the sound is difficult to work with. The recordings have a lot of interference(clothes rustling, camera noise), so I get a little exasperated every now and again. I'm considering a new creator for musical composition and spoke with a friend about looking for a composer who might be interested in doing the sort of music that I'm interested in. I listened to his demos and they're good stuff, so hopefully we can begin talk on all of this soon and see if this is a project he would like to be involved with.

I got the tax return deposited into my bank account and now I just have to find the time to bring the film over to PostWorks and get a best light transfer to HD. (!!)

The Astral Woman

The Astral Woman is a short short I wrote. It's a dialog-less film that symbolizes a woman moving towards wholeness. It's a reinterpretation of the classic symbols of self realization that were mainly masculine figures, at least in our (European/American) history. The Astral Man or Cosmic Man is a figure symbolizing the joining together of the different aspects of a person into a complete and whole being sometimes represented as a hermaphrodite and sometimes as a masculine figure. In the case of the short, the person playing the Astral Woman is a dark skinned woman who has often been referred to as androgynous. She's a beautiful young lady and I think her appearance adds a new reference for the concepts of how a whole self can be represented.

This past weekend, I met with a woman named Luiza who works one day a week at my job. She's interested in producing or production managing and she's on board with the short short, to help move it along into and through production. Then I emailed everyone in preparation for the shoot, getting together the minute details that bring everything towards completion. We plan to shoot at the end of May.

I'm itching to have more work posted. I haven't created any new videos for some time now. Some time soon I want to shoot the test roll of Super8 that I have, to find out if this Super8 camera my friend lent me works, since he wasn't sure. I just need to get some more stuff out there, for my own piece of mind.

Anyway...yep.

Submitted Helen

Last week I submitted the script my dad and I have been writing to the IFP Independent Film Week competition. Interested to see where that is going.

I passed my Motorcycle Safety Course and got my Motorcycle License on Friday. My moto is in the shop, getting new cables and what not and should be good to ride sometime next week. Pretty excited about that. It's beautiful outside.

I spent a good portion of the day cleaning and rearranging the apartment while listening to Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I'm supposed to have a meeting this evening to talk about the projects I'm working on and discuss steps towards creation. Alchemist sound design is moving at a slow and steady pace and I bought a whole bunch of candles today.

Good things.

Major headway in the Helen script, feeling pretty good.

Project Updates

This weekend I'm working with my dad to get together a rough draft of our feature script that I feel is strong enough to share with my friend over at Cooper's Town Productions.

Also, I got a pretty good tax return and once that is deposited in my bank account I'm going to have my Alchemist film transferred to HD and FINALLY get that finished and festival ready.

My Astral Woman short should be shooting sometime around the first of May, that's pretty exciting.

I realized I hadn't updated in a while, so this is my quick update.

More soon.

There's a certain tea I really like.

The Motorcycle Story

I finally got my motorcycle street ready. It was a hectic and anxiety-filled experience. I had one week to move it.

First, Monday afternoon I order a clutch lever and handlebars. I call the insurance company for a quote and I confirm with a friend, Josue, that he could drive the bike for me so that it could be driven away. By Wednesday, the clutch lever has still not shipped and the company refuses to change the name on the address I gave (I was mailing everything to my friend Alan, because mail "disappears" where I live). By Thursday, I cancel the clutch lever order and plan to go to Cycle Therapy before work on Saturday and buy everything else I need including the clutch lever(which I called to confirm that they had in stock). On Friday the handlebars arrive and I pick them up from Alan's place. I go to home depot and buy the tools necessary. Saturday it's pouring rain and I trudge out to Harlem to get the rest of the items I need. They don't have my helmet size in stock so I order a helmet and plan to borrow one in the meantime. I work Saturday night and don't get home until 3am. I don't feel so great on Sunday, however, I leave the house at 7pm, again in the rain, to go meet Josue at Fern's garage and take care of the bike.

I get out to Queens and somehow walk in the wrong direction. Getting rained on, no umbrella and I can't figure out where I am going. I ask a man and he says he'll walk me to the corner and show me the street because the streets are weird in Queens. He does that, I thank him and move on. As I'm walking, I start realizing the numbers are going in the wrong direction. Someone yells my name and it's the guy that I had asked for directions. He apologizes and says he sent me in the wrong direction. The street dead ends there and we have to go around to a different point because it continues somewhere else. He says he'll walk with me there because he lives close by. We walk together and most of the time is spent with him saying he can't believe he sent me in the wrong direction and with me saying thank you for helping me out. He gets me to the right place.

In the garage, we fix the handlebars with some strain, as some screws are stripped, and then we have to apply the grips. I think we tried for two hours to get the grips to go onto the handlebars, but when the glue was applied they wouldn't budge. Finally, Josue reads the packaging and discovers that the grips just need soapy water or alcohol and the glue already inside will set. We laugh at ourselves and can't believe what we just spent time doing. We don't have soapy water, but Josue pulls out a small bottle of Jameson and we use that. Now I can say things like "This bike runs on Jameson"...

Once we get everything fixed, we go to start the bike and realize that the battery is dead. Lame. Josue says that one can push a bike to get the engine to start, but we're in a parking garage without a lot of space for that. He also says if we can get it to start he wants to drive it home tonight. I say it isn't registered so it's not worth the risk. Smiling, he pulls his bike's license plate from his bag. Alright, we'll use it.

There is a shallow ramp in the garage. We decide to use the ramp to give the bike some extra speed for starting. We push it up and down the ramp probably ten times, until it finally fully engages and the engines roars up. Josue asks if I want to sit on the bike and try engaging first to roll slowly forward. I do.

We take the bike over to a longer stretch of straight asphalt and I get on. I'm nervous, but I hold the clutch tightly and click into first gear. Very slowly, I begin to released the clutch. The bike rolls slightly, I begin, slowly, to turn the throttle and give it gas. The bike rolls more quickly. I grab the clutch and brake. Awesome. Now I'm ready to learn to ride.

Sunday evening, at 1am, we take the bike outside and prepare to drive off. Josue says he wants to ride it around the block to get a feel for it before he rides with me on it. It's drizzling out. He drives off. I'm waiting a while. He calls, the bike has stalled. He gets it started again. Now it's raining. I get on and we drive off. We stop by his house so he can get some rain gear. He drives me home in the rain. He drops me off and takes the bike home with him.

When he gets home he calls. The bike stalled 3 times on the way home but he think it's an oil issue. It's after 3:30am now.

It's the next Monday morning, I wake up early and print out insurance forms and get the title, in preparation for registration. I take the train to the DMV. I can't get the bike registered. I've left the print out of the insurance cards on my desk. Pissed off, I head to work. Josue drives the motorcycle to a local mechanic to get a full tune up and new tires.

Tuesday morning, I wake up early. Get my papers together, making sure absolutely everything is there, double checking. I take the train to the DMV. It isn't open yet and the line stretches around the block. Pissed, I get in line.

The line actually moves fairly quickly and I get to a DMV agent. Everything clears and they tell me the registration will be $142(yeesh), I give them my credit card and their machine is down. They ask if I can go get the money out and come back to pay. I say No, it's a credit card. They tell me to wait and they take the next customer. Their machine wont accept cash either. That customer has to wait.

They figure it out. They enter everything in manually. I get my license plate. I go to work.

Thursday morning. Josue comes and picks up the license plate and registration information. He's going to take the bike to get inspected. Thursday evening, the bike is finished with it's tune up and everything is running fine.

Friday, the bike goes in for inspection. It passes. I go to Alan's place and borrow a helmet.

It's now Saturday morning. We're going to drive out to the airport and I'm going to learn to ride. It's a beautiful day.

Good news!

Lately, pigeons and doves have been landing right outside my window. There is a small sill on the outside, and they land there and coo. This had never happened until recently. Today there was one on the sill outside and one on the fire escape, the one on the sill was flashing it's feathers around and cooing, trying to attract the other one. They flew away when they saw me.

I want someone to share my enthusiasm with.

"And I could drink a lot and have vulgar thoughts and pray for my salvation, with nobody there to take my orders."

I need a dedicated Producer.

Damn, Hugh Jackman

Cutting Room Studios/ Modern Vintage Recordings

I am logging footage I shot of musician Misty Boyce in The Cutting Room Studios for Modern Vintage Recordings. I will be editing a video of the "live" session that will be posted up soon.

Final Cut 7, hey-o!

"How could a righteous babe like you be lonely?"

"That's the sweetest thing anybody's ever said to me! ...Wanna go to bed?"

Work/Art/Creation

I feel like I'm starting to actually get a handle on things, it feels really good.

I really like Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Wearing a dress inside when it's winter outside is a pleasant experience.

LOOK! at my spoon!

I found a use for my Gruel Spoon!

It can keep the pages down of books I'm referencing while I'm working on things!

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION *SOUND DESIGN*

My short film, The Alchemist Makes Gold, is still currently in the hands of motion graphics artist Dino Tsaousis who is doing additional editing and working out some digital effects. In the meantime, I'm starting preparation for sound design.

I've started on a Sound Map of the Alchemist. I separate each scene and then do grouping of the sounds for the corresponding scene. Concrete sounds, Musical sounds and Voice sounds. Luckily, the Alchemist is incredibly simple when it comes to voice sounds, they only really pertain to the two characters when they're speaking, the characters are never in an environment where other people are having conversations. The concrete sounds are fairly straight forward, though they begin to get a little complicated, as there are lot of noises that would be considered "concrete" but which weren't actually audible enough to be recorded on location--things such as, bubbling, boiling, sputtering, fire flickering, etc. So, those all have to be notated and then recorded separately. The "musical" sounds are the hardest to pin down. The "music" of the Alchemist isn't exactly music, I call it a "soundscape". It is composed of industrial noises, mechanical noises, the sounds of the woods/forest, and then building shimmering sounds, glowing sounds, whooshing and resonant/hollow sounds. Basically, the soundscape is the most interpretive and complex, as it requires creating concrete sounds to relate to abstract concepts. I guess this is always what music is, but I don't want the soundscape to sound quite like music or quite like it could be the real environment. It resides in a sort of in between place, an indefinable place. Anyway, this is where Alchemist stands now. A chugging along process. I'm nervous and excited to see where all of this leads.

Nice weather today!

I have an interview with the folks who posted the "enthusiastic person" ad, on Monday. It's an interior design service that caters to folks who are moving and don't want to deal with the hassle.

I've been applying to all sorts of job positions. I applied to be a dog walker, kennel associate, warehouse PM associate(accepting shipments at a warehouse at night), animal care taker at a lab in a university, I applied to PetCo, various film positions, psychology study participant, and I even applied to a listing that only asked for an "enthusiastic person".

I need to find work and I have no job ideas. I'm not sure what to do.

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0096.html

http://www.collativelearning.com/EYES%20WIDE%20SHUT%20analysis.html

"And, you know, there is something very important we need to do as soon as possible."

"What's that?"

"Fuck."

gnocchi looks like big roly polys

It's so pretty and snowy outside. A beautiful day to hang around, look out the windows, and work on projects.

"You see how the smoke trembles up in the roof hole? As if whimpering and afraid. Yet it's only going out into the open air, where it has the whole sky to tumble about in. But it doesn't know that. So it cowers and trembles under the sooty ridge of the roof. People are the same way. They worry and tremble like leaves in a storm because of what they know and what they don't know. You shall cross a narrow plank, so narrow you can't find your footing. Below you roars a great river. It's black and wants to swallow you up. But you pass over it unharmed. Before you lies a chasm so deep you can't see the bottom. Hands grope for you, but they can't reach you. At last you stand before a mountain of terror. It spews fire like a furnace, and a vast abyss opens at its feet. A thousand colors blaze there: copper and iron, blue vitriol and yellow sulfur. Flames dazzle and flash and lash at the rocks. And all about, men leap and writhe, small as ants, for this is the furnace that swallows up muderers and evildoers. But at the very moment that you think you're doomed, a hand shall grasp you and an arm circle around you, and you'll be taken far away...where evil no longer has power over you. "

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION *STAGE 3.2*

Presently, my still-in-production short film, The Alchemist Makes Gold, is in the hands of an additional editor/motion graphics artist, Dino Tsaousis (http://www.dinotsaousis.com/). Dino is really great, he works primarily in the more commercial world of video/filmmaking with Arby's, Wendy's, Gillette, AT&T...etc. Presently, he's working freelance out of NY. However, he also went to college in Boulder, Colorado where he had a focus on Avant Garde/Experimental filmmaking, what a great mix!

The Process:

First, I made a cut of the whole project with rudimentary graphic placeholders, then Dino took the project and all the raw footage. He watched it through, made notes and has come up with potential changes in cuts and rhythm and concepts for the special effects. He'll make changes and begin on design and then send me low resolution files through yousendit.com where I'll review the changes and give my opinion. So far, I've seen two changes(one involving special effects) and I was happy with both of them. After Dino finishes with his changes, he'll conform the whole sequence to something that is watchable by anyone and I'll share the rough final cut with other people. Once I've gauged response and feel happy with where the video stands, we'll decide the cut is a lock and he can begin on color correction. While that's happening, I can take the footage over to my friends at The Cutting Room Studio in Manhattan, where we'll begin soundscape design . Once the soundscape is complete, the whole sound aspect of the project will be brought to the guys at Black & Gray Music (http://www.blackandgraymusic.com), where final sound mix and clean up will be completed. Then we synch our completed audio with our completed video and the project will be done!

Joe Muto rehearses in the "apartment" location.

I still really want the Canon 7D

A guy followed me into the grocery store and said I was an "evil white lady", he mumbled things about black magic and witch craft. I told him he didn't know me and he was only saying so based off of my appearance and the color of my skin. He said he could tell I was an evil white lady.

a great website for nyc bikers!--> http://www.ridethecity.com/

...shit...

"I think you're mistaken. I don't come with the merchandise."

"My Stanley Steamer's in the garage, having her face lifted."

"Small accident...the road curved, but I didn't."

Equation of the Day

Avocado + Breakfast Sausage + Over Medium Egg with a little Spike seasoning + Swiss Cheese + A little bit of mayo ON a Toasted Sesame Bagel = AWESOME

"Henrick systematically fails at everything. He can't even kill himself"

"As a lawyer you should be used to the stupidity and repulsiveness in the world."

"Honest hate must be respected; I respect it. But I couldn't care less if you hate me. You hardly exist."

"I like you more or dislike you less when you use that tone. There's a healthy dose of hate in your banalities."

Two O'Clock PM

2PM seems to be my time this week. I have a meeting today(wednesday) at 2pm, a meeting tomorrow(thursday) at 2pm and a shoot Friday at 2pm--all different people.

Two O'Clock Post Meridiem

Metal Works

This past Friday I went to a free metal working workshop with a friend of mine. I spent 5 hours working metal into shapes and I had a great time. We were given a fairy long, thin piece of steel, which we would put into a fire pit until it turned red hot and then take it over to an anvil and bang it with a hammer. This process is repeated over and over until one's personal desired outcome. I made a spiral and a spoon. The spoon was started with a larger, flatter piece of metal(just look at the handle, thats the original piece since I didn't get around to shaping that part). I was going to put more effort into the spoon, but it was 2am by the time I got to the point where you see it now, and I didn't have the energy or the arm strength to work on it any longer, so I just did the finishing work and kept it this way.

This is My Spiral and My Spoon for Eating Gruel in my Shanty Shack.

I felt good until I felt really awful.

The Internet as Desert Wasteland

“It’s as if culture froze just before it became digitally open, and all we can do now is mine the past like salvagers picking over a garbage dump,” Mr. Lanier writes. Or, to use another of his grim metaphors: “Creative people — the new peasants — come to resemble animals converging on shrinking oases of old media in a depleted desert.”

Full article here: The Madness of Crowds and an Internet Delusion

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION *STAGE 3 and on*

All of the audio is now synched up, it took me working at least 10 hours straight yesterday, but now when their mouths move, there be sound!

Here is a preview image, this is from Scene 10(keep in mind it's low resolution and no color correction has been done):

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION *STAGE 3*

The Alchemist Makes Gold has been transferred to two miniDV tapes. I watched both of them on the TV yesterday and imported one tape to my computer, in the midst of the second one today.

The shots look good and I think the movie is going to have an interesting feel, the only disconcerting thing is that everything looks so dark on the computer screen and I have the screen set to 'Generic RGB' which is the lightest setting for the computer screen. I'll probably be giving a call to PostWorks today and asking their media guys some questions, just to make sure everything is okay. I don't like how dark it is on here. Otherwise, this is a big step forward with the project.

Alchemist, Post Production *Stage 2.5*

The film has been transferred, I'm going to pick it up today.

THE ALCHEMIST MAKES GOLD - POST PRODUCTION *STAGE 2*

This thing has been moving ever so slowly, so I feel I need to start from the beginning, with a brief description of the progress.

In July-August 2009 we shot my short film "The Alchemist Makes Gold" on Super16 color negative film in the woods of Pennsylvania and in a basement in Philadelphia. I wrote the script months before that, but I never did figure how to raise any money, though I really did try to understand the whole process. So we all worked for free and I spent all of the money I had to make it work. Very very low budget. The basement was in a friend's sculpture studio, the woods are where my parents live. A good producer friend acted as a consultant of sorts and got me a 16mm camera for free and film stock.
The shoot was a bit hectic and not phenomenally organized, but we got everything we needed. I have plenty of stories about the organizational messes I was constantly cleaning up, but that can be for another time, this is supposed to be the brief explanation.
So, we completed our 4 days of shooting(we only actually shot for 4 days, though we booked 7 for travel time and prep time.) But, after that, I had 8 rolls of exposed film and no money--again, I didn't necessarily handle the project expertly. So, I had the film in my fridge for a while. 3 rolls were already developed because we had a scare with the camera and were forced to make sure the footage was okay(my cinematographer loaned the money for developing those rolls). Then I read something online that said that film can be damaged if held in a fridge for longer than 6 months, since my monetary situation wasn't changing, I panicked. First, I found a grant source and filled out an application for an arts grant and submitted that, then I created a web site with a description of the project, conflicts and a paypal donation button. From that, I got in $500. I used $320 of that to develop the rolls of film in my fridge, but the left over $200 wasn't enough for transfer. Progressively, that amount raised to $335, which was still not enough. I wanted to do an HD transfer, which is about $1500, and doing even just an SD transfer is about $500. So, I kept trudging along. Time passed and I grew frustrated with things, thought I might stop working freelance and get a 'regular' job and actually save enough money to do the things I want. However, that thought propelled me forward and I started working a lot more in freelance. I became motivated to buy a motorcycle, which will eventually save me money on travel expenses and allow me to visit family and friends and, for Christmas, my parents gave me the last of the cash($300) needed to have the film transferred to SD--which is absolutely a start, and at least I'll have something to show for all the work we put into the movie. The award connected to the grant I applied for is not announced until sometime later on in January, so I don't know anything about that yet. (*UPDATE* I did NOT receive the grant. Bummer!)

So, this PHASE 2 of my Alchemist Post Production is coming up on Tuesday, when we're going to have the film transferred to SD miniDV tapes and I can begin a rough edit of the film!

Still image from The Alchemist Makes Gold, woods location

"I don't want a pickle, just wanna ride on my motorsickle..."

So, I bought that motorcycle pictured two posts below, the maroon-tanked 1980 Honda cm400t. Long story short--it flipped off the back of the truck while we were transporting it home and went from being immediately rideable save for some new tires, to needing new handlebars and a clutch lever. While this is a bit of a set back, that's about the best possible news one can receive when dealing with a motorcycle flipping off the back of a truck--i.e. "you just need new handlebars and a clutch lever." So, I found handlebars online that fit the approximate measurement of the handlebars on the bike(they're a bit mangled, so there are no definite measurements here, but the two are close enough) and a cheap Honda clutch lever that fits my year and make of bike. My friend Alan Porn-Hair and I are going to sit down together and put the new stuff on. Then, I need to get the tires replaced and, at that point, I'll finally be able to learn to ride the thing!