Silver Screen

Hey everybody. Sorry for the infrequency of updates. It's the same old excuse: I've been busy at work, and it has been bleeding into my free time. Sunday, especially, was a bloodbath. R and I did manage to get our den/office painted on Saturday, however (R did the more time-consuming edge work, and then I swooped in to do the rolling). Silver Screen (swatch provided above) was our chosen color. It's possible we chose it entirely for its name. It sounded like an inspirational color to be surrounded by while editing movies. Then again, we used the same color for the interior of our garage a few months ago, so maybe there is no correlation.

What else can I tell you? I guess there's a lot in the works around here. We have some trips planned, some visitors coming soon, and some new videos being completed. I'd rather wait until after these events occur before filling you in on the details. It should be a busy spring, so stay tuned.

Paddy's Day

Cool picture taken by R, eh? My ultra talented wife accompanied me on a trip to Dewey Beach over the weekend and assisted me with the latest Bud Light Film Crew video shoot. We covered the St. Patrick's Day celebration at the Starboard Restaurant & Bar. A guy from Bud Light set us up for the night with a room at a house a few blocks away from the bar. Free beer and no need to drive home was an ideal situation for us to let loose after the shoot, but it didn't happen. We gave up drinking for Lent, you see. It has been a difficult sacrifice. I think next year I'll give up chocolate instead. So R and I kept it professional and watched the hosts of the video get toasted instead, which actually happened before the shoot. I'll be doing my best to remove their slurred speech from the interviews during the editing process. The video should be all right. Picture it: the usual horde of rowdy youngish people yelling into the camera... only this time... they're wearing green.

Taxing and relaxing

I worked on the dreaded taxes over the weekend (with R's help, of course), and things were going all right until I got to the state of Delaware, primarily because the tax software I'm using doesn't handle a part-year residence in this state. So I printed the forms, attempted to fill them out by hand, and got about half way through before declaring incompetence. What it comes down to is the question of what is the most advantageous way for us to file: as joint residents, joint non-residents, single residents, or single non-residents. The instructions say we can take our pick, but the only way to find out the best option is to fill out the forms each way and compare. This whole process is complicated by the fact that I live in Delaware but work in Pennsylvania and that R worked for the same company the whole year but in two different states. Despite having a job in the financial business world, I really never developed much comfort with handling money. Accounting is not my strong subject. I will be able to file our federal, Alabama, and Pennsylvania returns using the software, but as for Delaware, I think I might take it into H&R Block.

On Friday night we watched Babel, which was decent, yet a little tiring. It fit in well with the director's prior films, Amores Perros and 21 Grams, and I say that because by the time I was done watching all them, I was exhausted and down and didn't really feel like discussing them. All three are well made and well acted, yet they do not contain something that I like about movies: the joy. I also finally completed Seven Samurai over the weekend, which was a solo project for me since R made the choice to not get involved from the beginning. It was an admirable movie but also draining due to it's sheer length, clocking in at 208 minutes. Still, I have been wanting to see it for a while and am glad I finally did. I like watching older movies because you are able to see the wheels working. They are not as seamless as today's slick, yet often soulless productions. Sometimes I like to witness the very basic principles of filmmaking in use, especially when the sum ends up being more than its parts. It gives me hope for my own filmmaking aspirations.

The premiere of Jack of Clubs is quickly approaching. We will be attending the April 12th screening at Theater N. The hype is building. Follow this link for the latest article on the film found in Out & About. And if you haven't yet checked out the collection of photos in my gallery that were taken by a talented photographer named Evan Krape over the course of four days on the movie's set, take a look here.

The music post

The following is paraphrased dialogue between me and my wife during Saturday night's Guster concert in Philly:

"Dude, Guster's getting old."
"Dudette, we're getting old."

Even in the over-21 partition of the venue we felt out of our age group. I thought Guster was a band from our college days. How do kids today know the lyrics to all of their songs? Apparently the band is still popular and still putting on good shows. We definitely enjoyed this one. They didn't play a bad song in the set. As an added bonus, Mason Jennings opened for them. He seems to be aging as well and perhaps mellowing out some. He lacked a fire that he had in the earlier days of his career, but that could also be because we was only the opening act. I will say that his performance was more polished than the last time we saw him. Plus, mellow is not necessarily a bad thing.

Speaking of music, the new Arcade Fire and Air albums come out tomorrow. I've had them pre-ordered because regardless of any negative reviews they may receive, I'm still going to want them. These are two cases where the bands' previous work is strong enough for me to blind buy anything new from them. And I want a hard copy. I'm fine with downloading some albums, but Arcade Fire and Air are on my A-list (funny how they both happen to begin with the letter A), and I haven't completely left the CD format behind yet. I still prefer that "old fashioned" sound sometimes. As R joked, one day we'll be saying that to our kids, and they'll be laughing at us – ha ha, look at crazy old Dad with his scratched up Smashing Pumpkins discs.

In case you're looking for recommendations, here's what else I've been listening to and liking lately:

Post-War by M. Ward - My sister-in-law introduced to this guy a few years ago, and I am very grateful. Check out Transfiguration of Vincent for his finest hour.

9 by Damien Rice - Heartbreakingly good.

Wincing the Night Away by The Shins - For when I need something light and poppy.

Reckoning by R.E.M. - A terrific companion-piece to my favorite R.E.M. album, Murmur.

Bone Machine by Tom Waits - I've been trying out a few of Waits' albums recently, and this is the one that stuck. I love the imagery.

XM Radio - I've been doing talk radio in the mornings, but usually surf the music stations on the way home. Some of the play lists are so vast I'll hear a song and then never hear it again, which can be good and bad.

Bud Light Film Crew #3

The first thing you'll notice is that we have new hosts this month. It is a film crew after all, so there may be some shifting in the personnel involved from month to month. Our original hosts, Traci and Jeff, couldn't make it to the shoot because of an impending ice storm, but they will likely be back again in the future. Everyone seems to like their replacements, however, so we might mix and match them a bit. So far I'm still in charge of shooting and editing, but as the CityLife schedule gets more hectic I may have to occasionally give up my role as well.

This is our longest video yet, and I had the shortest amount of time to edit it, so take that for what it's worth. I could probably spend the rest of my life making adjustments, so maybe it's good I had a tight deadline.

I hope you have a good set of speakers attached to your computer because if you can't hear Queen's baseline, there's no point to watching it. Here you go:

http://www.budlightfilmcrew.com/

CityLife News Team #1

The above still is from the original version of the first CityLife video segment. It was part of a sequence that was cut from the final version because it was "sending the wrong subliminal message." I loved the sequence, but removing the teardrop-like melting ice sculpture close-ups was the right decision. I also had to remove some wide shots of the room because they showed that the event had low attendance, despite that fact that I was already short on cover and needed every shot I had. Such is the life of an editor. It's not a good idea to get too attached to anything; you never know what you'll have to toss.

That said, the video turned out better than I expected, and it's been getting a very positive response from a lot of marketing people in Wilmington. We definitely still have room for improvement on future videos, but at least it looks like we'll be getting that chance.

Watch the first video in the series here:

http://www.citylifewilmington.com/CityLifeVideos

Life in liquid crystal

I have a love/hate relationship with television. Quality shows like Lost and The Office are a great escape, a chance to tune out my moderately stressful reality. I really enjoy them. However, if a show on my list is not airing, the last thing I will do is turn on the tube and channel surf. I'd much rather read or go online for my entertainment fix. Also interesting--when it comes to watching TV, I'm a completist. I can't watch 24, even though I know I'd love it, because I didn't see the first episode. The shows that I do watch, I've been watching since day 1 (except for House M.D. -- R pulled me into that one during the second season), and I never miss an episode once I start. If a show is poor enough for me to miss an episode, I'll probably stop watching it all together.

We entered the age of digital television last weekend when we bought a 40-inch Sony Bravia. The thing stands like a black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey in our living room. Its grand beauty marks our evolution in entertainment. This is quite a step up from the 20-inch tube set we've been watching until now. Frankly, it is too big for where we have it positioned at thte moment. We are working on mounting it on the wall, which will give us some needed distance.

The HD picture quality is very impressive to say the least. So much that it is exposing television shows for the facades they are. Now we can see the make-up on actor's faces. In some scenes you can clearly tell the action is taking place on a sound stage. There was a blaring example of this on the last Desperate Housewives: two characters were supposed to be sitting on some steps outside a restaurant--well, you could definitely tell they weren't actually outside. Lost does pretty well, however, because it's filmed on location in Hawaii. We've only watched one episode of it in HD so far, but it was quite spectacular.

It was surprising to me that HD broadcasting actually has a crisper picture than DVD. The real reason we wanted a new TV, after all, was for watching movies. I'm finally starting to see the reason for those new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players. Still, the larger screen size alone, makes the viewing experience more thrilling. We are definitely noticing more detail in each shot. The higher production values in movies versus television are evident. Sometime soon we will be buying a new sound system as well, and then I will be re-watching a little movie called Star Wars.

In memoriam Chase

A friend of some friends died this week. I've only met the guy a few times, so maybe I'm not in the best position to write anything, but it fills me with sadness to acknowledge the premature end to his life. His name is Chase Korte. He was an aspiring actor in Los Angeles. His talent and energy were boundless. Watch the commercial above to see something he wrote, directed, and starred in (he's the driver of the station wagon). That kind of work puts mine to shame. I would have been jealous, but he was too nice of a guy to wish him anything but the best. I don't usually open up to strangers, but the first night I met him was at a party where we sang through Rattle & Hum at the top of our lungs together. Maybe alcohol played a part, but more so I think he was just the kind of guy who was fun to be around.

There's been an outpouring of emotion on the web (on his friends' blogs and his own MySpace page). It's a great tribute to Chase... but it would sit better if he had had the chance to live another 60 or so years first. My thoughts go out to his friends and family as they mourn their tremendous loss.

Kissing the Liberty Bell

Of course we didn't actually kiss it. The security guards would have freaked out if we had tried. They are pretty protective of the thing; you even need to go through a metal detector to get into the building. But we saw it. Up close. And it was magnificent.

Actually, at the risk of upsetting the ghosts of our founding fathers, it was just a big bell, broken too. That being said, I'm glad we finally made the pilgrimage, a short drive up I-95, on Saturday. We also toured Independence Hall, had a quote about wine printed for us in Ben Franklin's printing office, and walked through various historic squares.

It was a busy weekend all around. On Saturday night we attended a party at some friends' house and had a good time. On Sunday I shot another web video. This one is not for the Bud Light Film Crew, but some of the same people are involved. We sort of covered a bridal show, while advertising for the restaurant where it was held. The host of our video is a guy who will supposedly share screen-time with Mark Walberg in an upcoming movie (albeit brief and non-speaking, as is usually the case with most "famous" people I've met). I believe this video we are putting together will be playing on the CityLife Wilmington website eventually, and if the first one turns out okay, we will have a bi-monthly web series to produce. There's a lot of pressure to make this one more professional and more serious than the Bud Light videos. We even had a script this time! Unfortunately, I have some worries about the results, although I usually do. My equipment is starting to show its limitations. I'm beginning to realize there's a reason professionals in this business use professional-grade lighting and cameras.

So I've been finding some video work. Finding the time to do it is the problem. This week, for example, I'm not going to be able to edit at all until at least Thursday night. I'm going out with coworkers tonight, shooting the next Bud Light video on Tuesday, and dining with my valentine on Wednesday. It also doesn't help that February is a short month. We're not in a leap year by any chance, are we? I need every day I can get.