All that you can't leave behind, part 1

Q was here! R's good friend from our time out east (and actress in my latest video) paid us a short visit last week. R gave her the whirlwind tour of SB on Wednesday. When my work day ended we drove up to Solvang where we did a wine tasting and later went out for sushi at Arigato. She left after lunch the next day. It was a quick visit, but I'm glad she made it. She was able to see SB at its sunny best, and R was able to catch up with a close friend, one of the people she misses most from Delaware.

Speaking of the east coast, I am in Philadelphia for business Sunday through Thursday of this week. I knew it was coming: Sooner or later somebody was going to ask me to return to the office, ripping me away from my own personal paradise of working from home, a home in my favorite town in the world no less. But I can deal with four days of commuting and freezing. I don't expect anybody to feel sorry for me, especially you Minnesotans.

That's my office building, snapped on the way in this morning.

The reason for my Pennsylvanian visit is to kick off a new project for a client that once employed me in St. Paul. I'm renewed and excited by the prospect of working with them again. I wouldn't be put off by a future business trip to Minnesota to see some old friends still working there (Terry, this includes you). Plus, if I could extend such a trip over a weekend, giving myself time to drive up to Duluth and meet my new niece, that would be even better. Her baptism was on Sunday, and I'm bummed I missed it.

There's more to write, including news of more visitors, but I will save it for next time. Right now I'm beat from a long day and an odd mix of the familiar and the new.

This ended up sounding a little pretentious, but I'm posting it anyway

On our way to the Philly Film Festival last Friday night, our friend Q said something that I could relate to. She said she's been enjoying movies and books more than usual lately. At first I attributed my own increased enjoyment and heightened sense of discernment to our HDTV and a slew of Oscar-caliber films recently out on DVD and also that I've simply been reading more, trying to keep up with the book club. But maybe that doesn't explain it. Why have I been enjoying listening the early work of R.E.M. so much lately? Or laughing so heartily at episodes of How I Met Your Mother? And why do I feel so inspired to film something beautiful, even though I can't quite put my finger on what exactly that would be yet? Maybe I'm only going through a phase. Sometimes I look through my CD collection and nothing sounds appealing. Other times, I can't narrow down what to listen to because it all sounds good. I suppose it's possible my appreciation of art is deepening. Maybe I just crossed a threshold where I've examined enough media so that I can better recognize what is good and what is bad.

We saw a bad movie at the festival. The title was The Art of Travel, and I suggest you avoid it. I honestly can't believe a movie of this low quality was accepted into the festival... not only that but it actually seems to be receiving some praise (!). It was billed as Into The Wild meets The Motorcycle Diaries, but it was instead a poorly done rip-off of both of those movies. I've seen better acting on Saved by the Bell. The script had to have been written by a 13-year-old. It was filled with meaningless, gratuitous scenes leading to out-of-nowhere, forced "revelations." The dialogue was worse than cliché. If the editing were any good, there wouldn't have been a film because it would have all ended up on the cutting room floor. I don't think they can blame any of these problems on the budget, as I've seen much better movies made with much less.

To top it off, the presentation was awful. They announced ahead of time that they had the wrong lens for the projector, so the frame was squeezed to 4:3. But even the right lens wouldn't have helped the pixelated, DV resolution or the mono sound that was continuously peaking out of only one side of the theater! Oh yeah, and it took a while for the projectionist to get the DVD player figured out. First they accidentally showed us a trailer of the movie we were about to see, and then they started the movie at the end of it and "rewound" it to the beginning. Good thing there wasn't anything to spoil.

I expected more out of a large, respected film festival like this one. Maybe I need to see another movie to give the festival a chance to redeem itself. At least I have renewed hope that I could one day get my own film accepted. And it's good to see a bad movie once in a while, if for no other than reason than so that I can appreciate the good ones.

Spoon, man

R and I went into Philly last Friday night to eat dinner at a great neighborhood Italian restaurant and to see the band Spoon in concert. It may have been due to the opening act getting stuck in traffic and not showing up to perform, but the show started off a bit stiff and cold. However, by the time Spoon's font man, Britt Daniel, unraveled a freaked out, distorted guitar solo in "My Mathematical Mind," I believe the crowd was officially won over. The guy can wail, both on guitar and vocally. He can't be accused of lacking passion either. I never really took the time to get into Elvis Costello, but I have a feeling this is what he was like at the height of his powers. Spoon's timing was spot on. They have a way of performing such tight, punchy pop songs that each seem like more of a feat than some overly long, "epic" jam that another band might pull to waste 10 minutes of concert time. Spoon are masters of restraint and minimalism. Never heard of this band? I suggest starting with Girls Can Tell or Kill the Moonlight, but you really can't go wrong with any of their albums (with the possible exception of the less polished Telephono).

The other band I'm really digging right now is The National. I've only heard their latest album, Boxer, but it is currently blowing me away. I'm quite sure this is going to be my favorite album of 2007. Each song on it is chill-inducing and absolutely gripping. By the time a song is done I'm anxious listen to it again, yet I'm too thrilled by the next song to actually go back until I'm through the whole album. The lead singer's vivid descriptions, enhanced by the haunting textures and moods of the music make for a very visual listen. In fact this is the first set of new music I've heard in a while that makes me want to take out the camera and shoot a music video, probably one that takes place in the middle of the night. It's very inspiring like that.

More about the weekend: On Saturday night we attended a Halloween party thrown by a coworker of R's. Do you want to know what we dressed up as? If you can wait until next week, I'll post a photo. On Sunday afternoon we took a fun bike ride. R and I usually try to find paved trails to bike on, but it didn't happen this time. We were with two other couples and they took us biking on what was essentially a hiking trail. It was pretty rough riding, but we didn't mind the challenge for a change.

I'm in Madison once again this week for work. My first two times out here I was so hyped up on adrenaline that I barely slept. This time the work isn't as demanding and the newness and excitement of business travel is wearing off. So now it just feels more like work--work without the promise of going back to the comfort of home and eating dinner with my wife. It's also torture to not be able to edit the latest Bud Light video while I'm here. I still need to put a lot of time into it before the month ends. So far the highlight of this week has been our dinner out at Ruth's Chris Steak House (a national chain, but a good one) last night. I had the filet, and it was cooked to absolute perfection -- totally worth the two hour wait to get our food. Wow, it was good.

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.

Chester cheesesteak

My boss took me out for my first official cheesesteak on Thursday. I've had similar sandwiches at Subway and Quizno's, but I hadn't tried the real thing out here yet. Of course there has been some debate as to whether or not yesterday's sandwich qualifies as the "real thing" because it was actually made in Chester, PA and not Philadelphia. My coworkers further qualified that a cheesesteak needs to be eaten at 2am after a night of heavy drinking (that's one requirement that would be hard to fulfill during the work day) and it should be made at a place that refuses to serve you if you order it wrong. My boss is already talking about how we are going to drive into the city for our next cheesesteak. That's the plan as long as in the meantime we don't die of heart attacks from the first one.

Streets of Philadelphia

In an effort to increase my pavement pounding during my last week before beginning a full-time internship, I took a train into Philly yesterday with plans to meet some contacts I've made at an advertising agency called MBC.

Actually, the first thing I did when I arrived downtown was follow a long, windy hall to a nook in a big building close to City Hall where the Greater Philadelphia Film Office resides. These are the people that helped M. Night Shyamalan arrange for the shooting of all of his films; they are also involved with the TV show Cold Case, as well as a bunch of other projects I'm sure you've heard of that were shot in and around Pennsylvania. Anyway, I walked right in there and got only as far as the secretary. She gave me a brochure and told me to check out the website to see if there were any employment opportunities available. It was pretty much what one would expect to happen, but a worthy stop just to say I was there.

The visit at MBC was more productive. I received a tour of the place and met individually with three very helpful, knowledgable guys. They gave me a lot of hope that I can find a job that allows me to use my technical knowledge in combination with my creativity. One guy spoke my thoughts exactly when he talked about the merging technologies of digital video and personal computers. He showed me an example of an interactive video he put together and told me that Flash technology was where it was all happening right now. He said somebody with a communication/computer background could do pretty well for himself in the advertising industry. All he needs is the right opportunity. Yeah, that's what I need.

Another guy I met spoke with me about the future of the Internet. He claimed the way we surf the web is going to change dramatically in the coming years. It's going to move away from being browser-based; instead our PCs will be more fully integrated with the web, and we'll have these little translucent widgets on our desktops... I don't want to repeat the whole discussion here, but take my word for it -- it's exciting stuff. Take a look at this site for an example of what is to come: www.pageflakes.com.

MBC has a lot of creative juices flowing through it. It's a much hipper environment than anywhere I've worked, full of bright colors, dim lighting, artistic people. Knowing that a place like that exists makes me glad I passed on the AdminServer opportunity. As casual and relaxed as AdminServer looked, it was still in an uptight business without much room for stretching one's imagination.

My visit to MBC was not a job interview -- it was strictly informational -- but I hope they keep me in mind if any opportunities arise or if they hear of anybody else hiring. Commuting to Philly everyday is not ideal for me, but it would be worth it for the right job. I think I'll start targeting some ad agencies in Wilmington too. Also on my to do list: relearn Flash and Adobe After Effects.