Today, at 7 PM, I'll be doing a poetry reading at "Behind the Scenes" on 243 West Broadway (see the Google Maps location), at 7 PM (my own segment should begin at about 7:20 PM). The person organising the event, Dr. Lucia Gorea, moved it from the Granville and Broadway Chapters location to the other place because of the predictable lack of corporate foresight on the part of Chapters/Indigo management.
In other "news" (i.e. not really news, for those that have been keeping up), here's my latest video project, Yume. (To play the movie, just hover your cursor over it and click on "Play"; this is a 54 MB streaming Flash video).
This video project was a strange animal from the start. Simply put, I always wanted to take certain visual ideas that I have slowly, but surely, conceptualised over the last five years or so, and make them into a film; however, those interesting, little scenes and sequences that kept running in a continuous loop in my mind could never be tied down to a logical "A-to-B" type of narrative, and so I could never even write a satisfactory screenplay to fit the need for self-expression of this idea that was slowly emerging.
Parallel to that development, I started paying more attention to my dreams, which began to be more and more colourful and vivid, action-packed and exciting. Then, of course, the realisation came that I could tie in all those crazy-cool ideas into a sense of an act of dreaming, making something between Luis Buñuel's Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie and Richard Linklater's Waking Life.
The problem then became even more painful, since I now had all those wonderful ideas that I had to put on film ASAP (since I make my films like I write my poetry - feeling above thought, despite the ever-present heavy hand of thought - and in the shortest timeframe possible), with very little filming ability, a broken tripod, only one actor (me), and only my trusty Pentax Optio S50 digital photo camera at my disposal. The odds were, once again, against me.
The time was July; I was in a summer semester in UBC, and I was taking a strange and interesting route (walking towards my car, parked on North-West Marine Drive), on Main Mall, from the north-west to the south, near the Agriculture buildings, and then around Thunderbird and Totem Park residences (I think the exact location of the final scene is misidentified in the credits - it is probably the latter). The route gradually became more and more interesting; me being me, I started giving the objects and places I "discovered" new contexts and new meanings, and, suddenly, the H.R. MacMillan building became a towering, mysterious citadel with a sundial and a strange mechanical shop behind it - with a bum's mattress cleverly hidden on the top of an unused set of stairs at the back, with potatoes dropped amongst large decorative stones and left there, with a strange room with a piano in it in the residence nearby - it became the perfect setting for dreams (which normally range from sex with members of my immediate family and friends, to being a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, to being an action hero, to fighting ghosts and monsters - in other words, places that just could not be procured or constructed on a $0 budget - not that I'd need to do so, anyway, as you will soon find out, heh), so I started filming, and filmed all the exterior "scenes" I needed in a fairly linear fashion.
Then, in a flash of inspiration, I purposefully and painstakingly shot what would later become the introductory sequence that I kept honing in my mind over the last five years or so (as a point of interest, I decided to keep the slight camera shake in one of the early shots as a testament to the excruciating "retaking" of almost every scene that I shot that night). I edited the sequence together fairly quickly, and then I came to a stalemate with myself, because I lacked a new hook with which to draw my audience further into my idea. I now firmly rejected realism (and thus, hyper-realism and magical realism, by extension - despite loving those approaches to bits), since I could barely shoot myself (with excruciating, amateur set-ups and tricks, at that), let alone a cast of actors. Thus, actually presenting my dreams as they were became a non-option altogether; I then knew that this film was to be a filter, a membrane between whatever it is I wanted to say about my dreams, dreams in general, and concepts and ideas that had to go beyond words, if they were to be expressed.
Learning from Buñuel and Linklater's approaches to dream-like narratives and establishment of pleasure in abstract tension, slightly off-kilter narrative incongruity, and cognitive dissonance, I then stole Akira Kurosawa's concept and title (though I have never seen his take on Yume, I must add - very much to not be influenced by whatever direction he took in that film - perhaps it's a good idea to see it now, to "compare notes"). At any rate, I had my hook now: instead of filming actors in scenes, I prepared a number of "scripts" based on transcriptions of my dreams that I made over the past five years or so, and, over the next few weeks, I requested members of my family and my friends to read those scripts, as if they were their own dreams. The film thus became even more of an experiment now, since I knew from the start that, despite probably ending up using very little of those recordings, the exercise would yield enough cognitive dissonance in its participants (as such, and later, as viewers - heh, whose experiences would now also stand in opposition to those who have not participated in the sound recordings), and would allow me to find other hooks with which to move my ideas along.
Indeed, the exercise was very rewarding. A few people agreed to it, but, when it came down to reading the dreams, a strange sense of reluctance (or if not reluctance, then pause) came over my vicarious dreamers, there emerged a sense of crossing almost-taboo boundaries that are rarely traversed in the ostensibly-ordered logic of our "normal" waking life that we cling on to with such desperation. Saying "this is just a dream" to my participants just didn't cut it. The actual recording angle was a bit of a pain, since all I had at my disposal was a crappy Sony micro-cassette recorder, which output I had to track into the computer, clean up (with as many as three noise-reduction passes, at times!), cut, edit out all the breaths, gulps for air and unnecessary pauses, and finally convert to low-quality, phone-like recordings, to extend my idea of fuzzy dream logic. Slowly, a sense emerged in me, that it was no longer necessary to maintain the initial integrity of each recording, in keeping with my new conceptual ethos and I then started overlaying and mixing the recordings on simultaneous tracks, with different channels dynamically faded and panned.
It so happened (and nothing is a coincidence, heh) that at the time I was watching Mindgame, an animé that completely blew my mind in terms of the abstract, yet succinctly real way in which it presented often-non-linear narrative sequences that nonetheless drove home a point so extensive that I wasn't the same for weeks after watching it. After a viewing with Derek, and his (with his usual wisdom) putting of my quandaries with (post-)post-modern art, consciousness and thought into context, both vis-à-vis Mindgame and art in general, I felt extremely liberated and renewed my vow of eternal and unabashed maintenance of the self via self-contradiction; this is how the second segment was born. There isn't much to say about it, other than that it takes somewhat after the dynamism and the image-bombardment method of my second short film, Now. The animated sequence was particularly hard to make, because each "frame" needed to be hand-drawn, scanned in, cleaned-up in Photoshop, resized, tweaked, centred and exported as an image file; the same goes for the rapid-fire image sequence, which was extremely hard to time to the music (editing the music down to size was another pain I had to go through).
After finishing the second segment, the third segment was a no-brainer. By then, having thought it so much (music and all - stolen lock, stock and barrel from Waking Life, by the way, heh - but there's the excitement of reworking others' material - or others' likewise use of others' material - to my own ends), it was just a matter of arranging together a set of longer video sequences, because I have already internalized my sense of the scene well; the fact that not many "got" it, or even complained that it lacked the "dynamism" of the first two segments, thus became the exception that proved the rule of the film as a whole.
The cherry on top of this five-month-long process was editing the credits, running to a really powerful song by the Blue Man Group that worked well with my idea of film credits within a dream (as it actually often happens in my dreams). On the other hand, I became very disappointed with Premiere Pro 1.5, which either went nuts because this installation of Windows XP is already quite old and messed-up (quite possible, since I didn't experience nearly as many problems when making Now), or because it could not handle so many miniscule images and clips I asked it to render. Either way, it really hindered my efforts with everything from refusing to render parts of my work area, unless the program (or even the computer) was shut down, then restarted entirely, messing up output with green video frames that rendered instead of proper frames, and a whole bunch of other stuff (even at the time of writing this, I still can't render the final output precisely like I want it to be), but man always prevails over machine; art, after all, is unstoppable.
I don't think that this project would have been as much of a success to me, if I, hypothetically, would have received a few millions of dollars for production, a couple of high-end digital video cameras, heh, and maybe a few actors. It's all in the timing (because an idea not expressed in its own time can never be expressed at a later date with the same force), it's all in the imagination, it's all in the passion. The rest simply happens as it must. ;)
P.S. The version I posted before would freeze up right at the beginning of the second movement. That problem was connected to Premiere 1.5's inability to process the many media files that I threw at it. The problem was that (if Premiere could barely handle a normal encode of Yume) it would go completely apeshit over me trying to apply a watermark over many images.
About a week ago (three months after I finished cutting Yume), I was sitting on the can (in the place that inspires all things, heh) and I thought to myself: Why watermark the original Premiere project? I could overlay the complete DV-AVI file with the watermark - and it worked! Enjoy. ;)
I could take a two day, two hour road trip. If I had a car. It's 2000 something miles.
Scratch that, 2,916 miles. That's almost the whole way across the US.
Well...if Paul and I did 5,500 km in six days, at about 916 km per day (which is 519 miles; I love it how you can just type in "916 km in miles" into Google and it gives you an answer), so it would seem it would take you 5.6 days to get over here...driving about 12 hours per day (which state are you in, anyway?) A noble endeavour, but you're better served reading my shite here on the site. ;)
Go see my short film now. Arrgh. Premiere 1.5 messed up the output in one spot, where the video freezes up a bit. I'm going to have to redo this later...
Woops. I I mistyped again! 2951 Miles...
That's 4 749.17414 kilometers hahaha...
Oh, I just ran 1.6 km at school today, in 00:11:25 (11 minutes, 25 seconds) I am slow.
1.6km = 0.994193908 miles rounded up to 1. Heh.
Interesting film... Just watched it. Yea, I think I saw where it freezes up... Right before it speeds up to its fastest point, correct?
Sorry I couldn't make it. I so wanted to. I hope it went well.
Well, that's about 8 kph, no? That's not too shabby. I remember when I used to go to Langara College; I'd walk there every day, at about 3.7 kph (which is a bit of a leisurely walk, but what the hell, right?) Incidentally, it was on one of those walks when god talked to me, for the one and only time in my life, heh. Ask me about it sometime, if you're interested. ;)
More to the point: Yep; well, if Premiere 1.5 hadn't fucked up my DV-AVI output (go look on their forums, this is one buggy piece of software!), things would be much crisper and more in sync; well, once I finish defragmenting the hard drive, I'll try again. Version 1.5 seems to suck with processing smaller video segments and multiple, alternating stills.
My Little Pony, it went perfectly. I made them laugh, I made them ponder, I made them interested. I think I'm going to go write this up in a separate entry now.
Close, but more like this- I calculated everything but the conversion myself... Haha.
7.13125 kph = 4.43115331 mph
4.3 mph, or 7.1 kph. I guess its not that bad, but some kids are insane.
Somepeople said it screwed up their sound, etc. on some other boards... FIX IT NOW! TOM COMMANDS IT! (not you, Mike.)
OK, dude, I'm losing you again:
a) Why are some kids insane?
b) What friggin' sound?!
This is like playing Insanity Jeopardy with Tom™, jeez, hehe.
Some kids ran it in like 6 minutes, a few made it in 5 something. They are insane.
Oh, its another problem associated with Premiere. (the sound)
Got it. Now go out and shoot them in their arrogant, little heads. No one likes a show-off.
Yeah, I was wondering what exactly you were asking someone to fix. Anyways, Premiere 1.5 sucks donkey balls. I'm working on it. Don't get your panties in a knot. ;)
Yes master. I will do as you say...
*shakes head around*
Well, I got a new alarm clock, and while holding it and setting it, I sat down, only to realize I left my chair back 3 feet. I let go of the clock as I feel, and I scraped my back against the floor, and smashed my head into the chair- It's a metal/cushion one...
The alarm clock smacked against the tio of my... baby... *sniff* I'll have to buff them out. (My computer, incase you were wondering)
You should chat more on BNW... Haha.
Funny story; but it would be even funnier if I knew what a "tio" is.
Bah. BNW...I just don't have the energy; plus, I'm down with the flu right now.
Top... Grrr.... Damn spelling errors.
You could see some random crap! Everyone loves random crap!
Will do! I very much like random crap indeed; what more, I also like assorted shit very much. ;)
I don't know how much asorted shit there is, but, ya never know.
Wait, now I'm confused.
Haha... I was... um... Going along with what you said. There was also a damn spelling error. I forgot an s in 'assorted. Go to hell, spelling errors.
Is it really that hard to confuzzle you?
Sometimes. Plus, I'm still fighting my second bout with the flu this week.
Ahh... Illness sucks. I had a lung infection for the past two and a half weeks. I was coughing like a bear, I couldn't run, and I had to take pills the size of horse pills. I had to run the mile when it was still only just leaving. Pfshh.
I love the animal similes, but that sounds horrible. Did you get over it?
Yea, just a few days ago... But I think I have a cold now, which sucks, since my lungs are still kinda sore. Running the mile in cold air doesn't help either.
Dude, seriously; be careful with that shit (by which I mean your health, heh). Just the other day I thought I got over my flu, went out for a few hours, and then, in the evening - bam! - I couldn't feel my legs because of all the flu and fever symptoms!
So what's the weather like where you are right now? (And which state are you in, again?) It's a friggin' 7°C here right now (which is 44.6°F, according to Google), and I'm not very happy about this. Then again, all I've been doing the past three days or so was lying in bed and gradually sweating through three t-shirts (not all at once though, heh) and two blankets.
Man, I remember when I was little, I had the flu once,and my body temperature was way over forty-something celsius, but it felt like I was going to die - I was that hot. Yeah, another problem I have is that I don't really "get" fevers because I could be burning up inside but my forehead wouldn't even get warm until I'm already very, very ill. This always made diagnosis and prevention very difficult. Curse this feeble body! Hehe, no, I like it. ;)
Since I'm babbling about all this medicine and health stuff, I thought I'd mention this crazy article my dad e-mailed me, about this one British dude who naturally cured himself of AIDS! Craziness, eh? This reminds me of that other story, about some sort of alligator or crocodile (I never knew the difference between the two, actually), which naturally resists HIV or something; and we thought they were only good for cowboy boots and stylish handbags. ;)
Hmm... I already read that!
I'm in Pennsylvania, one of the states that is colder, but still has a warm summer, ya know? Its still in the 50°Fs-60°Fs. (10°C-15.5555555°C)
Yea, but hes a idiot, and won't let them test him, to find what might have really done it...
Well, anywhich way, I'm still more to the north than you...or am I?
Yeah...maybe the bastard is holding out for a cash offer or something. I say, kidnap him and take all his blood...for the hell of it.
You're maybe about 750 KM north of me, not too mention at least 4000 KM distance wise, North West(ish)
Yar! Its not like the African people who had naturally cured it could do it- They would need to keep their blood, I'm sure.
He has acsess to like 5000 Liters probably... Haha.
Mhumm. The distance thing I get, but as for the rest, I am confused:
a) What African people?!
b) What 5,000 litres of blood? Doesn't a person have about 5L?
a) The people in Africa who have AIDS, and get cured, but are too weak to have blood taken
b) Blood banks
a) For real? Interesting...
b) Ah. I tried giving blood once, but I lost consciousness before they even took any, as they took a sample out of my finger. I never thought of myself as squeamish (hey, I've painted with my own blood once), but, who the hell knows, eh? It could have been my blood pressure.
Anywhich way, my inability to donate blood greatly embarrassed me; at least I was able to successfully give blood to my bio-chemist (bio-chemical engineer?) friend Derek, for his evil (not really) scientific experiments, hehehe. He promptly spun my blood in some sort of crazy-cool centrifuge contraption and gave me my cells back, keeping the plasma (I think); I eventually threw out my cells because they got old and possibly dangerous.
Haha... That's cool, and the painting was interesting. With the whole plasma-cell thing, you probably should have frozen the cells. I forget how they take just plasma donations.
Wait, but what would have I done with two test tubes of my cells? It's the plasma they need as donations, no? I was under the impression everyone makes his or her own cells...wait, no, I'm neither a scientist, nor do I care. Life is good. ;)
I thought that if needed, they kept some of the givers cells, so that if the other person was incapacitated so that they could not produce them fast enough, those could possibly work temporarily, until the body decides to kill them. I could be wrong though. Off to comment on the- "Fuck off" award things! :]
AHAHAHAHA! Either your grammar is deliciously vague or I'm deliciously evil, hehe, but, when I read "until the body decides to kill them," I almost fell off the bed, hehe.
Anyways, why would they keep my cells on file? That could even be illegal, no? The only cause to do that would be (I think) if the person in question has some sort of crazy blood condition (such as hæmophilia, for instance), that requires frequent blood transfusions. Otherwise, wouldn't any other person's blood of the same type do the trick just as well?
Yea, but... Nevermind. Anyways, I'm still young enough to get 'grounded' by my parebts... I'm grounded. See ya in a week or so. (Actually, I may be able to get on a bit this week/weekend.)
What the hell, man?! That's stupid. What did you do?
*sneaks on*
Well, I have an F in Honors math, cause I don't do my homework. (well, almost never) But, If I get into the habit of doing so, I can get on again, without sneaking.
Homework is for losers. You either get it or you don't. Do you like math? If so, you're just a normal (i.e. lazy, heh) person, maybe even a genius (I know quite a few very, very smart people my age who are just like that).
Do you hate math? Then fail it all, and send a message to your parents/teachers/etc., to let you pursue what you truly love.
All you need in Canada to graduate from high school is math 11. Indeed, why the hell would I need integration, derivation and finding the area under the curve, if I want to be a post-secondary English Lit. instructor?
What I plan to do requires a higher level of math, but nothing like Advanced Calculus and there after...
I actually have a gifted IQ, haha... This isn't like me. The teacher is also an asshole that won't let me make anything up, or let me do INSANELY HARD extracredit that I WOULD ACTUALLY do...
Grr...
Well, it should at least be a B by the end of the Semester-half/Marking period. Then I'm done with math for the year. I didn't get a chance to check out the schools generic books yet though.
I hate homework... Especially the crap my math teacher gives. Did I mention he USUALLY gives us 5+ papers during the block (period, class...) and then 2-3+ for homework...? Well, he does.
You shouldn't need to know math, unless you decide to go into programming.
I kinda hate math... Well, I do right now. Its not fun, really, but in retrospect type of thing, it could normally be consider one of my best subjects, as it is harder and I usually get a high B to A in it. Well, I usually don't mind doing homework. That was back when it took, you know, a half hour to 45 minutes at the most... Not at least 45 minutes.
Today, it luckily took me only 15-20 minutes...
Yep. I have a 130+ IQ. I'm not quite sure, but I am pretty sure they said 'highly gifted' which is higher up there. I may not quite be at a genious IQ level, but I'm getting there! :]
Ooh, so you are like a mad scientist of some sort, hehehe.
Well, that's how it is. High school is all about holding students back to the lowest common denominator.
By "5+ papers" I assume that you mean assignments. That's a lot of work.
Wonderful. I wouldn't wager too much on my own IQ results, though. I suck donkey balls with conceptual problems, math problems, logic, problems, and so on - and that's what the IQ test tests for, which is why I think the test is fucked.
My strengths lie in other types of analytical skills. Have you ever heard of the EQ test or the concept of "emotional intelligence"?