April 2003 Archives
April 26, 2003
Friday Five (1)
Yay, another Friday Five!
- What was the last TV show you watched?
I just watched last Wednesday’s West Wing about two hours ago. - What was the last thing you complained about?
I think it’d be easier to gauge the last thing I didn’t complain about. I guess the last thing I really ripped into somebody about was this group project for humanities. It’s turning into a complex debacle. It frustrates me to spend so much time and effort on something that’s desinted to be pitiful. - Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?
Last night, I complimented the only responsible person in my humanities group (I can’t even consider myself a responsible member of the group) on his editing skills. He showed me some shit he’s done that really impressed me. - What was the last thing you threw away?
A sheet of paper I printed something on. I didn’t need it anymore. - What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?
TV Shows on DVD. Apparently NewsRadio the greatest sitcom in the history of the universe, was one of the winners of Columbia’s “Golly, which TV show should we put on DVD?” contest. I can’t fucking wait for those DVD sets.
Well, that about wraps it up. This was slightly less painful than last week’s.
Posted by Stan on April 26, 2003 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Friday Five/Albums of the Week
April 24, 2003
Classy Week of Fun
I started out Monday night writing a really long entry about how shitty my Monday was. But I didn’t finish it. I continued to write it through Tuesday, but it was (1) really fucking long, (2) really fucking boring, and (3) I kept digressing to the point that the whole “bad day” theme was sort of ruined.
So just take my word for it: Monday was the worst day I have had in quite a long time. Tuesday wasn’t much better, but Wednesday turned out fairly all right. I had lunch with The Girl Whom I Have an Enormous Crush On But Am Too Much of a Pussy to Actually Ask Out Despite the Fact that She Has Clearly Been Sending Me Signs (hereafter, The Girl). That’s right: I strapped on a pair of artificial testicles and actually convinced her to go to lunch with me — strictly a friendly thing, of course, so we’d have time to talk and I could really gauge whether or not asking her out was a good idea.
It turned out to not be a good idea. Apparently she has a boyfriend that she doesn’t feel the need to mention to casual acquaintances, but once you breach the acquaintance hull (man, sci-fi metaphors are sad — and no, I obviously was not referring to a seafaring vessel of any kind) and become a genu-wine friend, she talks about him nonstop. Which is cool and stuff, except for the whole part about how she has a boyfriend.
On the one hand, it’s cool that I didn’t thoroughly humiliate myself by just arbitrarily asking her out one day after class, but on the other hand, what the fuck? Why was she all but dry-humping me during class if she had a boyfriend? I know I’m not totally crazy in this case. There have been occasions where I have been batshit insane with the idea that some girl is sending me these tremendous waves of hot love, but I’ve figured out how to differentiate between the crazy “man, I want that girl so I’ll pretend she wants me, too” signs from the actual, legitimate signs. This was a case of legitimacy.
So what is the deal? Does she just want to torture me? The answer, clearly, is yes. I realized when we had lunch, and I had adequate time to take in her appearance, her mannerisms, her speech, and so forth, and she reminds me so much of somebody I used to date who, for the purposes of me not getting my ass kicked by her, shall remain anonymous. And the person she reminds me of is definitely the type to either (1) cheat on her boyfriend with anybody living and/or human, (2) attempt to ruin somebody’s life by giving minor signs that she is interested in a romantic relationship, only to turn all that around and throw it back in the guy’s face like a sack full of steaming shit, or (3) unconscionably string as many guys along as she possibly can, so in the event that her current relationship fails, she will have roughly a dozen to choose from.
But the funny thing is that The Girl reminds me of The Other Girl in purely superficial ways — she looks like her, talks like her, moves like her. The only difference is that she’s not completely nuts (as far as I can tell). So what is the deal? I’m not sure. Even after she made roughly 1400 (okay, it was more like three) references to her boyfriend, The Girl still seemed like she was interested in me. And I’m really not that interesting.
So, for now, I’ll play it by ear. I’m not exactly a particularly noble or moral person when it comes to romance, so if she wants to cheat on her boyfriend with me, I will have no real objection unless he finds out and decides I need some whup-ass (in which case, I have devloped an all-purpose contingency plan that involves leaving the country for six years and working in Toronto under an assumed name and with a realistic-looking fake mustache). Moreover, if I can goad her into realizing how pitiful her relationship actually is and then woo her over to my side of the court, I won’t be all that guilty.
I think you reach a turning point when you try to split up a married couple* where scrupulous behavior no longer applies.
*And, dammit, that almost worked.
Posted by Stan on April 24, 2003 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | School Rants
April 19, 2003
Friday Five…on Saturday (1)
So I saw Remy do this on his blog, so I stole it. What’s the harm, seeing as Remy himself stole it from some other guy I don’t know, who probably stole it from yet another person. This is why “All your base are belong to us” got so popular: everybody on the Internet steals from everybody else, hoping to be original. So, without further ado, here it is:
- Who is your favorite celebrity?
Unfortunately, I know very few personally. I’m not really sure what defines “favorite.” Is it the celebrity I respect the most? If so, that’d be tough, because I can’t really think of any celebrities I actually respect. Is it the celebrity who does the work I identify with the most? If so, it’d be a grudge-match between Woody Allen and Joss Whedon — last man standing becomes my favorite. Or is it just some famous guy who I think would be fun to hang out with? If so, that’d probably be Jon Stewart or David Boreanaz. But fuck it — my overall favorite is Paige Davis, I won’t deny it. - Who is your least favorite?
The President of the United States, George W. Bush. - Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life?
Let’s see…I met Harold Ramis once. I know a few writers, who aren’t really celebrities because nobody knows who the fuck writers are except other writers. I met Juliana Hatfield, but I don’t even think she qualifies anymore, which is tragic. - Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?
No. I fucking hate people, and all famous people do is get bombarded with fans and shit. I’d never want to reach that level of fame. - If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why?
J.D. Salinger. See my answer to #4.
Now that I’ve done this, I think it’s pretty stupid, and I will probably stop doing it. But, hey, it was worth a try.
Posted by Stan on April 19, 2003 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Friday Five/Albums of the Week
April 18, 2003
Anyone Else!
I was watching television this evening, and I kept seeing a commercial for this new Fox show, Mr. Personality. For those who don’t know, it’s basically The Bachelorette, except the woman can’t see her prospective man-slave’s face. He wears this frightening, teutonic mask, and she has to whittle down the candidates based solely on their personality. Gasp!
Now, I could go on for hours about how shallow this premise is, but I’d either be preaching to the converted or baffling the people who think that reality television is of the highest quality. So I’ll just stick with the thing that confused me the most. At the end, the commercial’s narrator says, “Hosted by — who else? — Monica Lewinsky.”
What the fuck does that mean? I can’t figure it out. “Who else?” Huh? Did I miss the enormous scandal wherein Ms. Lewinsky chose from 25 presidential candidates, whose faces were covered, and finally picked one based solely on the strangeness of his sexual fetishes? I don’t really see how anything she has said or done, when compared to the idea for this TV show, could elicit a chagrined “who else?” when she is announced as the host.
Then again, this is an ad coming from the network that occasionally misspells the name of its own shows. I’m not sure they’re altogether off the crack pipe.
Posted by Stan on April 18, 2003 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Random Musings
April 17, 2003
Humanities Project
The humanities project was actually pretty painless. Not only that, but I — gasp! — actually had fun doing it. And we all — double gasp! — had fun hanging out together. We’ll be doing that more often from now on. Supposedly.
It’s interesting to note that, all told, I spent roughly 20 hours (including the commuting time and the “pre-production” meeting) working with the Filmmaker on his 2-minute film (that’s ten hours per minute, for those keeping score), and yet we shot at least 20 minutes worth of stuff in four hours, and more time was spent bullshitting around than actually working.
In fact, the worst thing about this project was that I missed 24, and I still haven’t had a chance to watch the tape. I tried to torrent it and Buffy before I left, but it was going waaaaay too slow. I got Buffy, though. Shit, that Firefly dude was creepy.
Posted by Stan on April 17, 2003 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | School Rants
April 14, 2003
Early Day and Shit
I was supposed to meet my little Humanities group an hour before class today, so we could figure out what the hell we’re doing for our project (which we apparently start shooting tomorrow — way to plan, us). Only myself and another guy showed up, which was kind of frustrating. But we got an assload done, so we should be sorta okay for tomorrow.
Hopefully.
In the grand tradition of terrible projects for blow-off classes, we’re doing a cheesy, Dateline-esque human interest story that describes the dysfunctional hilarity of Gloucester and his sons, Edgar and Edmund the Bastard (from King Lear — read a book, would you?). We’re still not sure whether we’re going to do it “funny” or try to be somewhat serious. My big idea was to have Edgar and Edmund be played by the same guy (since we’re short on actors), but Edmund wears a goatee to signify his evilness. And also to have Gloucester wear a Geordi La Forge visor, since he goes blind.
I doubt we’ll do either, since we don’t have the time or resources to find or construct those things. But they were fun while they lasted, in a “Wow, I watch way too much Star Trek” sort of way.
I still maintain that tomorrow is too early to start taping this thing, especially when two out of the four people in our group have no idea what the hell we’re doing, and the other two only sort of know what we’re doing. But, hey, what do I know?
On a semi-related note, you’d be surprised how much difference an hour makes. In traffic (well, that one’s obvious) and in the quality and quantity of people around the city. There seems to be a surge of hobos hanging about on train platforms. Maybe they’re leaving now that rush hour is tapering off; I really don’t know. But it’s fucking weird.
Oh, also, I ran into two of my favorite hobos — the stinky guy who insists that if you take him to work, he will be a good worker, and the lady who claims through a red face and extremely slurred speech that she is not an alcoholic and would we spare some change so she can get something to eat? I missed those guys; I haven’t seen them in months. I’m not sure if the nice weather brought them out, or if we’re just an hour out of sync because of my schedule. Now I just need to find the old woman who insists that she has a brain tumor and was fired from her job, deprived of insurance, and divorced by her husband immediately after this medical discovery.
Later, during class, I discussed BBC America with a girl. We spoke in depth about the nitpicky differences in TLC’s Trading Spaces and the BBC’s Changing Rooms. We also shared our love of the dude who bounces on the giant red ball to introduce new shows.
We are sad, sad people.
I think I might ask her out.
Posted by Stan on April 14, 2003 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | School Rants
April 13, 2003
The Mayor Goes Crazy…Moreso Than Usual
I just read this article in this week’s local rag. I think it’s awesome how our mayor is (1) batshit insane and (2) roughly as paranoid as Richard Nixon in the “illegally recording everything” phase of his career.
Posted by Stan on April 13, 2003 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
April 12, 2003
The Origins of Cremaster
I was watching The Daily Show a few nights ago, and at some point, Jon Stewart brought up the “cremaster,” which he described as a thin muscle in the upper thigh that is used to pull up the testicles.
Despite not knowing what this word meant, it never occured to me that I should look it up. For some reason, I figured it was somebody’s name or a made-up term or something like that.
Suddenly, The Cremaster Cycle terrifies me more than it ever did.
Posted by Stan on April 12, 2003 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
April 10, 2003
Conference Day
Today was filled with homework fun. Like most humans, I spend the overwhelming majority of my existence putting everything off to the last minute. Here’s an example of how much I don’t want to do my work: I sat around for an hour last night reading parts of the MovableType manual, learning the different tags I can use to customize my blog. This, to me, was more interesting than doing my homework.
Of course, I would have done it all last night because I wouldn’t have had time today. I was supposed to meet someone for lunch, but he canceled, so, in my efforts to be a perfect procrastinator, I waited until this morning to start the assignments that were due today. I actually managed to finish everything pretty quickly. The strange thing is that, though I really don’t like actually doing my homework, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, so when it gets down to the wire, I can basically vomit my thoughts onto paper and be done with it.
The problem with this is that I rarely look at assignment sheets until the night before an assignment is due, so I don’t even know the assignment. Then I think about it for awhile, sleep on it, and do it the next morning. It’s a system that has kept me at a B average for the last three years so I can’t necessarily complain, even though one could make a convincing argument that if I looked at the assignment sheet the day I get the assignment, and then spend a longer amount of time thinking about it, perhaps the vomit stains on the paper would look a little neater, and I’d have an A average.
But that doesn’t happen, and chances are it’s not going to. Who cares?
At any rate, for those absolutely fascinated with the gritty minutiae of a film student’s life, this is what I had to do for screenwriting homework:
- Write a step outline for my script*
- Write a treatment for my script (3-5 pages)**
- Write two character biographies for two major characters in my script (3-5 pages)
- Write the first three scenes using observable action only (i.e., no dialogue)
I also had to construct a pitch of my script idea for my professor, but I don’t get formal about it. I am not a dumbass, I know my script, and that’s all I need to know. I’ve always been taught that the art of pitching is really based on the strength of your personality, not on your ability to summarize your entire script in a sentence. So I don’t write it out on notecards or rehearse it in the mirror — that’s just stupid.
The other big shit I had to do today were two assignments for my Intro. to Literature course. This is a pretty easy course, but I leave everything to (literally) the last minute, which adds a minor challenge to it. Basically, I had to write a paper that analyzed a poem, and this is a paper I’ve put off for so long I missed the deadline for the first and second drafts, and I barely finished it in time to turn in the final draft (the one that actually counts).
I also had to — and this, I think, sums up the cheesy simplicity of this course — read the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” (which I was assigned to read in sixth grade — man, I love intro courses!) and then, to the best of my abilities, draw up a map of the island. It’s nice to go to an art school with incompetent, sub-literate people. It makes coasting so much easier.
Homework aside, today was pretty humdrum. I had a conference with my screenwriting professor (as I mentioned earlier, I basically pitched my script and then he told me how I was doing in the class). He had Dunkin’ Donut holes, so I gorged briefly before heading home.
I also ran into the Filmmaker, whose conference was immediately after mine. He told me the film turned out fine, and he’d be editing it this weekend. They’re screening it in his class a week from Wednesday, and I have class so I probably won’t be able to make it without cutting one of my classes.
Oh well. I will not cry myself to sleep.
The commute was less irritating than usual. At the train station, I got stuck on the escalator behind a woman with a suitcase. Fortunately, the woman was extremely attractive, and she had the most aesthetically pleasing rump I have ever seen in my life (and I am constantly on the lookout for aesthetically pleasing examples of the female anatomy), and since she was ahead and above me, I was essentially able to stare at it for nearly a minute without seeming as lecherous as I normally seem when I stare at female body parts.
This same woman got off at the same stop as me downtown, and I got stuck behind her on the escalator again. I think the image of her ass, outlined by the tight pants of her business suit, is permanently etched into my corneas. No complaints here.
I really need a girlfriend.
*For those of you wondering what a “step outline” is, here is my answer: I don’t know. My powers of deduction have concluded it’s just an outline. I have no idea why “step” is added. I guess because instead of using Roman numerals and letters and tabs and so on, you just use regular numbers or bullet-points.
**For those unfamiliar with a “treatment,” it’s almost irritatingly complicated to get into. In simplest terms, it’s a script written like a short story in present-tense. Except there is very rarely dialogue (some do, some don’t; most summarize dialogue in a sentence or two, but will actually cite a specific line if it is integral). And paragraphs are, generally, chopped up by scene instead of by logical content flow. And sometimes — ugh, just trust me when I say you don’t want to know. Now let us never speak of this again.
Posted by Stan on April 10, 2003 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | School Rants
April 8, 2003
And I Thought My Life Was Disproportionately Irritating…
Remy insisted that I read a story about a guy called AccordionGuy who had probably the most miserable experience with a woman ever in the history of the universe. You can read the story here, but if you’re lazy like me, I can summarize.
Basically, AccordionGuy met a super peachy-keen woman, but she turned out to be an identity thief (and not a very good one). He was warned, he questioned her, he caught her in a tangled web o’ lies, the end. It’s a pretty sad story, but there is a pretty decent moral:
“Dude,” said my old buddy George the following day, “you were saved by your blog!”It’s true. I posted a gushy entry about New Girl, someone saw it and came forward to tell me the truth. Maybe the Blogger or Moveable Type people should print up stickers and T-shirts that read BLOGS SAVE LIVES. I’d buy one.
Which leads me to a conclusion of my own: all my fear and paranoia (plus, all the stuff that would utterly humiliate me — and there’s a lot of it) about not putting the more personal aspects of my life onto this crazy blog o’ mine may actually hurt me more than it’d help.
As much as I like the coziness and the thin veil of anonymity in blogland, if I started going out with some sort of frightening identity thief (and the probability of that is high, knowing my luck and inability to attract women who are not either con artists of insane people), it’d be nice to be fairly warned from the blog community at large.
Then again, if I started writing more detailed accounts of the people I know and love, and they ever actually started snooping around the Internet and found this blog, they would tie me to a chair, shit in my mouth, and then murder me. And while getting murdered isn’t exactly the worst thing to happen, I’d at least want to go out with a non-shit-filled mouth.
Or, at the very least, a breath mint.
Posted by Stan on April 8, 2003 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Stories of Pain and Humiliation
New Section
I added a new section to the sidebar: Classic Stan™, filled with the few entries that have garnered any response whatsoever. I think it’ll help new readers, who are obviously flocking to read fascinating tidbits about my mediocre existence, learn a little more about me without having to wade through the dregs of the archives.
Posted by Stan on April 8, 2003 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
Midterm Mayhem!
Maybe I’m on to something with the whole not studying thing. Somehow, I managed to get a 90.5% on my politics midterm. I attribute that mostly to the fact that my essay responses, which sucked ass on a variety of levels, were all given high marks for no particular reason. Fortunately, the professor doesn’t completely dislike me for some reason, which I think helped.
Nothing else really happened yesterday, except for the startling revelations that (1) I had friends in high school and (2) I’m not 26. Apparently certain people thought I was serious when I told them that. Oops.
Posted by Stan on April 8, 2003 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | School Rants
April 6, 2003
The Cremaster Cycle, or: when did David Lynch start making car commercials?
There’s a new film/performance art craze that’s all the rage among stoned goth girls: The Cremaster Cycle. For those of you unable to follow the somewhat confusing trailer, here is an outline of the labrynthine plot:
CAUTION! Spoilers below
A young woman travels from her home country of Sweden to the Big Apple, so she can live out her dream of being a football cheerleader. Unfortunately, since she is new to the United States and speaks only broken English, her job is to hide under the cheerleading platform during games.
Soon, she meets an aging chiropractor who enjoys sitting in the Secret Garden while murdering people with his mind. A love quadrangle ensues, as we are introduced to two new characters: a red-haired, donkey-faced man vying for the Swedish girl’s affections, trapped in a loveless marriage with Queen Elizabeth I (who has set the new fashion trend of head-orbs).
Meeting the red-haired donkey guy sets the Swedish girl’s soul afire, and she, like most Swedes, shows this by jumping on a purple trampoline and bouncing a ball. Meanwhile, robot cars converge in a candle-lit crypt to discuss plans to terminate the red-haired donkey guy, who has dug a hole into his cell in the Tower of London so he can escape and become a homosexual F-1 racer.
Frustrated, the chiropractor-murderer becomes a cow wrangler, which renews attraction from the Swedish girl. But, uh-oh, another love quadrangle: this time a half-cat, half-woman falls in love with the chiropractor, while a man who was born with a circular-saw-blade-shaped penis falls for the Swedish girl.
The red-haired donkey guy, who was plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by Queen Elizabeth’s feather-wearing Scotsman brigade, tries to escape, but is stopped by an Aboriginal woman in a Middle-Earth forest. The Swedish girl, thrilled by the news that her former lover is still alive, decides to dance around the Dallas Cowboys stadium with two miniature Goodyear balloons, much to the dismay of the circular-saw-blade-shaped penis guy, who shows his disdain by flying several kites at once.
Later, he has surgery performed on his terrifying crotch, hoping that having an actual penis will woo the Swedish girl back into his crab-like arms. The chiropractor-murderer, also wishing to win back the Swedish girl’s love, takes up horseback riding, except he’s a big wuss so he actually rides on a carriage.
With an actual penis, the former-circular-saw-blade-shaped penis guy tracks down the chiropractor and murders him in a bathroom/art gallery. This causes the Swedish girl’s cheerleading group to tape donkey ears to their heads and dance like chorus girls.
Meanwhile, the half-cat, half-woman finally finds love with the bottom half of a rodeo clown. To prove it, she takes off her top and straddles an X painted on the floor.
As this occurs, the chiropractor officially buys it, the red-haired donkey guy’s head begins to bleed profusely, and the Swedish girl’s face turns into Laffy Taffy. The former-circular-saw-blade-shaped penis guy fondly recalls his days as a professional cattle rapist (so that’s why such a terrifying unit comes in handy!), and is so disgusted with himself he jumps off the George Washington Bridge.
When the Swedish girl’s head reforms and she discovers the penis guy is dead, she rejoices. The red-haired donkey guy’s head stops bleeding, and he ends up falling asleep at the bottom of the ocean.
Finally, some dark-haired prince makes his move on Queen Elizabeth, and we are brought to our happy conclusion.
I can’t wait to see this film!
Posted by Stan on April 6, 2003 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
April 4, 2003
Aches
Well, I feel like crap. I used to be in pretty good shape, back when I used to play baseball. When I was seven. Since then, I’ve let myself go, and now I’m in significantly less good shape. So when I, for example, lug a lighting kit (trust me, they’re reasonably heavy) up a three-floor walk-up, I tend to hurt for quite awhile afterward.
Anyway, the Filmmaker called me as I was driving home today in a torrent of rain and hail (note to self: stop leaving the house or existing), and for some reason I had my cell phone turned on. At any rate, he said the film would be processed by Wednesday, so we should get together and take a look at it on Thursday before screenwriting. I tried to back out but was unsuccessful; maybe I’ll call him later in the week and really back out.
I have the distinct impression that it’s gonna turn out like crap, and I really don’t want to be in the room with him during such a humiliating moment.
Posted by Stan on April 4, 2003 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | The Filmmaker Diaries
Shooting — Day Three: Endgame
For the love of God, tonight’s shooting wasn’t actually that bad. Now that I’m home, able to relax, no heavy weight of irritation slung upon my shoulders, I’m actually vaguely happy.
Which is not to say nothing irritating happened tonight.
Really, though, I’m not really pissed at all. I’m just mildly irritated that the Filmmaker insisted I drive down, claiming it’d be an all-nighter in order to get this done. As it turned out, when I got there tonight he was nearly out of film, most of the shots we were doing were similar (so no need for the drastic lighting changes that ate up so much time), and we ended up finishing at 10 o’clock. So, I have caffeine surging through my system and cannot fall asleep because I thought I’d be up at least until 3, and I paid $18 (including tip) for parking when I actually could have taken the train.
Also, if I had taken the train, it would have saved me about two hours of grief helping him clean up, load all his shit into my car, drive him to two different locations (a friend’s apartment, because he had borrowed some stuff for props, and the Filmmaker’s own apartment), and then get lost on the way home because I don’t know the non-downtown areas of Chicago nearly as well as I should (plus, it was raining, so I couldn’t make out any street names until I was roaring past the intersection).
I get the distinct impression that the Filmmaker insisted I drive, knowing full well we’d be done early enough for me to make that last train, so I’d have the car to chauffer him around. I should have just let him take a cab.
Oh well. It’s over now, and I’ll have nothing worth writing about as I waste the rest of my spring break loafing around, watching TV.
Posted by Stan on April 4, 2003 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | The Filmmaker Diaries
April 3, 2003
Amazon Associate
I like money. Money is cool. I have links now on the side of my page, and if you click on the link and then buy whatever it is I am currently hippin’ my grove-thang to, I get money. So buy stuff.
I’d like to update it every time I update my blog, but I’m really lazy, so I’ll probably do it once a week or so.
In summary: buy stuff.
Posted by Stan on April 3, 2003 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Money Troubles
Shooting — Day Two: Part Two — Theological Musings
One thing I forgot to mention in my extensive and boring chronicle of the shooting of this exciting film was something that occurred toward the end of last night’s shooting. As I believe I mentioned earlier, the theme of this film is that propagandists shovel shit, and people eat it like it’s cotton candy. That was a terrible analogy. So, as part of that, the Filmmaker decided some clips of Billy Graham would be appropriate. This led to a discussion about theology, politics, the war, and so on, between the Filmmaker, the Introvert, and the Smoking Cripple.
I chose not to take part, because what was the point?
They basically said things that idiots who think they’re artists often say because they have no real views of their own, but they think they need to be counterculture-tastic in order to be “real” artists. Here is what they said:
On religion
The Filmmaker: “I think I’m a better Christian than most Christians because I don’t just listen to what a minister says, I search for the truth.”
The Introvert: “Look at these guys in suits telling you what Christ thought. Christ never wore no suit. Look at Jesse Jackson — he runs the most profitable non-profit organization in the world.”
(The “suit” reference led to a conversation, which went on far too long and became far too graphic, on how modern people worship “suits” and how ties are incredibly phallic.)
The Smoking Cripple: “He says Armageddon will come soon. Man, it already has.”
On politics
The Filmmaker: “Our supposed President is a complete idiot. Why do so many Congressmen support him?”
The Introvert: “Man, they’re all getting paid off by his oil companies.”
The Smoking Cripple: “And every other business in this country that makes a profit.”
On the war
The Filmmaker: “This war is a travesty against the American people.”
The Introvert: “I think they should just leave Iraq right now.”
The Smoking Cripple: “They never should’ve gone in the first place.”
It’s not that I particularly disagree with these statements. I do agree that the war never should have started in the first place, and while I’m not affiliated with any religious organization, I do believe that the honest search for truth is far more important than blind faith. If there is some sort of all-powerful being out there, I would have to imagine he would give a higher reward to those who actively sought out the truth than to those who sat around listening to somebody else’s interpretation of the way things are, believing that that is The Truth™.
The thing that bugged me, however, was that they don’t really believe what they’re saying (this is a fact that is very obvious to me, but it is very difficult to discern without specifically hearing the tone in their voices as they spoke). Okay, maybe they do believe what they say to some extent, but I guess I just think they’re hypocrites.
It was obvious that they were regurgitating beliefs that others have previously expressed — which means the whole line about not blindly following leaders is crap. Furthermore, they rip on “suits” and Big Business for being the terrible opressors of the universe, all the while toiling to break into an industry that is so disgustingly overflowing with money and corruption, Ken Lay would roll over on his uncomfortable prison cot.* I really think that the “suits” in the entertainment industry are the ones people should be worrying about — they have more influence over the American public than anyone is readily willing to admit.
Anyway, that’s my little sub-rant on their supposed beliefs. Hope you enjoyed it!
*I’m not 100% sure Ken Lay is actually rotting away in a prison cell at the moment, because I haven’t heard much about Enron lately. I just thought it’d be an amusing little joke.
Posted by Stan on April 3, 2003 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | The Filmmaker Diaries
Shooting — Day Two: Part One — The Filmmaker, the Introvert, the Smoking Cripple, and the Incompetent Actor
Since people are often clamoring like stray dogs on the back stoop of a butcher shop, desperate for some definitive proof that I am, in fact, a human being who exists and is actually fallible, here’s a little-known factoid about my existence: I, the great filmmaker, have never, ever felt comfortable directing. Granted, I haven’t made many films, and I’ve only taken five shots of my grand, as-yet-incomplete chef-d’oeuvre, but I’ve done enough up until this point to realize that directing is not exactly my bag.
There are a few reasons why. The most notable is that I simply don’t like ordering people around. I do enjoy flying off the handle and shouting profanities at people, but that’s a whole different thing. I don’t feel comfortable when it comes to saying, “I will put the camera here, I will put the lights here, the actor goes here and does this during the shot.” I always get this nagging feeling of unpreparedness or general incompetence, like every decision I am making is incorrect, despite the fact that everything turns out all right.
But now…now, things are different. Thanks to my experience working as an actor and being directed, and seeing how badly others can do things, I feel like the most competent, confident filmmaker in the history of the universe. I am three Alfred Hitchcocks, a half-dozen Orson Welleses, and a Billy Wilder or two.
So I guess that’s one good thing about this project.
Now on to the bad stuff, which greatly outweighs any goodness at all.
Once again, we didn’t take our first shot until 9 o’clock, even though I was there at 7 and the Filmmaker had already begun lighting and camera placement. Here is the problem: the Filmmaker is an idiot. He has a shotlist, which is great. Shotlists are important, but if you write up a shotlist like a fucktard with a coathanger still stuck in your malformed aborted-fetus brain, they become significantly less important.
Last night, we kept doing similar shots out of sequence, so he’d have to re-light and re-position the camera for no fucking good reason. Tonight, he decided we must begin with the most complex shot in the film, the one that will require a minimum of four people in order to properly pull off. He ignored the fact that there were only two of us, and we could have filmed any number of the shots we did afterward, in which only two of us were necessary. But no, let’s start with the one where we need to sit around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the mini-crew to arrive.
The mini-crew did arrive…at around 8:45. The African-American gentleman (I’ll call him “The Introvert” for short, since he’s calm and silent) came again, but this time he came with another friend, who I’ll either call The Cripple or The Smoker or maybe The Smoking Cripple. He had a broken ankle, and he was a chain-smoker. I instantly disliked him.
The Filmmaker decided to turn this little film shoot into a class for his friends, neither of whom are studying film (the Introvert is a television student, which is similar but just different enough for him to be totally incompetent, and the Cripple is an anonymous layabout who apparently decided he wants to be a filmmaker). I don’t want to get down on people who don’t know anything, or people who are honestly interested in a subject and are willing to dive right into it. My problem is that, on a tiny shoot for a 2-minute film, you probably shouldn’t be running a film class. Especially when the Filmmaker spends the majority of his time talking out his ass.
In all, not much was accomplished. We got off five shots, and I got the impression from the shotlist that the remaining shots are not nearly as complex, so we should be able to light them, shoot them, and get out at a reasonable hour. I, in my infinite stupidity and irritating sense of noble duty, agreed to drive down tonight and possibly pull an all-nighter to finish. There are now two caveats, which I haven’t yet told the Filmmaker: (1) since we’ve never started before 9, I am leaving at 8 o’clock, after rush hour, so I can get there before 9 and we can get started; and (2) I am only putting in the five hours I agreed to, so I am leaving at 2, come hell or high water, so he’d better adjust his shotlist to film the most vital shots first. Or maybe just — gasp! — set up and take a shot in less than 45 minutes.
One other thing I should mention while it’s on my mind, since I forgot to write it in yesterday’s entry: I found out on Tuesday night why the Filmmaker has chosen me, of all the terrifying people he could have chosen, to befriend and (ab)use as an actor in his film. While we wasted the initial two hours together, he said that something I said in our screenwriting class about music reflected exactly the way he felt, and he really admired my ability to articulate it.
We had to list three of our “core values” on the first day of screenwriting, and I said something like, “Music is the most important of all the art forms.” I elaborated, but I don’t fucking remember what I said. I do believe that, but I never really thought it any sort of earth-shattering epiphany. It’s just something I believe.
I did realize something important, however: whether I want to admit it or not, the things I say and do have an effect on people, no matter how stupid or ingenious (mostly stupid) they are. It may be tremendous or miniscule, or positive or negative, but my existence affects people. I mean, this guy I don’t even know decided, “Jeez, I want this guy to be my friend,” solely because I said some shit about music because I couldn’t think of any other “core values.”
I’m glad I realized that. I hope Clarence gets his wings.
And maybe now I’ll stop knocking the styrofoam cups out of the hands of homeless people, and then pointing and laughing at them as they scramble frantically to recover their ill-gotten change.
But even if I do become the most pleasantastic person in the history of the universe solely because of this experience, if I had it to do over again, I would have shot myself in the face immediately after the Filmmaker initially approached me to act in his film. Or possibly just said “no,” but I’m an actor now — I’m all about the dramatic statement.
Posted by Stan on April 3, 2003 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | The Filmmaker Diaries
April 2, 2003
Shooting — Day One: Snails Get Stuck in Molasses
I decided to take the train into the city last night. I don’t have the patience for rush-hour traffic, and it seemed timed well: the 5:44 arrived at Union Station at 6:31, giving me 30 minutes to get to the space, and the last train of the night left at 12:40, which gave me 40 minutes to get there, assuming I left at midnight like I was supposed to.
I didn’t leave at midnight like I was supposed to.
Now, before I get into the dregs of this entry and cause my many fans to lapse into a boredom-induced coma, I’d like to write a disclaimer at this time: shooting this film was not filled with hilarious reverie or anything remotely fun. It was boring as all get-out, and I plan to dive into why, exactly, it was so fucking boring. Also, it was pretty irritating, so maybe that’ll at least be fun to read about.
At any rate, on with the show…
I was supposed to call The Filmmaker — who called me Monday night to confirm the start date of Tuesday — when I “got into the neighborhood,” and I thought I’d call him from the train and let him know what was going on. I turned on the phone and checked my VoiceMail. I had two messages*, both from The Filmmaker. The first was from Sunday night, with The Filmmaker requesting that I check out some local thrift stores to find an end table. Oops, too late for that. The second was from about five minutes ago; The Filmmaker was testing his cell phone’s reception in the concrete shooting space.
I decided not to call him because, dammit, I just didn’t want to. My subconscious often plots against me, so I think it was telling me not to call him just yet, because it may have been plotting for me to stop, say “Fuck this,” and get on the next train back home.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
So I did the Union Station thang, did the CTA wander around the Loop and transfer roughly 500 times just to get to Chicago Avenue and State Street, and I emerged from that subway at exactly 7 o’clock. It would have been 6:50, but my train was 10 minutes late. I called The Filmmaker as I wandered down Chicago toward the space.
When I got there, the first thing I noticed were extension cords snaking their way down the tiny concrete corridor into the larger shooting space. Great — now, in addition to low-hanging pipes, I also had to worry about tripping on cords.
The space itself was filled with props, lights, the 16mm Bolex we’re forced to shoot on, and several bowls filled with fruit and drinks chilled in ice. (I’ll say this for The Filmmaker — he comes prepared.) He asked me to take the stacks of newspapers and start tearing out propaganda-esque words to fill in a bowl. I did as he asked, somewhat irritated that he himself hadn’t done this earlier. I no longer admired his preparation skills.
As he wandered around, re-positioning lights, adjusting the camera, and so forth, he said, “I think we’ll be able to take our first shot at 8.” Terrific.
By the time 8 o’clock rolled around, he did seem to have the lights properly focused and the camera set up.
And then the power went out. The 720-watt lights, in conjunction with a television (which was unncessarily left on) and a lamp, blew a circuit. The Filmmaker tried fiddling with several circuit boxes in the room, but to no avail. He had to call Engineering, he said, and I half-expected Geordi La Forge to show up and talk about polyphase ampules and its effect on the stability of the warp core.
Damn, I am a geek.
Flash forward an hour. The Filmmaker’s friend, a lanky African-American gentleman who is helping out, had shown up. The power was back on, and The Filmmaker knew exactly where to go to reset the circuits in the event the he blew it again (he did, three more times). We were finally ready to snap off our first shot, two hours later than I expected. I suddenly suspected that we wouldn’t finish by midnight, and I addressed my concerns to The Filmmaker.
“When do you think we’ll finish?” I asked, trying to sound concerned.
“Well,” he said, sighing, “I’d just say we’re finished when we’re finished.”
Huh. That was not the answer I was expecting. Here is the answer that I was expecting: “Well, we’re slightly behind schedule, but we can make up for it by working faster, but no matter what, we’ll be done by midnight.”
So I told him that I had to catch a train at 12:40, so I had to leave at midnight. The next train left at 5:30. He said, very coolly and calmly, that if worse came to worst, I could stay at his apartment. This unnerved me a bit, because while he seems nice enough and trustworthy enough, I still don’t know him. At all. And I really don’t feel comfortable wandering over to his apartment to have a li’l sleepover.
But he was just so nice about everything. I was slowly but surely getting more and more pissed off, and I imagine that by Thursday night I will explode, but last night I kept myself in check. No matter how much he pissed me off, he was just so pleasant and nice, I didn’t want to be a dick.
This is an unfortunate problem with me: I enjoy being a fucking asshole. It’s arguably the only thing I’m good at. Verbal abuse, for me, is the most fun a person can have without access to prescription drugs. But I become weak-kneed and insufferably pleasant when people are nice to me, and I simply cannot bring myself to shatter a nice person’s existence with a little sleight of mouth.
So I did the next best thing: blamed it on my parents. When it was getting to be about 11:40, with no end in sight (we were going to fire off one last shot, which The Filmmaker had started lighting at 11:15, and he kept re-positioning everything because he didn’t like what he saw), I called my mother and told her what was going on and what my options were. I could stay with The Filmmaker, I could get the fuck out and catch my train, or I could take a cab back home.
Of course, she said, “Do whatever you want,” but I sort of adjusted my end of the conversation to give the impression that she really didn’t want me to do anything but catch my train. When I got off the phone, I said she really wants me to leave at midnight, and even though she’ll say I can do whatever the fuck I want, she’ll be pissed about me coming in at all hours of the night when my dad is sleeping and has to get up at the ass-crack of dawn for work. This was a half-truth.
The Filmmaker was not pleased with this news, since he only had 20 minutes to finish setting up the shot, shoot it, and get it right. This shot was honestly the most complex of the night, so that presented an additional challenge. I agreed to a compromise: I’d call a cab to pick me up at 12:15 to take me to Union Station. Unfortunately, because Union Station was less than 5 miles away, I couldn’t specify a time to pick me. She just said a cab would show up in 5 to 20 minutes.
By this point, it was already 5 to midnight, and he was just finishing the setup for the shot. So I got into position, we ran through it a few times, and then we shot it. It did not come out well, but by that time it was 10 after midnight, the cab had probably already shown up and left, and I needed to get the fuck out of there.
He said, “I want to try this again. The cottage cheese didn’t go through the funnel.” (long story)
Ugh. I had to go. I finally grew a pair of balls and said, “No, I really have to leave.” And I really left. As I suspected, the cab had come and gone, so I had to hustle a few blocks over to Michigan Avenue, where I found a cab surprisingly quickly, and I hauled ass to Union Station with five minutes to spare. I got home at around 1:30, and I slept.
And, goodie goodie goodie, I get to do it all again tonight!
In total, we cranked off a grand total of 8 shots last night. And they were short shots. Very short shots. This is only a two-minute film after all. Of course, we had our share of technical problems (or, I guess I should attribute all the blame to him, since his direction was this: “Just sit there until I tell you what to do,” followed by, “Do this”): continuity errors, lighting errors, power failures, uncooperative props, and so on. But technical problems are really no excuse, since I waited around for an hour before we even had the chance to have technical problems.
Really, the meat of the problem was The Filmmaker himself. Now, it wasn’t so long ago that I was in Production I, scared out of my wits because I had no real grasp of lighting, film speed, or how to use a wind-up camera made in World War II. I knew what I wanted to see on the screen, but I didn’t know how to get it. But I learned quickly: trial and error, as usual. In Production I, you do quite a few shoots before you go out on your own and shoot your 2-minute project. You get to have your errors before it has any real bearing on your work, and you learn how to light and how to position the camera and think on your feet to solve logistical problems.
Well, you do if you’re me. The Filmmaker is not me. He is him. Or her. But mostly him. I don’t want to toot my own horn, because in Production I, I never made any decent films (technically, they were fine; I’m just not proud of the content), but I shot my 2-minute film in four hours. I just naturally work quickly, and somehow my brain functions in a way that allows it to solve every conceivable problem before it occurs. I didn’t have any trouble with my 2-minute. At all. And I didn’t take a decade to set up every shot. When I’m working with 16mm, it takes me maybe 10 minutes to set up a shot, including lighting and camera placement. Tell the actors what to do, shoot it, the end.
I guess that’s just a stylistic difference. My attitude is this: as soon as I start something (and it takes me a great deal of effort to get started), I want to finish it as soon as humanly possible. So I work fast to get it done. I try not to make mistakes, but if it doesn’t come out perfectly, I’m not suicidal; I don’t demand reshoots or anything insane like that. It’s not necessary, especially in Production I, working with a film stock and camera you’ll never see again outside of that class.
There’s more that I can rant about as far as his technical inefficiency is concerned, but I’m sure nobody really cares, so I’ll just end it here.
I just hope tonight goes a little better. We’ve already started, so hopefully we can dive right back in when I show up at 7, and hopefully we’ll even get ahead of schedule. The Filmmaker did specify that the hardest stuff would be last night, and even though we didn’t get all the shots (we still had four left, including the one we didn’t quite get last night), if the shots tonight are simpler, I don’t see why — working for a complete five hours — we couldn’t accomplish 12 shots or so.
Here’s hoping…
*It should be noted that getting messages on my cell phone’s VoiceMail is a rare occurrence, as I don’t give it to anybody except (1) people I am planning to talk to, thus eliminating the need for getting VoiceMail; (2) people I don’t trust; and (3) bill collectors (aka, people I don’t trust).
Posted by Stan on April 2, 2003 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | The Filmmaker Diaries
