Parallel Synchronized Randomness

I just got out of seeing The Science of Sleep for the second time, and I found that I enjoyed it just as much. I won't say that I like it better than Eternal Sunshine, but I don't feel the need to compare the two either. Both times, Science of Sleep has left me with a very introspective mood, quiet and creative. I identify heavily with Stephane, even though I really am not much like him, aside from the creative tendencies. The movie makes me just want to start playing, with whatever, movies or music or art. I feel inspired to work on every artistic project I've considered for the past year. And for those you who've seen the movie, I give you "Duck Ellington".

So Much For My Streak

Yeah, I didn't write anything last night. It probably had something to do with essentially sleepwalking through the day and walksleeping through the night. What are ya gonna do? More news at 11! (Maybe. Don't hold me to that number.)

Cinematographie Extraordinaire

So we finished up the second short movie project of the year, this time a chase scene in a library. The first one being an interpretive exploration of where doorways can lead, (I directed that one). This time around I was Director of Photography, aka the cameraman, but of course DP sounds fancier. Or quite hilarious, depending on your level of exposure to the darker side of the internet.

We did some rather daring shots this time around, and all handheld. That's saying something, too, as we were using an honest to God 16mm film camera with Kodak black & white film stock:


(The Bolex H16 Reflex, made in Switzerland for that
authentic foreign feel!)

None of these simple video cameras for us, no sir! The movie was set in the basement of a library, and apparently one which was constructed by people no more than 18" wide, as that was about the space available between shelves. The daring comes from how we set up our various dolly shots.

The first involved taking a rolling chair with the back removed into one of the aisles, having me sit on it with the handles facing the ends of the aisles, and then our director pulling me backwards as fast as possible while an actor ran towards us. The first try ended in the camera eyepiece smacking into my eye when we abruptly stopped, and consecutive tries resulted in much smacking into books and edges.

For the second one, I had to duck and run alongside our actor as he did the same along an aisle. Thankfully it was an end aisle so I had plenty of space behind me. At least, I thought I did until at the end of the first try I stood up - straight into a low hanging metal light fixture.

Today we did the final one, and the most fun, which consisted of me lying down on a blanket in an aisle, being pulled backwards as the actor crawled towards us. This was actually our workaround when the prospect of using a mechanic's rollboard fell through, and I was quite pleased with the result. That and it was pretty fun getting pulled back and forth along the floor.

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Earlier today I was invited to attend an upper-level film class where Mike Hill, one of Ron Howard's longtime editors, was coming to talk about his work as a professional editor. It was a fairly interesting talk, although really what are you going to ask him that's actually going to increase your working knowledge? However, towards the end he wanted to show us a sequence in Cinderella Man that he felt contained an interesting editing effect. So he popped in a DVD, went to the scene, and played it through until it was just past what he wanted to show us. So he paused, rewound, and then paused again, and said that he wanted to try and go through it frame by frame. Mistakenly (and a mistake that I could understand), he hit the next chapter button. Confused, he hit the last chapter button. He tried again, hitting the next chapter button again. This repeated a few more times. One of our film professors attempted to help him while he started talking about what it was he wanted to show us - in order to drag out the impact of one of the punches, several brief cuts at different angles of the same punch were shown in quick succession, divided by the flash of cameras from the audience. The film professor did the exact same mistake, over and over and over. Several times he had it paused at the right position ready to try again, and I wanted to yell out, "OK, now don't hit the button with two arrows and a line ever again!" but I didn't want to sound mean about it. So he kept doing it, and I kept getting more annoyed. Finally, he managed to display it at about half-speed, which was at least enough to show us what Hill was trying to tell us about. I'm still boggled, and I'll leave you with this thought - how is it that a film professor and a top Hollywood editor of many years cannot figure out how to operate a DVD player?

Keeping up the pace

Very much in character, I only did two of the things mentioned at the end of yesterday's post. Namely, shaving:


(I made callbacks for the role of Gordon in the upcoming
Half-Life movie.)

- and reading A Raisin in the Sun. So far, it's the only play I've really liked which came out of my script analyzing class reading list, which so far has included Angels in America, Tartuffe, Doubt, The Piano Lesson, and Spoon River Anthology. Apparently you can read Spoon River in full over at Project Gutenburg, a site containing an enormous amount of public domain books, but I would advise against it. Unless you are interested in reading 243 short poems about how depressing life can be. Anyway, I thought Raisin in the Sun was a great read, and commendable for its realism and natural use of language. I've read other stories that dealt with black culture and identity, but so far this is the only one that has actually made me feel like I can understand the issue. And that's saying something coming from someone who is in no way black and cannot fathom hip-hop.

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I've been rehearsing my directing skills for a scene from a play called Fat Pig as well. This play is also quite realistic in its portrayal of human emotion, and thus I'm against a slight challenge in presenting what one could consider a 'normal' scene. So far the most ridiculous effect my staging involves is a character shooting a basketball, so I think I've managed fairly well. (On a side note, expect italics in my writing. They are excellent for representing sarcasm. I was of course influenced on this subject by one Jerry Holkins.) Next up will be a stage adaptation of Unforgettable, an original short play by the inimitable writing team of the Brothers Malm. You might not know who I'm referring to, but the web-savvy reader will likely be able to locate them using various avenues. (A hint: I'm probably friends with them, and they're probably social networkers.)

Like a zombie, it rises

Whoa, wait, I have a blog? Man, I really dropped the ball on this thing. It would seem that the time I would normally reserve for writing has instead been taken over by the playing of video games, sleeping, or slowly going insane under a mountain of school work. I feel like I should make some sort of New Year's Resolution to keep up with this on a more daily basis, (although perhaps more of an October 22nd's Resolution), but I don't think I would hold myself to it very well. More likely, I'd return some six years down the road, weathered and battered, gasping for sweet sustenance. Seeing the blog off in the distance, mirage-like, I would shamble towards it, fingers itching to grace those supple keys once more. But of course, it would be a mirage, because the internet won't exist in six years, as the world is set to end tragically in five years and several months.

Now if you'll excuse, I'm off to shave, read A Raisin In The Sun, play Shenmue, and watch Heroes. (I am secretly in love with Wikipedia.)

Rumors of my death are... absolutely ridiculous

I realize that it has been some time since my last writing, and that some (perhaps as many as two or three) of you have likely felt a little alienated as a result. I assure you, however, that my absence was unavoidable, due to both a family vacation to flippin' Arkansas:

(Totally not joking)

- and a complete lack of suitable material to subject to my white-hot wit. To assuage these feelings of abandonment that I am positive you must be suffering, I have returned triumphant with the following treasures from far-distant lands.

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A strange phenomenon has been occurring at my gas station lately. Namely, someone keeps stealing my soda cup. This does not actually pose any real problem, as both cups and soda are free for the taking to any employee. However, due to some sense of propriety, I have tried various methods of preventing such an unfortunate event. At first, just putting my name on the cup seemed to work. Eventually, though, someone must have mistaken my mark of ownership for the name of the cup itself, and decided that they could not pass up an object which had managed to assert it's own identity. This was followed by a double marking of my name, giving a pleasing 360º panorama of Jonathon. I can only assume that these sorts of cups have become collector's items in some niche market, as this cup was kidnapped in even less time than the first. Sensing that some other tactic was in order, I inscribed this message on the cup in bold red marker, (at a time when it was believed that my cups were simply being discarded):

"I'm afraid of the garbage can, please don't make me go in there!"

This appeal to the culprit's moral sensibilities appeared to have its desired effect, until today when, returning from my week-long sabbatical, I discovered my cup was missing once more. I realized then that I was dealing with a more menacing foe than I had initially though, and judged that my newest cup would need a much more terrifying message:

"A powerful curse awaits all those who dare to disturb this prized cup."

I have not as yet decided on exactly what this curse might entail, but hopefully the mere suggestion of such a fate will deter any would be thieves.

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Throughout my time at BP, I have received a number of calls intended for our local Pizza Hut, which by some Nick Danger-esque twist of fate has a phone number exactly one digit off from our own. At first I answered all calls as "BP #20, how may I help you?" Judging by the majority of callers, it is possible through some trick of the ear for two letters and a number to sound like "Pizza Hut", encouraging them to continue under this assumption. Bewildered, I began to make sure that I included the phrase "gas station" with every greeting. Though this stopped short the majority of unintentional calls, I still received one today in which a woman informed me that she wanted to order two pizzas for pickup. When I replied that she had called a gas station and not a creator of doughy delicacies, there was a noticeable pause, as if she were determining just how much of an impact this had on her ability to order a pizza from this number. I await with bated breath the day that some oblivious citizen waltzes into the store, right up to the counter, and goes so far as to inquire about the status of their two large pepperonis, perhaps with a side of "cheesy stix".

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Like some daydream fantasy made manifest, this video deftly illustrates the possibilities available to you at college, if only you possess the bravado required to pull it off. There is also a sequel of sorts set in their campus library. For some time now I have been itching to take part in such public frivolities, having been inspired by this website's instructions for constructing my very own Mario Question Block.



The final coup-de-grace in solidifying my need to commit such an act were these videos.

The Daily Grind

I've got to get a better sleep schedule going. Waking up just in time to make it to work at 4:00PM just isn't cutting it anymore. Once I arrived, however, two things of note happened.

First, we had a power surge that knocked out all of the store that wasn't connected to emergency backup power. This lead to the rather surreal situation of me having to explain to people that, "No, you can't get gas right now," despite that being the store's almost sole purpose.

Second, one of the guys who brings the daily newspapers is apparently working on becoming a stand-up comedian. Unfortunately, I don't see him progressing very far with his current tact, which consisted of him suddenly saying to no one in particular (quoted almost verbatim):

"So I've realized that in my stand-up act when I make jokes about different races, I completely left out the Native Americans. So here's what I've got - You know you're not allowed to make any jokes anymore about the Native Americans. You know, you can't go 'Whoop whoop whoop whoop' at Seminoles games. You can't do this (raises fist) for the Redskins. And now they're telling me that you can't shout 'Geronimo!', you know when you're falling out of a plane. These people who jump out of planes can't shout 'Geronimo!' anymore, they tell 'em that's bad. But, you know, I've got an American Indian friend named Tanto who, he drinks all the time, and he's just very bitter. And I tell him, "Hey man, that was your war to win," you know?"

Upon finishing, I was unsure of what exactly I had just heard. I searched for a joke, but could only find some sort of bizarre, Seinfeld-esque "So what's up with that airline food?" comment on...something. When he noticed that I was just standing there looking at him, he informed me that he usually bounces stuff off of the other guy who works at my gas station, and that he's usually got a small crowd waiting for him at the gas station down the way. I told him that I got it, and that it just wasn't my brand of humor, hoping to defuse the awkward moment. He made sure to point out that he also does political and religious jokes. I can't wait.

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When my friend Alex read yesterday's post about The Science of Sleep, he revealed to me that Michel Gondry seems to have a thing for giant hands in dreams, as evidenced by this music video that he directed:



He also steered me towards a few other videos he's done, including the Chemical Brothers' "Star Guitar", an absolutely mesmerizing piece of art, and Daft Punk's "Around the World". These videos just make Gondry that much cooler in my perspective.

Day Two.One

I had initially intended to update this blog daily, in the hopes that doing so would promote the gathering of a larger audience. However, I see that for the time being, "daily" will have to correspond to my day, which starts at 1PM and ends at 4AM. This bizarro-world scheduling comes courtesy of my employment as a petrol station attendant at a local BP (favorite of Britain's Alan Partridge). A number of anecdotes related to my job occurred to me today as I was pondering what to write about, and since I see little way to connect them in a fluid and logical manner, I think I'll just lay them out here:

1) I've discovered that I may have some mild OCD tendencies, or perhaps just an overdeveloped sense of symmetry and style. To give an example, I've taken to sorting the lighter selections into colors based on the classic ROY G. BIV format. The effect is similar to that of those pleasing crayon pictures:


(Credit goes to 'thefonz148' of deviantART)

Except that these 'crayons' are

used to support a deadly habit,
and therefore take on a more
menacing tone:

On a similar tangent, I've found it distressing coming to terms with the fact that I am catering specifically to man's many vices. I am familiar with the exact location of every kind of cigarette. I know the alcholic content of most of our liquor cabinet. I've discovered that far more people than I care to admit are both alcoholics and future lung cancer sufferers. Especially gut-wrenching are the 20-something females who don't seem to realize that they are slowly destroying their good looks and charm. On the other hand, I'm getting paid and it's their choice, so...eh.

2) Novelty Lighters:

3) I'm honestly surprised that the check as a form of payment has not been phased out by now, replaced by the more widely accepted electronic card. At my gas station, in order to pay with a check one must first fill out an 'Application for Check Writing Priveleges', submitting your name, address, vital statistics including blood type, shoe size, and bank references (two of these are mild exaggerations). Following a thorough examination by the corporate office:



- you are then bestowed the 'privilege' of being able to write checks. Those poor souls who are not already on this list are usually not in a position to wait this long to pay for their items, and even if they were, the gas station is ill-equipped to accomodate their stay. The ridiculousness of this situation is further compounded by the availability of cards which can be used exactly like a credit card except using money from a checking account, thus making the check almost completely obsolete.

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Straying away from the hilarity to be found at your local gas station, I also wanted to mention some movie-related items. You might not know it, (who am I kidding, of course you do!), but I am a filmmaking student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As such, I'll probably be talking about movies from time to time. Anyway, to the heart of the matter -

Last night I was perusing Apple's selection of movie trailers with my wonderful girlfriend, and many of these are now on our 'Must-See' list. One in particular caused my heart to go all aflutter with anticipation - Michel Gondry's new film The Science of Sleep.



For those unfamiliar with the name, Gondry was the visual genius behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which happens to be my favorite movie ever. Especially appealing is the main character's confusion of dreams with reality, a theme which Gondry has already proven himself adept at visually representing. Also of note - The Fountain, Little Miss Sunshine, Children of Men, and The U.S. vs. John Lennon.