The Departed

3:15 am. Final color correction done. Laundry folded n shelved. Suitcase packed. Bed made with freshly washed sheets, pillowcases, and comforters. Long Warm-To-Cold shower. Ears thorougly q-tipped.

Enough neuroses have now been satisfied to result in a deep and relaxing, albeit short, sleep. I will conclude this entry in the style of Dr. Manhattan.

It is five hours from now. I am having breakfast and getting ready to leave. It is six days later and I am coming home after a long day.

So long.

be back oct 1st

Hell Patch / Prosperous Times

Things have been busy. No particular order.

Yesterday, I picked up my First/Definitely-Not-Last feverdreaming shirt designed by the (seemingly) effortlessly talented Laurence Laufer.

click here to see detail

Now I finally have something gamey to wear for this month's Pulsewave show. I'm always reluctant to buy any mass produced video game tshirts because the odds that one or two other people in a room of 50 will be wearing the same thing are too high. Because I live within 30 miles of a Hot Topic (who doesn't these days?), having a shirt custom made seems to be the only viable solution. I know it's silly to worry about Indie Cred once you've reached your 20s but with this crowd, a good shirt is like a flag. It's memorable (if it's unique) and invites conversation. That comes in handy when you're looking to meet potential subjects for a documentary you're working on.

At the very least, I can spread drum up some business for Laurence.

Speaking of Pulsewave, I can't express how good it feels to be attending tomorrow night's show as an audience member for once. I'm sure I've talked about how covering an event with a camera really removes you from the actual experience so I'll leave it at that and move on.

What else...? Like every other film-person-with-a-blog out there I feel compelled to mention that Sven Nykvist passed away the other day. I lack the eloquence and authority to deliver a fitting eulogy so, in the true fashion of my generation, I will link you to his bio page on imdb.

PA GIG

Jason got Owens and I spots as Production Assistants for the camera crews covering this year's Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo Village (Stanhope, NJ). I'll be leaving next Wednesday on the 27th and returning Oct. 1st with a nice chunk of change in my pocket. Rural Setting + Fall Weather + Contacts + Money = something to look forward to.

Of course, it means that we're really going to have to work around the clock on cutting stuff for Video Games Live.

VGL

I may or may not have mentioned this ealier but my external drive had a brush with death the other week. I was able to recover all my important Final Cut Pro project files (which preserves all my editing) but lost ALL the actual footage associated with those edits...this means hours upon hours of re-importing everything...an arduous task I'm not exactly thrilled about. I could have paid someone to do a full retrieval but that would have cost me about $1,300 since they price according to the size of your drive and I have a 250 GB drive. Thankfully, I'll be able to afford a new one with the money from the poetry PA gig and use my current one as a backup since I no longer consider its firewire 800 ports reliable.

Anyway, back to VGL. Owens is coming back to NY tonight and we're going to cut the remaining 2-out-of-3 "Webisodes" for promoting VGL. The trailer we put together will be released Oct. 1st and the 3 Behind The Scenes shorts will be released one at a time over the following three weeks. This will all lead up to their UK show in November. Best of all, he will put "2 Player Productions" front and center for this stuff so we can expect some more myspace friends over the course of the coming month.

Talking about this next part may be a bit premature so I'll keep it brief. Tommy wants to put an actual DVD of the performance together for distribution. 5 or 6 cameras, cranes, jibs, the works. Long story short, he wants us to be involved in some capacity.

So yeah that's pretty cool.
I really need to get to work.

Crazy Times

Hm. It's about 3:40am right now. I'm getting to the point where I won't be able to feel fatigue for another four or five hours if I don't go to bed now.

2 Long stories short:

Owens and I went out to Philly yesterday to meet up with Jim for a few days to work on our latest LDE assignment. It was the first time all The Docuboys had been together in about 7 months and probably close to a year since we all worked together on something at the same time. We cut together the first version of "Inside Shadowboxer," a new bonus interview (a good one this time) with our boss that will be featured on the Director's Cut DVD for international distribution...sadly, many of you probably won't see it since I imagine they'll be giving it the olde PAL treatment. Typical.

After parting ways with Jim on, what was it...tuesday? Levering picked us up and we drove up to Brooklyn. We've spent the last 30 or so hours completely immersed in all things PLAY. We've been cutting together our Electronic Press Kit & indulging in unhealthy levels of optimism regarding the film's potential and planning out the office we hope to buy with the money we hope to make from the film we hope sees the light of day let alone gets made.

Ok I should stop before I talk about how amazing that office would be...actually owning a townhouse with a screening room / editing suite, small scale recording studio, and meeting room with the top floors reserved for living quarters we'd never have to pay rent for again?

(Alright stop, you moron.)

imdb

it's not much (right now) but it is me.

They could have at least mentioned I was operating camera even if it was like...H, I, or J Cam...

Tip Me Over, Pour Me Out #21

The webcomic I guest illustrated is up:

TMOPMO #21

The interview with Bitshifter/Nullsleep/Tugboat went well on wednesday. Things have been pretty busy with the Docuboys reunion (first time we've all been together in about 7 months...probably longer in a working context). I'll write some more some other time...

Piram

the show I'm going to on sunday will sound like this

What's The Rumpus?

No time for entries today. Today is devoted to TMOPMO.

It's probably for the best. I just watched a Coen brothers movie yesterday so I'd be tempted to make my writing as quirky as possible only to fail miserably (lame).

In the meantime, check out this awesome animated homage to classic arcade games.

Svankmajer must be proud.

Also, saw Ratatat for free last night. Good times.

Pleading Insanity

I just spent more money than I should have on nosebleed seats at a concert featuring living legends of the jazz world. Some people would pay that price just to sit in the aisle if they got to see Masada (John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen, & Joey Baron). Truth be told, I wouldn't be one of those people - not at this price. I am, however, willing to spend this much to see not one or two but four incarnations of Masada. In addition to the original group, there's:

Electric Masada - John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Jamie Saft, Ikue Mori, Trevor Dunn, Joey Baron, Kenny Wollesen and Cyro Baptista

Masada String Trio - Mark Feldman, Erik Friedlander and Greg Cohen
&
Kol Nidre featuring the Masada String Orchestra conducted by John Zorn

My friend Kaveh is pretty sure that his drum teacher has seen the likes of Miles Davis and Tony Williams live and still considers Masada to be one of the best shows he's ever seen...I'm kind of trembling in disbelief and excitement. It's going to be a little weird going alone and I imagine I'll be surrounded by a bunch of older people who really lived this scene growing up (which means I won't be able to hold a decent conversation with anyone) but I'll just shutup and enjoy the music...

this is next sunday.

New Video: 8 Bit Genocide

Alright well, this is hardly a new video since it was shot* about 2.5 months ago but the image quality is a small step up from youtube and I promised to put it up a while ago.

So here it is.

8 Bit Genocide
[*by Owens and Jason]

Everytime I watch this video, I feel a sharp pang of regret over not being there.

Otherwise, things are slowly picking up again. Unfortunately, we had to scrap the Bitshifter/Nullsleep/Tugboat conversation for today - just couldn't pull everyone/thing together. We're going to try again for wednesday night. I'm taking it as an opportunity to really crank out some other things that have really started to gather dust on the shelf of my hard drive...namely the 30 minute cut of Video Games Live but also the 2 Player Productions website. I'd type more but I don't know what else to say.