Today my heart broke...

The Throat

Looking on line at some of my colleagues work and artistic endeavors, a thought came over me which I've thought before but this time I write about it. Go for the throat. Why not go for the kill right off the bat? Why not go big or go home right this minute? I think I have always been an ambitious person, goal oriented, and swagger filled. And I cant help but think, for me, go for the throat right out of the gate. Go for the kill stroke first this time because the time is now. I don't have much time left, and I must kill or be killed I think.

Now that I write this, it doesn't make sense.

year end and out review.

I have a few minutes before I go on a photo shoot so I thought I would blog since I haven't in a while. Nobody really looks at my stuff or my twitter acct so this is just a form of therapy for myself.

2009 can suck a duck. It was a terribly rough year. I cried in fits because I had to do another semester of school, totalling 7 1/2 years of college, and I failed a class so that makes me behind 2 classes. So I will be doing that this summer so I can have that worthless degree. Worthless in the sense that it wont and cant get me a job. No one really cares about my degree but me and my dad, and maybe grad schools. And that might come later, but I'm not quite sure yet. The more research I do on the film world, the more I learn, the more I doubt I need to go unless I want some really advanced graphics training. There is no set career path for a director. You just need to direct and direct and direct.

Finished the first 2 projects for Timbershark Media this year. Kuru Footwear and Riley Jensens Varsity Quarterback. It was a pretty successful year as far as productivity, even if it wasn't paid work. We will get paid later. I did 2 shows, one was a one act at the college, where the director basically stabbed me in the back, and the other was The Scarlett Pimpernel at HTC. Theater people really have turned me off from doing much theater. Its not as fun as it used to be.

Oh, I guess I must mention that my play "Fire in the Bones" got invited to KCACTF in February and I got a shiny plaque with my name on it. It sits in a box till I have a home to hang it in. I am quite proud of that. I was the first one in the history of my college to have a self written play get invited to the festival. 3 plays got invited, out of like 120 so I felt pretty spiffy. I've written a little on it since, trying to make it into a full length, but that is a slow process for I feel like I've blown my uber creativity on it.

So, I write and try and write some more and hope that something comes out. I finished a 45 minute rant about being a poor middle class white guy this summer and it is in production. We will be shooting more when the weather gets rid of the snow on the ground. Its more than half way done.

Last weekend we took 1st place at the LDS 24 hr film marathon. That was an honor and a surprise. We didn't expect to win, though people on my team really really thought we were going to. I hoped we would, naturally, but thought we got disqualified last minute because of gore. Here is a link to a blog about the festival that mentions the movie:

http://wasatchwrap.blogspot.com/2010/01/ldsff-24-hour-marathon-screenings.html

Im really quite a happy camper. I have a good place to live. I can not pay my bills. I have a functional car and things are looking up, though I don't have a girlfriend, but have a best friend that is a kind and loving girl. I don't know what 2010 holds, but it seems to be ripe. Just don't let Obama step on it before we harvest.

Love

Judge not...yet

Lesson Learned: Preface your logistical argument with things dealing with both technicalities and emotions. Otherwise, it gets out of hand. If you find that you have not prefaced your argument with such things, then you must work tirelessly, enlisting people that are on your side, to clean up the mess that has been created, and your good name.

Do not argue on Facebook. It takes too much time to type against everyone else.

Facebook is dumb.

Facebook represents the lack of accountability in society correlated with our actions.

Die Facebook die.

Remember to stand for what you believe in but watch how bold you are. Use boldness, but not over-bearance. To thine own self be true.

The most important piece of advice I can give, which was passed on to me, is; always ask "Why?"

Ask Why? first.

Remember I'll Always Love You

So... I was an extra on this movie called Remember I'll Always Love You (exclusively released for German audiences, but shot in English) and this was my 2nd experience on the set with the cast and crew. The first time was at a house up on the side of the mountain and it was freaking freezing cold and all the extras were huddled around a propane space heater while telling glory stories of being an extra and how Zack Heffron hit him in the eye with a lazer. It was snowing earlier that day. We weren't complaining much although they made us wait in an open garage for 4 hrs before getting to us.

Today, I arrived at base camp and filled out my paperwork on one of the dinner tables and took the salt shaker and put it on top of my paperwork so it wouldn't blow away, I then moved the vase of flowers over a little so I could see the guy who was talking to me (another extra) from across the table. Little did I know the consequences of my actions. Ramifications ensued. From what do the ramifications ensue? you might ask? Well, I shall explain:

I got up to go to wardrobe, the last of us 4 extras, and started to walk off and turned around to find one of the cooks cursing at me. "Dont mess with my F'ing table! Here take your F'ing paper." And he took my paper and threw it on the ground. I was half astonished at this childish behavior but kept my tongue in check. Every single time this kind of crap happens, I have a flash of anger rush over me and I want to go straight up to the guy/girl and grab them and teach them a lesson in manners by berating them and then throwing them around. Alas, this fantasy will not be enacted today. "I'm sorry SIR. And they're's no need to throw my papers on the ground." "Well don't F'in mess with my table." I promptly walked off shaking my head in amazement. Later that day, that man cooked me noodles and looked me in the eye as he dished them on to my plate.

During dinner I sat on the ground. The tables were full and I didn't need to sit at the tables with everyone else. The makeup lady passed me by and said something about not excluding myself, and I replied "I'm doing good here, thanks." After I noticed people getting up, I got up and went to find a place at the tables with the other extras so I could cut my chicken on something other than the ground. A pair of sunglasses lay on the table where I intended to place said chicken, and so I scooted them over, for there was not an owner in sight that I could tell. One of the lead females in the film then, very deliberately, reached over and grabbed the glasses and slowly pulled them towards her, giving me a death stare. (or so I heard later on) "Oh, sorry." I said and sat down, not thinking much of it, but was curious as to why she grabbed the glasses so methodically in the first place. Not really caring very much, I finished my dinner.

Lessons learned: After much self reflection, I determined that I must attract drama. I don't know why. I don't know how. I just do and certainly don't mean to. I work hard, do my job, and then want to leave. Forgive me for wanting to stay aloof.

And the second lesson is: Be polite to everyone on a job. You never know who you are talking to. I may never make it big enough to hire a catering service but I know I will never being hiring them because of how one idiot treated little ol' me just for moving the salt and flowers.

G20 summit

I'm scared and its probably because I don't understand it all yet. Today Barack Hussein Obama, the "president" of the U.S. of America, basically put Israel on the chopping block and said he was going to take care of palestine. Now I seem to remember a lot in the Bible about Israel fighting and I know there is a lot of war over there all the time. Its like a turf battle that Obama all of a sudden says he's going to take care of.

In my uneducated opinion... No good can come of this. We already have radical terrorists trying to kill us all, and then we piss off one of the fiercest fighting nations in all the world? There is more loyalty and heart over there then you can find in Washington DC. It scares me. I cant see this not being messy.

On a similar note, I find people who continue to praise Obama bewildering. It must mean they are un-informed or are actually enjoying the ride with a big poop eatin grin on their faces. Political turmoil is baaaaaad. Especially from a presidential candidate who promised to have a non partisan approach to politics. I don't think its happened once since he's been here. But then again, I don't think he really cares about the people, just the power.

God help us.

Obama quote from school address

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

-Barack Obama

so....