Ramblings of a Constipated Mind

Filming for Stuffed Fantasies is now underway. Booyah!

I filmed for about three and a half hours yesterday, and one and a half hours today. How much footage do I have? 30-35 minutes. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you allow for the time it takes to set up everything, let your actors learn their lines, practice, and then shoot multiple takes, I guess that's not too bad for my first time.

I'd say that production is around 70% complete. I'm hoping to be in post-production by February 23 at the latest. If I had to predict what the worst aspects of the final product will be, I'd choose:

1) Lighting. I'm not a genius when it comes to lighting. And I don't like to take time to experiment. It's quite possible the lighting will change from one shot to the next.

2) Acting. None of my actors are professionals. Also, they did not learn their lines before shooting. However, that's forgiveable. Overall, I'd say the acting will turn out pretty good compared to most amateur films, especially those by a first-time director. Some lines are delivered perfectly. Others aren't. That's to be expected.

3) Cinematography. Some shots will most likely be repetitive. Hopefully I'll be able to mix up enough camera angles in editing so it has a nice flow.

I'm pretty optimistic about it though. I doubt I'll be winning anything (and I wouldn't be surprised if people absolutely hate it in the end), but I'm new at this, so hey, I'm not supposed to be Kubrick or Spielberg or Bergman or Fincher or Weir or Tarantino. My goal is just in the end to learn some stuff and have some fun. So far, I've definitely been accomplishing that.

Oh, and I'm going to have to figure out how to build a toy store in my house. I know how to do it. The only question is where I'll have room to put it. Should be fun.

Quote of the Moment:
"God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny."
--Garrison Keillor

It's been a while since I updated, I know. I've been busy with school, and lately it seems like Blogger hasn't been publishing at my house. I'm at school now, during a free period, so maybe it will work now.

Hm, not much is new. I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It's not the best movie ever, but certainly worth seeing because of its style - it's the first movie to ever be shot completely in front of a bluescreen. The only real things in the movie are the actors and a few props; the rest is all computer generated. I actually really liked it. It reminded me of old classic movies. Or, more recently, Indiana Jones. You've got your hero, you've got your girl, the world's gonna be destroyed, and the audience is just along for the ride. Sometimes this feels cliche and un-developed, but it seemed to work here, for the most part. We don't know the background of Sky Captain, but we don't really have to. It works. It would be interesting to see the movie in black-and-white - the lighting was very reminiscent of 1940s films. Very Capra-esque, I thought.

In the end, some people will love it, others will hate it. Some will find they're quite happy with just watching the action unfold onscreen in its unique style, others will want more character development. Me, I liked it. And I personally can't see why it at least wasn't nominated for a visual effects Oscar. With many parts you could tell that everything was computer-generated. But many shots - particularly those involving a landscape - looked really good. It seems to settle in an area right between looking "real" and looking "cartoony". But that's just part of the style as well; I think in many ways it's supposed to look like an animated movie rather than a live-action one. It's a lot like a comic book.

In other news: I plan on entering an online short film competition, so I'll finally get a chance to make a film that's entirely original and not for school. Woohoo! I've been working on pre-production for the last few weeks. The script is probably as good as it's going to be, and hopefully I'll move into production tomorrow. We'll see what happens. Some parts of the script seem fine, but with other pieces of dialogue it seems like something's missing. Hopefully I'll be able to fix that before filming tomorrow.

The title is Stuffed Fantasies. It will most likely be around 10 minutes long, but as long as it's less than 13 minutes I'll be okay (that's part of the competition rules). I don't think I have any chance of winning, since I'll be up against people who have been making films for much longer than myself, but we'll see what happens. I'm just trying to have fun and learn a little more. Hopefully filming will be completed by February 7, or February 22 at the latest. That will give me plenty of time in post-production to work on editing the final cut by the contest deadline (March 16).

Quote of Da Moment:
"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."
--Steven Wright

I survived my first week back at school. I don't know how, but I did it. The entire week wasn't exactly great...the whole 12th grade class was basically zombies due to lack of sleep.

On another note: approximately 6 girls in my class got plastic surgery. This includes: liposuction, nose jobs, and boob jobs. Any doctor crazy enough to operate on 18-year old girls should not be allowed to practice medicine. And it's not like these girls needed it in anyway.

The world gets crazier and more false every day. Good times.

Also, yesterday I beat Half-Life 2. Holy crap. And I thought the first one was good! This one blew it out of the water. It started out kinda slow...with me thinking it was overrated. Then I got into the actual storyline and characters, and I started reconsidering. It's that the first one didn't have a lot of depth to the story. You met a few characters but they were just there to help you kill aliens. Other than that, their actions didn't affect the storyline in any way. In this one, there were tons of characters, all of them fully-developed. And whereas in the first one you only really visited 3 different areas (the underground lab, the surface, and the alien planet) this one was filled with tons of location variety.

And it was looooong. Every chapter got better and better. The ending was filled with so many plot twists, I could only stare at the monitor in awe. The final sixty seconds are quite possibly the best ending to a game ever. It just hits you in the stomach. Hard. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a while afterwards. It's just too much. And it ended in a slightly similar way to the first one, except this time it's even more of a cliffhanger.

There has to be a Half-Life 3. Only then can I find out the answers to all the questions this game left in my head (and some of the ones still left over from the first game). Of course, like with this one, the world will have to wait another five years for that game to be released.

But if it's as good as this one or better, it will be well worth it. Is Half-Life 2 the best game of all time? It's debatable. But there's definitely a possibility...

Quote of the Moment:
"The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy."
--Jim Rohn

Garden State is...different. But interesting. And good, though I'm not quite sure why I like it. I'll have to watch it again in the future.

Shaun of the Dead is a good, funny movie. The humor is very...er...British. And I don't mean that in a racist way. Different societies have different styles of humor. Sometimes what's funny to a group of one country isn't funny to people of another. For example: Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Shaun of the Dead is not as funny to me. But if my British teachers saw it, they would probabaly laugh a lot more than I did.

Ah, humor. So subjective. So cultural. So abstract.

Tomorrow the Christmas vacations officially end and I go back to working my butt off for a little slip of paper called a diploma. I've been in school now for what, 13 years? That piece of paper better be worth it.

Quote of Da Moment:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
--Edward Clarke

That's just not right.


The most creative bathroom ever. I would so use it.


I seem to have found the missing link.


Quote of Da Moment:
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
--Mark Twain

This is for you, Karen. Every time I hear that annoying song I think of you now.

WARNING: Does contain a brief disrespectful gesture. But that guy's facial expressions are priceless.

I watched the entire thing twice before I finally had the strength to close the window. There's just something about it that won't let you stop staring at it with your mouth hanging open slightly in utter awe.

Yesterday I had surgery on my face. No, not plastic. I'm in the mood to rant about it.

So here's the deal. Ever since my family moved to Central America seven years ago, I've had problems with allergies. I don't mean minor problems. I mean holy-crap-not-even-the-drugs-help problems. It's been really bad. The symptoms: the usual stopped up or runny nose but taken to the extreme, eye irritation, bad breath...it even meant my voice didn't change until last summer, so I spent 3-4 years of my life only talking to people if I had to, because it sounded so strange. Last summer I went back to the USA to visit family, and voila, I could breathe again.

But then I came back and it all went to hell again. Fun fun fun.

So my parents finally realized, "Hey, maybe we need to see a doctor about this." So we visited an allergist. He was amazed I could breathe at all. It turns out that all this was caused by a bunch of crap that's been building up in my sinus cavities for years. Basically, tiny balls of mucus, known as polyps, had been collecting in those cavities. That kept mucus from passing into my nasal passages and ensuring that there's plenty of room for air. So, aside from the symptoms mentioned above, my nasal passages were only about 1/8 as wide as they should be for comfortable breathing. The doctor was surprised I was breathing at all.

It was obvious I was going to need surgery to correct all this stuff, hopefully permanently. So yesterday, I went and got it done.

Let's get something straight here: I've had surgery before. Lots of times. I've broken bones before. I had my wisdom teeth taken out last year. But other than eye surgery that I had when I was eight and I don't remember, I've never been into an actual operating room before. So while my parents wait in the waiting room (that's what it's there for, right?) I follow some nurses into a small, tiny room with one of those stretchers they roll patients down the halls with on ER (you can tell I know a lot about the study of medicine).

Then a nurse comes in, hands me one of those flimsy little hospital gowns, and tells me to strip down and change. Then she leaves the room.

Okay, this was quite honestly the worst part of getting ready for surgery. I have this thing about getting naked when strange women I don't know are close by. And honestly, why do patients have to wear those gowns to begin with? That's the real mystery. It's supposedly to stop contamination or something. It's not like I had anthrax. I had allergies. I don't consider myself to be much of a threat if I have allergies.

I suppose the gowns are used so that in case of an emergency (eg. my heart stopping for absolutely no reason), they have easy access to whatever other areas of my body that they need to fix. But that still doesn't explain why they leave it open in the back. Is there honestly a medical reason for it, or is it just so if the nurses are lucky they get to see some booty for free? Seriously, not only is it weird for the patient, but it's dangerous as well. Who knows what the doctor and nurses could be doing while you're high on anesthesia? The world's a messed up place. It could happen.

Anyways, after I was changed, a nurse came in and put little fluffy socks on my feet. It was obvious they weren't taking any chances. There was a definite possibility that my toes were infected with a strain of the Ebola virus, and the only thing keeping the doctors alive was those socks. Give me a break. They're feet. Not biological hazards.

So then they had me lay down on the rolling stretcher, and wheeled me into the operating room. The next thing I knew, there was an IV in my arm pumping some anesthesia into my veins.

Here's the part I don't understand. They had told me I would be awake for the entire procedure. But after a few minutes, I was completely unconscious. Maybe it was the fact that it was early in the morning and I was exhausted. Maybe it was because they gave me too much anesthesia. I really have no idea. All I know is that two hours later, I woke up and wondered if they were going to start any time soon.

Here's what they did, at least as far as I understand it. While I was off in Dreamland, the surgeon was busy sticking a tube with a camera on the end up my nose, under my eye, and into my sinus cavity. He then proceeded to cut out all of those polyps from the inside. Supposedly, it was really bad in there. A ton of gooey, rotting gunk had decided to make my sinus cavities its home, and it all had to be sucked out. He did this with both cavities on either side of my nose. Then he straightened my septum, which for one reason or another had been crooked. Then he cleaned out my nasal passages so they were nice and wide, like they're supposed to be.

The best part about the surgery was waking up. For the first 15-20 minutes after regaining consciousness I was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia. I was pretty high. I became more hyper after every passing minute and I really enjoyed the fuzzy sensation in my head.

Two rather boring hours later (also known as four hours in Latin America), I was finally able to leave. And now I'm suffering the after effects. For all day yesterday and some of today, I've had to walk around the house with a big chunk of gauze taped to my nose to stop the bleeding. Not only does it make me look stupid, but it's extremely uncomfortable and makes eating a difficult thing to do. Fun fun fun. At the moment, the bleeding seems to have stopped. For now at least. But whereas my nasal passages were nice and clear after the surgery, now they're full of clotted blood. Woohoo. It's like nothing changed. I have to breathe through my mouth all day long. I feel like I was hit by a truck. My nose hurts due to all the new junk that's trapped inside. Thanks a lot doc, you really fixed me up great!

On Monday, I go in for a final checkup, where they will proceed to clean all the blood out of my nasal passages. All I know is that, when it's all over, there'd better be a big difference.

If I had to wear that hospital gown for nothing, I'm going to be really upset. I could sue them for sexual harassment.

Quote of the Moment:
"First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me."
--Steve Martin.

Awesome Random Site

Hm. Didn't do much today, except go to church. Right now I'm wondering whether or not I should start doing homework tomorrow (or rather today, since it's 12:33 here). Oh wait, I already know the answer to that. I should, but the question is whether or not I will. We'll have to wait and see.

What else, what else...I finished watching the 6-hour long tv miniseries The Stand. It was okay I guess, considering it was a tv movie. The worst part was the special effects. I've seen amateur films with better makeup and visual FX than that. Made me want to read the book though, since that's probably a lot better.

Also: Sling Blade is an excellent film, if slightly depressing. Billy Bob Thorton should have won an Oscar (or did he?). It brings up some interesting questions. For example, is there ever a time when it would be okay to kill someone? It was also pro-homosexual, but in a way I can mostly agree with. There's one part where the protagonist tells a gay man something to the effect of, "The Bible says that man should not lay with man, but you have been kind to me, and I don't think God will condemn you." I'm not sure if I'd stretch my religious beliefs that far, but at least it shows that homosexuals can be as good as any other person. That's quite refreshing to see in a world where only two extreme points of view seem to be publicized: "All homosexuals are evil - stay away from them!" and "Be gay! It's okay!" I mean, I still see homosexuality as a sin, but it's not like I would refuse to be friends with a gay person. Go Billy Bob.

Other than that, I spent today editing video. Soon it will be time to film more.

Quote of Da Moment:
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
--Steven Wright

Happy 2005 everyone!

I ended 2004 by sleeping late and having fun filming a few shots for that original short film I've been meaning to make for some time that isn't for school. My first goal for 2005: Finish it.

*sigh*

It's time to remember 2004 and what happened. Fun fun fun. Going through specifics would take too long. So I'll just keep it short and sweet.

2004 was a year of surprises. Period. Some surprises were good. Some were bad. Some were joyful. Some were depressing. Some were trivial. Some were life-changing. But I'm still here. It's interesting to look back and compare this time of year to last year. Last year I was coming out of a huge depression and entering into one of the happiest times of my life. This year I'm living quite comfortably in a time of happiness and peace.

The irony is that last year's depression and this year's happiness have the same origen (to some extent). God sure has a way of turning things around. Hindsight is an incredible gift; it allows us to look back and go, "Oooohh so that's why I had to go through that...it happened so that could happen...that good thing never would have come about if that terrible thing hadn't happened..." It's just a further reminder that He's got everything under control and part of a big, humongous plan which we can't even begin to try to guess.

Life is a roller coaster. God is the cart, taking us through the ups and downs and sometimes the loops. 2005 is going to be an interesting year, that's for sure. For me, it will be a year of change. At least there's One thing that I know will stay constant.

Oh, and today, January 1, is the official 1-year anniversary of this blog. Unlike my movie reviews page, I've managed to update this pretty often. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up. Maybe I'll switch a few minor things on the template to start off the new year.

Happy New Year people. May it be a good one.

Quotes of Da Moment:
"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me a light. that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way."
--Minnie L. Haskins

"Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth."
--Martin Luther

"A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year."
--Edgar A. Guest