The answer is "just about everything I like"
Dredd is already out in theatres, and based on what I've heard about it, I'm going to be waiting a while for a dvd release (because it's going to stick around the big screen for so long).
October is a month filled to the tip with delight. More than five movies I've been anticipating hit the Earth en masse in less than a week and I will be voiding my bowels promptly upon their arrival. Say what you want about the Paranormal Activity franchise (I tend to say a lot of negative things about it even though I love it), the fourth one, although appearing terrible at first glance, has been met with my adaptation to the concept. In other words, it has grown on me of late. Wrong Turn 5 is apparently the goriest one yet, and if the trailer is any indication, it should be much better than the previous instalment (honestly if I see more shoddy special effects I'll kick my own bucket right now in my seat). With the popularity of recent supernatural occurrences and the incline of the found-footage genre, there seem to be more and more films that incorporate that particular style in one sense or another. Sinister is one. Not to mention the advancement of the calendar means I'm closer to my other cinematic aspirations; Chernobyl Diaries has to hit shelves someday, the sooner the better. Then there are more classically-oriented projects such as Possession and The Apparition, capitalizing on fame obtained by such monstrosities as The Woman in Black and The Unborn...a lot of "The" titles this year. Good.
Since Sin City there hasn't been much in the way of comic interpretation for screen that I've really enjoyed (save for Bunraku, unless you count Batman or the Grindhouse series, neither of which I do because one isn't really true to any source material and the other has no graphic counterpart), so I'm looking forward to Dredd with great fervor and rarely-acquainted high hopes. There always seems to be one month out of a year that brings me decent amounts of film-related excitement, and how fitting that Halloween month is the winner this year. It's almost as if they planned it or something.
Oh wait they totally planned it
I'm not an idiot
So that's what I'm ready for. I just finished acquiring three movies that have piqued my interest for some time, one of which I had seen once at a vulnerable age. Horror day, today. Horror day. Horror MONTH. Horror LIFE.
September 26, 2012
September 17, 2012
I Spent Two Hours Cooking Today.
That's not a song lyric or a metaphor, an anecdote or segway. I actually just spent, collectively, two hours cooking today.
Now, to preface, I should say that cooking is a hobby in which I partake a substantial amount. I don't make anything that could be considered a "masterpiece," or a unique exercise in culinary art form. Instead, I cook meals and snacks because I prefer it to buying things packaged. Whenever I'm in the kitchen making things they're usually from scratch, with the exception of some canned ingredients or, in today's case, pre-mix.
Lately, my preparations have been increasing in frequency, due in part to my disgusting sleep schedule. I, unfortunately, can no longer sleep in. My internal clock has always been a little haywire. Some months I'll sleep far into the afternoon, others I'll wake up before the rest of my hemisphere. I haven't yet, however, found a way to control this occurrence. I read somewhere (probably a Cracked.com article) that you can control it via your eating habits, but that doesn't seem to help. Typically I don't ingest any material until noon or later, as a personal rule (mostly to keep my weight in check), but doing this hasn't ever altered my sleep schedule. My brain will just rouse me whenever it sees fit. It was a nuisance at first, but I've since learnt to cope in various ways. Making food happens to be one of them.
Submitted for the approval of The Midnight Society, I call this story, "The tale of the botched salsa."
It's safe to say that my favourite, albeit easiest, meal to form is pasta-based. Penne (without the accent because I'm not a Francophony...haha get it?) would have to be my noodle of choice, although traditional spaghetti comes a close second. I have, to date, made several different, large portioned meals using "noodlies", and decided that I ought to take a break, lest I become disenchanted with the ingredient. My grandmother often buys cake mix and other things, leaving them in the cupboard for months to go bad and/or collect dust, unless they're possessed and dance around on the shelf or something. With all this in mind, this morning I made a loaf of pumpkin bread. It would be silly to get into the intricacies of the creation since it was mostly pre-mixed, but it suffices to say it was delicious and perfect. That shit took an hour.
Not to be an egotist or anything.
Then I went to Starbucks. I realize that there's an inherent redundancy in the details of my day, but as someone who rarely leaves his house, these things are tantamount in the story of my existence. I took the long way home, because I was wearing reflective sunglasses; I enjoy people-watching (a story I'll save for another post entirely), and aviators make it really easy to stare at odd-looking individuals without looking like one yourself. But I digress.
When I got home, I still had most of the day to kill. Since I usually spend that time glued to the screen upon which I type these words, I thought it to be a healthy change of scenery to stay away for a while longer. Somehow, my thoughts turned to the plethora of hot peppers my significant other has supplied me with sporadically, to the point where I have so many that I may need to get a second freezer bag for them.
SO I MADE SALSA.
My initial attempt turned out horrid; I used a blender to combine the ingredients in lieu of a food processor. I don't buy kitchenware or machinery when I have what I has thought to be the equivalent sitting there already. To make a long story short, my salsa turned into a congealed mess of vegetable paste that was too spicy to put your nostrils near, let alone allow it clearance into your oesophagus.
Upon second try, sticking closer to the recipe and using one that actually fit the supplies I had with me (canned tomatoes instead of whole fresh ones...the can had been sitting in the furnace room for a few months, I had begun to become concerned that, once someone here got around to using it, it would be a civilization). The process took about an hour and a half totally, and the result is currently sitting in my fridge while the flavours blend. We'll see how this turns out, but I can announce with confidence right now that it looks tasty.
Now, to preface, I should say that cooking is a hobby in which I partake a substantial amount. I don't make anything that could be considered a "masterpiece," or a unique exercise in culinary art form. Instead, I cook meals and snacks because I prefer it to buying things packaged. Whenever I'm in the kitchen making things they're usually from scratch, with the exception of some canned ingredients or, in today's case, pre-mix.
Lately, my preparations have been increasing in frequency, due in part to my disgusting sleep schedule. I, unfortunately, can no longer sleep in. My internal clock has always been a little haywire. Some months I'll sleep far into the afternoon, others I'll wake up before the rest of my hemisphere. I haven't yet, however, found a way to control this occurrence. I read somewhere (probably a Cracked.com article) that you can control it via your eating habits, but that doesn't seem to help. Typically I don't ingest any material until noon or later, as a personal rule (mostly to keep my weight in check), but doing this hasn't ever altered my sleep schedule. My brain will just rouse me whenever it sees fit. It was a nuisance at first, but I've since learnt to cope in various ways. Making food happens to be one of them.
Submitted for the approval of The Midnight Society, I call this story, "The tale of the botched salsa."
It's safe to say that my favourite, albeit easiest, meal to form is pasta-based. Penne (without the accent because I'm not a Francophony...haha get it?) would have to be my noodle of choice, although traditional spaghetti comes a close second. I have, to date, made several different, large portioned meals using "noodlies", and decided that I ought to take a break, lest I become disenchanted with the ingredient. My grandmother often buys cake mix and other things, leaving them in the cupboard for months to go bad and/or collect dust, unless they're possessed and dance around on the shelf or something. With all this in mind, this morning I made a loaf of pumpkin bread. It would be silly to get into the intricacies of the creation since it was mostly pre-mixed, but it suffices to say it was delicious and perfect. That shit took an hour.
Not to be an egotist or anything.
Then I went to Starbucks. I realize that there's an inherent redundancy in the details of my day, but as someone who rarely leaves his house, these things are tantamount in the story of my existence. I took the long way home, because I was wearing reflective sunglasses; I enjoy people-watching (a story I'll save for another post entirely), and aviators make it really easy to stare at odd-looking individuals without looking like one yourself. But I digress.
When I got home, I still had most of the day to kill. Since I usually spend that time glued to the screen upon which I type these words, I thought it to be a healthy change of scenery to stay away for a while longer. Somehow, my thoughts turned to the plethora of hot peppers my significant other has supplied me with sporadically, to the point where I have so many that I may need to get a second freezer bag for them.
SO I MADE SALSA.
My initial attempt turned out horrid; I used a blender to combine the ingredients in lieu of a food processor. I don't buy kitchenware or machinery when I have what I has thought to be the equivalent sitting there already. To make a long story short, my salsa turned into a congealed mess of vegetable paste that was too spicy to put your nostrils near, let alone allow it clearance into your oesophagus.
Upon second try, sticking closer to the recipe and using one that actually fit the supplies I had with me (canned tomatoes instead of whole fresh ones...the can had been sitting in the furnace room for a few months, I had begun to become concerned that, once someone here got around to using it, it would be a civilization). The process took about an hour and a half totally, and the result is currently sitting in my fridge while the flavours blend. We'll see how this turns out, but I can announce with confidence right now that it looks tasty.
September 04, 2012
More on Guerrilla Filmmaking
Before you bust my ass, I know that it wouldn't be [by definition] acceptable to call my filmmaking "guerrilla". I'm certainly not an insurgent performing military operations. However, I feel the name is fitting, since the majority of my time spent bush-jumping is on the property of someone unknown to me and vice versa. Additionally, most of these people would probably be seriously upset if they saw me defiling their painstaking handiwork. Therefore, technically, I am an "irregular", in a way infiltrating hostile territory and striking a vulnerable target.
In all honesty I think it's funny that I pick up my shit and get out of the neighbourhood immediately.
In this case, though, it covers a larger area of description. I think it's deliciously badass (and somewhat narcissistic) to refer to my style of stunt filming this way. What I mean when I say it is that I'm small operations. Mostly it's just me, a camera, and a tripod, trying to set up in a way that catches all the pivotal moments of whatever it is I'm hurting myself with today. Especially when jumping into bushes, I feel like a hit squad because I don't waste time loitering, waiting to be spotted by someone with a cache of firearms sitting in their living room. I typically fill a backpack with essential materials, and sometimes I don't even do that. Diving head first into where is essentially behind suburban enemy lines (a phrase which here means the worst that can happen to me really is getting chastised by a senior citizen) is exponentially more thrilling if you imagine some Clint Eastwood character sitting in front of his bay window in a rocking chair, caressing a rifle, just waiting for an asshole like me to dismantle his hedge clipper penguin art.
The term isn't limited, though, to just bush-jumping; Les Stroud [as mentioned in the video I uploaded this week] could easily get away with calling his practice by the same name. Subsequently, I would consider placing a solitary camera in a tree in order to catch the hilarity that ensues directly below it a form of guerilla filmmaking as well. I wouldn't want to confine it to a definition that doesn't properly represent its diversity, but if I had to, I think I would describe it in whole as, "using limited materials to quickly, sufficiently, and creatively capture the entirety of an action sequence," and even that seems too constricting. It's significant to the definition that whatever content being discussed is largely unscripted and spontaneous. The adverbs are very important here, because without those three words it's just "sticking a camera somewhere retarded to watch someone walk at a dumb angle or something for an hour." I may have paraphrased it relatively well, but it probably does leave out some necessary aspects.
Another element that doesn't apply to everyone is doing it solo (that sounds dirty). I have some, but not as much experience with trying to get a difficult shot creatively when there are others involved. The term is more effective when you recognize "resources" to include individuals, because then being limited to one or two, maybe even three people would still fit the definition. With grandiose stunts, ones that would definitely require two or more angles to capture, especially in a public area, the term stretches to cover trying as hard as possible not to be apprehended (in the event that whatever you're doing could be construed as illegal) or even as loosely as trying to get as much as you can in as short of a time as possible (for instance, between periods of business in a heavily populated area). To this extent, as well, one could consider certain public pranks a form of guerrilla filmmaking, since sometimes you have to leave before your ruse is figured out.
I suppose, at the end of the day, a lot of internet video content could be defined as "guerrilla" the way I'm using it. We stuntmen and pranksters use time and the element of surprise to our advantage. We get as much footage in as little time as possible. We live fast and we die hard. Never forget, never surrender.
Just kidding; I'm really just a dick with a video camera, and no regard for the well-being of shrubbery.
In all honesty I think it's funny that I pick up my shit and get out of the neighbourhood immediately.
In this case, though, it covers a larger area of description. I think it's deliciously badass (and somewhat narcissistic) to refer to my style of stunt filming this way. What I mean when I say it is that I'm small operations. Mostly it's just me, a camera, and a tripod, trying to set up in a way that catches all the pivotal moments of whatever it is I'm hurting myself with today. Especially when jumping into bushes, I feel like a hit squad because I don't waste time loitering, waiting to be spotted by someone with a cache of firearms sitting in their living room. I typically fill a backpack with essential materials, and sometimes I don't even do that. Diving head first into where is essentially behind suburban enemy lines (a phrase which here means the worst that can happen to me really is getting chastised by a senior citizen) is exponentially more thrilling if you imagine some Clint Eastwood character sitting in front of his bay window in a rocking chair, caressing a rifle, just waiting for an asshole like me to dismantle his hedge clipper penguin art.
The term isn't limited, though, to just bush-jumping; Les Stroud [as mentioned in the video I uploaded this week] could easily get away with calling his practice by the same name. Subsequently, I would consider placing a solitary camera in a tree in order to catch the hilarity that ensues directly below it a form of guerilla filmmaking as well. I wouldn't want to confine it to a definition that doesn't properly represent its diversity, but if I had to, I think I would describe it in whole as, "using limited materials to quickly, sufficiently, and creatively capture the entirety of an action sequence," and even that seems too constricting. It's significant to the definition that whatever content being discussed is largely unscripted and spontaneous. The adverbs are very important here, because without those three words it's just "sticking a camera somewhere retarded to watch someone walk at a dumb angle or something for an hour." I may have paraphrased it relatively well, but it probably does leave out some necessary aspects.
Another element that doesn't apply to everyone is doing it solo (that sounds dirty). I have some, but not as much experience with trying to get a difficult shot creatively when there are others involved. The term is more effective when you recognize "resources" to include individuals, because then being limited to one or two, maybe even three people would still fit the definition. With grandiose stunts, ones that would definitely require two or more angles to capture, especially in a public area, the term stretches to cover trying as hard as possible not to be apprehended (in the event that whatever you're doing could be construed as illegal) or even as loosely as trying to get as much as you can in as short of a time as possible (for instance, between periods of business in a heavily populated area). To this extent, as well, one could consider certain public pranks a form of guerrilla filmmaking, since sometimes you have to leave before your ruse is figured out.
I suppose, at the end of the day, a lot of internet video content could be defined as "guerrilla" the way I'm using it. We stuntmen and pranksters use time and the element of surprise to our advantage. We get as much footage in as little time as possible. We live fast and we die hard. Never forget, never surrender.
Just kidding; I'm really just a dick with a video camera, and no regard for the well-being of shrubbery.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)