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Well, fellow followers and travelers with Galaxy Sailor, it was a great Sunday night for us over here GSP Headquarters. This past weekend was LAWeb Fest, a festival dedicated to web series from around the world. This was there second year of the festival, which was created by Michael Ajakwe, a twenty plus year veteran of television and film. When I found out last year about LAWeb Fest but couldn’t get in I vowed to make sure I was on it by the first day of applications. This year, The Last Stand made it in, and was one of the top twenty web series to be named by LAWeb Fest.
The award ceremony took place this last weekend, amongst a couple of days of panel discussions, viewing of other web shows, and guest appearances by industry folks. Unfortunately, I could go, but Shawn Mesman (aka Tenison in TLS) lives in LA now, and was able to use my tickets. He sat in for TLS and was there when they announced our victories!
In all, we won three awards. I won for best writing in a web series, and best creator/producer in a web series, and Ken Webster of Innervoice Studios won for best score in a web series. I consider this one little victory on the road to whatever the next victory is!
Now, on to the new camera. Yes, I did get a DSLR, after all the ranting I have done. Why, you ask, are you such a hypocrite? That may be a Nature/Nurture answer, but the better question is why did I get a DSLR. In my previous rant, I stated that my issue really lies in the DSLR owner who suddenly discovers he has the capabilities to shoot video footage with his camera. My complaint was that an entire industry of people are rising up and claiming to know and do video or film simply because they have a camera that can record video. There is a lot more to it than just hitting record, and I am, quite honestly, angry at the number of people that have come to me to ask me to either fix their footage or tell them how the do video/film work. It’s my job, and I’m not going to do that.
At the same time, I cannot deny that buying a Panasonic Lumix GH2 with the 14-140 lens gave me more flexibility and better results than if I went out and bought the comparable lens package for my XL H1a. It would have been at least another $1k to buy the lens that the Lumix package came with, and it shoots great full frame HD. It is a fantastic camera. By no means am I now a photographer. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am shooting pics with it for FaceBook, but if someone tried to hire me, I would tell them to go to one of my professional friends. If they want video, well, then I’m the right person to talk to!
Now, for my rant. If you are uninterested in my soap boxing, then this is a good time to step away. If you are also a Firefly or Serenity fan, you may want to take warning here. As I am a fan, I am also a realist in that the people on the show are characters played by real people. While I may enjoy the character of Jayne Cobb, and appreciate the performance put in by Adam Baldwin, I also think he is a ID-10-T (computer folks will get that one, Adam won’t).
So here is the deal. I followed Adam on the twitters. He is a very active twatter, because he is a very outspoken Republican Conservative Christian. He hates Obama and states so all the time. He battles against the Democrats from the comfort of his home at all hours of the afternoon. He rages against the Unions who enslave us, while comforting in the fact that his SAG card keeps him well paid. Baldwin sent out a tweet last week stating that Obama’s attacks on Libya are nation building tactics, and that this act constituted impeachment level responses from the Republicans. Now, I disagree. I saw our move as protecting civilians, and I tweeted that back to him, stating “It is unfortunate that we cant see the difference between protecting civilians & invading nations. I guess that is why we are still in 2 wars.” Baldwin’s response was multi-layered after this.
First off, I do think we are protecting civilians, but I also think it is in an oil rich nation. We don’t protect civilians in a lot of countries, and I wish the world (not us – the world) would protect them. The US has a less than good record with who we choose to protect, support, and even influence. The Taliban were once our allies, as was Saddam Hussein. Most of the Middle East was a land of nomads, waring tribes, and feudal lords. After WWII, we started to divide these properties with boundaries, something these people weren’t accustom to. We left weapons behind, or gave some of them weapons to boost their strength in the region, but only so much. We placed people in power that were suddenly Princes and Kings. We allowed them to take our money and give us their one resource: oil. We have never helped these countries join the 19th century, let alone the 20th or 21st century.
Anyway, Baldwin retweeted my response to him, which includes my handle on twitter, for those that don’t tweet. Everyone on his side of the political spectrum and follow him immediately knew who I was. My inbox and my respond box was inundated with attacks from people. Claims of anit-Americanism, telling me to seek god, telling me I know nothing of history, international relations, or political policy. Somehow, I was engaged with people that were masterminds at all of these things, and they all happen to be following Jayne Cobb, the savior of Canton.
Baldwin went one better though. I giggled it off and wrote: “Haha I finally get RTed by a Firefly hero & it had to be political. Ur still my big damn hero.” Thinking that we had opposing political views, but we could still be movie star and fan. But the attacks still came from his followers. Then his response finally came to my big damn hero reply. He said to me: “Sorry, but you should apologize for ur ignorant statement and move on.” My heart actually sank. It was now a personal attack. The RTing was a personal attack to get his followers to come at me. For no better reason than differing views. I stated back to him: “I just have a different point of view on things. Shouldnt apologize for different points of view.” To which Baldwin’s response was: “Ur point of view is ignorant & not worthy of respect. U should apologize.”
My heart sank even more. Wow, Jayne Cobb is coming after me. I had to block seventeen people would continued through the day to respond to and message me. I sat on Baldwin’s statement for about three hours, and on the final minutes before I went to bed, I responded to him. In the end I apologized. I said: “Im sorry I looked up to u, sorry I followed u, & sorry ur and idiot.” Then I removed and block Adam Baldwin, the man they call Jayne, from my twitter account.
Here’s the thing; he and I differ on where our policies lie, but our hearts are in the same place. We want what is best for our nation, our people, and the way we interact with the world. We can argue our points, but they should never be personal attacks. I am making a general statement here, but he and his followers made the point hard to argue: republicans attack people who don’t have their opinion. That makes no sense to me, but when you are that narrow in scope, that limited in understanding, I can see where you would allow your fear to rule as a cudgel, smashing down all things that could possibly break down your pillow fort of reality. Adam Baldwin and his minion attacked me because they could never want to try to understand me, or believe that what I want or that my view is just a different path than theirs. That is what freedom is supposed to be. It’s about difference, about choice, about mistakes, about possibilities. Freedom comes in different forms, and it has different safety nets and different risks, depending on the person. A porn star is going to have a different perspective on the world than a person who has never had sex. You can never expect two people to come to the same place at the same time with their views on the world. That would be devastating and catastrophic, as well as just plain boring.
Adam Baldwin. You’re kind of a dick. I’ll still watch Firefly and Serenity.
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Things have really been happening here at GSP and I am excited to report in on all that. I am also not going to rant or offend on this outing. Hope that works for those of you that are followers.
First off, myself and Kelley Baker finished our promo video for The Dairy Producers of Oregon. The video was presented at a recent trade show, and was a great success. We are expecting autographs, nominations for awards, and rose petals where we walk any day now. In all seriousness, we are very pleased with the ad firm we worked with, and we are really happy about the content we created for them When it is available to post publicly, I’ll have it out here for all you lactose tolerant folks.
Last week was a big week for reeling in prospective clients. I have a meeting with some folks at Things From Another World, the distribution arm of Dark Horse Comics. To say that I am giddy at the prospects of doing video work with or for them is an understatement. I am all fidgety just typing it in. As things unfold, I will be letting you all in on it.
Two phone app companies are also looking for video work, and I am excited to get kicking on these babies. The first is GlanceID, a mobile application platform best summed up like this:
GlanceID was designed to increase productivity and offer clarity in the rapidly growing and chaotic mobile world. Saving contacts/interactions to your GlanceBOOK and/or ‘watching’ selected Glances, you empower yourself to be connected to your favorites!
I have two video concepts in the works for them right now, as well for the company Ulynk, a mobile marketing platform also best summed up this way:
uLynk is an online based, mobile marketing platform that helps consumers and businesses connect through search engines and SMS marketing. We do this by providing businesses with a web page on our search engine friendly directory that is integrated with an SMS messaging platform that enables them to send instant promotions to their customer’s cell phones.
I am looking forward to these videos!
Recently progress on two music videos, one being a zombie apocalypse video for Cold Metal is in the final special effects/color phase, and a music video for FEVER has begun shooting for the song WHITE WITCH for their new album. I love shooting music videos and I am excited for more and more to come! So please bring them!
Finally, A Deed without a Name is funded and preproduction starts in the next week. I am jazzed to have this off the ground, and am looking for the momentum of this film to carry through in the next few weeks. As well, I have more scripts to read and work on for more short films, as well as a TV pilot that has landed in my lap. Whew, I am really excited for all the great stuff coming my way.
Stay tuned! Great stuff on the horizon!
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So let me get all of this lined up, because I am having some issues with my logic. Wisconsin was not in a budget crisis at all until Governor Walker passed a sweeping tax cut bill that eliminated $140 million dollars from corporations. He wishes to make up the newly created deficit by eliminating the bargaining rights of government workers (which was just passed by a loop hole the other day). The governor wishes to make up the gap that he created by eliminating a non-monetary part of the rights of workers so that he can then eliminate jobs, pensions, and reduce pay. Am I getting all of this right.
The starting salary for a teacher in Wisconsin is $25,222.
The average salary for a school teacher in Wisconsin is $46,390.
(from The Teacher Portal)
While the governor pursues these terrible miscreants of total monetary debauchery, does everyone know that not a single Wall Street big wig responsible for the melt down of the global economy has spent one second in any type of incarceration. Maydoff was not part of any of the big institutions, and was, in fact running the same scheme that all the big firms were, just on his own instead of with Meryl Lynch, JP Morgan, or Goldman Sachs. So, Maydoff only counts as the one bone thrown to us and fed to a moronic media institution.
Wisconsin is in the hole $140 million because the governor gave tax breaks to wealthy corporation at the expense of the tax payers. Wall Street lost $4 trillion as of September 16th, 2008. Tax payer money. President Bush then gave them TARP money (troubled asset relief program) to make up the losses of our money. The system was deregulated so that they could invest and gamble with our money that was put away for saving and retirement. You will never see that money. You will never see your retirement. Entire families lost their homes, jobs, and even their lives. All of this because a bunch of greedy, worthless, no good, worms stole our money and lost it on their own decadence.
Now, can someone please tell me again how it is the the collective bargaining rights of people making $25,000 a year is effecting the overall shit storm that is happening in Wisconsin? Because what I see is a complete break down of our political and financial system on a completely universal scale. It may be the one true partisan thing happening in politics.
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So, if you follow and read, you know that I am doing commercial work in film and video. I am not trying to build an ad agency, or even a company. I would love to work for a company so I could do what I do and not worry about the “business” end of it. The fact remains, until I get said job, I have to conduct myself as a business, and in a business like manner.
That said, I am a person of opinion. Really, aren’t we all? Even if you say nothing, that is still your opinion: to sit back silently and hope that the monsters go away without your involvement. Allowing yourself to continue on with your life, because that is way more important than changing the world, being aware, or even giving a crap. Giving a crap takes work. Giving someone crap is much easier.
So I have an opinion, and as someone who is trying to sell themselves to work, I imagine I am to be formless, of no opinion, so as to be general enough to be hired by any or by all. Sterile in who I am or how I may believe. To be honest, I don’t sit well with that, which leads me to the following pieces of pure opinion.
What the hell is wrong in the world? I really don’t know. I am greatly disappointed in all of us. So we invaded a country 8 years ago with the thought that they may have dangerous stuff. They used that dangerous stuff on their own people, but if they used that on us…well, we better invade just to be on the safe side. Not to mention that country we invaded a year and a half before that. They were bad tenants, but as a nation and an ideology, we had supported them for a long time. Now we fight two wars in places that we didn’t need to fight wars.
Then, there are the people that were much worse than those two countries, and we don’t intervene. In fact, we found ways to support and bolster them as to not tarnish our relations and to keep our oil or other goods flowing. We became nation builders in nations that were biting the hand that fed them. All the while, leaving others behind while confusing their ideologies with ours, creating a mix a broken religions, broke social constructs, and broke economies.
Now we see the people of these lands rising up, fighting their oppression as best they can, most without good supplies or weapons, or the training to fight an army. Why aren’t we helping. We went in when no one wanted us, and we stand back and watch when they dead pile up. France opposed us going into the first two countries, as did most of Europe, but we ran in there anyway. Now we see these dictators striking against their own people, and we don’t step up. France wants to. FRANCE. FRANCE wants to step up and we are pansies about it. FRANCE! What the hell. When France steps up and wants to take action and we are lagging, there is something really wrong with that.
Westboro Baptist Church has won a court battle in which they can legally picket funerals. They can picket and yell and scream and tell you that your child or your parent or someone that you love is dead because America lets gays run the country and god hates you for it. First off, the gays aren’t running anything except in the shadows. LGBT folks are still in hiding, still living in shame, because we won’t let them live without it simply because they love someone. So thinking that they are a secret Illuminati faction is wildly imaginative at best. Secondly, if you are a Jesus fan, he kind of told us that everyone is forgiven with that whole second act book he did. It’s called the New Testament. It’s the one you are adhering to when you are ignoring the stoning of women and the death for those eating shellfish parts of the Old Testament. You see, people are judgy – we judge. A lot. Even when your really nice god says “Hey, don’t do that. Kinda my job. You don’t get to see all the things I do, so, yeah, knock that shit off.”
The argument is should it be allowed, by law, to let people like those slack jaws to picket at the funeral of anyone dead? My question is, why does there have to be a law when we should be socially scrutinizing the people that exercise their first amendment rights. If we, as Americans, were paying attention, we would picket these people into enough humiliation as to get them to never picket another funeral.
You want to know the best parts of all of this? OK, I’ll tell you so you can see where my logic takes me. WBC is located in Topeka, Kansas. They have about 100 followers, almost all are family relation. While their congregation is small, the Phelps are loaded. They spend tons of money on advertisements, trips to picket, and lots of cash to spend on court hearings. You see, the Phelps have a law firm in Topeka. They are known as the Go-To people in Topeka. While most people claim to not hold with the values of the WBC, they do believe in the Phelps ability to get them off the hook and defend them on legal matters. So the Phelps make a killing in defending people willing to pay. Here is the kicker folks. If you are giving the Phelps money, you support them – END OF STORY. IF you are willing to pay for them but don’t agree with their ideology, it means that you simply don’t care where your money goes as long as you are off the hook. If you give your money to people who are, in turn, funding terrorism, you are looked at as a contributor to the financial success of those terrorists. Why is that not the case with these bastards?
Really, people of Topeka? You are ok giving your money to them. I would never, ever give money to something like that. I don’t give my money to WalMart because I don’t like what they do. Every single penny that any person has ever spent on the Phelps and on WBC is blood money toward picketing innocents and bravery. Every single person they have picketed was brave and/or innocent. Why are we not socially extracting these people like the cancer they are?
Now I wait to see if anybody thinks that I shouldn’t work for them or with them because I had to get some stuff off my chest.
I’m sure there is more to come.
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Yes, another DSLR rant by me. I think this is the ultimate reason why I take issue with DSLR cameras. I was recently on a shoot, where some of my equipment was rented but I wasn’t shooting. There were no less than five Canon 5D mark II cameras on that set. There were enough in people hands that there could have been more and I couldn’t keep track. It was a combination photo shoot/video shoot, and they were shooting all on the 5D’s. I watched this production go down and it didn’t take long to realize – these folks were in over their heads. The whole deal was a sort of train wreck. While they were accomplished photographers, shooting film/video is totally different.
Look, my cameras shoot still as a bonus to the video they are designed to shoot. I don’t call myself a photographer. Quite the contrary. When people ask me to, I tell them to get someone who is a pro at that and have them do it. They know what they are doing. I have the equipment but not the technique, style, or understanding of still photography that a pro would.
Put a still DSLR camera in the hands of a still photographer, and they are awesome with it…until, it seems, they realize “Hey, I can be a video/film guy, too.” I have been on two shoots with DSLR shooters that didn’t know anything about video, and I have dealt with half a dozen of the same folks. They may know some basics to film techniques, but most haven’t had a clue. To top it off, they don’t know what to do with the footage when it comes to editing, and exporting it out. Not that all still photographers are this way, but the point is a lot of people are claiming something they are not simply because they have the equipment that can do it.
If I had a fast car, I would never tell people that I’m a race car driver. THAT IS ABSURD! The equipment doesn’t make you good at what you do if you don’t already know what you are doing. Just because your Canon 5D shoots awesome footage, you aren’t a film maker. I have people asking me about codecs, editing, compression, or how to fix their stuff. I have to tell them F*&$ NO! You go out and take someones money, claiming to know what you are doing, and then you can’t do it? That’s makes you a fraud and I will let you stew in that, because you took business away from me for no better reason than you were a blind pig with an acorn: your camera shoot good video.
So with that said, I think I am going to buy the new Panasonic Lumex GH2. I am doing this because it shoots great video. I am a video shooter, not a still photographer. I will not advertise myself as a still photographer. Don’t judge me.
My next point is how I wish to talk about how rich I am. My wealth, is pretty huge. Massive. I am a rich, wealthy, snobbish movie maker. Greedy in fact. Though I am completely without money, I am measuring all of this by my desire to work in film, the accomplishments I have made over the last two years, and the fact that I am doing what I love, even though I made just enough money last year to keep my “Poverty” classification one more tax season. I say all of this because it seems that there are those in Oregon that wish to get rid of the tax incentives for film because film making is only a game for the rich. Well, if I was rich, I wouldn’t need a tax incentive. My incentive to do film is one that is personal, as this is my passion in life as a creative/science/technical person. I love the aspects of film and it is the only thing that seems to stimulate the parts of my brain that other avenues don’t.
I am rather surprised by the people that talk about how the incentives for film in Oregon (proposed at 10 million dollars by out governor this year) are under attack considering the massive incentives that corporations get every year for the work they do. Now, a measure of such things would be how many are employed, how many benefit; all the same things one would think when it comes to investing in something. If you look at the movies and shows made in Oregon, compared to the incentives that have been given, and the returns on those, I think you will see that no one made a killing, but everyone benefited a lot better than the incentivised programs of Nike or Intel. You will also notice that the money spent on film making in Oregon were dollars spent in Oregon on Oregonians. Not overhead costs for upper level administrators while the manufactured parts were done elsewhere, namely over seas. Those dollars are spent here on people working here.
I am a rich, bloated, greedy film maker not because I get all the tax and lottery dollars and spend it on big cars, fast women, and swells apartments. It’s because I love what I do, and from that I hope I do it well. It is the richest think I have ever had or done in my life. No amount of money ever made up for the fact that I do what I love in life.
I am now ready to cash your checks.
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Yes, you read that right. Cow films. If you were in India, you would be filming a god…which is a cow…that gives milk…which is why I was filming the cow to begin with. I was recently hire to be the DP/Camera operator for a film involving the Oregon Dairy Counsel. I was hired by Kelley Baker aka The Angry Filmmaker. You may know his work because it’s angry. Or because you watched Finding Forester. Anyway, we shoot for two days in Tillamook, Oregon, most specifically on the days when it snowed in Tillamook for the first time in something like a million years. Literally, Tillamook has not seen snow since the dawn of the Pleistocene. That’s the kind of shoot days I generate. I have seen the edit, though, and I must say it look marvelous!
Our music video marches on with the last major day of shooting completed with machine guns being present in downtown Portland. I have to say this was a highlight for me. I had big guns in the streets, and I am quite pleased with myself. We only had one person who questioned anything, other wise, people just stared at us and kept going. The edit is rough and I am zeroing in on a final! When the band releases the video, I will have it out all over the place.
Now, as to scuttling your career. I don’t that I can say how to scuttle your career in three moves or less, but I will say that I continue to have lessons in integrity and value in what anyone would call LIFE. I have had some issues with a company here in town that owed me money for working. Months I have toiled to get paid, with no resolution. Oddly, as I look back, one of the first work opportunities I had in town was one in which I did what would account to be thousands of dollars in work, and yet I only ever saw $50. I pulled the plug when I recognized that I wasn’t getting any where. I had been accomplishing feats of ledger domain and semantic intrepidity to make myself believe that I was going to get rich or famous with what I was a part of. My attitude was in the wrong place, and I didn’t know it until much later.
I will say this. I think there are several people that I think are scuttling their credibility as well as there ability to make film in this town. I know for my attitude with that first group of folks that if I had never done that work, suffered through all that I had done, and persevering I wouldn’t be here today, doing what I love.