Apologies

Since I said a few things about Erik a few blogs ago, I feel the need to set the record straight. Erik is not just being an egotist. He’s been very helpful with the process of the film, he’s given up the money, he’s given up some of his time, so I have to come straight about him. Erik, if you’re reading this, I apologize for the things I said here. I just felt like after what you’ve been telling me for three years, I just had to get that out of my system. Thank you for understanding.

Go Go Gadget Renderman!

When will the folks over in Tinseltown ever learn that a full blown CGI overhaul in every animated movie is not a good idea? Now Inspector Gadget has fallen victim to the CGI animation hysteria with “Inspector Gadget’s Greatest Caper Ever.” Click here for some screenshots. You know, I was never a huge Inspector Gadget fan, but I always found it to be fun and harmless. Now the first looks of this straight-to-video mess are just creepy-looking.

A Week in Review

Alright, it’s 11:00 PM, I’ve taken Unisom and I’m tired, but I’m still gonna stay up a bit longer for “Robot Chicken,” but as I look down on my unclipped fingernails, I realize now is a good time to blog… even if it comes out delirious. So here goes:

First off, remember that video I mentioned before that I made of my trip to Mexico? I believe I blogged about it. Well apparently, it didn’t show again this Sunday and it’s being bumped back again. And yeah, people have been wanting to see the video for weeks now, but it keeps getting bumped back for one reason or another. Peachy-keen. I’m pretty sure though that Andrew Stanton isn’t going to see it because he’s never at church anymore. Probably because too many kids bugged him about “Finding Nemo.” And I wouldn’t know about Brad Bird either. However, a Mr. Roger Krakow who I went on the trip with happens to own a video company in town, so I might be lucky there. And he is featured in the videos a lot along with his family. So there’s a chance if I ever need a job in the future. I just hope Erik doesn’t find out about it yet.

Speaking of which, Erik’s the guy who’s paying me to do Amber. He’s been harassing me about it for weeks now. I’m not slacking off on him, I’m getting the job done. But the problem is, I’m spending my work time doing all the hardest-to-do stuff, so I can get that out of the way. That means basically that I spend most, if not all five hours of my work time working on a single shot that takes forever because I have to construct the background from scratch, apply special effects and compositing and do a number of heavy duty things I couldn’t even begin to explain. But since he doesn’t realize how much work goes into each shot, he’s accusing me of ripping him off. Makes me wonder how many times he accuses friends of ripping him off, especially ones who he offers to pay.

Besides, he pretty much told me last week that he doesn’t care about the majority of the movie, just the parts of it that he’s in. And that’s what he wants to see. So he keeps badgering me about that even when I have to finish other important things for a variety of reasons I’ve explained to him and he seems to like to dismiss. So he’s bugged me about it and told me to do stuff with him over and over again, like I’m going to change my answer every time. I’m done with most of his stuff anyway. What am I supposed to do, work on it all over again? Forget it. Right now I’m starting to think whether or not I should do another movie again, if he’s going to act like this.

And that’s not the only job trouble I’m having. Yesterday, I was working at my other job with Sebastian, the fellow in the wheelchair. Do any of you know who Melba Beals is? I ran into her and her two sons while Sebastian and I were at the mall. She was one of the Little Rock 10, the first ten black students to attend a white high school in the South. I’m friends with one of her sons. So I explained who she was to Sebastian and I asked “Can you imagine getting a regular high school education and having to go through all that?” (referring to torture from other students, bad language and attacking Melba with fireballs.) What he heard me say though is “Seb, you didn’t get a regular high school education,” which is not at all what I meant. So he tells me that he got a regular education, even though he’s in an electric wheelchair, has a major case of cerebral palsy and math skills that even a Kindergartener could do better than. I should know because I tried helping him in math. He can’t even add or subtract the smallest numbers.

So now, he’s brought up his education. All I had to do was ask him questions about it and he was all over me like I was attacking him. He even told me that he got a better education than I did, which was just plain rude bullshit. I mean yeah, he apparently took 6 classes a semester which is a regular in some cases, but considering his lack of mental processing ability, how much of that do you think was a pass just because he’s a special case student? Yeah, most of it. Now, I may sound mean bringing this up, but after I’ve been attacked by my boss who thought I was attacking him and decided to fight me, I don’t exactly feel like being too nice to everyone right now.

And so now that I’ve finished a full night’s sleep, I’m continuing writing this post the next morning. Saturday night, I went to my grandparent’s house to visit. Sebastian calls me up on his cell phone, telling me that his younger sister was wanting to pursue a modeling career too. For some odd reason, that spells bad news for him. See, he actually hates his sister. The way the family is set up, it seems to me like he and his sister couldn’t care less about one another. Even though she was nice enough to give him Internet access through her cable connection. Now he’s freaking out about her wanting a modeling career because it’s his dream and he doesn’t want her to have it. His mom usually dismisses this sort of thing as sibling rivalry. As a sibling myself, I can tell you that my siblings and I buried the hatchet a long time ago. These two are 23 and 17 and still fight wars with each other, and while I’m not too fond of her myself, I’m not going to compete with her or try to ruin her chances like Sebastian wants to.

Phew, there. That’s all the troubles of the week mounted up into one giant mess there. Boy, am I glad to be back on my Prozac. And now it’s time for some good news. I FINALLY got my new bicycle. I know most people my age drive, but since I don’t quite have that piece of education yet I’m going to do the best with what I have. And boy, this baby is sweet. It’s a Giant brand bicycle with dual shock absorbers, 8x speed, handlebar gearshifts and a pant leg protector. I love it. The best birthday present I’ve ever had.

And now for the bad news again. The paintball tickets I bought several months ago that were good for a year: I feel liked I’ve been dicked over. The closest location that I can find that they are valid for is over 300 miles away. And my brother and I are set up to go paintballing tomorrow. Just when I thought I was gonna have a good time, the best laid schemes of mice and men went awry. Looks like I’m gonna have to do some quick replanning for tomorrow. So excuse me while I end this post on a sour note:

FUCK!

Cable Teehee

Boy, am I glad that my parents pulled the plug on cable when we were little. The biggest reason for it was that me and my siblings would spend too much time on it and it wasn’t exactly healthy. Now that we have cable TV, not only can I watch what I missed out on but sift through all the crap as well.

Last night while babysitting for some really wonderful kids, the DVD player started malfunctioning and we wound up watching cartoons instead. “The Fairly Oddparents” is one show that I watched that I decided to bring up here. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, it’s about a young boy named Timmy who’s not too bright in a lot of his decisions. He has two fairy godparents who follow him around in all the episodes that grant all of his wishes and bicker at each other at the drop of a pin.

In last night’s episode, Timmy’s parents, who are completely unmotivated to be good parents wind up on the “Bad Parent Hunter” TV show pursued by a Steve Irwin wannabe after letting Timmy do all kinds of dangerous things. It finally dawns on them that they should be good parents and be more concerned about the wellbeing of their child, which apparently translates as being in your kids face all the time and making yourself look like the bad guy. All this eventually making Timmy wish that he had to do the opposite of what his parents said, causing all kinds of damage by the time the episode is done.

What kind of world do we live in when popular television shows for kids try and teach them that parents (or even grownups in general) are stupid and/or evil? Seriously, this is not the first time I’ve seen this happen. Remember those Chuck E. Cheese commercials that showed that parents were all boring people who didn’t know how to have fun? Or how about that cereal ad where the dad tries to steal cereal from his one year old daughter and gets thrown around by her instead? During the commercial break last night, there was even a Fruit Roll-up ad for a new kind of roll-up that put colorful designs on your tongue and the kids at the “Fruit Roll-up” factory tested the apparent coolness of this product by seeing how a robotic parent reacted to a child with designs on their tongue. Needless to say, the robotic parent blew a fuse. Then there was an advertisement for “The Kids Next Door,” a show about a bunch of secret agent kids who launch missions against adults who want to ruin their fun lives in a world where all kids are good guys and most adults are bad guys.

Why do these shows and advertisements appeal to our kids so much? Because they all confirm what kids want to believe: that they are never the bad guys and that grown-us are evil or just plain stupid. Well you know what? It’s time we cut the crap on that sort of lousy advertising ploy because it’s bullshit. Appealing to kids in this manner is just going to teach them to defy authority. Then when they grow up and rebel too much as a teenager, people are just going to say “Oh, that’s just a phase that every kid goes through.” Well, Mr. Smartypants, I never smoked weed or found some way to get myself in trouble with the law in high school because my television never taught me to defy authority. And the kids that grew up with this sort of chip on their shoulder are the ones that most likely will get in trouble.

About time I reported

Just to show that I’m not some evil fascist who prides on not noticing the obvious, I would like to take some time on my blog to acknowledge the terrorist attacks which occurred in London last week. I hereby offer my condolences to those affected and pray that the English, specifically Tony Blair who hasn’t got much of a track record fighting Al-Qaeda, realize why they should be with us on this whole “War on Terror” thing that’s been going on for almost four years. That’s just my thoughts on it though.

I also have acknowledged that people all over the United States with different political backgrounds will and have already used this tragedy to further their own political agenda. Who hasn’t? Even a few anarchists who I’ve come to know have used this to further their agenda to destroy faith in our system and others. The reason? Because the U.S. was responsible for 9/11 and other terrorist attacks. And they’ve probably made out Britain to look like the enemy as well, all when it’s blatantly obvious that the only reason for these attacks is because the terrorists who do this shit just want to kill everyone else who doesn’t agree with their fascist system of thinking. And it looks like they want anyone else they can get involved. But it’s all our fault, right anarchists?

Is Nothing Sacred?

And now it’s time for me to update with a little news on the “Wonderful World of Disney.” Not having been satisfied with their straight to video sequels, remakes of their classics and a million other things that I could list but don’t have time to, Disney has decided on the ultimate remake of all time:

Snow White And The Seven Kung Fu Monks: Disney sets movie sights on China

As well as two theme parks in the region, Disney is looking to make its presence felt in China with more traditional filmmaking ways as well. In somewhat animation related news, and seemingly putting an end to rumors of a sequel to Walt's original, The Guardian newspaper in the UK today reports that "the Wicked Queen will not know what hit her - Snow White is about to be transformed into a martial arts epic with Shaolin monks replacing the seven dwarves of the original Grimm Brothers fairytale. In a sign of the times, Disney is behind the kung fu retelling of its 1937 animated classic, which is part of an intensifying strategy to make inroads into the Chinese cinema market ahead of Hollywood rivals. Yuen Woo-ping, fight choreographer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Matrix trilogy, Kill Bill and Kung Fu Hustle, has been recruited to direct the film, which will be shot in China later this year. Tentatively titled Snow And The Seven, the story - scripted by Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Chabon - will be set in a British concession of colonial China in the 1880s". For more on Disney's plans, read on here: [More...]

No need to write a fancy script here, folks. I got your story right here.

In this rendition of “Snow White,” Snow is an English princess on a trip to visit China whose wicked stepmother (aka The Bloody Queen of England) wants dead after looking into her imported Chinese teacup and reading the leaves, telling her that “Buddha say Snow White must hover like butterfly.” The Queen, disguised as a concubine, sneaks into a Chinese trade town and hired the first man who comes on to her to kill Snow White, but after the man leaves Snow in the woods for dead, she is found by Fatty Cho, the meditating Shaolin monk (played by Sammo Hung) who brings her to the ancient Shaolin temple, where she is revived by medicinal herbs and trained in the martial arts so she can take her revenge.

But the queen is not finished yet. Not satisfied with being rid of Snow White, The Queen looks to a Chinese Shaman who casts a spell on her, transforming her into a ninja witch. Actress Pei-pei Cheng will take over the role at this point, reprising her character of “Jade Fox” from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Then, when she invades the Shaolin Temple one night to take her revenge, she and Snow have a fantastic showdown. BUT, poor Snow White is taken town by the “Invincible Fist”/”Wonder Jinx Palm”/”Deadly chest slapping technique” and the witch gets away.

The 7 Shaolin monks, not knowing how to cure her from this injury, take her to the one man who knows… Wong Fei Hung. And since Wong Fei Hung also happens to run a militia in his hospital, the 7 Shaolin Monks and Wong Fei Hung’s army team up to take on the evil forces of the invading British army and it’s the most spectacular Kung Fu battle between the Chinese and the Brits since “Once Upon a Time in China.” And when all looks lost for the 7 Shaolin Monks, Fatty Cho accidentally kills the witch in some comical manner while searching for food. And from there on, Snow White assumes the throne and works to create a bond between the British and the Chinese that is sure to be a tremendous historical inaccuracy, but the kids will buy it anyway. Either that or Snow will abandon the throne to live in peace with the Monks. However Disney decided to bastardize their own movie.

But seriously, is this the kind of thing that we have to look forward to from a company that used to set the standards for every other company out there? Just plain homogony? I sure hope I’m wrong about this.

Update 7/05

Well, I couldn’t help but notice that I hadn’t updated my blog in nearly a month, so I decided to finally get off my ass and report what’s up.

For the week of June 19th, I went to Tijuana Mexico. I was encouraged by a few somewhat less pious friends of mine to “go get some ass” in Tijuana, but considering that I was going with my church youth group and don’t do that shit in the first place, I decided not to, mm-kay? Besides, I had much more important things to do within the course of the week. Stuff that I didn’t know I was getting into when I first signed on for the trip.

But before I go into that, first I should explain what the trip was actually about. See, my church goes to this orphanage in Tijuana called the Casa De La Esperanza “The House of Hope”) every several months to do repairs on the orphanage’s facilities. For example, this time around we built a rock wall, made curtains, built a new den for the and began production on a ten room shower (which should be finished next time we go down there.) We also get to spend lots of time with the kids down at the orphanage, but I signed up to go down there thinking that I would be engaging in this type of labor myself. I was wrong.

Weeks before the trip, I was contacted/called up/e-mailed by the two people who were leading the trip: the Pastor’s wife, Leta, and Chad, the guy with the biggest beard in our church. I should know because I have the second biggest beard. Anyhoo, they both contacted me about doing a video presentation of the trip. Leta wanted one 3 minute presentation of the trip to show in church during services and one 15 minute presentation to show people who might be interested in investing in the church’s activities and anyone else who wanted a copy. I thought about it and it didn’t seem to check out with me. I figured with the amount of work I have to do this summer (working on my own movie and working as Sebastian’s aide) it would be highly inefficient for me to engage in this project. Especially since I remember promising Erik months ago that I would not engage in anymore film projects until “Amber” was finished. I like to keep to my word, so I told them that the most I could offer them was maybe some pictures that I took on the trip.

So this other guy, David, comes along. He goes to my church and takes film classes at College of Marin. More than I did. He should be able to do the video perfectly fine, right? Wrong. Sure, he started doing it and got some interviews with people ahead of time, but a week before the trip goes on, he gets kicked out of his apartment and can’t go on the trip because he needs to find a new place to live. So now, I’m the only one on the trip who has any video editing experience whatsoever and the whole church is relying on me to do it. Total stress fest! Fortunately for me, Chad decided to lighten my load by having the church fund my expedition on the trip and lending me his laptop to use on the trip to edit video with. Total relief. Chad was awesome. He even bought a fire wire card for his laptop with the church’s money just to use on the trip. There’s a real pal.

So on Sunday, June 19th, I began my video production by the filming the people going on the trip packing up the large buses we would be going in. By the way, if you haven’t grabbed a sandwich for lunch now, but you intend on finishing this post, I highly suggest you go make one because you’re gonna be here for a while. I dumped the footage to Chad’s computer the next day and began editing while we were in Mexico. It was a two day ride just getting down there and we had to spend the night at a Motel 6. Can you imagine being stuck in a van for nearly ten hours? Yowza! The good thing though was that I got to watch “Batman Forever” at the motel after having seen “Batman Begins” in the theatres the past Saturday. Got to compare the two. The new one is darker and better.

The bad news is, I probably should have gone to sleep instead because we woke up at 7:00 the next morning and I was tired as hell. But it was something to get used to. For the rest of the week, we would all be getting up at 7:00 and the little kids at the orphanage would come in and jump on our beds if we didn’t. I would spend almost every day of the week running around with my video camera taping everything I thought might be good in the video, then retreating to the dormitories where I would become king of the bedroom, deciding who would come in and who would not. See, the little Mexican kids, as sweet as they were, would usually spend a lot of the time by my mattress on the floor because I had all the cool electronic stuff they wanted to play with. The computer, the cameras, the CD player, everything. It was a good chance for me to practice my Spanish though, especially words like “no” which happens to be a word not exclusive to the English language, thank God.

So yeah, the trip was good, the kids were great, we got a lot of work done and then some. And since the kids were so awesome, they’re getting their own video montages in my 15 minute presentation. What was also fun though was going to Rosarita, a little tourist town that’s several miles away from Tijuana. We had dinner there one night and then split up for a night on the town going to little shops and the like while down there. I got a few fancy cigarette lighters and some gifts for my folks, while some of the high school kids from our group got knives and other dangerously cool stuff. It didn’t dawn on us until later that if we crossed the border back the U.S. and got stopped by the federalis, we would be in deep shit if they found out we bought knives. After all, I did hear that the last time we were down there, Leta got in trouble for taking home Cuban cigars. Imagine what they would charge us for knives. But we got home safely anyway, even having brought back live birds with us that would have died down there.

I think though that the most fun we ever had on the trip was the last night we were down there. Another guy in our group, Roger, decided to show us a neat trick with the lighters we bought and some ordinary aroma spray. Did you know that if you cover the palm of your hand in aroma spray and light it on fire you can set your hand on fire for a split second and not get burnt at all? It’s good fun if you know how to do it right. I brought a webcam down there with me and we recorded ourselves lighting ourselves on fire. Awesome stuff. If you wanna see, e-mail me and we can arrange something. Hell, I didn’t stop until I singed my leg hairs off. Good times.

But back to reality, I continued to edit the video. By the end of the week, I hadn’t nearly come close to finishing the 15 minute video and it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be able to show anything to my church the following Sunday. Fortunately for me, they allowed me another week to finish it. Good stuff, although I think that since I didn’t exactly finish it for this past Sunday like I thought I would, some people might be getting antsy. But they can wait a little bit longer. It’s almost done anyway. Only thing is I haven’t told Erik that I’m working on this video. I’m worried that when he finds out, he’ll probably call me a liar and a hypocrite no matter how many times I try to explain the situation to him and then talk about deducting my pay for the movie work. The truth is though, the church video hasn’t cut into the movie work too much.

But enough of that. How was your fourth of July? Mine was eventful. I didn’t go to the fair, but that’s only because I’d already been this year on the first day it opened. I had a discount coupon from the newspaper for a specific day, so I went with Sebastian. Now Seb, mind you has not been on any rides since middle school. Considering that he was too heavy for his mom to load him out of his wheelchair and onto the rides and he had too baggy pants to be picked up in. So this time, we solved that by buying him a belt at the fair and having one of the fair hands help me lift him into the spinner. It was a dizzying experience for both of us and he had whiplash for the next 24 hours combined with a stomachache, headache and a killer sunburn that we both got. But it was worth it just going on that one ride alone. We also spent a lot of time in the carnival games where we got several smashing prizes. I had no idea I could shoot a gun so well.

On the way back we passed through several sales booths and my mood was ruined when I saw the Democratic Party stand. Yeah, it’s about time I got political. The Democratic Party having their say is perfectly alright by me, but these guys in particular were selling bumper stickers that had all kinds of rude messages on them, “Buck Fush” being one of them. Rearrange the letters and you get the real message of the bumper sticker. Now, it’s alright with me if someone sports a bumper sticker on their car telling everyone what their political orientation is and they can joke about the other guy if they want, but when someone starts putting swear words and dirty language on their bumper stickers, that’s just rude, mm-kay?

Guy with hand up: Umm, but technically they didn’t put any swear words on their bumper sticker. “Fush” isn’t even a word.
Me: Actually, they put it on their cars because they really want to say “Fuck Bush.” It doesn’t matter how it’s misspelled because that’s what they really want to say. Besides, how would you like it if I rode around on my bicycle with a sign saying “Kerry, Edwards, and anyone else who stands up against Bush is a PUCKING FUSSY.” Wouldn’t you feel insulted?
Guy with hand up: Dude, you’re a NASSHOLE! (Storms off.)
Me: Right. Anyone else wanna have a go? Didn’t think so. Moving on.

Anyhoo, on to the real Fourth of July. I went with my folks to the town parade, which apparently started in Novato and went all the way down to my town. My friend Richard’s dad was running the square-dancing event as usual. Also, the parade announcer was the best one I can remember. The guy knew a lot about American history and there was something he said in starting off that rung true to a surprising number of people in the audience. He said something to the extent of this: “I’ve heard a lot of terrific war stories even going on right now. Stories that you’ll never hear in the San Francisco Chronicle. Good stories about the war. So let’s a give our boys in green a big hand.” And indeed, a lot of people did applaud. Even my friend Richard who I know is a Democrat, though he did so with some remorse. To no one’s surprise, the announcer must have been a Republican.

Now, I’ll say this up front. It’s not a wise practice to get publicly political at big holiday events. We’re have the Fourth of July to celebrate a war that happened 240 years ago, but not one that’s happening now because this war hasn’t been remembered as a success yet. Indeed, most soldiers are happily returning to Iraq to fight more of the war. Seb’s friend Dan is in the U.S. Army stationed in Iraq and hasn’t hesitated to return at the end of any trip he takes there (Gee, I wonder why.) But still, you don’t talk about current events into a microphone on Independence Day because it’s not the point of the day.

So as the parade went on, the shows the paraders put on were totally awesome this time around. The announcer was happy to announce each one. And just when almost all the floats had gone by and you could swear you were in the green with political jib jab on this glorious day, BAM! A law firm comes parading by with giant paper maché heads of the GOP looking very evil and a car that’s covered with Republican slamming stuff. What the announcer did was one thing, but these guys were just being rude. I mean sure, they’d done that stuff for several years now and it used to be more than one float like that. It still sorta ruins the day though. Made me wish I’d brought some eggs.

Conscience: Careful there, son. You never liked it when you read about Democrats attacking Republicans in that manner or even worse. You’d be no worse than them if you did the same as they did.
Me: I know, but I’m getting to the end of my tether with that. With the stories that I’ve heard, it would indeed give me a few moments of pleasure to eggs a few rude Democrats just for payback, but I know I shouldn’t thanks for talking me down from that.

If I recall correctly, even the announcer got kinda mad and told the to go along and get out of there. He didn’t even bother to announce them, but why should he? Hell, I booed them out when they were on their way out. So in conclusion, keep your politics out of our holidays when you’re out in public. You’ll never know whose day you’re going to ruin.

And that’s the end of my update right there. If you stuck with me up until this point, I hereby applaud you and hope you enjoyed it.