Thursday, October 31, 2002

Requiem for Special #19 special #19 is what i want when it's four pm and that bag of trailmix from the vending machine is long gone. 3 beef rolled tacos bean tostada crispy shredded beef taco with fresh guacamole rice beans a coke $4.59 but the taco shop doors are locked sorry, closed for the plumin it says in sticky blue bic on the paper tray cover taped to the glass i go next door instead eating my cold sandwich i overhear a cell phone conversation the taco shop was raided by health inspectors a few minutes ago the A rating was demoted to a C closed for 30 days here comes someone to change out the sign sorry. closed today for remodeling. smirk. munch. munch. they had it coming she says they've been using our bathroom for the last month ten minutes later another sign appears sorry. closed until further notice. happy halloween. smirk. smirk. slurp. slurp. i finish my roast beef on rye and get a root beer refill and go back to work to spread the word everyone is flabbergasted and upset for 30 days is a long time to go without cheap mexican food corporate morale will suffer and appetites will go unsatiated as stomachs rumble throughout the cubicle sea anarchy will spread and the site cafeteria will overflow beyond capacity sell your HP stock now before word gets out: there will be no more special #19

posted 12:18 AM | 0 comments

Monday, October 21, 2002

Don't Worry, We'll Fix it in Post shooting a movie is hard when you have no actors or crew except you and your buddy loading magazines with film dressing the set the art of lighting changing out lenses elevating camera on hydraulic cart snagged from shipping and receiving there's a low hum in the mic feed what's causing that? god, it's irritating and won't go away hum, begone! now! please? we'll fix it in post uh-oh, here comes security yes, we have a camera permit no, this is not stolen hp equipment that was close poor Mike he just saw the script for the first time last night the name synthetic conversation may prove eponymous in the land of ADR what's the speed of that Eastman stock? 100? oops the lightmeter was set at 125 from when we were shooting Fuji oh well it's only 1/4th a T-stop underexposed we can print it up at the lab imagine if we were shooting DV no more threading the camera fewer lights electronic image stabilization no camera noise auto exposure and focus no filmstock heaped on the carpet like this ha! if a = number of hours spent on set: 14 and b = minutes of exposed 16mm stock: 30 and c = est. minutes of finished movie: 4 then ratio of a:c = 200 ratio of b:c = 8 we are clearly insane the next day at the movies I am Trying to Break Your Heart flickers before our tired eyes it is arrestingly beautiful with hues of jet black and rich silver this is super 16mm this is why we shoot film synthetic conversation will reincarnate in the editing suite next week i have low expectations and may take to walking the streets wearing a grocery sack over my head halloween is coming soon anyway

posted 11:47 AM | 0 comments

Monday, October 14, 2002

Synthetic Conversation As it might be overhead at HP INT: Day. Somewhere in the middle of an enormous cubicle sea. RON and DAVE occupy cubicles across the walkway from each other and are both busily working at their desks. DUSTIN sits in the cube adjacent to RON and is not seen by the camera. RON Where is Phelisha, anyway? DAVE Out. Some idiot knocked her unconscious with a baguette and ran off with her puffed Kashki. RON Geez, that's terrible. DAVE Right there in the parking lot of the Pic-N-Sav. RON Unbelievable. (Pause) RON Where was the baguette from? DAVE Ralph's, I think. RON Figures. His bread's hard as rock. Phelisha should've gone to Champagne instead. DAVE Yeah. Champagne clearly makes a far superior baguette. RON Crispy on the outside. DAVE And soft on the inside. RON Too soft to knock someone out with, I'd think. DAVE And she'd be sitting here with us right now. (Pause) RON I can't get my data to correlate. DAVE Few do. RON The points are all over the place. What am I supposed to do with this? DAVE Make up some new data. RON Right. DAVE I'm serious. Your presentation is in - what - two hours? RON That's a bit too sleazy for me, even by my amazingly sleazy standards. DAVE That's just what Phelisha used to say. And look what happened to her. RON (thougtfully) Knocked out by bad french bread for trendy breakfast cereal. (Pause) RON (cont.) Was it one of those collector's boxes of Kashki? DAVE What? RON You know, the ones with the limited edition yoga refrigerator magnet inside? DAVE I have no idea what you're talking about. RON Sure you do. I know I've seen Kashki all over at your place. DAVE Never. RON Really? DAVE Don't eat it. Don't buy it. RON U-huh. Alright. Whatever. Take the high road. DAVE Swear to God. Dave eat no Kashki. RON But don't you ever wonder? DAVE What? RON What it tastes like? DAVE What what tastes like? RON Kashki! DAVE Ummmmmmm. No. RON I see. (Pause) DUSTIN Anyone know a 10-letter word for "bookkeeping profession?" DAVE Um, try librarianism. RON Is that even a word? DUSTIN Doesn't matter. Too many letters. I think 56-down is "accounting," actually. (Pause) RON Librarianism - sounds like some alternative lifestyle, or something. DAVE Yeah, don't it? RON Taking care of all those books. Keeping the card catalog up to date. DAVE Wearing thick glasses and ratty woolen shawls. RON Driving the bookmobile around the ghetto. DAVE Braving drive-by's to check volumes out to needy children. RON That's dangerous. And underappreciated. DAVE Hell yeah. (Pause) RON I bet librarians are a really small percentage of the overall population. DAVE A segment smaller than most alternative lifestyles, I'd bet. RON Someone should really be looking out for them. DAVE Because the silent majority sure as hell won't. (Pause) RON I think we just found a cause worth fighting for. DAVE I think you're right. (Pause) RON You know what else I'm thinking? DAVE Mmmm. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside? RON Must obtain baguette. Now. DAVE While they're still warm. RON Uh-huh. DAVE Do you think the Pic-N-Save still has any boxes of collector's Kashki left? RON It is a distinct possibly. There is an awkward, extended pause. They both stop work and look up at each other for a moment. Then, they jump out of their chairs and run frantically towards the nearest exit.

posted 10:01 PM | 0 comments

Wordplay From the annals of words that don't mean what they sound like, I present you: cancellous Meaning, according to Webster's New World: 1) Anat. Having a porous or spongelike structure: said of bones. 2) Bot. Having a tiny, netlike structure of veins: said of certain leaves. Yet further proof that as an engineer I reach for the dictionary way too much and am easily distracted. Now what word was it I was originally looking up?

posted 2:20 PM | 0 comments

Big Night in the Bedroom Oops. I meant that to read Big Night, In the Bedroom, in reference to the double feature I watched last night. Strange how punctuation and capitalization can affect the meaning of things, such as this classic from The Simpsons: Works on contingency. No fee required. becomes Works on contingency? No, fee required. Anyway, both films were fine, but neither of them particularly memorable or affecting. Just good gear-turning of the filmmaking machine. While In the Bedroom got all the press last year, I just felt it was a low-budget version of old Hollywood territory. And Big Night felt like a Taxi or Cheers episode stretched out over 2 hours, which is not an entirely bad thing, given how much I like the repetoire-group coziness of those two shows.

posted 12:00 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, October 13, 2002

The Pelican Brief Damn, The Pelican Brief is one classy picture. I've watched it twice this weekend, and can't help but feel remorse for director Alan J. Pakula's departure from this planet. A brief quote from an interview with him follows: It is terribly important to give an audience a lot of things they may not get as well as those they will, so that finally the film does take on a texture and is not just simplistic.

posted 6:31 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, October 12, 2002

On the meaning of Labor Day From the October 2002 Issue of the International Cinematographer's Guild Journal: "Would you believe that United Airlines docked the pay of one of the pilots who was killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001? His family was penalized because he didn't complete the flight. The airline also automatically suspended his widow's rights to free travel and discounts beginning the moment her husband was murdered." I did not know this, and was shocked that I would hear this news first from, of all places, a filmmaking magazine rather than the front page of the New York Times.

posted 2:44 AM | 0 comments

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

Economics Nobel Awarded Remind me to switch fields into economics. This year's winners of the Nobel got it for basically proving that market entities make decisions not just based on the information given to them, but also on how it's presented to them. Genius. Sheer Genius. I need to get me a piece of that action.

posted 10:48 PM | 0 comments

The Nobility of the Nobel I wonder how much of the prestige of the Nobel prize comes from a subconscious linkage of Alfred Nobel's surname to the English word "noble." I mean, would people really give their lives for a chance to be awarded a Poonziggle Prize? I doubt it.

posted 10:44 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, October 05, 2002

In search of my own Antimatter There's a scene in The Ice Storm where Paul, the boarding-school student played by Tobey Maguire, comes home to his folks in New Canaan, Connecticut after a failed romantic tryst in New York. He's walks off a Penn commuter train, pauses at the top of the platform, and beholds his mother, father, and little sister waiting below. It's one of my favorite scenes of the whole movie, and perhaps one of my favorite scenes of all time. I just watched The Ice Storm with my own parents a few hours ago as cold, freezing rain pelted down outside our lake cabin in Northern Minnesota. The three of us were bundled up in blankets, sitting around the TV, sipping warm beverages and dropping the crumbs of my mom's chocolate chip cookies all over the place. It was a warm feeling, even if my parents didn't understand the movie. I think my dad tried and perhaps barely grasped its meaning, while my mom simply gave up at the first challenging moment and deplored the brief images of wife-swapping and teenage sex as - gasp - deplorable. As the credits began to roll, I tried to explain to them that movies can be about things much more abstract than the physical outlines of their plot. In other words, the "deplorable" elements were a vehicle for exploring how traditional 1950's culture was being encroached upon by the sexual and social revolution of the 60's - albeit a few years late (the film takes place in the mid-70s), for we are talking about the suburbs of New England and not Berkeley. And taken a level below that, I think the movie is more fundamentally about family and how its bonds can withstand even the most tragic of - forgive me - incidents and accidents, hints and allegations. It feels strange to write this, because as I do so, I realize that the film literally feeds these lines to you at the very beginning, when young Tobey is talking about the comic book "The Fantastic Four" and how those superheroes had the power to help and hurt each other, as if they were members of some kind of superfamily. A chill creeps up my spine just as I recall that opening sequence because it's spot on: family is like your own personal antimatter that you use against one another; it is your strongest weapon and the place you run from, as well as the place you return to for strength and renewal. And here I am, typing this in the loft of this lake cabin located just a few miles north of Brainerd (of Fargo fame), as my parents sleep silently below and I think about my past week here. It's been about watching the fall leaves turn incandescent colors, feeling the cold, wet air against your cheeks, and eating my Mom's chili. It's been about helping my dad take the dock in for the winter, going on long hikes through the wilderness, and driving up to see Lake Itasca, the 10-foot-wide headwaters of the Mighty Mississippi River. It's been about seeing my aunts and uncles and cousins and the country my Mom grew up in. But has it really been about these things, or are these things just the plot vehicle for a more fundamental reason for being up here? I think the reason why I like The Ice Storm so much, why I believe it to be Ang Lee's greatest accomplishment of the cinema, is that it examines that most powerful force in the universe: the family bond, a bond stronger than anything found inside the deepest subatomic structure of matter. You can pull apart quarks without destroying them, but try to do the same to a father and his son and you won't come close to succeeding. The weak force and the strong force have nothing on family. And that's why I'm here, really. I've been away from my family for so long, been so distant and removed - both geographically and emotionally - that it's time to come back and recharge. It's been a wonderful week, but I have to step on that shaky Saab 340 turboprop at Brainerd Field on Sunday to go back to San Diego. When I get there, it’s not going to feel like home and my friends are not going to have the pull of family. Which makes me wonder: when will I create my own antimatter? When will I forge my own universe of quarks and quirks, bosons and gluons, incidents and accidents, hints and allegations? What is the half-life of the college graduate going through this chain reaction of self-realization, maturity, and the all-consuming hope of love, marriage, and establishment of one's own family?

posted 12:22 AM | 0 comments

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