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WATCH OUT 4 SHARK WEEK

(Featuring the shark picture and Uh oh Kitteh from Boing Boing)

BONUS – THE REVENGE

Please check out my award-winning film “the best part of my day” online!

I’ve had a lot of success in the past year with “the best part of my day”.  The last film I truly co-headed-up up to that was Consuela’s Surprise I think, and though I do like attempting to seduce my friend Kirk, it’s been nice to enjoy some of the awesome things that go hand in hand with making a good film and getting it out there – namely making the Heartland Film Festival (the original and first goal for the film), making and winning an award in the Cleveland International Film Festival, and making and attending the Big Island Film Festival (again, see the site).  It’s been awesome, one of the biggest years of my life, and I don’t believe “tbpomd” ‘s success is over just yet… still far too many fests I want to enter, so with some luck we’ll see some more acceptances.  And we’re riding the success into funding our next film.

So yeah, I appreciate the perks.  But they’re not why I make films.

I’ve always been a storyteller at heart.  I loved all forms of stories, though admittedly I wasn’t very well-read save for comics.  As a kid and through my teenage years, I would spend far more time in my room drawing than I probably should have.  I’d make comics in atypical Japanese anime fashion, and I still to this day remember the entire storyline for my “E-crisis” graphic novel (which I still intend to someday produce).    I just wanted to get all those ideas out of my head, and a pad and paper was the easiest and most accessible outlet in Shelbyville We-suck-at-opportunities-for-our-youth Indiana.  So I went with it, and excelled, even won a (very small) art scholarship.

In college, I planned to be an art major and continue my drawing, but then I found out how much the supplies cost, so I kind of threw up my hands and shrugged it off.  I then dabbled in Sociology, because I loved learning about people, but sadly it wasn’t fulfilling either.  One day, ironically while drawing for my graphic novel, a guy in my dorm named Dave came by and said ‘hey, want to help me make a movie?’  We did the flick, I acted in it, and it wasn’t too bad (at the time).  People enjoyed it, and it evoked a reaction, and discussion – everything I’d ever wanted.  From that project on, I was different.

I put down my pencil and invested in a Dell so I could pen scripts and an external firewire drive so I could work in the Mac labs.  Of course these things cost more than art supplies, but I didn’t care.  I was fascinated.  The things I could have only dreamed of doing – editing, using photoshop and flash, and even keying with after effects – become more and more clear and doable.  I broke so many mental barriers.  I started doing crazy things like staying in the labs all night on one effect, or even over entire weekends for one sketch comedy show posting.  I’d finally found my many mediums in the form of Multimedia, and my passion.

I have many friends living in other places more film-friendly and multimedia-friendly than Indianapolis.  And they do tell me frequently that if I want to excel in filmmaking, I should move to where they are.  Honestly, they’re probably right… NYNY or LA are far more conventional.  But for now, I’m enjoying doing what I love in Indiana, so we’ll see where it goes from here.  Film and multimedia are just my arts.  No matter what, if I’m telling my stories,  while sipping a few good micro brews on the weekends with friends, that’s all I really need to be happy.

And… wow, yeah, I’m happy.

Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis

I recently received a copy of Peter Davis’ Poetry! Poetry! Poetry!.  I sat down with it over the course of two days, and I’d like to review it.

A quick disclaimer is that I attended Pete’s Poetry 101 (or some number) class in school at Ball State University.  It was an awesome class I really enjoyed, literally the last class I walked out of before graduating, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.  So though I’m generally going to be really positive about this review, I thought I’d disclaim that, because disclaiming things is important when you’re writing a super important blog like this is.  That was sarcasm.

So Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! takes a very personal look at poetry in general, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, but it’s very ‘metapeom’, as the back cover describes.  You get the feeling that you’re inside Pete’s head, and it reminded me most of the feeling I get when trying to write screenplays myself;  it’s easy to get into my own character’s heads, and this was sort of surreal in that I was ushered in for once.  From poem to poem, it goes back and forth, freeform-yet-not, and gives you an idea of the world that is Pete.

I will say that from time to time there are things written that you won’t easily understand, so I can’t classify this as a ‘light read’, but then again if you go into it with the right attitude, the attitude I learned from Pete in his class that helped me be a better writer, the attitude that if you’re going to write then write (thus read then read), and take things as they come, well… that helps and makes it at once a ‘light read’ yet a thought-provoking read.  My highest praise of this book is for the comedy aspect, very ‘funny because it’s true’.

No, wait, MY highest praise is that I hope to someday base a poet character off of this book.  There we go, boom to the power of boom.

If you’d like to pick this up, go here.  It’s verymuch worth the price.

Final thought I’d like to leave you with is a poem I actually wrote about Pete’s class while in Pete’s class, sort of a metapoem of my own.  I think it’s a totally wicked way to end this review.

I hate the texture of this book

I think it’s made of itching powder and coffee

Itching is so anti-climatic

I like where I’m at and where I’m heading though

Wish I could talk to that chic over there

I think she has a fresh tattoo, it’s hott with two t’s

She’s hott with two t’s – aw, snap!

This isn’t going anywhere but that’s okay, that’s not the point

So he says, and so I write

I super do not want to read this aloud

When I was young, I swore to myself that when I grew up, I would never get a tattoo, because Grandma wouldn’t want me to.

Well… I’m not sure I’ve ever made Grandma proud…. Continue Reading

And I had a freaking blast.  Photo above is actually the first pic I took when I got to Oahu with Al, pictured with me below atop the Diamong Head Crater.

There’s also pictures of Alan, who met up with us on Big Island.  The only one I have handy is he and Al on LAVA.

For my recap of the Big Island Film Fest and some of my favorite films/filmmakers, check my post at bestpartofmyday.info.  Here, I’m going to focus on my personal experience.

Continue Reading

…It was pretty sweet.  Overall, some great artists, great beer next to some great vintage cars, and generally speaking… great.  Special thanks to Full Blown Productions for being our main hangout/cool people.

So there’s an open house going on tomorrow evening at the Stutz building.  I don’t know, some kind of socializing thing.  I’m definitely heading that way, should be fun to check out some indie Indy artwork and maybe meet some more indieIndy filmmakers.  Big thanks to Jim Paneghetti for turning me on to this event, looks like fun.