Archive for May, 2006

Further Research in the field of Cinematic Anatomy

Published on Monday, May 15th, 2006 in media, movies and personal. 6 Comments

Friday Evening
Karl, myself and this time Mackers, decided to, once again under the monicker of “Team Zing”, enter the Fast Forward Film Festival this weekend.

We got our theme on Friday evening after work at Filmbase. This time we got a photo of a muscle man and the word “once” with a Wim Wenders quote. We had fairly good idea about what kind of film we were going to make.

We went back to Karl’s stopping off for supplies in Dunnes on the way. The movie we were going to make was would mostly be improvised so we wouldn’t need a script. We made our props and list of the scenes we needed to shoot which we would be filming in the sequence they were to appear in the film

We filmed late into the night but it was much more relaxed than the last time. We edited the material we had before calling it a night around 4am.

Saturday
We began filming the scenes that needed daylight, remember we were shooting the scenes in sequence as what our film was to be was a mocumentry, of sorts, about making our film. A meta-film if you want to be pretentious. :) We shot the scenes, including one at filmbase which meant walking back to and from town.

Back to Karls, after a quick stop at the Meeting House Square food market for breakfast, and we had one last scene to do and then some final editing. We were finished the film around 3pm and, unlike last time when we submitted on VHS, this time we had iDVD at our disposal. We were quickly able to burn to DVD.

Next was relaxed saunter back to filmbase. There was some confusion as no one from fastforward was there yet and the man at the front desk was rude and repeatedly gave out incorrect information. We hung around, thankfully, because the guy got there at 4:55pm

We handed in our disc and went to the Porterhouse for a quick pint (of H2O for me). Quickly realised how tired we all were. Walked home again and was back in my place around 6pm. Lay down for a while and had a gentle nap for an hour.

Saturday Evening
Walked back into Filmbase, there were free (chicken) sandwiches and bags of (stale but free) donuts. There were a few technical cockups with playing the films, none with ours though, and it was first on and was the only DVD with a fancy menu. We got the best crowd reaction I think, certainly a very good reaction for a cold audience. Our movie played more to the audience than the judges and as a somewhat disappointing consequence we weren’t placed. There’s always next time. We’re regulars at this festival now having done a film for both of them.
The fastforward guys had passes for Spirit so we grabbed some and went over there. Ferdacraiclike. Spirit can be fun if you just want to have fun. We arrived at the door and the prickhole bouncers asked us, all late twentysomethings, for ID which of course none of us had, so they wouldn’t let us in. Of course that was just an excuse, I’m not sure I’ve seen such blatant prickholeishness from bouncers before. The night kind of wound down from there, there was a bit of a stint in Dominion. I was pretty tired and walked home before the night was over.

I’m not going to upload the movie to YouTube this time because they mess with the aspect-ratio and I don’t like that. So here it is, Team Zing’s Once. Watch closely and you might see an easter egg or two.

Once (10MB, H264 encoded)

Once

Watch this on Google Video or another Flash video player Karl put together.

No records, criminal or otherwise.

Published on Friday, May 12th, 2006 in links, media and personal. 9 Comments

As previously mentioned, I’ve been having problems with productivity and motivation recently so today I was pleased to find myself with a sense of achievement and fulfilment - Mackers and I jointly created and populated, what was previously a surprisingly absent, Mary Kingston page on Wikipedia. Job well done I think.
Have contacted a couple of parties about getting some relevant pictures and further information with the correct use rights and will put them on there if they return positive replies.

More of a kind

Published on Sunday, May 7th, 2006 in event and personal. 11 Comments

What a night.

The evening began with a usual assemblage of people in Solas, first downstairs and then in the newly opened upstairs with beer garden and the pleasant fragrance of chip-oil. The bar-staff of two were over-busy creating oft-ordered cocktails, mojitos appear to be particularly popular.

When it was closing time we - Karl, Mackers, Jenn, Karena and I - left with the idea of going back to Karl’s perhaps. We walked down my street and came across a house with a party, plenty of hors d’oeuvres, which I saw being cooked earlier in the day when I walked past, were visible through the window. Karl tried to get that party-goers attentions but they, unsurprisingly, weren’t happy to let us in.

We walked on a little further and there was another party, one with an open window so there could be two-way communication more advanced than body gestures. Requests for entry was met with a “NO CRUSTIES” reply, probably in the direction of Karl.

We walked on and found, on my reasonably short street, yet another party. A guy came out the door to talk to us when he saw us gesturing outside and while he wasn’t going to let us in, at least he spoke to us for a few moments. Then a woman, who seemed to be one of the hosts came out and coldly informed us that this was an engagement party and we weren’t coming in. She wasn’t going to engage us in any conversation, civil or not. We walked on.

Coming to the end of the street there was another party. The house was one I’ve seen plenty of parties in before and had the impression it was a house of flats or rooms. Karl went up and knocked on the door, it was opened and the opener just stepped aside. We were in! We all walked in and immediately Karl jumped into social-pirhana mode and was conversing with one of the party-goers so that we didn’t look like gate crashers. Karena slinked off shortly afterwards. 4 remain standing.
The house is home to 17 people many or all of them from aboard, from the demographic at the party it seems most of them are from France or French speaking countries. Karl, who still has stamina issues to work on, left around 4:30am.

We made friends quickly and stayed chatting and being friendly until the sun was up at 5:30am. Then Mackers, Jenn and I took one of our new friends to The Gigs Place for his first ever Irish breakfast which, based on how clean his plate was after it, he thoroughly enjoyed. I had chips and beans. Delicious!

We left when done and I was in bed around 7am. More of this kind of thing please!

He wants to know if it hurts.

Published on Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006 in media, personal and software. 2 Comments

What a nice weekend that was, and now Thursday is nearly here, another weekend must surely follow.

My four-day weekend started on Friday after work with some comedy in the Westmoreland that actually was surprisingly funny. Popped ’round to Doyle’s afterwards and quickly realised I was at least 5 years too old and left almost straight away.

Saturday I got up and started playing Starcraft. Some time passed and I realised it was 7:30pm, I had better be careful. Time to get ready for Karl’s chucking-in-work party. Took a little while to get going but was ok when it did. Somewhat mysteriously, perhaps through the sheer conglomeration of the intellectual prowess assembled under one roof, certain objects appeared to levitate and remain in that state for some time.

Sunday went to see Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds in The Point. That was great. Didn’t realise it was Jeff himself who was conducting until they announced his name at the end. There was a poor-CG back-drop to accompany the music and to tell the story, a larger-than-life projected virtual Richard Burton and, best of all, a gigantic fighting machine/tripod with glowing green eyes and a heat ray that incinerated the crowd on impact.

Monday, over to Karl’s in the evening to watch the final Planet of the Apes movie (probably the poorest one) and then the ever-brilliant Dr. Strangelove.

Tuesday, finished the vodafone part of o2sms 3.0 with Mackers, get it while it’s hot (be our testers). Then, in the evening went to a performance of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot [text] in The Gate. That was amazing, the performances by actors who have been doing this particular production for I don’t know how long, the same folks captured for the great “Beckett on Film” production of Godot in 2001, were outstanding and surely form what must now be the definitive performance/production of this particular work. Did you know there was a production in 1991 with Leslie “Dirty Den” Grantham as Gogo and Brian “Booming” Blessed as Pozzo? My my, that must have been something to see.

This morning I was in work at around 9:30 which, for me recently, is an achievement. I’ve not been in before 10am in what must be 5 or more weeks. I just haven’t been able to get out of bed in the working mornings, I don’t feel like there’s anything to get up for. I feel sapped of drive, motivation and almost all professional fulfilment. When such feelings pervade one’s working-life they are bound to seep into one’s personal sense of self also. Have you ever felt so maltreated by an employer that the prevailing thought is that they are stealing from you?