"I'm out of the loop so why are you coming to ca soon
Okay, so let me break it down in plain english... me familia... owns el booko business... me harmono, yo quero denero and hasta friendalo in California. C?
so what you're saying is...
you're hungry for burritos
Yes! and that my family sells homeschool curriculum and it does not include Spanish!"
That was a, (slightly edited for readability) chat with a new online friendAnna Joy about my trip to California in a couple weeks. Which is going be really awesome, we're going to go see Paul, hang out and try and stop the ladies from scopin' us out while we catch some rays, (that's Paul on the left.. lol) and maybe having a shindig with Josh. Sounds pretty good to me. =D
So to change the nagging needle on the E and fill up my good 'ol car... I slid my card, picked my grade and pumped away. As usual, I sat there staring blankly at my reflection in the back seat window wondering if I look more like Hugh Jackman or Steve Buscemi when I heard the "click" letting me know that the car was full. I took the nozzle out, plugged the car back up and looked at the price.
My heart sank. Like the Titanic. Almost $60. yup. $60 for a tank of gas. I quickly looked at my car wondering if I had filled an SUV on accident - nope, it was my teensy weensy polka dotted Toyota Camry.
$60!! $60 will get you 50 large slurpees. $60 will get you enough hamsters to pull the car. $60 would get me 6 fresh pairs of boxers (aka 6 extra days of no laundry.) Remember that scene from "I Am Legend" where Will Smith's character is pumping gas - I remember the loudest gasps during that scene when they saw the gas prices being over $6. Now, we're not that far off!
GAS PRICES ARE INSANE! You know it's almost to the point where I think if Jesus came down today, his first miracle would be to turn water into...gas. and I'll admit - even with gas prices rising, the weaker dollar, it's getting harder and harder to be a good steward in regards to money. We should all move to Venenzuela -gas is still $.12 per gallon over there. Yup you heard right, cents. I would almost swim there to get it.
Has gas put a strain on your finances lately?
Everywhere I look I see amazing art. I see crummy art. I see mediocre "canned" art. Nearly everyone is an artist in some way. It is artist overload!
With the rise of the internet, artists can distribute art like never before. Now we have sites like youtube giving us art like no other. Then there's the wannabes that see something on youtube and copy the life out of it.
It's sort of like having free reign at a candy store. You eat one sweet and sugary treat after another and another and another. Before you know it, you are sickened by the very thing you love most. Nauseated, you feel the urge to vomit. Several days or weeks later you feel ready to try candy again but something is wrong... you have an ulcerated stomach lining and can't seem to hold anything down. Now, no matter how delectable the treat, how fine the chocolate, how creamy the confectionery, every piece of it disgusts you.
The other day, I was talking with my friend Paul and we decided, (still going with the candy metaphor) no matter how bad the candy is, no matter if the last three you tried left you ready to hurl... (Remember China? LOL.) You keep trying them, like some kind of zombie, until you get one that makes life click again. The same thing goes for music, movies, and pretty much the whole gamut of creative work. Our God-given drive to create is strong and the drive to see the created beauty is just as strong, if not more so.
There is a load of carp (I said carp) to dig through out there, the purpose of art is dynamic, but it should always point us to the truth.
Moses made a snake that pointed to the savior of mankind, Jesus.
Numbers 21:9
So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
Then some time later, it's use was corrupted.
2 Kings 18:4
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan. )
Paul used the secular to point to the truth.
Acts 17:28
'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
Can you rise above the mediocre? Can you make something inspiring? You won't if you don't try. You probably will be making a lot of carp till you get to making the killer art that inspired to create in the first place. I hate to admit it, but at times I do make bad art. But hey, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never be original. The momentum is paramount.
I'll leave you with a few quotes.
"The faster you fail, the sooner you'll get to success."
"The design is finished not when there's nothing more to add... It's finished when there's nothing more you can take away."
"Predictability = Boring"
Any thoughts?
Many people believe that the best way to learn how to make a movie is to just start making one. And to a degree, I am one of those people. The things you learn are only as good as the extent you put them to use.
Since going to film school is neither convenient nor practical for me, as well as countless others, I am piecing together my knowledge of filmmaking through the internet, books, instructional videos (scouring the web) But what's more fun than the trial & error, monkey-business with camera and lights? Not much.
Of course, the hands-on with the equipment never quite matches up with the theory as easily as one would like it to. With that said, what you learn from a visceral, hands on approach is far more valuable than sitting through a lecture or reading a book. It's much like learning to ride a bicycle... You can read ten books on how to mount the bike, peddle the bike, apply the breaks, use hand signals, repair a flat tire and so on... but the first time you get on the bike, you WILL indubitably fall over. Eventually you learn. Besides, who wants to pay 60,000 dollars to some film school, paying for their equipment, go to classes they want you to go to, and never make a feature film.
Time to hop on that proverbial bicycle and ride it where I like.
We just finished United Way auditions today, and only 14 people total showed up. So we are going to end up using all of them. I thought we'd get at least 30 but that just shows how off I was. There's got to be a better way to audition people than what we thought of. Having them state their name and two interesting facts about themselves might be a good start, but fails to convey any acting ability. The interesting problem is, none of them have any lines.
Friends, family, and all the rest of you people. =)