Christmas Ghost

Ack, I'm bad at this. Meant to update this a while ago. No excuses, just bad at blogging. Oh well.

So, Hero vid is back up! Joy!

Hero
Uploaded by windmillchaser

More video news coming shortly.

And as I was too lazy to update before new years and to organize this, this is my year end cultural wrap up and show off my geekery.

My 2007 in Movies. The first list is made up of films released in 2007. The other of other films I saw last year,

1) TMNT
2) Grindhouse
3) Ocean's 13
4) Sicko
5) Transformers
6) Zodiac
7) Hot Fuzz
8) An Unreasonable Man
9) The Simpsons Movie
10) 300
11) Breach
12) The Host
13) Hellboy: Blood and Iron
14) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
15) Spider Man 3
16) Knocked Up
17) Black Sheep
18) This Is England
19) Superman: Doomsday
20) Control
21) Ratatouille
22) Shrek the Third
23) Superbad
24) Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
25) Live Free or Die Hard
26) The Lookout
27) The Bourne Ultimatum
28) No Country for Old Men
29) Juno

1) Little Miss Sunshine
2) Bull Durham
3) Fantastic Four
4) Tron
5) This Film Is Not Yet Rated
6) The Wild One
7) Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
8) Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers
9) Pirates of the Carribean 2
10) Ultimate Avengers
11) Easy Rider
12) Dude, Where's My Car?
13) The Illusionist
14) Hellboy-Sword of Storms
15) Hellboy
16) Stranger Than Fiction
17) The Wild Bunch
18) Raging Bull
19) I, Robot
20) The Departed
21) The Prestige
22) Silent Movie
23) American Hardcore
24) Shrek 2
25) Escape from New York
26) Casino Royal
27) Butch Cassidey and the Sundance Kid
28) Malcolm X
29) Idiocracy
30) Panic Room
31) Revenge of the Nerds
32) Animal House
33) Paths of Glory
34) Rocky
35) Enter the Dragon
36) Ocean's 11
37) Bonnie & Clyde
38) Dazed and Confused
39) Insomnia
40) Ultimate Avenges 2
41) Boyz in da Hood
42) Menace II Society
43) Spartacus
44) Superman II
45) Lawrence of Arabia
46) Night of the Comet
47) Solaris
48) Westworld
49) Basic Instinct
50) The Cooler
51) Raising Arizona
52) Gilda
53) Monster Squad
54) The 40 Year Old Virgin
55) Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
56) The Killing
57) Scarface
58) Mean Streets
59) His Girl Friday
60) The Omen
61) The Amityville Horror
62) Rosemary's Baby
63) Killer's Kiss
64) Lolita
64) Barry Lyndon
65) The Shining
66) Full Metal Jacket
67) Superman Returns


2007 in Books:
1) Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1
2) Ultimate X-Men Vol. 1
3) Race Matters (West)
4) The Concept of the Political (Schmitt)
5) Mortal Questions (Nagel)
6) How To Survive a Robot Uprising (Wilson)
7) Ham on Rye (Bukowski)
8) Political Philosophy Comes to Rick's (Pontuso)
9) The Autobiography of Malcolm X
10) Evolution and the Christian Faith (Roughgarden)
11) Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror (Jones)
12) One Dimensional Man (Marcuse)
13) God After Darwin (Haught)
14) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Moore)
15) The Dark Knight Returns (Miller)
16) Flatland (Abbot)
17) Origins of Totalitarianism (Arendt)
18) The Little Sister (Chandler)
19) How the Irish Saved Civilization (Cahill)
20) 7 Types of Ambiguity (Pearlman)
21) On the Government of Poland (Rousseau)
22) Green Lantern/Green Arrow Vol. 1 (O'Neils&Adams)
23) The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Sillitoe)
24) Sailing the Wine Dark Seas (Cahill)
25) The Human Condition (Arendt)
26) Uncle Sam (Darnell & Ross)
27) The Preacher: Gone to Texas (Ennis & Dillon)
28) Batman: The Long Halloween (Loeb & Sale)
29) Fables: Legends in Exile (Willingham)
30) The Invisibles: So You Want a Revolution (Morrison)
31) Factotum (Bukowski)
32) Out of the Silent Planet (Lewis)
33) Mark Twain in Hawaii (Twain)
34) Perelandra (Lewis)
35) Hegel's Ideal of Freedom (Patten)
36) Rant (Pakahniuk)
37) That Hideous Strength (Lewis)
38) Cyrano De Bergiac
39) Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (Thompson)
40) Albert Camus: A Life (Todd)
41) Everyman (Roth)
42) Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Rousseau)
43) What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America (Rauf)
44) The Fall of Berlin 1945 (Beevor)
45) The Big Sleep (Chandler)
46) Farewell, My Lovely (Chandler)
47) On Liberty (Mill)
48) After Capitalism (Schweikart)
49) Rousseau: Restless Genius
50) The Greatest Story Ever Sold (Rich)
51) The Hight Window (Chandler)
52) A Harlot High and Low (Balzac)
53) American Fascists (Hedges)
54) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
55) The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Adams)
56) Life the Universe and Everything (Adams)
57) Fables: Animal Farm (Willingham)

Masses Against the Classes

We're back! In the words of "Serenity", they can't stop the signal. Steve Martin's Christmas wish is now back up, as you can see from the bottom of this post. We're going to do a bit more ranting here about copyright and such. Its the ultimate level of hypocrisy that the entrenched corporations and organizations are so determined to protect copyright, but won't give the writer's their fair credit. Of course I'm referring here to the upcoming writer's strike. The strike is over the fact that writer's are not getting royalties for DVDs, ringtones and other electronic versions of their work. The studios, the same people who claim that downloading robs artists of their livelihood and so worried that they feel the need to sue single mothers, hurricane damaged senior citizens and stroke victims, feel otherwise. My position is with the writers on this. Studios are trying to have their cake and eat it too. If you're going to have a system of private property then follow the rules. If you want to make sure artists can make a living, the give them what they deserve. If you want to fucking make money at the expense of new forms of creativity and rights you supposedly protect, go shove it up your ass. While I'll be sad about the delays in various projects created by the strike, its more than fair given the circumstance. The producers and studios have entrenched themselves in a place of power and won't give up no matter how unfair or archaic it may be. Okay, rant ends here. I feel better, do you?

The Big Damn Movie: The Introduction is now almost complete. Audio is recorded and put it. Its horribly/wonderfully Z-Grade, but thats how we role in the Hunt. One small title card maybe redone, but thats it. ScavOlympics is also nearly complete. A couple things to do and I haven't found a good idea for the Mario race, but its looking great. My hope is that the entire thing will be done by mid-December, barring a few places, like Mario, where I need to figure out what to do. If that happens we'll be in great shape. Progress was slow over the past 10 days due to work related injuries. I've hurt my shoulder and back and had to spend most of the past week lying down in order to avoid significant though not unbearable discomfort. Still sore, hopefully a day of not lifting large boxes should help.

Finally, since it was just Halloween, here's a list of some of my favorite horror films and the one's I've been watching this year in honor of the holiday.

Favorites:
Black Sheep
Blackula
Donnie Darko
Die Zombies Die
The Exorcist
The Evil Dead Trilogy
The Haunting
In the Mouth of Madness
Poltergeist

2007:
The Amityville Horror
The Omen
Flight of the Living Dead
The Thing
Rosemary's Baby

Christmas Wish
Uploaded by windmillchaser

Gold Against the Soul

So there's big news on two fronts. The first as some of you will notice, is that Steve Martin's Christmas Wish no longer works. NBC yelled at Google HQ, which in term bitched at youtube and they then took the video down and sent me a curt little email explaining why. My reaction: FUCK YOU IN THE FACE MOTHER FUCKER! Considering that I didn't use any of the video and that my little experiment would never stop anyone from watching the SNL Christmas special or buying any SNL shit is pretty rediculous. I mean really. I'm not a fan of our current copyright system and this just furthers my annoyance. Copyright was created so that authors could protect their work from publishers and maintain a level of accuracy. Furthermore, copyright only lasted a few decades, if that I can't remember right this second exactly how long, so works should enter the public domain and spur the creation of new ideas. That's how its suppose to work, not this bullshit of rights extending over a hundred years in the hands of 4-5 mega corporations and not even in the hands of the creators themselves! Okay rant over. Anyway, I am not discouraged and hope to find a way to get the film up again. Though this time I will avoid the SNL tag. Final tally for this movie:
Views: 20,285
Comments: 13
Rating: 4.5 stars after 47 ratings

The Big Damn Movie: All title cards are done and are being integrated, save for roadtrip. I've also redone the Introduction and am much happier. It means I have/will take out things I spent time on, but this is much better. Its been a case of "the first idea is the right one". What I've done and will finsih doing this week are some of the first ideas I had for this film way back in...well April. I'm happy that they've worked out as they did. I've got a couple small itmes to remake for the intro now, just some recoloring to go with the new theme. Plus a bit more photoshopping and some audio recording should finish most of it. I've also finished writing out the audio to be recorded and should have that done this week.

Several other items have also been completed since I last signed in. I've added in a lot of audio and a lot of things are coming together. What I need to do now is just go through from the beginning all the way through and try and get what I have synched up so I can see what I need to find. Still need to email page captains about items and such too.

The new seasons of The Boondocks and Frontline have started. Highly recommend both to all. Also, for those interested in military history, I've just finished Antony Beevor's "The Fall of Berlin 1945". I highly recommend both this book and all his works. This is the 3rd complete book I've read of his and he is both a gifted writer and an amazing grasp of the material.

Picturesque

The Big Damn Movie: So it looks like I didn't finish the Intro or the title cards last month. I made progress with the intro and have most of the new audio ready to be recorded. The title cards were suppose to get done yesterday and saturday, but that didn't happen for several reasons. I was too exhausted yesterday to be useful to anyone/thing. A combination of a late night working, beer and insomnia meant I spent most of the day in a haze of discomfort and malaise. Got distracted on Saturday and was working on anoter part of the movie, that often beloved credits sequence! Credit is always deserved where credit is due. Made some substantial progress there, so nothing was wasted.

I've also decided on the three nonscav projects to focus on next. One is called "Political Science" and will be in the vein of "Steve Martin's Christmas Wish". A second project is just being called "Iraq #1" as I have several Iraq projects in my head. Finally a non-political project called "Believe" that is more like "2001: The End" except shorter and a bit lighter in tone. My first priority is still the "The Big Damn Movie" and then the second scav music video, so those things will come slowly. Hopefully I'll have something to report next week. I'll be out of town this weekend so hopefully the travel time will give me an opportunity to finish something.

In other news, the PBS series Frontline starts next week on October the 9th. This is one of the best programs on the air so I highly recommend people watch it. Times vary based on region, so folks so check out pbs.org for info. The new episode is entitled "Cheney's Law".

And as I haven't done this in a while here's some of what I've been listening too:
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: What's Going On
Aesop Rock: None Shall Pass
Deadboy & The Elephantmen: We Are the Night Sky
Liars: Liars
Queens of the Stone Age: Era Vulgris
Brother Ali: Shadows on the Sun
Otis Redding
(currently listening to Edith Piaf)

Symphony of Tourrette

The Big Damn Movie: Is actually coming along well for the first time. I've finished the Judgment/Outro sections. There is always things that will need looking at later once I've moved away from it and of course pacing once the whole thing is done. There is one vid that I might change, but just for something of higher quality. As always, there is the question of whether its actually funny or I'm just nuts. I've also nearly finished the Intro section. I have a bunch of audio work to do and then looking over a couple of sections, but its come along nicely.

Beyond that, made some major move forwards on a lot of the nitty gritty details. The titles are almost all finished and the ones that are have been added in and the proper fades and lengths have been done. I've also had some good luck in finding material to borrow for the film which has moved things along greatly. I hope to have the intro and all the title cards finished by the end of the month.

Work has progressed on the bulk of the movie too, the items and such. Worked on several key items last night to great satisfaction. Its finally starting to come together and look like a proper video and thats good to see as I've been worried about that aspect due to the lack of footage and such. Hopefully things we'll keep going at this rate for a while.

Now onto the movies I posted.

My Hero: This project has actually been in my head for over 7 years. It was one of the first ideas I had when I took a video class in high school, but never got around to making it then. I'm kind of glad I didn't cause I wouldn't have had the skill or technology then to do a good job. The video comes from the Cal Ripken DVD box set, mainly from a good documentary on his career, which is also narrated by Edward Norton, a lifetime Orioles fan (as seen by his hat in the movie The Score). Much like the Christmas video, this came out almost exactly as I imagined it. The opening quotes, the highlights with announcers, the crowd yelling "thank you" (from his last game) were all major parts of how this started. The hard part for this video was actually getting all the footage together and from other sources. Once it was all there, it was pretty easy. The one change that happened when making it was that the last half became more about the Streak night and his family than I had first thought. I knew I wanted lots of footage with his family as that's been a major part of his legacy and what made him important to me and my family as well. I'm glad it got done and posted in time for his hall of fame ceremony. My own way of saying, Thank You Cal. The video has a 5 star rating on youtube as rated by 13 people.

2001: The End: This project had been in my head for over 2 years by the time it was finished. I had first thought of it in the summer of 2005. I had just started working on videos at that point as well as rediscovering one my inspirations and favorite directors Stanley Kubrick. The documentary Kubrick: A Life in Pictures inspired me to start working on video stuff again. I remember exactly where I was when I came up with this idea. I was working at a boring data-entry job and by the grace of god, they allowed us to bring music into work. I was sitting working and listening to The Doors song "The End" and during the freak out section when Morrison says "kill" at that moment a flash of Hal came into my brain. From there I thought wouldn't that whole section match up with the stargate sequence in 2001. From there other images, such as the opening and closing of the film, came easily. At that point however, I didn't have the ability or hard drive to make such a project and it was put in the drawer after some very rudimentary attempts. Flash forward to the end of 2006 and I get myself an external hard drive and more know how. I began working in earnest in December of 2006 and was half way through the beast until that same hard drive crashed in January and all data was lost, including the then half finished movie.. (Que Vaderesque screaming No). It took several months to be able to approach the project again as what I had finished was totally done and ready to go. I worked on and off on the project till the summer when I finally sat down and finished it. While not the best thing I've done. I'm happy with it and glad its finally out of my head and on the screen. The only thing I wish was different was the quality. Lost a lot of resolution in the process of making it.

T.A.C.O.S. The Music Video: The song in the video is "Underdogs" by Manic Street Preachers. Its off their seventh and latest album "Send Away the Tigers". I first heard the song in March through the BBC and as soon as I heard it I thought of Scavhunt. The lyrics describe many of us scavies so well and I knew that I was going to use the song for a scav music video. Plus, I love promoting the Manic in the US. The images are obviously from this past year's scavhunt, so no real need to go into that. Though I will say that the final image in the film, the lifting of the scaver, was the first thing I figured out. After the hunt on that tired Sunday afternoon, looking at pictures with my 4 day out of the year finance, we came across that photo. As soon as I saw it I knew it was going to be the final image in the music video. It couldn't go anywhere else. There will be a second music video coming later. Both will be on the Scavhunt 2007 DVD.

Last Christmas

This was the first nonscav/non-personal video I made since this whole thing started. I was made last December and it was really the first time a video project was a) completed in a decent amount of time, less than a week and b) the first project that turned out something like the pictures I had in my head. I've always been a fan of this Steve Martin bit ever since I first saw it on the SNL Christmas special when I was in high school. So when I dusted off the mp3 last December it just clicked in my head that I could make into a video. Obviously it shows a lot of my technical limitations, but it does the job nicely enough. Its currently got a 4.5 star ratting on youtube after 45 reviews.

New Art Riot

Wow, I'm bad at this. Anyway, since my last post a lot has happened, thankfully. As you can see below, several movies have finished and are here for your viewing pleasure. They all know have their real titles and everything. Enjoy.

Also, in the heart of working on the Big Damn ScavHunt Movie. I've had some really good ideas hit me and some sequences are really coming together. The Introduction and Judgment sections are nearly complete. I have some photoshop work to do before they're really done, but they've come along nicely.

One thing I've realized is that I might not be able to top last year. I don't have as much footage to look at and its not of the same quality. Plus, I think my own creative juices in this area are slowing down. Trying to do something new and original in the space I have Having accepted that some of the pressure is off and ideas have come more organically. Of course as a lot has yet to be done and no one seen anything so all of this is just speculation and my usual self doubt. More on that later, hopefully. Well it should. Either way, here's a bunch of new shit to look at.

My Hero: A Tribute to Cal Ripken Jr.



2001: The End



T.A.C.O.S. The Music Video