Visual FX film.

Hey folks. I know I just wrote, but I forgot this, and I figured it needs it's own spot.

I've written a screenplay for a short visual effects piece. I've storyboarded the whole film, which shouldn't be more than 5 or 6 minutes in length, and I'm kind of jazzed about it.

Also, I plan on shooting it in Kalamazoo wednesday through friday.

I don't have a name for it or anything, but it's basically a superhero fight scene, inspired by the TV show "Heroes." There's not a lot of story to it, but there is a lot of fighting and superhero-ey power stuff. It's really designed to be a reel builder, just to showcase some stuff I've learned in the last year.

I'll be honest, I know how I'm going to to most of the visual effects. Some of it I'm still making up. It's going to be a lot of fun though, and so if you read this and are going to be in the Kalamazoo area this coming wed-fri, and you want to be a part of this, either acting or on crew, or both, call me.

Times have changed.

I'm writing another entry! It's mid august, and this marks the first time this year I've written two posts in one month. This also marks the fifth time I've posted this year.

I remember a time when I'd write on this thing almost everyday. Sometimes twice a day. Now, I forget this thing exists for months at a time. So... what happened?

Maybe I ran out of things to say. Maybe things have stopped happening to me. Maybe I've run out of political figures to bitch about (or realized that you can argue until you're blue in the face, but if the other side is too self absorbed and righteous to listen, you might as well be arguing with a wall... in fact, you see this technique demonstrated on Fox News all the time).

Or maybe, I've just moved on. Maybe I've been too busy. Maybe this just isn't a priority anymore. Maybe it's not for me. Maybe it should be.

I remember writing my first post about not being able to fall asleep, staring out the window at the radio towers from my apartment.

I loved that apartment. It was my first apartment. I had cable and a balcony. Most importantly I was alone. Not that I loved that, but at times it was nice to have no roommates. Especially because of the roommates I had had previously. Everything seemed simpler then. I had crappy looking couches, but I didn't really care. I had christmas lights thumbtacked to the ceiling, but I didn't really care. I'd stay up until 4am watching movies on my first DVD player (which still works), I'd sit up on the balcony and watch the neighbors. I wrote a screenplay, I worked at Babbages in the mall. I went to WMU, I had college experiences....

I'm not going to say I was happier. I wasn't. I was actually quite miserable for a while there. I got a little dispicable at times. I hated girls and romance and love and desperately wanted them all. I wasn't anywhere near this happy.

But things were easier.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to come off as unsatisfied with my life currently in any way. It's just me remembering. Longing for the days when I had summer vacation and no responsibilities. And occasionally I would in those days where things didn't move so fast, find time to sit down and type some words down about what I did today, or what I thought about this or that, or some song lyrics I liked. I would do this because I had time to breathe. But now I have responsibilities to a job I loathe, and a career I am trying to start, and a wife I love, and a future to plan.

Now I feel guilty taking time to write on this blog, because it's time that I could spend doing things deemed "more important."

But I think I need to realize that this is important. Not that it's important for me to throw my thoughts out into cyberspace for the world to ignore. It's important for me to take some time to myself, for myself, and realize that in all the whirlwind of things I feel responsible to do, I need to feel responsible to myself as well. I feel like I've been ignoring my own well being lately, because I cram into every spare second I have, time to either overload my head or shut it off entirely.

This can be the device for me to put this stuff away. To organize my thoughts. It always was before, and then I walked away from it for a while. So I promise that I'm going to do better.

And I'd like to thank anyone still reading for coming with me on this therapy session that I dropped on myself. I'm sure as I continue to use this blog, I won't always be this boring.

jp

A new (old) direction.

Ok, so I skipped all of May and June and July of 2008. Not beause they weren't filled with memorable things, just because I haven't really felt the urge to sit down and blog.

Which leads me to the idea that I haven't really felt the ability to sit and write anything worthwhile lately.

So I think what I'mk going to start doing is sitting down and dusting off this old blog and trying to use it every now and then just to get back the feeling of my thoughts coming out of my fingers again.

So.... we have a little catching up to do.

I got married in June. The wedding was beautiful. The most perfect day imaginable. Not even imaginable, actually. It stormed the day before, and the day after, but the day of was the most gorgeous day Michigan has ever seen. The wedding was at the Riverhouse in Marine City. We got married on the dock. Laura Winther took some amazing pictures. Check out her site to see them. My uncle took pictures too and his turned out equally amazing.

We went to Toronto the next day for basically an extended weekend. (the real honeymoon is september 2-11, in Los Angeles, and Big Bear Lake, CA) Toronto was a lot of fun. We saw Second City, and Casa Loma, and the Royal Ontario Museum, filled with scary looking chinese monster lizard dog soldiers. Yeah. Seriously.

What else... recently my brother Jordan has moved to Boston. He and his girlfriend really like it. We played in St. Martins this year along with Brent and Jason, and finished a respectable, but not competitive +1. I think we all decided that perhaps next years tournament shouldn't be the first time we play again since this tournament.

I'm looking for a new job. In the last few months, Michigan has become the best (finacially speaking) state in the country to shoot a film in, bringing lots of opportunity this way. Doors are opening. I'm going to go out on a limb, and break a cardinal blog rule, and say I really hate my current job. But that's not news.

Speaking of, I gotta get back. See ya.