....crap

ok, nevermind on the 48/5 thing. they just moved the dates to the next weekend. i have to work that whole weekend, so i guess i'm out.

48/5

This is a... friend-wide casting call to anyone who may be interested/anyone without Superbowl plans.

The East Lansing Film Festival's next 48 hour film competition is from January 30 to February 1. I am able to participate this time! And you should too!

Never been in a 48 hour film competition before? Well, let me explain how it goes.

Friday night, January 30 at 6pm, we all gather in a home location. The people running the competition then come into the room, clothed in robes and hoods, carrying some sort of altar. We all chant some latin stuff, then they lock the doors. (ok, none of that) They give us a location, a prop, a theme and a line of dialogue that all have to be in the five minute movie that we then have 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit. The films must be turned in, completed and on miniDV no later than Sunday at 6pm.

The films are then judged based on implementation of the requirements, and prizes are awarded.

Last time, we made the film "Acceptance" and we won 3rd place. That was using the same Hi-8 camcorder that we shot Twelve Page Paper with. Now, I have some actual equipment, and hopefully we can do better. I'm sure we can get 1st this time.

The top three films in each competition play at the East Lansing Film Festival in March. Acceptance will be playing there, and so might this one.

So if you wanted to be in the last one and couldn't make it, if you WERE in the last one and want to do it again, if you were in Twelve Page Paper and want to make another film, if you weren't in Twelve Page Paper, and wanted to be, if you are interested in speedily making a film and getting not a lot of sleep, then let me know. If you can help out during the day, or during the night, if you can do only one day, any help will... well, help. I promise it will be fun. If you're coming in from out of town, I think we might be able to put you up for the weekend. Call me.

-jp

Merry Christmas....

....Whatever.

Typically I don't like Christmas. Not because I have any religious reason not to, or because I'm against happiness, or I'm one of those dark emo people who are so dark and darky that they don't like things that aren't dark and Christmas and puppies are too happy and not dark, and Halloween and lizards are darker and better.

I don't like Christmas because I work in retail, and when the snow falls it seems so does the collective IQ and compassion of the people.

I think it's interesting that we have Thanksgiving, a day in which we are greatful for the joys we live with, the family we have. A day that, by title, we give thanks for the things we have, and we follow it up the very next day with Black Friday where we go out and greedily buy all the shit we don't have.

The Christmas season is supposed to be about giving, and caring, and compassion and all those other things we watch Scrooge learn about every year. Then we go out after watching it, and throw elbows and knock down old ladies to get the next "Tickle Me Elmo" for our kids, who aren't even going to play with it, passing by the Salvation Army Santas and trying not to make eye contact so they think we didn't see them with their bell you can hear from a mile away.

A temp worker this year was literally trampled to death at a Wal-Mart in Long Island. And while the EMT's were trying to give him CPR, people kept pushing into them to get past and into the store so they could save $30 on crap they don't need.

Merry Christmas.

Look, I know this isn't everybody, and I know Christmas is good, and fun when you can see your family, but work retail during this season, and you'll find that a lot of members of society are just scum. And this is the first year in a lot of years that I don't have to work on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, giving me not even a day to see my family.

The stores are just as much to blame for this chaos as well. At my job, last year, there was talk of us being open on Thanksgiving, just so we could sell more. I know stores are in business to make money, and sales are what drive that. But isn't your sales teams morale a factor as well? How well do you think the employees at that Wal-Mart felt selling crap at $40 off to a slobbering mob of greedy consumers knowing their coworker was just killed by them? They closed the store, and people WOULDN'T LEAVE! People were upset because they had waited in line SO LONG to get in, and it was an outrage that they were going to have to leave.

That's right, Christmas is also the time where customers are more and more outraged. Like every policy put in place is a personal attack on them. Or everytime a store runs out of stock on something, it's a crime that they can't magically create more.

"What do you mean you don't have any more Tickle Me Elmo's? This is an OUTRAGE!"

"I want to see your manager, because you are so unwilling to help me get seven free phones because I don't like this one I bought three years ago and dropped in a toilet. This is OUTRAGEOUS!!"

"I can't believe how I waited in line for two hours to get my sales at WalMart and you're kicking us out because we murdered someone on the way in, and this is now an active crime scene! I want my sales! WHAT AN OUTRAGE!!"

I guess I should clarify. Christmas Day is awesome. I love Christmas Day. I hate the Christmas season. When I go to the mall and see them setting up the Santa Photo Booth, somewhere around... what is it now, mid September... I start getting weary, because I know what is coming.

It's going to be a winter of customers screaming at me and each other the most hateful stuff all in the name of charity and goodwill towards men. A season of greed and missed messages of love and compassion all in the name of getting the best presents for your nieces and nephews at the cheapest personal cost, no matter the cost to others or others families. And it will be about three months of people with the same quizzical look on their face asking me over and over how I could possibly not like Christmas.

Gueek Bkead Fay

People keep sending me emails, asking what that means. I have no idea. I cannot help you.

I need out.

I need to find a new job.

On another note....

This is my first post since coming back from California. We had a great time in Los Angeles and in Big Bear Lake. There are a lot of pictures. I'm sure we'll have then up somewhere soon. A few highlights: we had a private pirate ship tour of the lake. We saw Eric Bana and some guy who is in a lot of movies as a B character, and we still can't place a single movie he's been in. We hiked to the top of Castle Rock. We rode the Mummy Ride at Universal three times. Erin fought a giant cat.

I didn't get the city job I applied for. It would've been nice, but it wasn't meant to be. So now I have to try again to find something new. I really don't want to do another christmas in retail. It's hell. I actually don't like christmas. I loved christmas when I was a kid. Retail has stolen christmas from me.

I bought a new camera. A DVX-100B, the upgraded model of the camera I used in film school. It cost a little bit, but it's totally worth it. You'll see...

I'm writing again too. I have a new screenplay in the works. A feature film. I don't know yet if it's something I want to try to produce, or just a screenplay to try to sell. It'll take shape though. Dale at Biggby is the only person who knows what it's about, and he's sworn to secrecy.

All in all things are going well here. We just hung up some new pictures. Blah blah blah.

Seriously though. I have got to stop working at this job and find something better. I've been working here for almost three years. It's time to move on.

Hope everyone is well.

-j

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.

RE? pt 2

Seriously....

Remember entertainment?

Whatever happened to movies? To the american movie industry? We used to be kings of entertainment. Now it's kind of embarrassing. The only intellegent film seems to be independent film, and no one even gets a chance to see it.

This is the same argument I've made for years, but I'd like to expand on it for a bit. Because it's not just movies, it's entertainment. It's music, it's TV. One thing is a hit, and then producers who don't understand art but understand business make a hundred photocopies of it. It's all about money.

Now understand, I'm not stupid. It's always been a business. It's the entertainment INDUSTRY. But the industry has gone from a gourmet restaurant to a fast food chain. We're making McEntertainment. The most cost efficient garbage, mass produced, cookie cutter, greasy, sloppy, poorly thought out and most rapidly thrown together one dollar double cheeseburger movies imaginable, with a side of horrible, sell your dignity reality television, and a diet pop star copy of a copy of a copy.

Back in the day, they made the Superman Movies. Four of them. Two of them good. The first in 1978, the last in 1987. Then a couple years later, they made Batman. Four of them. One of them good. The first in 1989, the last in 1997.

Nobody looked at Superman and said "Kids love comic book movies!!! Let's make THOUSANDS!!! IT CAN'T LOSE!!!!"

Then in 2000, they made X-Men.

Since then, they've made X-Men 2, X-Men 3, Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Spiderman 3, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight... and they made The Incredible Hulk, Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher, Ghost Rider, Fantastic 4, Fantastic 4 2, 300, Sin City, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, TMNT, Constantine, Hellboy, Hellboy 2, Blade 2, Blade Trinity, 30 Days of Night, From Hell, A History of Violence, Josie and the Pussycats...

They made a few TV Show movies back in the day. The Fugitive in 1993, Mission: Impossible in 1996. The Naked Gun in 1988.

Then in 2000, they made Charlie's Angels.

Since then, they've made SWAT, M:I3, Charlie's Angels 2, Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice, Bewitched, The Honeymooners, Get Smart is coming out, as is... get this... Dallas.

This all doesn't seem to be working that well. Then George Lucas comes out with the new Star Wars trilogy starting in 1999. And producers get the idea maybe the old movies that hit big need to be dusted off. So we get Die Hard 4. So we get Indiana Jones 4. Prom Night, Freddy vs. Jason, King Kong, Jurassic Park 4, The Hills Have Eyes.

You can trace most popular things back to the popular thing that it copied that hit big.

Dance War = Dancing With The Stars = So You Think You Can Dance = American Idol.

Rhianna = Aaliyah = Ashanti = Christina Aguilera = Britney Spears

10 Items or Less = The Office (US) = The Office (UK)

The problem is that once something truly original and new comes out, the market will get so flooded with copycats trying to ride it's coat-tails for a quick buck that we'll get sick of that too.

Cloverfield, JJ Abrams new movie, is basically a Godzilla movie and the Blair Witch Project put together. That I don't have a problem with. It's an old story told a different way. No one is ever going to write a story no one has ever heard before. The basic elements are all the same. It's how you mix them. Abrams came up with the pizza burger in the fast food entertainment industry. We've all had enough pizza, we've all had too many burgers, but putting them together is a fresh idea.

EDIT: I'm not joking, I finished this post, and went to apple.com, and found this.

So when entertainment execs complain that piracy is what is driving their revenues down, I have a really hard time believing it. My theory is that people aren't going to pay rising ticket prices and $20 for a bag of popcorn to see the same movie they have at home on DVD three times over.

Any thoughts?

2007 Director's Reel

Now I've missed two.

Hey, it's december!

Not much new in the last two months...

Oh yeah, I'm getting married.

Erin and I are engaged. We've set the date for June 14, 2008. Not a whole lot of time to plan everything, but time enough. We'll be getting married in Marine City, Michigan. Hopefully the weather is good. It's going to be a lot of fun.

I proposed on Thanksgiving in Lexington at our rock. It was really sweet. Probably a little expected, but I think I did well concealing it.

So I guess congrats to us! Hopefully we'll see you at the wedding.

-jgp

I missed another month

Well a lot has happened recently. So much so that I haven't been able to update anyone about it. Here it is quickly.

I live in Okemos MI now with Erin.

My computer died again. It's still recovering.

I got transferred with my job, and my new store is about 50 times more stressful than the old one.

Our new neighbors just had a baby.

The house is coming together really nicely.

Erin likes her job.

We got a Wii.

Huh. That's all I got for now. I'll try to elaborate on all this stuff when I get a chance.

cya
j

Stolen from Allison Mack's site.

“If you want to take your mission in life to the next level, if you’re stuck and you don’t know how to rise, don’t look outside yourself. Look inside. Don’t let your fears keep you mired in the crowd. Abolish your fears and raise your commitment level to the point of no return, and I guarantee you that the Champion Within will burst forth to propel you toward victory.”
- Bruce Jenner

Moving along.

I'm moving to Lansing! Next month. I looked around at places to live today. It was an event. I don't know Lansing too much, and I'm a little nervous to move to a place I don't know, but I've done it before I guess, and this time it's at least in the same time zone. And this time at least I have someone coming with me.

This has been a LONG time coming. I'm so f-ing excited, it's ridiculous.

j

Time to clean house

Hello world.

So here's the news. Erin had an interview in Lansing on Friday and in Kalamazoo for a position in Niles or maybe Kalamazoo on Monday. We're supposed to hear from the Lansing job (which she said went really good) sometime this week, so everyone please cross your fingers.

I'm really ready for a change. I'm ready for an opportunity to expand some horizons, to end some endeavors long overdue, and to stop having a long distance relationship and see the woman I love every day.

I'm ready to start the rest of my life.

The thing is regardless if these places call her back, this stuff is over. If they say no, I'm going to move down there. I can't handle this anymore, and while it's a good job, my job is the only thing keeping me here. Granted, I have a lot of really good friends up here, and I have no real friends in Richmond, but I know some of Erin's friends, and it's not like I'll never see people up here again. And granted, there really isn't any prospects for a indie film maker in Richmond, but no one said we're staying very long. She can continue to look for jobs up here, and then we can move back. I'm just so tired of being apart.

I feel that we are on the right path, and that things are going the way they should. I feel like someone bigger than both of us is driving this boat and its going to dock where it's supposed to dock.

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part

-j

June of 2007.

I missed all of June.

So what's happened....

Ryan and Jen got married. They had a rockin' cool wedding and a superfly reception. It was really cool. I got to see a lot of people I've gone far too long without seeing.

Erin had a interview for a job in Grand Rapids. She's looking to go for a second interview towards the end of July. Keep your fingers crossed.

My writers block is officially over. I seem to have started or at least conceptualized (is that right?) five short films and three feature films and a music video. Not too much written down in screenplay format, but a lot in my red notebook. The next step is getting it out of that red notebook and to a theater near you.

I have all my stuff backed up on a 500GB external hard drive. It took forever to do. But my computer has been acting a little wishy washy lately and I don't want to risk losing it all. That hard drive was a really good buy. Now I need to find a way to transfer data through something faster than USB 1.0.

Other than that, I've really not had much to say about June of 2007.

Happy Independence Day!

-j