Jess Furman's CD Release

Formerly a New York, now LA, Singer/Song Writer, Jess Furman had her CD release and going away party a while ago. I've been bad about posting, but here's my favorite photo of the night. Jess had played a few tunes on guitar and then stepped over to the piano for a few as well. She and her band played a great set of new tunes.

I love my Lumix, but it doesn't have anything like an 80-200. The pix would have been much better on film, but I'm too cheap. I'd love a Nikon D3, but I'll have to save my pennies for other things, like the rent. This is cropped quite a bit, so it's noisy and the picture itself is already really noisy on top of that. Great.

The Foundry

I did a job this past January at The Foundry, in Long Island City. The weather was beautiful and the sun was setting creating beautiful light. I was wishing for my 4x5 and a 75mm lens.

I used the Photoshop perspective control functions. They work pretty well. Course, nothing beats a view camera. Ah, the days when I shot 8x10 and made 20x24 prints.

Sex and the City Death Rumor

New Line Cinema

Well, I'm not much of a SITC fan, but I love this article and I like that they think maybe there is a death in the film.

According to the AP:
The death rumor has led to some naughty speculation. One of the naughtiest: New York Magazine suggested that Charlotte, the pretty and perky Park Avenue socialite, could be killed in a freak tennis accident.

Ooo! I love tennis accidents! They're always soooo messy.

Like this one:



Here's the AP article.

Thanks to: Earthlink, AP and New Line Cinema.

Kewpies!

My sister, Ellen, sent me a link to Strapya-World. They sell cell phone straps and little charms that you can hang off your phone. It's Japanese. We're strange. They also have toys and gadgets, etc.

Kewpie Insect cuteness...

Awwwww.

I think about posting every day...

I think about posting every day.

Honest.

The actual doing is what's so bloody hard.

I was at Sundance. We had a short film there. Delta Airlines had Tis The Season as part of their short film competition within Sundance.

Been trying to learn Final Cut and re-acquainting myself with Photoshop and the whole Creative Suite. Now that I have a Mac, I'll be switching over. I've been spending way too much money on itunes, though I have issues with some things not being available, or worse, shitty re-recordings of favorite songs.

I'll get some photos and posts going soonest.

Sorry that I've neglected y'all.

-M

Screenwipe

Charlie Brooker is the somewhat overblown, misanthropic host of BBC 4's Screenwipe. A show that spits much needed postmodern deconstructionist invective at the telly, with Charlie's added snark. To steal a phrase, it's fucking brilliant. David Spade's Hollywood show is pretty good, but this really takes the piss out of all the smoke, mirrors, marketing, artifice and product placement that is television.

Screenwipe guide to television. This long but totally worth it. I promise!


Screenwipe make up their own version of the Apprentice, called the Unloser.
Part I


Part II


Part III


Animal Hospital


Upcoming shows, sat. nite shows, icons on the screen, Last of the Summer Wine


First episode, first ten minutes.

My Super Sweet 16, etc

Go to Youtube and do a search for "Charlie Brooker", or "Screenwipe" and watch bits of the show.

Brooker photo courtesy, The BBC
Thanks to Alexis and Kyle for the initial heads up.

But I thought she was American

Minnie Driver. I thought she was American. The few things that I saw her in, Return To Me comes to mind(sorry), she did not have an English accent. Turns out, she's from London. Found out about that when she was on Fresh Air, or something. She's also a very accomplished musician, which she did before getting into acting. She and fellow Brit, Eddie Izzard both have various accents on The Riches, since they're Irish Travellers.


Which leads me to this tangent: English actors who can mimic convincing American accents. I started noticing English Actors who are able to do good American accents a long time ago. Many, over the years, have done the southern accent. I can't refer to anybody specifically, maybe Roddy McDowell, in some movie, or TV shows. For some reason, in the past, English actors gravitated to a southern accent. Not sure if it's easier for them, or they just like the sound, or what.

English actors with American accents have built up over the years and now there's a bunch of them on American TV. And they don't have southern accents.


I started watching Bionic Woman and fell in love with Michelle Ryan. I'm a sucker for brown hair and blue eyes. So, when I check out her IMDB page, I find out she's english. Huh. Her Jaimie Sommers character is accent free. She's still teh hott, English, or not. However, I'm in agreement with my friend Bill about Bionic Woman, not great, but not bad and Katie Sackhoff is a great baddie. Ryan did get to talk in her natural accent in the last episode where she plays an English exchange student.


Before that, I started watching another NBC show, Life, starring Damien Lewis. I really like Lewis, but I'm not wild about his character in Life. I first remember Lewis in HBO's Band of Brothers WWII mini series. In Life, he's an American cop in LA. The stories are pretty good. I've seen him in more films with an American accent, Dream Catcher and the afore mentioned films, than I have seen him perform in his own natural voice. It was weird to see Lewis in behind the scenes footage for Brothers, speaking with his normal English accent.

So, yeah, there's a bunch of Limeys running around, that sound like Yanks.

This post may be my most linktacular since I started the blog. Dynamic links are the only HTML I know.

Triple 30

Indy rocker, Arthur Adams, of the San Francisco based band Blammos, is doing something very ambitious for the month of November: thirty songs, over thirty days and thirty music videos.

Wow!

Check out Blammos' Blog

ANNOUNCING:

BLAMMOS does November:
30 days 30 songs 30 videos

Each day Arthur will be posting a video on the blog. Each video will feature a different song. They will range from live performances to music videos to multimedia experiments to who knows what. They will be shot in various locations featuring members of BLAMMOS, friends, relatives, other bands and strangers. They will be shot the same day they are posted (unless he's REAAAAALLLY busy, in which case there will be two the following day).



Here is the video I shot for Bill and Arthur last year. Candleblog Captain and filmmaker Bill Simmon may fly on over and help Arthur make some groovy vids and maybe a song or two, too.

Watch Blammos Does November videos here. The first one is already up, so keep going back to the Blammos Youtube page through November to see and hear the fun.

Thanks to Bill & Arthur.

Hamptons International Film Festival

Tis The Season, a short film that I shot last year, is an official entry at the Hamptons International Film Festival. We had a great time shooting, despite the subzero temps. Our little star, Jayden, was a real trooper and even though she wasn't feeling her best, she turned in a great performance. Bern Cohen and Jayden's mom, Ann, also did a great job. Ann is a former Rockette and Bern has been in just about everything.


Bern puts on gloves between takes


Watching the monitor during playback. From left, Hila, Bob and his brother Tom.

Of course, during that whole winter, there was no snow. We shot on a weekend where it was threatening to snow, which would have shut us down. The first day of production started out not too cold, but then the next two days were below zero and of course, we were outdoors the whole time. People ran back to cars and vans to get warm and our lunch on the second day was at a friend of the producer's, just a couple of blocks away.


Me rehearsing with our Producer, Sarah.


I parked as close as possible to set (my car's bumper is at the far left of frame)and I made sure Camera World was right next to Crafty. Adam, left, and Matt wait for the word. Mat was my AC and got things together pretty quickly. I think we got there at around six, or seven.


Tom came to set to shoot behind the scenes footage. No doubt for extra features on the DVD :~) .


Ann, Jayden and Bob answer questions at the Domani Vision Film Festival this past September.


Adam and I with my XL2, CW's camera jib, my dolly and track.


So many cameras on set! Moto shot stills for us. Tom is in the background rolling on other fun happenings.

Mac

Thanks to a little help from my family, I am the proud owner of a brand new baby MacBook Pro. I will slowly be learning how to use FCP 6 and all the other programs in the Studio suite.


Thanks also to Rob G @ Tekserve who helped us with the sale.

Before I dig into all of that, I also have a little bit if paperwork to catch up on.