January 11, 2009
I'd had the idea all worked out, and the script outline--or a draft of it, anyway--all ready for a couple of years, but my paternal grandfather Champ passed away before I was able to make the original documentary about him...
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9:29 PM
May 20, 2008
Unless they were on a group tour to Italy or something, my grandparents watched the Lawrence Welk show every Saturday night. When I was trying to score the second installment of The Souvenir Series, the one based on my grandfather's...
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10:04 PM
October 17, 2005
It's the kind of thing you'd expect, sadly, of a clothes horse in a bubble economy: he buys a the turquoise-est, maroon-est, and black-est striped Yohji Yamamoto shirt he can find. That it cost $675 in 1999 is no...
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9:26 AM
April 17, 2005
On the occasion of his cashing out on some serious equity (3,500 sf, Dakota, all orig. woodwork, bought around the time Gimme Shelter came out), Albert Maysles tells the NYT Magazine the first things that pop into his mind:Favorite household...
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7:00 AM
May 21, 2004
Cue up the Neil Diamond. Like a boatload of immigrant philosophers, chasing in this Continent's divinely appointed promises, the magically aestheticized transcendance of the twin landscapes of Caspar David Friedrichian Nature and Henri Fantin Latourian Domesticity, Extreme Ironing is...
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11:44 AM
July 18, 2003
I'm off to the post office to launch a bundle of screener tapes of my second short, Souvenir January 2003, in the direction of festivals across the sea. This gives me a chance to see how my quiet meditation on...
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9:54 AM
June 21, 2003
It's been a while since I've posted about working on Souvenir November 2001, my first short. I decided a while ago that it really needed a proper sound edit, but my new Final Cut Pro install has had problems opening...
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1:41 AM
April 16, 2003
My second short film, Souvenir (January 2003), features a man who carefully irons his shirt before spending the day at a rural dry cleaners. Here are two ironing-related websites: Extreme Ironing: "April 10, 2003/ A new extreme ironing altitude record...
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7:27 AM
January 25, 2003
Since my most recent short film, S(J03), is about a guy who finds aesthetic pleasure and takes solace in ironing, I thought I'd surf up some relevant ironing links, to see if I'm crazy (or if I, and other people,...
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11:34 AM
January 14, 2003
This is what I sent to New Directors/New Films: Synopsis: A man carefully irons a shirt before spending the day at the rural Utah dry cleaners once owned by his grandfather. Utah Ark? It is shot in one day and...
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9:19 AM
January 13, 2003
Clocking in at a not-dragging 11'16"; with balanced sound; a few sound effects, even (you'd never notice if I didn't mention it); a dramatically pared down soundtrack (just one song, with LP3 vinyl effects I wrote about Friday); some actually...
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12:24 PM
Finally, some screen grabs from Souvenir (January 2003). Want to see more? click here...
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10:47 AM
January 10, 2003
The clock radio's out of the script, but music's still going in. In a piece about memory and attempting to connect with the past in a self-aware way, I want to use old-time music, my square-dancing-every-saturday, stack-of-78's-on-the-shelf, singin-cowboy, a-one-and-a-two kind...
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11:51 AM
"I had a professor once who said that as Chekhov got older he lopped off the eventful beginnings and twist endings of his early works and that quivering middle was the mature short story." -David Edelstein, SlateHere's to you, David...
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10:28 AM
Sound editing tip: Keyframes are your best friend. Actually, The LA Final Cut Pro Users Group website is your best friend. Where'd you hear that? 2-pop discussion boards, you know you're my best friend. Of course, using keyframes to...
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1:21 AM
January 8, 2003
Cinema Paradiso was better shorter, even if Giuseppe Tornatore sleeps better at night knowing his version was finally released last year. (I wrote about this when I saw the Director's Cut last May.) According to David Edelstein's closing post to...
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6:18 AM
Apple is certainly on my mind, if not on my head. While Jobs is off announcing the next great toy, I'm here newly switched, on deadline, and the damn Powerbook keeps freezing up and opening in recovery mode-OS9.2. How many...
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4:39 AM
S(J03) is done. at least the first cut is. 12'30" is a little long. I watched it all the way through once, and there's definitely a minute I can trim. The rest, though, it'll be tougher. Maybe 10 minutes isn't...
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3:37 AM
January 7, 2003
Day 1.5 is complete, and the first cut is about half done. Never mind that it's five minutes long, which is about what I'd imagined the finished cut to be. I got the first act laid down and that was...
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1:53 AM
January 5, 2003
Editing, here I come. I finished logging and capturing all the footage I'll use in S(J03); it seems like it'll be tough to get it down to 5-6 minutes. The last tape I captured was all the ironing (three white...
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12:33 PM
January 3, 2003
I'm logging and capturing footage for Souvenir (January 2003). So far, I've completed two of three tapes, for a subtotal of about 25 minutes, which takes about 10 Gigs. Oblique Strategy: Just carry on....
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8:39 AM
December 28, 2002
Just finished logging in the third and final tape for S(J03), and I'm pretty relieved/excited. At first, three hours of footage for a 5-minute film seemed daunting, like we'd never be able to cull it down, but after watching...
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4:08 AM
December 27, 2002
New New Yorker Jason Kottke made my Boxing Day by including greg.org on his weblog's "not recommended at all" list. It's right under Gawker (who I'd come to imagine as a top, so that's unsurprising). Thanks, Jason! (And unless you're...
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9:51 AM
This morning, I ran off to shoot one more pre-sunrise shot of the mountains and highway for S(J03), a cold, dark 2.5 hour round trip from SLC. With the sweet Powerbook that Santa brought me, I'll get some stills...
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4:06 AM
December 26, 2002
What a way to spend Boxing Day. I logged two of the three hours of footage we shot Monday for S(J03), which took most of the afternoon. Now that I know what we have to edit, the question is, how...
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11:02 AM
December 24, 2002
Synopsis: A man travels to Springville, Utah to hang out in a dry cleaners owned by Joe, a Korean immigrant. Cast & Crew: I directed. Artist/photographer Patrick Barth starred as cinematographer. Producer/assistant camera/astrophysicist Jean Cottam did everything else. Joe (presumably)...
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10:50 AM
December 23, 2002
I haven't posted much about it at all, but I wrote a new short script, S(J03), which I'm going to do a rough shoot of Monday in Springville, Utah. If it goes well, we'll come back and shoot it in...
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1:40 AM
