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Revenge of the Partybot

Revenge of the Partybot is a sound design project I did in second year. It was mainly a group effort, but I wrote most of the script and did most of the sound editing on it. It was good fun and part of what made me realise that I’d like to do sound design.

There are some obvious mistakes in there, but I’ll not spoil it by pointing them out. I was new to the software at the time and producing full sound-scapes as well, and we were pressed for time. I still find it entertaining. The carnage is especially pleasing.

2010 02 08 admin Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

My Plight For Sugru

I just made a rewrite of If I Were A Rich Man that I’m calling If I Had Some Sugru. It has no music in it, but that might change tomorrow, if Taphead manages to make me something awesome. (It’s not his talent I’m questioning here, it’s his resolve in the face of my most likely incredibly off-key singing.

Sugru is a silicon-based material that works a bit like clay in that you mold it around whatever you want to fix or improve, then you leave it to dry for 24 hours. The difference is that the dried piece is “rigidly flexible” like silicon things usually are and it also very strongly binds to whatever you’re fastening it to, so it works like a permanent, stronger kind of Blu-Tack. The stuff is amazing, and the people behind it are in the process of scaling their production up to be able to accomodate a market many, many times bigger than they expected to have. Check out their site for more info.

The reason I made the song was because they asked people who REALLY wanted some sugru right now to send them an e-mail with some pictures and text about why they should have Sugru. I quoted If I Were A Rich Man in mine and then I couldn’t quite stop myself…

2010 02 07 admin Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Sound log, aka Slog?!

I’m trying out something new. It takes me ages to write these updates, so I tend to end up not doing them if I’m a bit tired. As such, I’ve been thinking it might help if all I have to do is record a bit of audio right there on my browser and then use that.

Today’s Slog

My Flickr

Let me know what you think of this as an idea, also let me know what you think of the audio quality. I had to use the internal mic on my iMac, because the site messed up the quality of the sound when I used my Samson USB mic. So yeah, chime in.

2010 02 04 admin Journal Comments (1) Permalink

Day off

Saturday today, day off! Woop woop!

I went to Tae Kwon Do today, looking forward to sweating it up and kicking the shit out of those cushions. Sadly, the instructor couldn’t come and it was cancelled. Oh well. I did manage to get some cardboard boxes and paint for the track/dolly project, though.

Also, while waiting for Andy, who was to get me the cardboard stuff, I chanced upon a Swedish exchange student at the cafe. We ended up having a fairly long conversation about all kinds of things, and I hope to meet him again. Great guy. Also, I could actually speak Norwegian to him, which is rare. Usually, I have to speak in English to Swedes as they don’t understand us. We understand them just fine, so I don’t quite get why so many of them can’t return that sign of respect. We’re not just neighbouring countries, our languages are virtually the same, except for a few words here and there. So anyway, Henrik DID understand me, so that was fine.

Made pizza today. T’was good. Instead of tomato puree with greens (and meat) on layer by layer, I made a full-on pizza topping with everything mixed in that I let simmer while the dough rose. I made the topping basically like I would a tomato sauce for pasta: Oil in kettle. Heat it up. Garlic. Simmer quickly. Onion, mushroom, ++ veg. Crushed tomato from a can. seasoning. Simmer for a long time. I seasoned it a bit differently than I would a pasta sauce, but the gist is the same.

Marit made a roly poly cake (probably not the right name, but you get the idea) and it was DELICIOUS. Mmmmmm.

2010 01 24 admin Journal Comments (0) Permalink

WoWing it up.

Not a VERY fruitful day.

I played World of Warcraft (not on my netbook) and exercised. I was going to read one of my books on screenwriting, but kind of never got to it. I also forgot to go to my counselling session, which annoys the fuck out of me.

For a while, I’ve wanted a Macbook Pro. Since I bought my netbook, however, I don’t feel that same need. I would actually rather have a new iMac when the time comes to upgrade. That means I’ll get generally higher specifications on the hardware, I won’t have to buy an external screen for video editing (And the iMac’s screen is huge at 27″), and I’ll pay less even if I get the best of all the iMacs. Bonus: By the time I can afford to buy one (best case scenario: 8-9 months) they might come with USB 3.0 (You know the USB you have? 3.0 is coming, and it’s going to be hella faster.) and Blu-Ray (I hate backing up to DVDs. Can hardly fit anything on one DVD) and possibly even 8 gigs of RAM as standard. Who knows? I certainly don’t. But I can dream!

Me and some friends from the Whitechapel community are considering the prospects of real-sex pornography sites. Don’t know if we’ll be seriously discussing creating a site ourselves or what, but it’s certainly an interesting prospect. Pornography is usually such a taudry affair, particularly if you take into account how abusive and unfeeling the porn industry is. Something like Beautiful Agony, only with professional photographers and full-on, real sex between real couples could help to give that industry a boot up its arse and to make people realise that there doesn’t have to be a dirty feeling attached to pornography. For a good write-up on it (with a NOT-Safe-For-Work picture) click here.

2010 01 23 admin Journal Comments (0) Permalink

Lectures and Meetings

I had my first lecture in the theory module today, which was interesting. It’s about dreams as they relate to the moving image. It’s an interesting topic, and what’s more, I got a presentation topic that actually specifically calls for a study of the Doctor Who episode “Blink”, which it has to be said is my favourite Doctor Who episode ever. Its notions of time travel are a bit iffy, but that’s not really what it’s about, anyway.

Later in the day, I had a meeting with Edgar, Dave and Andy. Andy will be playing in our little tracking project, so we’ve set up some dates for rehearsing and stuff. I think it could be pretty good.

I also had brioche today. Mmm. AND I made a nice spaghetti dinner. No sauce, just spaghetti, steamed broccoli, fried chestnut mushrooms (with salt and pepper) and fried onion and courgette (aka. Squash, aka. zucchini) with salt and savoury spices. Delicious stuff. The mushrooms were just right. The key is fairly high heat and short frying time.

2010 01 21 admin Journal Comments (0) Permalink

Applying myself

I was up early today. We had to measure up a “studio” (they call it a studio, but it’s more a teaching room with loads of sockets.) for an assessment two weeks from now. To get out of there before classes (for other people) were due to start, we had to be there at nine. I was there at nine. Dave and Edgar weren’t. That’s all right, though, I managed to get out the tracks we were measuring and stuff while I waited. It’s incredibly tempting to make this shoot very complicated, but we should probably be pretty careful not to overload ourselves with ideas. We’ll have some blocking and rehearsals to do on monday, so that’s all right.

After this, I borrowed like six books on scriptwriting from the library at uni. One of my major problems in previous years has been that I haven’t done much self-directed study, so I’m trying to fix that now. I’ve also pretty much decided not to direct my own film but rather have my semester be assessed on the script I’m writing and sound design for one of the other groups. I did promise myself I’d get in on some craft roles, so it’s time to make good on that.

I was going to go scouting for locations today, but since I’m not DIRECTING, I didn’t have to! Instead, I spent some time not getting Giants: Citizen Kabuto to work, which was pretty shitty, and I also applied to a couple of jobs! One, I didn’t get because they were looking for someone who could work more, and one I don’t know. The former was for an Apple Premium Reseller in Edinburgh and the other was for the Edinburgh Dungeons, which is like a ghost tour thing. It’s supposed to be quite good, and I have a good friend from drama who works there. (Hello, Lauren!)

Oh yes, and I had a pretty good work-out today, except I ran past the point at which I had planned to turn without noticing, so I ended up running for a quarter of an hour longer than I meant to. My knee (the one I fucked last summer) was not particularly happy about this. Hopefully, it’ll clear up by tomorrow. Whether it does or not, I’m going to try to get out on my bike for a ride tomorrow anyway. I’m very determined to get in PROPER shape this half a year, see. I’m tired of making progress for a month or two and then falling off again.

Tomorrow is the first theory lecture, and various other stuff.

2010 01 21 admin Journal Comments (0) Permalink

Workin’ It

Busy day today, even though I don’t feel like I’ve done much. I think it has partly to do with the fact that I was “late” out of bed, so I didn’t have my usual leisurely morning before uni, and also the fact that I didn’t do MANY things.

Had a dolly workshop (A dolly is a big heavy motherfucker of a thing you use in film making whenever you want to move the camera around, but you don’t want to do handheld. All major productions use them. Mostly, they’re on a track) all day from 10 ’till 5, after which I had a meeting with Liam, Dave (aka. Daffy, just so you know… though he doesn’t like it and no one else uses it but me) and Edgar to discuss the dolly project we have to do on the second of february. We have some far-out ideas, but we’ll see if we can’t get it to work. I’m meeting Edgar early tomorrow morning to measure the tracks and stuff so we can be as prepared as possible.

After this, I went straight home, made dinner, and was picked up by Andy Cameron two minutes after I’d finished eating. I’d promised to help him film a basketball match. Now, as you know, I’m more or less straight. Happily married to a curvy, delicious women. However, one of the guys we were to film today… was fucking beautiful. I cannot remember his name, but he was very very pretty. Dark chocolate skin and a slight but defined frame. I know we say these things about male celebrities because they’re kind of not “human”, if you know what I mean, but I will say it now: I would go to bed with this man.

LUCKILY, he’ll never read this and I’ll never meet him again, so I don’t mind saying it. If you are reading this, though, basketball boy I can’t remember the name of: Hello! Take it as a compliment. A creepy compliment, but a compliment.

Came home and watched two episodes of the new Being Human series. Great show. Supernatural drama done right… And that’s a fucking hard thing to do.

My wife is biting my arm, I better put away the laptop and get to sleep. Night night, whoever’s out there! (or my future self!)

2010 01 20 admin Journal Comments (0) Permalink

Keeping my Grade

I got some writing done in the morning, so I’m very happy about that. I’ve almost finished the first draft by now, after which I will location scout a bit on Wednesday (looking for willing coffee booth owners in Edinburgh, etc) and do some analysing of my own script (along with others) to see if I’m hitting the right notes and such.

I’ve been hurting like hell since Tae Kwon Do on saturday. Bouncing on the balls of my feet has fucked the entire backside of my legs, from my arsecheeks down to my calves. Subsiding slightly by now, so maybe a run tomorrow would be good.

Lectures today were good. Had Paul Holmes on script development. He’s the resident writing and directing guru. Cool dude, good lecturer. He’s always wearing those red “sunglasses” of his, which I’m sure would make most other people look like utter pillocks. The wild locks of dark brownish hair that surrounds them kind of makes it work on him, however. Then we were taught about script breakdowns by a guest lecturer called Susie Brown. I’m not going into project management or anything like that, but everything she had to say was both important and interesting.

I did indeed manage to get an appeal through to get my full grade for the theory module last year, which was just an incredibly huge relief to me. I know my essay was a B+ and my presentation a B-, so now we’ll just have to wait and see if I actually managed to eek out a Merit pass for that module or not. If I can help it, I want to have all merits on my BA, but we’ll see. Only three of the third year’s six grades go on to my BA. Still a chance!

Watched Some Like It Hot today. It’s incredible what they could get away with in those days. Fun and zany movie, but PC-freaks (not ‘puters, silly) beware! This is rocky territory!

Planned on doing some workouts, but my friend Atle invited me to play some Mercenaries 2 instead. Mercenaries 2 has a lot of issues with the gameplay, but it’s actually quite a lot of fun, especially when you’re playing with a friend. It’s sort of GTA-like in its setup, which works oddly well when you’re in Cooperative mode and driving around between missions (Which generally just involve blowing things up).

Good day, all in all. The week has started out as friends, I’ll do my best to keep it that way.

PS: Feel free to comment on these posts if you feel you have anything to say, whether it be to show support, criticise something (I take fair critique pretty well), or just to say hello. I do like being reminded every now and then that I’m not the only one seeing these posts, even though I am writing them mostly for myself.

2010 01 19 admin Journal Comments (1) Permalink

Getting back on the horse

Derek Zoolander may have declined to get back on the horse on account of not being a gymnast, but In an attempt not to be quite as dimwitted, I’m going to attempt to get back on it… Legolas style.

November went, december – including deadlines and christmas – came and went. January is here. I managed to miss my essay deadline, but finished within a week after, so I MIGHT be able to put an appeal into effect that will give me my full grade. I’m also going to a counsellor at uni to help me get over some of my self-esteem issues and my debilitating fear of essays. I seem to talk a lot of shit, and I’m not sure where I’m going with it, but we’ll see.

Okay, so that’s all a little shitty, but what does that have to do with all these equine metaphores? (Okay, there’s only one that I kept using, and I just wanted to use “equine” in a sentence)

Well, I spent all of today not doing anything. I made some coffee, I played World of Warcraft, and I faffed about online. Oh, I also failed to make whipped cream (You suck, UK. Your “whipping” cream sucks) and I cleaned the floors. WHAT A DAY!!!

I should have been writing. I should have been preparing for the next week. To avoid digging myself into a pit and drowning myself in self-loathing and regret, I’ll stop talking about all i didn’t do and say that I will from now on DO things! And write! And I’ll even try to keep it up, too!

2010 01 18 admin Journal Comments (0) Permalink