It’s hard to articulate my appreciation for consumer-culture rap as a member of the white-male fraternity; one one hand, the “wigger” stigma hangs none too far out of reach, though, goddamnit, sometimes a throwaway beat makes me happy. Watching mindless, white, suburban club hoppers bounce in unison to throwaway beats also makes me want to vomit, and thusly, I am torn over rap music.

I can’t explain my impulse desire to hear “Superstar” while I’m putting on my shoes in the morning, or why I instantly scan the hip-hop radio dial (and only the hip-hop radio dial) whilst in the car, alone, if only to catch a catchy song.

Does that sound like a guilty pleasure?

I don’t consider myself a rap fan, but rather, I see myself as appreciating rap from a distance (closer at times, sure) having seen the genre evolve in real time to the cultural force it has become over the last three decades.

Modern day rappers are some of the greatest storytellers of all time. Tru dat. For naysayers of rap music (ie, all you frontn’ ass white people), I’ve tried to help make (Jay-Z’s) argument that rap music, in part, is “black superhero music.” That’s brilliant.

The best rappers are simply aural comic artists.

And as a sucker for storytelling across ALL mediums (except comic books), I fucking dig rap, like, 5% of the time. I mean, a lot of rap music is wasteoid, pop, crap, but you could say that for movies, all music, and really, all people.

For what it’s worth, I only like about 5% of people (maybe 2.5%), and yes, I’m using hating people too as a defense for allowing myself to like (some) rap music.

If you’re wondering why I’m so defensive about rap music; I don’t know, man. I grew up in the repressive South, it’s complicated. I think Master P is deserving of untold marketing class case lectures, but I also laugh at the ridiculousness of his platinum ‘teef. Or is that “teeph”?

I’m really over-meta-tizing the prize here, because The Hood Internet is simply intuitive. These guys are great. They’re indie (hate that term) rockers who moonlight as hip-hop DJ’s. And karate instructors.

The hood internet makes music for people who like hip-hop AND indie music and don’t think that’s weird. If the Grey Album didn’t make sense to you (or felt sacrilege), stay away. For the rest of you, go to The Hood Internet now for guilt-free indulgence in awesomeness.

*asked this once a few weeks ago and once again recently, here goes my excuse*

“Hey Josh, I see you can write and direct, I like your eye and I like (short xyz___). There’s a lot of viral ad bullshit out there on the net? I’m seeing a lot of that same bullshit on your site, why haven’t you made something longer?”

The reason I have not sought out to create longer pieces on my own has to do with probably why you’re finding a lot of viral ads and bullshit out there: MONEY and TALENT.

It is extremely tough to piece together funds to make longer pieces that don’t suck with actors who don’t suck. Several times in the past few years I’ve started setting pots aside for longer short pieces with high quality production values - mostly shorts in the 5-10 minute range I’ve written with budgets at $1K/minute. As soon as the pot starts growing, guess what I do?

Move cross country.

I just moved again, BTW.

I hold the title of Senior Editor on a couple hours of broadcast footy that ended up on (then) iNHD around 2005/6, and a long time ago I made an hour long documentary about the Denver, CO snowboard/skateboard/music/ art scene (pressed 300 DVD copies at the time - 2004), and in 2000 I pieced together a 45 minute “documentary” about well….nothing in particular…but about 100 people have viewed it since then and you could really say I was still a video infant at the time (this is waaaaayyyyy before desktop editing. No iMacs even, yet).

In 2005 I unsuccessfully started an HD docu-feature called Fuck Highlands Ranch with a very good comedian friend of mine named Chuck Roy. We shot about 70% of the footage…and the remaining 30% was all stuff we needed money for. Chuck was hoping he would lead us to money during production…and it never happened. There are a few pieces from that shooting that wound up on my site which showcase only about 5% of the footy. We were trying to raise about $75K. The end result would have been very META. It was a great script, part stand up comedy, part fictional live action, and part documentary. That was supposed to be my calling card. I’ve heard some say Sarah Silverman’s Jesus Is Magic appeared in form sorta’ how we envisioned Fuck Highlands Ranch (not at all saying someone copied us, just info for reference). There’s about 8 hours of HD material that will never be seen, sitting in my closet. Oh well.

Last summer, I set out to write a low budget feature script that could be made for $50K. I couldn’t do it, turned out $100K would be the minimum, no matter how much I trimmed it. If I had the cash to shoot that film right now, I’d finance it myself.

So, as far as longer format stuff….It all comes down to me finally saving some money. Once I’ve got at least $5K to play with, then I’ll be making some heavy plans and commitments. Until then, I’ve done about everything else I can do for free, or super cheap, and that’s why I spend a lot of time writing now.

BTW, I’m not holding my breath on accumulating $5K of my own to play with just for shorts anytime soon. Despite this, my creative ventures continue and I remain optimistic for the future of my making-longer-format works.

Once again, I AM NOT A DESIGNER, but I’m working on something pretty cool at the moment.

Go there.

Road weary travels coming to a close. Not too much time for pixels lately; just a few spare moments for pictures.

Damn, anyone with even a mild shred of design appreciation will be mesmerized by this clip for “DVNO” by Justice.

The end made me laugh out loud (not just lol, seriously laugh out loud) from sheer smacked-by-cleverness-ity.

This is tight.

Here’s a link to a higher-rez QT for those scoring at home.

Though it’s a little hard to see in the picture, you’ll notice a sticker on the person side of a toilet paper dispenser which reads: “Toilet camera for statistical purposes only”.

- I’m sorry, what? Did I just read “toilet camera?”

Is this for real? Possibly a joke? If so, it’s a thorough one; all the other stalls were marked too (yes, I checked).

I have no idea what the legal implications are for installing a toilet camera for any purposes, but I’d bet if its at an airport, “statistics gathering” is only one reason a camera would be allowed.

What type of statics are they tracking? Toilet traffic (simply)? Average minutes per use? Length on seat vs. length buckling pants? What agency is tracking these statistics? Janitorial? Security? Marketing?

See the camera?

Just one more reason to avoid public bathrooms I guess.

“Woah, that package is lighting up next to me.”

Yeah, I picked it up. Hey, that’s pretty neat. That’s a good ploy, guys. Stick a small, emanating LED inside your package, hope the battery at least outlasts the shelf-life, wait for sales. Okay, cool, you’ve gotten my hard-won attention…

…but I didn’t buy your goo and I’m not even sure what type of goo you’re selling.

It’s the light-up kind, silly.

is as equally scary.

Showbiz Pizza Fan Site
Showbiz Pizza Wikipedia entry

…is a somewhat meaningless number compared to the dearth of content and traffic the website is privileged to, yet for our short-we-didn’t-know-what-it-was, the climb to 100K views just off YouTube felt very milestoney.

A built-in audience has been proven; one look at the comments shows that. This video has not been featured, not been linked to, not been blogged about (accept by me), not been advertised, and not been subject to any limelight, yet…a sizable audience has sought out the content and embraced it wholeheartedly.

Thus the reason Paper Unicorns and a slew of other projects were born.

* My Favorite Pastime on YouTube. *

Some people wait months for the new awesomest-blockbuster-movie ever, but I’ve been patiently awaiting the release of MK12’s History of America (4 years in the making). Finally, the short (30 minute short, that is) is available online, but probably not for long. It’s wonderful the MK12 boys have made the entire movie available for free instead of asking for $ for downloads. A lot of time an effort has gone into the crafting of this very original and unique vision, and the attentional to detail is impeccable.

What is The History of America according to MK12? Cowboys vs. Astronauts, bitches.

And the detail? Check out this still:

- How fucking funny is that? Answer: really

The psuedo-rotoscope, greenscreeny+line drawing and digital watercolor animation technique is nothing new for MK12; THOA aesthetic is very reminiscent (no, directly reminiscent) of their 2003 Hot Hot Heat “No Not Now” video, complete with a nod to the bunny costume characters.

Still, this is dope-ass animation at it’s best - a large, well thought out moving painting if you will, and that’s cool. In many ways, THOA allows MK12 show they are the dominate force in their craft without reigning in the details of what their craft really is. Broadcast design, animation, modeling, production technique, sound design? Sure. But THOA shows off much more than technical skill including a hilarious pop-historical, pop-political take on America. Though the plot is completely ludicrous, the story is eerily familiar and 100% sensical to anyone succumb to American public education in the last 35 years.

The short can be viewed in its entirety, here: go fast before it gets yanked (not supposed to be available yet due to acceptance into Sundance ‘09 Shorts Program). Let me know if this gets pulled and I’ll hook you up with the .mp4 - its apparent MK12 would like it that way.

2″ of snow on the back-40, enough for a bit of slippery fun.

All photos by Kristine.

2007 could be unofficially titled “The Year Big Movie Makers Stopped Being Afraid of Digital Acquisition and Released A Bunch of Digitally Shot Films”. I think though, without one caveat, that title would be a bit misleading.

Oh, the caveat?

There were a bunch of crappy looking digital films released in 2007.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the move to digital acquisition is cool, but not if the films look like they were “shot with a digital camera that makes everything look like it’s being viewed through a bug-spattered windshield”.

I guess in some ways the move to using digital cameras for non-indie films has allowed medium/highly funded producers to believe hiring a competent DP was pointless. “The cameras are digital! It’s easy!”

I thought about making a comprehensive list of biggish-time films shot digitally but looked terrible. That list is out there; maybe someone else will write it, but for now, here are a few examples:

- Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead trailer - come on Sidney!
- Starting Out In The Evening trailer - puke
- Fay Grim trailer - most of Magnolia’s/HDNet Films releases suffer from bad cinematography
- Slipstream trailer - yuck for the cinematography, and double yuck for the “plot”
- The Lookout clip - right after this clip (peep the DVD), the film turns to terrible, DV quality REZ for the final bank shootout. Um, what? Why?
- Zodiac, though I did enjoy the color grading, was even unimpressive. I particularly remember some scenes in the dinner toward the end looking horrendous.

One digitally shot film released in 2007 that looks fabulous is Reign Over Me. Shot with the Panavision Genisis, cinematographer Russ Alsobrook and his crew had the city street night shots dialed in. Generally, it is the naturally lit nighttime scenes which expose digital acquisition weaknesses, but Reign doesn’t falter for a second.

The movie itself? Not bad. Found the “love interest” quite annoying to the point of undermining the rest of the moral.

But for what it’s worth, Reign features some brilliant filmmaking, including the editing which worked quite well given the tasty visuals.

—

Anyone catch the name of Liv Tyler’s character?

Busy.

I dropped most of my regular for hire clients a couple months ago. I’m writing a lot. Life is awesome. You might be able to find some of my recent work, here.

Project Z Car - 1978 280Zweetness. Fun fun fun. F A S T.

<< more Z >>

Still mostly away from pixels…….and having a good time.

Sunrise.

…as seen prominently displayed at my local grocer.

I left without buying anything.

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Stampy doesn’t feel good.

LeeLoo needs a bath.

Lights Out - new ethereal short

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