OK, so California’s supreme court has thrown out Prop. 22… a great happening indeed for gay marriage. But, those damn conservatives are trying to get a referendum on the ballot to define marriage just like the hated Prop. 1 in Tennessee back in 2006… to define marriage as one man and one woman. I hate this goddamn limited thinking moronic society that we live in. It’s pure discrimination. You know that proposition will pass, the church always manages to get the vote out when they need it.

Why is it that the only state that allows marriages is one of the most expensive to live in, at least I think it is.

Maybe Greg and I should just move to Canada.

Sigh.

ETSU does it again…

You know, I have been kind of tolerant of my college and the inept way they do things… but this latest escapade by the powers that be, mainly the administration and/or the Student Government Association just makes you want to disassociate yourself with this college.

Read this story and prepare to just laugh out loud…

My thoughts?

How dumb can dumb get! That’s about the only way I can sum it all up.

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Where the !@#% have I been?

I tell you, the last weeks of a jam packed semester can be grueling. But, now that I’ve had time to recover and reflect, here’s how everything went…

There were three additional days of shooting on “The Door”, which wrapped filming on March 21st. Postproduction was done over the course of three Saturdays. You may ask why I chose Saturday to work? Easy… because I usually have nothing to do on Saturday. 😛 Editing the film was one of the greatest joys of my life. To finally see something that you labored to shoot come together piece by piece, I know now why I love the postproduction process so much. For the score, I decided against using existing recordings and writing my own score… using a Yamaha YPT-210 keyboard purchased from Best Buy. The actual instrument used was just a warm pad synth, and it just fit the film like a glove. I thought I loved my film without music, but let me tell you, when you add music to picture and watch it unfold for the first time… wow. That’s the best I can describe it. Wow.

The film was shown on April 8th in class. Tom Headley, the associate professor and the head of the broadcasting department had the following to say…

“In almost 40 years, I would put this film in the top 5% of all the films I’ve seen.”

Again… wow. And this coming from the harshest critic of anyone’s work on the whole ETSU campus.

If you would like to view the film, you can via a crappy upload here at Vimeo… I’m going to try to get an HD version up there later this week. I’d appreciate if you guys didn’t spread the film around too much, I might enter it in some competitions later on, mmkay?

Fast forward to April 25th… the Department of Communication awards banquet. Greg and I have been nominated for the Murvin H. Perry Creative Achievement Award for “Clue Me In”. Along the way during the ceremony, I am announced as the winner of the first ever Spirit Award, awarded to someone who always helps others, loves what they do, and exhibits the true spirit of a broadcaster. The perk for this, $100 towards my tuition in the fall. Cha-ching! And the deal was sweetened later when we find out that we won the Creative Achievement award. This award we beat out students not only in broadcasting, but in advertising, PR, speech and journalism for. Wow again. I was fighting back tears when going up to get the award. I never knew I could be so affected by winning awards. If I had to give a speech, I might have been the proverbial Halle Berry at the Oscars. Imagine that…

I passed all my classes, I’m glad I never have to speak a word of French again in a classroom setting… now we can look forward to a summer filled with trying to get past the last two nemeses of my college career, Prob. and Stats (which I failed last summer) and History 2010 (everything through 1877.)

Also, after we got back from vacation, Greg and I discovered that we were in a bit of a fiscal crisis, so to speak. But, we’ve plugged along and I think we’ll be OK until June 2nd, when I get a balance of aid check back.

Well, that’s about all for now, I’ll go dust the cobwebs off of this blog… I’ll have some stuff to pass along later…

Leap Day

OK, so according to sport6449, if I don’t blog today, I won’t be cool, so here goes…

Final day of filming on “The Door” was postponed yesterday because it snowed on Wednesday and I didn’t want to take a chance on snow still being around. We were to film exteriors, one day scene, one night scene. Add to that it was cold as shit last night and I didn’t want to make anyone sick. So, we’ll try to pick those scenes up on March 13th (subject to change.)

You learn a lot about the process of making a movie once you’re actually doing it, such as make sure there is enough headroom there, lead the subject the right way on the close up, etc.

Now, to the even better stuff… I’m leaving for LA tomorrow. That’s right, another trip to the land of smog. Here’s the itinerary so far…

Sat 3/1: 12:35 PM flight from Knoxville to Memphis, then to LA. After getting the car rental and checking into the Homestead in Brea, will probably be too pooped to pop.
Sun 3/2: Trip to the Paley Center in Beverly Hills to look at some more rare goodies.
Mon 3/3: Lunch with one of Greg’s friends in San Bernardino.
Tues 3/4: Going to see “The Big Bang Theory” in person at the Warner Bros. lot… I got these tickets before I saw that Jason Alexander is going to be guesting on “New Adventurs of Old Christine”, which is recording that day on the same lot.
Wed 3/5: TBD
Thurs 3/6: CBS Television City to see The Late Late Show. Wanda Sykes is going to be one of the guests, I loved her in “Clerks II”.
Fri 3/7: Going back to the Warner lot to see “Two and a Half Men”, it’s an OK show, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.
Sat 3/8: TBD
Sun 3/9: TBD, late night, getting in that famous line on Fairfax!
Mon 3/10: TPIR with Drew… hopefully will get to see both shows that day (that is, if they’re still having to ask people to stay over)
Tues 3/11: Flying back, LA to Detroit then back to Knoxville.

And lots of stuff in between. It sounds like a lot of stuff to do, but I’m sure it’ll be fun!

I’ll be sure to post updates during the trip, I promise, and maybe some photos too!

Ciao!

The Door — Day One

First day of shooting in the books, and it went very well. Just mainly a sequence of two, just one line of dialog in the sequence for the closing of the film. Day Two, Sunday, is the challenging day. Long dialog sequences means that the shoot will take time to get through… but that’s the fun of it all, and I’m looking forward to it.

You know, it’s been real great getting GSN back a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been re-hooked on Trivia Trap… which, btw, if you’ll remember back when I first started this blog, the title of it was “The Trivia Trap”… and I’ve really gotten into Now You See It. Great shows, indeed, for late night viewing.

New year is uneventful for me so far, can’t wait for classes to start next Monday morning. Here’s what I’m taking…

FREN 2020 – Second Year French II
GEOG 1120 – Landforms and Processes
RTVF 4401 – Directing Talent for the Camera (dramatic and comedy talent, that is)
RTVF 4690 – Broadcast Management
ENGL 4320 – Film Criticism (for film studies minor, and don’t anybody dare make the first Jay Sherman joke, hehe).

“Clue Me In” is officially on hiatus due to the fact that Christian McKinney, our host, graduated. We have a couple of prospects in mind, and during this spring semester, we will give them auditions. Discussion and possible seeking of feedback might be forthcoming. I’ll keep my good friends here posted.

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BTW, I am going to vote in the primary, but I haven’t a clue as to who to vote for. Yes, I’ve been keeping track, but apparently I’m a stupid undecided voter (as Family Guy would have us believe…)

TTFN.

Another Year Gone By…

Well, as I look back on another year of exsitence in this sad old world, I say to myself… “Damn, how have I survived this long?” It’s a question that I wish I had the answer to, but there is no answer to.

So, how will being 28 be different from being 27? No different at all. I just take every day as it comes anymore.

On the lighter side of things… Greg and I are heading to Knoxville tomorrow night to catch an Ice Bears hockey game… it’s 2 for 1 night, if you bring an empty bottle of Nesquik. Yeah, I think we can do that. And, even better, $1 hot dogs, sodas, small popcorn… it’s going to be a happy birthday, that’s for sure. 😀

That is all…

Greg scored big time for our production company today…

First, some back story… WEMT Fox 39 was housed on Hanover Road here in Johnson City up until 2005, then after Bluestone (under the guise of Aurora), bought the station’s operations from Sinclair, they moved the operations and master control to Bristol at WCYB.

Fast forward to this last weekend, and Greg gets an email that the former building has been sold, and the new owners, Bonten Media Group, want to get rid of everything out of the buidling to make way for some possible new tenants. Including equipment. Yes, you heard that right, equipment.

So, Mooneyhan/Brobeck Productions is now equipped with a Sony VO-9800 3/4″ U-Matic SP record deck, and a Sony BVW-95 Betacam SP side loading cart deck (playback only). Wow, equipment that cost a buttload brand new was handed to us without question. The latter was used in a Betacart setup, most of which is going to the ETSU Division of Broadcasting (so, I’ll be seeing more of where it came from, too). Also, lots of BNC cables. The decks work perfectly, which means that we can import anything off Betacam SP or 3/4″ U-Matic!

Wow, what a way to move up in technology… now if only we could get a Betacam SX or a DVCam machine…