more bad times

nearly a year ago, the great laurie jayne presciently sent me a mixed cd.  the second she has made for me, it successfully holds its goal capturing sabi, the japanese philosophy of finding beauty in the sadness of things.


the last four songs especially are sublime, the first of that finale being a song called "more bad times" by the goofy "presidents of the united states of america."  it is a lovely song, almost unfortunately punctuated by lines of silliness, as the chorus tenderly laments, "i wish there were more bad times to see you through."

one can't help but ponder the delicate sabi quality of that....

at some point during my time as a missionary in japan or after, i remember thinking about the relationships and the closenesses that i had with different companions.  it was those with whom together we fought for something that i became the closest; those that together we worked hard for things, and more often than not it didn't work out, it didn't happen.  we jumped and fell, but we crashed together and could share in that.


those were the companions that i was closest to; they were the ones i was most excited to meet up with again at the next conference or sometime after.  perhaps it was because we were in it together, yet, as i write this, i wonder if it was also because we were willing to take the risk together of doing more, of trying more.  we went for it and we could meet up later and say, "dang, those were rough times but we made it!"


and years ago, when i was thinking about this, i followed the thought to prayer.  that just as i was most excited to see those with whom i had shared the bad times, i would probably much more excited to meet God at the end of my life if i had shared my life with Him.


if, when things were hard and discouraging and most non-triumphant, i prayed and trusted in Him, He would lead and guide me through, and so at that great and last day, it would not be meeting a distant and unknown God, but a Best Friend who was there with me through it all, and we could excitedly embrace in the joy of having made it through together.








during my time away from texas, i was able to see my dearest and bestest friends, those who have been with me for years, who know all about me and like me anyway.  it was seriously dang.

like, seriously.



and as i've been thinking about that and mulling over this post, i've realized that those who make me the happiest, or who bring out the happiest and best parts of me are those with whom i'm most comfortable and willing to share my saddest sides.
it's interesting.



on friday, as i was fighting the unorganized campus bus system in my latest attempt to move the administration along and allow me to register, i found myself again thinking what i have noticed several times over the years: that it is in the peaceful, calm, and happy moments of life that i most lament my singlehoodnesship.








that not having someone with whom to share the good moments of life, be they grand or insignificant, is perhaps the saddest part for me.

i had a mission companion who, in showing the joy of sharing the Gospel, would asking how the person felt when they had a good slice of pie.  "you want to share it with your friends," would be the usual response from the person at the door.  

lights will guide you home... 

i suppose it's the same.  life is a tasty [pecan] pie, but eating it by yourself isn't much fun.  (a better analogy for me would be watching a great movie; while it's fun and enjoyable by yourself, i'd rather have someone else to laugh with and get into it with and discuss it with afterward.)

here's to more bad times and the
accompanying awesomenesses  : )

mostly, i just wanted to write this post as an excuse to put up some pictures, since i'm not really one to post pictures on facebook.
(editor's note: but in this case, we did anyway)

holiday season text results

it's 3:03 a.m., but i'm going to stamp this post as being from friday, because i'm hoping to get up another post on saturday and we keep a very strict "one post per day" rule around here.

anyway, here you go:

1. jaime - 697
2. dana - 422 (hey, look! i have a friend at church in texas)
3. shaun - 404
4. kristin - 312
5. jess 292 (two less than last time; way to be consistent)

joel is in tenth place with 146.

how to float

of the three videos that i made in my 622: "experimental film" class, my "how to float" video is my least favorite yet seems to be the most crowd-pleasing.  of the three, it was the only one selected to be in the main showing at our fall show and afterward several people told me how much they enjoyed it.  i've got nothing against it and think it's just fine, i just think my txt mssg and person_a videos are more interesting.  (shows what the masses know....)

the assignment was on the topic of "pixelation", a term which i had never heard before nor since.  when trying to describe it to students not in the class, the common description was "it's like stop-motion but with people", and that seems to work.  using frame rates to manipulate time and space is a significant part of it, too.  this kind of seems to be a quintessential (and oscar-winning) example.

we were put into teams, a first-year with a second- or nth-year student, and my partner was pretty cool (i'll show you her video at the end.  or maybe i'll save it for its own post; we had to do a lot of work to pull it off and that was quite fun).
i tossed around different ideas that were either lame or too complex (the one i can still remember was both) until i threw them all out and remembered something from my freshman year at byu.  my roommate ryan showed me some goofy little video his younger brother and a friend had made (youtube was still about four or five years away, so posting videos online was a little more of a process).  it was just them playing around with a video camera, taking shots of his brother jumping, but only at the top of his jump.  they would then show all of those "top jump" shots together and it looked like he was floating around the hallway.  simple, silly, and perfect for my assignment.

once i had this basis, the rest of the concept evolved rather easily: a "how to float" video, done like a bad 1950s educational film, with stoic acting, bland set design, and hopefully some tinny music.  i really quite liked this.
i pitched the idea to my class and my teacher said this has the potential to really be quite humorous.
"yes," i said in deadpan, "humor is my goal."

as research in trying to nail the look of a low-budget black and white educational film, i turned to the only source i knew (or cared to find) and watched a lot of mst3k shorts on youtube. research is awesome.
when the day to shoot came, everything went really well.  i brought in a few volumes of the journal of discourses and set them on a table next to a silk flower i'd bought, trying make it look like the art direction was done by some cold war era guys with no sense of aesthetic.  i wore the most boring bow tie i have and my round "harry potter" glasses and bought some gel to slick down my hair.  i think i had the most fun wheeling the ladder around the studio and hanging the lights to get everything looking just "wrong": harsh toplighting, multiple shadows, and whatnot.  the hardest thing was actually the chalkboard.  the best we could find was a couple in the hallway on the third floor, so i enlisted a friend working the lab to come and help me steal it when there was no one around.  carrying that heavy sucker up the stairs was rather tricky, but we pulled it off.

 we filmed all of the live-action video parts using the movie-mode on the still camera, then shot all of the jumping stills and then moved the camera in for the few close-ups.  naturally, the stills were the trickiest part, as elizabeth had to push the button at just the right time to catch me.  sometimes she'd be too early and sometimes too late.  over the course of the night, i estimated that i jumped closed to 300 times.  still, the only part that really hurt was when i did my fall, because i couldn't think of any better way than to jump and move my legs out from under me.  we did three falls and the second one i landed hard on my knee.  it was sore for a few days after.
shooting the close-up shot at the end, i had elizabeth take some stills for me because they were just looking so dang awesome.  saith the tgs, "i look so good!"

from there, it was simply a matter of putting all of the still shots in sequence using after effects (which i really need to just take some time and learn the basics of) then bring everything in to final cut (which i know rather well and love) and slap everything together.  i shot some intertitles taped to the wall in the hallway one afternoon (still not happy with the fonts; they aren't bland and "period" enough for me, but it was the best i cared to find) and that was pretty much it.

i got an A on the project but wanted to play with it a little more.  one of the lab assistants helped me add scratches and flicker, i messed around and added a registration roll (maybe could have added a second one, but i already had an A, so really, why?), and cut out some frames to make it look like... some frames were cut out.  that effect doesn't really work as well as i'd like, and i'm not entirely sure why; i think i need two frames of splice tape to sell the effect.  bah.
and, once again, one night while i was animating in the lab, our insanely talented t.a. nesh created the music for me.
bing.

in the end, it pretty much came out exactly as i envisioned it.  maybe i should go into film making instead of animation?

up in the air

"you ok?"

today was day 25 of 31 of my Christmas vacation.
i am homeless.

don't get me wrong.  i have a place to sleep.  but i've been living out of my suitcase for almost a month.  for most of that time, i've been on sleeping on couches, living in someone else's living room, and relying on others for my transportation.  these past three weeks are largely a hazy blur in my memory.

i've spent significant time at at least four different places and am very grateful for all of those who have let me stay with them.  no one has ever shown any annoyance or irritation that i am temporarily living with them (even when i am at less than my usual self).  but it's rough on me.  i have no place to call my own.  i had a room that i could live in for the week that i was in moorhead, but that was about it.  mostly, i'm nomadic, feeling like the unemployed friend who just needs a place to crash while he's in between jobs.  all i need now is a tv to watch "the price is right"....

my things--my stuff--are all in texas.  but one semester in texas has not yet made it feel like "home" in the sense of comfort and belonging.  utah is where my friends are, but they have lives here, things to do on a daily basis.  i don't live here anymore, and there's nothing here for me now but my friends.  minnesota is still minnesota, and that's cool, i guess.  but i'm not really sure where i want to be.  texas, i guess, but being back there isn't entirely a rejuvenating experience, either.  it's where my life is now, but it's not my favorite place that my life has been.

over an number three (animal style) tonight, i was discussing how change is continuous and life barrels on like a runaway train; you can't stop it or pause it, you can only go with it.  much of 2010 was absolutely awesome.  in many ways, everything was in its right place.  but either you will change or everything around you will change.  either way, it happens.  and it has happened.

i looked into changing my ticket to go "home" a few days early.  it's prohibitively costly.  i really don't know what i was thinking when i originally planned this trip for this long.  and that was even before my life was turned inside out.  twice.
but i've got a few things to look forward to next week and i have to admit that this couch bed i'm currently on is rather comfortable.  still, part of me is ready to get back to texas.  it isn't much for me, but in some ways, it's all i've got right now.

home is wherever i'm with you.

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my Christmas break

it's kind of been like this.
in a couple of ways.

my 2010

editor's note: with the exception of "how did you spend Christmas", this post was composed very late on the night of november fourteenth.  not that it really changes anything, and only minor changes have been made for clarity, but we felt it worth noting just the same.


once again, thank you for reading sheep go to heaven.  we appreciate your interest in our little corner of the world.

jeff gustafson
editor-in-chief
sheep go to heaven




what did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
went to europe, moved to the lone star state, snowboarded more than i have in the past ten years, worked closely with two oscar-winners in the desert, repaired my washing machine, failed a class, and ate fast food almost every week i could until i moved to texas.

did you keep your new years' resolutions?
the only one i see written down was to retreat into my social shell less, and i think i did that.

did anyone close to you give birth?
my sister, my best friend's wife, and those awesome people in fargo.

did anyone close to you die?
i attended dave stoddard's funeral.

what countries did you visit?
freaking belgium.

what did you want and get?
admission into texas a&m, changes and opportunities to grow and move forward with my life, answers to prayers, and someone to watch movies with.

what would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
someone to watch movies with for more than a week.

what date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory and why?
friday, july 23. the planets were all aligned and my life was as perfect as i could imagine it.
runner-up: thursday, august 19. i moved out of 907 and felt like the most fortunate person in the world.

what was your biggest achievement of the year?
1. holding a girl's hand at the amusement park.
2. surviving october.

what was your biggest failure?
honestly, i can't think of anything where i particularly "failed," though there may be something i'm blatantly missing.
i went through some very hard times and hopefully i endured them acceptably.

did you suffer illness or injury?
i think i had salmonella and know i had heartbreak.

what was the best thing you bought?
seven samurai on blu-ray and a number 3, animal style, with a chocolate shake instead of a drink.

whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
my boss at sundance the night i spent at the house.

where did most of your money go?
snowboarding tickets and the barnes & noble criterion sales.

what did you get really, really, really excited about?
flying back from austin to salt lake.

what song will always remind you of 2010?
the beastie boys, especially "looking down the barrel of a gun", "so what'cha want", and "root down."
"sweet child o' mine" on my snowboard.
also,  "magic" and "greener", to name a few.
and according to my itunes, i listened to "standing outside a broken phone booth with money in my hand" sixty-some times in two days.

compared to this time last year, are you: much happier, richer, nicer?
forgive me for saying this, but i am not immediately happier now than i was this time last year though i do hold to hope in the bigger picture.
this was arguably my best year for work and i would be richer but student loans kind of cut into that.
i'm not sure if i'm nicer or not.

what do you wish you'd done more of?
making better use of my time, watching movies (really), running, and practicing my accordion (hey, those were on my list last year!)

what do you wish you'd done less of?
not sure right now.

how did you spend Christmas?
in minnesota, doing the best i could, although i probably could have done better.
i also went cross-country skiing and really enjoyed it, especially the beauty of the snow-swept plains.

did you fall in love in 2010?
yes

what was your favorite tv program?
the series finale of 24 had us on a wild/awesome ride.
we lost conan then got him back.
and that's really all the tv that i watch.

what was the best book you read this year?
the screwtape letters. i have no idea why it took me so long to read such a wonderful book.

what were your favorite films of this year?
up in the air, metropolis, louder than a bomb, underworld (two of those are silent and none were actually released this year…)
as for films actually released this year, i enjoyed scott pilgrim and inception.

what were your least favorite films of this year?
double take at sundance was just really lame.

what did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
i turned 31 (still feel like i'm 25 or 26) and had a blast with the two party system again. marin's chocolate cake was perfection in a fallen world, and all the games and fun were great, but the after-party talking and reminiscing was my favorite.

what one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
still having somebody to love.

how would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
...vests?

what kept you sane?
kristin, ruby tuesday, my manfriend, and becky-san.

who did you miss?
kristin and chocolate; caleb and isaac and becky and brady; doing everything with mark; her; brooke and emily and the hpbc; going shopping with t; mary joy and rock band; rocio and the i.c.; jaime's not really gone; malia on sunday afternoons; sariah; everyone who played mario kart; and president sam.

who was the best new person (people) you met?
shaun

tell us a valuable lesson you learned in 2010.
trust in your Heavenly Father and everything is going to be ok.

what are you most excited for in 2011?
um…. wow, i'm not even sure. last year i said "the unexpected," citing that 2009 brought so many surprises. and i think i wrote that looking forward to 2010 and wondering if anything interesting would happen.
2010 was the most monumental, stretching, breaking, up and down, adventurous, unexpected year of my adult life. i'm still recovering and reeling from some of it and astounded that so many drastically different things could happen in just one year.
i have no clue what to expect from 2011. none.

and yet, i find myself looking forward to the unknown adventure.

what are you least excited for in 2011?
the cruciatus curse.

never go back to the hotel

i want to be a better person.
and i can be.
2010 was amazing.
i'm looking forward to 2011.

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how i spent my first semester of grad school

"first years..."

with things slowing down after Christmas, it's a good time to take a break and show what i was up to as a masters of visualization student at texas a&m.
i had three classes: an intro to animation class, a computer programming class, and a class called either "design communication" or "visual communication" (i can never remember which it is) and which i could only describe as an experimental film class.

there really isn't much to show from my programming class unless you want to see some C code.  i made a few interesting things, including a very basic painting program, although i feel like i could understand a lot of it better, which is why i've been reading "C programming for dummies" over my break.

i'll post about my animation class later, just because i feel like talking about my experimental film class at the moment.

over the semester, we had three projects to do, each around some rather loose parameters, which helped yield a very wide range of work.  for our third an final one, we were to use letters in some way, but the letters could not be used to form actual words or meaning in that way.  apart from that, pretty much anything goes (as long as it was between thirty seconds to a minute thirty, or so).
(there were several interesting products, including one short animation about a letter I trying out for the team.  it took me a moment to get the joke, that there's "no I in team".... so the I comes back dressed up like an E)

for the previous project i had done my multiple interviews video, which i was quite happy with and which was a project that came from my heart.  but in early november i was feeling rather bland and in some kind of creative drought and, when the day came to pitch our ideas, i still didn't have much.  at least, nothing that i was passionate about.  and you can't really work on an idea that you aren't passionate about.

i like fonts.  i think typography is cool.  since my freshman days at byu, i've been intrigued by the potential of working with single-frame images.  about mashing images at 24-frames a second.  how well would we see something like that?
24 frames a second....  there are 26 letters in an alphabet, so you could show an entire front in just over one second.... interesting.....
that was about as well-developed as any of the ideas i had when it came my turn to pitch (and this was even after we were given an extra day since the first day's pitches went long).

i stood up to the class and showed this.
i think it confused the heck out of them.

after about ten seconds, i could hear mutterings coming from the class.
when the thirty-two-second video ended, i explained that there was one drawing of that little guy shown each second.  i wanted to try something with letters and fonts, too.
to look at a font in a second, to flash thirty fonts in front of the screen in thirty seconds, stripping it down to the raw essence of it all.  i envisioned a strong techno drum beat behind it all.
"ok...." my teacher said.  "that sounds interesting."

i felt like it was such a lame idea that when we met to show our storyboards/design ideas at the next class period i didn't even bring anything, hoping to talk with her about figuring out a new idea.  "i quite liked your idea," she told me, sounding genuinely surprised that i thought it was a dud.
even if i wasn't emotionally behind it, i had enough going on in my other classes and beyond that if this was good enough for her, it was good enough for me.

my proof of concept for the piece was about five seconds long and took me three coldplay albums to complete.  i liked how it was looking.
the rest of the piece took me about as long, as i had figured out some ways to streamline the process.  i had our t.a. compose some music for it.  at first, i wanted something super simple, like one rapid-fire drum beat that would abruptly end, but i think his work still holds the essence of what i wanted while still helping carry along a rather esoteric piece.

the other evolution that happened was that my original plan was to just go in alphabetical order.  but after some discussion in class, i opted to change things up a bit.  but not at first. a through e are in order, then i skipped f and went to g, maybe leaving people wondering if they thought they just missed f (that is, if anyone was able to follow along).  after that, i started to move things all over in as random order as i could figure.  and for the heck of it, i broke up x and just tossed in an x wherever i felt like it.  there are 32 x-es in there (i think i ended up using 32 fonts), just not next to each other.
the only thing i would like to change is that all of the fonts for each letter come in the same order, so there's a rhythmic pattern there that i really don't care for, but it's not the end of the world.

it's odd and abstract, but i'm really quite fond of this thing, which is why it's the one i want to write about right now (which is good, since the other two posts will be about pieces that are more appealing to you.  ...hopefully.)

the former 11th place

faithful readers, in the midst of november, my phone got a complete system upgrade, going from "donut" to "froyo."  it was as good a time as any to wipe my system and, with that, to tally up the texts.

as always, it's interesting to see the dynamic in how the numbers change and who i spend my time texting with.

1. joel 567
2. jaime 468
3. emily 385
4. jess 294
5. brandon 283 (hey, look! i have a friend in texas!)

you did it joel, fair and square.  congratulations.  : )
(and yet in this current round you aren't even on the charts...)

4505

the day after Christmas in a deep and dark december.
fast away the old year passes.
hope is patience and i continue to learn. for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

my Christmas letter

ten things i learned in 2010

oscar winners are regular people, too

cleaning parties are more fun than birthday parties

grad school is a new way of life, but grad school at a&m is life on a new world

the amusement park really is more fun when you're holding a girl's hand

i feel off a stool

with some how-to videos on youtube and plenty of determination,
three guys with no experience can fix a washing machine

waffles in belgium are famous for a reason

everything is going to be ok

old friends can become new friends and
good friends can become even better friends

it's possible to go snowboarding in june

sledding on Christmas eve

we went sledding tonight. the little kid had a lot of fun, and i think the bigger kids did, too.
it kind of looked like this:

i just like this picture. : )
i think we look pretty great.
crazy, but great. and we stayed warm.
(yes, i am wearing combat boots.
my winter boots are in texas. it was 63 degrees there today.)

the boys. we tried to look like vikings.
i did, anyway.

this is a bit of my town. sledding on the dike that holds back the nationally famous floodwaters. (and even though it was 14 degrees out, the river behind us was still running.
go minnesota!)

home....

tabernash

a whole lot of boneless chicken wings of all flavors (editor's note, 3:03 a.m.: too much chicken...), a few rounds of cherry coke, a slice of rich chocolate cake with ice cream and more chocolate, plenty of heckling, harassing, and haranguing, and some very competitive trivia gaming (and a weird picture of me).
happy tabernash.

after nog

i don't have a photo editor available, so these pictures are uncorrected, but i still think they're pretty seriously dang.
with all the duties of being a host, i didn't get much time to simply enjoy the muppet party.
and so it was nice to just sit around (and jump around...) telling stories and laughing at the impromptu after party.

greener

i read doctrine and
covenants chapter
six today while
waiting in the
temple today.

once there was a way to get back homeward,
once there was a way to get back home.
sleep pretty darling, do not cry,
and i will sing a lullaby.

golden slumbers fill you eyes.
smiles awake you when you rise.
sleep pretty darling, do not cry,
and I will sing a lullaby.

boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time

i never give you my pillow,
i only send you my invitations.
and in the middle of the celebrations, i break down.

boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time

are you gonna be in my dreams tonight?

and in the end,
the love you take is equal to the love you make

dear cool uncle jeff,

my nephew wrote me an email a few days ago. i thought it was pretty great and wanted to share it.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb///////////

the bear and the giraffe

i doubt most of you will find this funny, but after hours of adjusting settings and rendering animation, this video has us in the viz lab laughing till it hurts every time.



and...


i'll post something meaningful in a week, when i'm done with all of my projects.

foreplay/long time

it's been such a long time

i think i should be going

and time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rolling

sail on, on a distant highway

i've got to keep on chasing a dream

i've gotta be on my way

wish there was something i could say

well i'm taking my time, i'm just moving on

you'll forget about me after i've been gone

and i take what i find, i don't want no more

it's just outside of your front door

well i get so lonely when i am without you

but in my mind, deep in my mind,

i can't forget about you

good times

and faces that remind me

i'm trying to forget your name and leave it all behind me

you're coming back to find me

it's been such a long time, i think i should be going

and time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rolling

there's a long road, i've gotta stay in time with

i've got to keep on chasing that dream, though i may never find it

i'm always just behind it

concert photography by k*art

on an island in the sun and the clouds

i was first part of a "desert island" discussion one night in someone's basement during my freshman year of high school. it's the standard question of "what five cds would you take if you were on a deserted island for the rest of your life." i remember miah listing the counting crows's debut album as one of his. matt no doubt listed a pink floyd album or two. and as i was still rather green in the realm of music, i think i just tossed out some r.e.m. cds, not that anyone was really paying attention to me anyway.

i like lists and i like debating them. is the godfather part two really better than the first, or is it the other way around? everyone lists "sgt. pepper" as the greatest beatles album, but how do you compare it to "abbey road"?

on my gray post-it board on my room in high school, i would pin up my top ten list of cds for the benefit of all who came into my room. "whatever and ever amen" by ben folds five was number one, followed by the "lost highway" soundtrack (perfect for night driving in those days) and the soundtrack to "the nightmare before Christmas." i really don't remember what was on the rest of that list, although i think i put green day's very first album at number ten.

similarly, as my interests dovetailed into movies, i had a firm list of my top ten movies as well. in the summer after high school, my top three movies of all time were "pulp fiction", "the nightmare before Christmas", and "breakfast at tiffany's." in the ensuing years, when i would try to stand a little taller and decided that even the tv version of "pulp fiction" was a little too rough for me, i wondered when i would find another movie that would so completely knock me off my socks in brilliance, ingenuity, and sheer awesomeness. and while i don't list it on my top ten, i still recognize it for what it is. but i have new favorites.

so, what would be my five desert island movies today? "fanny and alexander", "bill and ted's excellent adventure", "2001", "seven samurai", and "singin' in the rain." who knows? those first three kind of make up my trinity of favorites, and i'm looking forward to making some time to watch "fanny and alexander" this week.

cds? "marvin's marvelous mechanical museum" (that's tally hall's cd, fyi), "the orb's adventures in the ultraworld" by the orb, and, um... hmmm. shoot. i love "london calling" by the clash and "pet sounds" by the beach boys (even listing that as my #1 fave for a while), as well as "abbey road" and some favorites by they might be giants, r.e.m., the eels ("electroshock blues" would be a contender...) but that list is much more fluid and dynamic.

however, what if you could only take one? only one cd to listen to, only one movie on the island? is there one that you can enjoy when you're happy and when you're sad? during loneliness hours and in times of ecstatic dancing?

fanny and alexander? ...maybe. my first viewing left me thinking of it as cinematic perfection and i don't back down from that, but is it too heavy to be the only movie i'd ever watch? 2001? it transcends the walls of filmmaking and makes my most selective list of "movies that are so good i want to scream" (and i did during the intermission of the last time i saw it), but again, pretty serious, and for as serious as i am, i think i want something lighter and more fun.

bill and ted? quite possibly. i love it so dearly not because it is Cinematic Art, but because it is what it is--a story about two dudes who save the world in a time-traveling phone booth--and it is completely unashamed of itself. no, i don't get the high culture of film that i enjoy with it, but i love it.

maybe the seven samurai, since it has action, drama, and humor all wrapped up in the greatest filmmaking ever. but it doesn't really feel like it's my movie.

bill and ted is mine.

music is much easier.

if i could to only one cd for the test of my life, i would choose without hesitation or regret: tally hall's marvin's marvelous mechanical museum.

it first seemed like a fun psuedo-novelty cd from some offbeat band, yet as i've listened to it over one hundred times (and probably two hundred, in all honesty), it has never gotten tired or trite. rather, i've found new depths, brilliance, insight, and lyricism in songs that first bored me (actually, i find myself skipping "banana man" sometimes, but goofiness is cool, too). the more i listen to it in more facets of my life, the more i love it. i loved it when i first heard it and i love it today.

ceci n'est pas une post about school

of the three classes that i have, 613: intro to 3-D animation is a steamroller. no matter how much work i do in that class, there's always more to be done.

it's frustrating.

very frustrating, at times.

there are major deadlines for the class spread throughout the semester, but, by and large, we work on our own schedules. which means you can spend a lot of time on it, or you can let a week or two go by with only putting in a few hours at the lab. but whether you dedicate yourself in the lab or just spend a little time there, it's still there. the final project is still going to be due in december. and while it's easy to take a day off now, at some point, you're going to have to face it. you're going to have to do the work. so you may as well stop avoiding it now.

confusion never stops

browsing as i was getting ready for bed, my mind was wandering and i came across this.

for a variety of reasons, it was interesting to read again.

and then i inadvertently came to this one, too.

anyway.

same same but different.

quadresson

in the early weeks of october, i had a lot on my mind. my brain never seems to shut off in the first place (a trait that drives me crazy at times yet i wouldn't have it any other way) and with all that was happening in my life, i was getting good at holding roundtable discussions with myself.

in my "experimental film" class, we looked at the work of artists like david hockney, examining the concept of looking at scenes in life from different perspectives and viewpoints. hockney worked mostly in still photographs and an option for our assignment was to apply those principles in a video format.

sitting in a couch outside the department offices, i started jotting down some ideas that were lame and aimless but would fulfill the parameters of the assignment. but mostly, i was thinking about utah. about all that i had left behind there. how long would it take me to build a new life here? would i always be feeling the gap that i had left behind? i certainly wasn't off to a good start here. most times, i really wasn't the movie night/rock bander that me and my friends loved in the red door. i was still me, but not the awesome me. hmmm. there's different sides of me, too. i wished i could be awesomejeff all the time, or, rather, i felt like i should be, but i was ok being whatever jeff i felt like being and i hoped that was ok, too. i mean, it's still me. i started writing down ideas in my notebook, quickly scribbling, sometimes with real intensity, sometimes in different directions on the page, partly because i didn't want to lose any ideas, partly because i was in a mad artistic fervor, and partly because i thought i would be cool if it looked like i wrote this in a mad artistic fervor.

at any rate, i had my idea: i would interview myself, four times, each time as a different facet of myself. the interviews would be played simultaneously, with identical questions being asked, and all four answers would be honest and accurate, even if they seemed to contradict. if we can look at an object or a person from different angles, why not do the same thing on an internal and emotional level?

i shot a test of it and generally liked it. i saw some things to change and fix (we all know i saw "um" a lot, but when there's four of me thinking aloud at the same time, that became something to fix for the actual shoot). the emotional honesty of this kind left me feeling self-indulgent and self-conscious when i showed it in front of my class, but once i got over that, i'm actually really happy with how it turned out (even though there are four or five things i would love to fix in this, including the low audio levels....)

a few closing remarks:

1) the final question (as well as the project's working title) come from transformers: the movie.

2) if you've been a regular reader of this blog and don't think i'm a nutter already, this video isn't going to phase you.

as time goes by

make someone happy
make just one someone happy
make just one heart the heart you sing to
one smile that cheers you
one face that lights when it nears you
one girl you're ev'rything to

fame if you win it
comes and goes in a minute
where's the real stuff in life to cling to?

love is the answer
someone to love is the answer
once you've found her, build your world around her

make someone happy
make just one someone happy
and you will be happy, too

gen. 2:18
til then, thanks, ruby tuesday.

save the humans

i didn't have a whole lot of time to think about a halloween costume this week (tuesday was another all-nighter in the lab, which then pretty much blew wednesday, leaving enough time only to nap before heading for the houston temple, as i'm still getting used to the idea that temple trips are a half-day affair here). luckily, on sunday or monday, my elder's quorum president invited me to join with him and his roommate to be their "third amigo". they had found some mexican costumes at wal-mart and said that if i want to grab one, i was welcome to join the fiesta. great, an idea and a costume, all taken care of for me. works.

but when friday rolled around, i stopped by wal-mart and could find neither the amigo costume of the alternate whoopie cushion idea they had suggested. meh, i think i had my phantom of the opera costume still lying around somewhere, probably in a box in a pile in one of my two closets (which is exactly where i did find it). still, i had ditched my make-up kit when i made the move to the lone star state (had it since high school, been sitting in my hot attic, it was time...)

a block or two from my apartment is a temporary halloween store and i soon had a few options to work with. if you're going to do the phantom, you need to have something nasty to hide under your mask. i considered some rubber wound to apply with spirit gum but managed to find a makeup package that came with monster makeup, several different kinds of fake blood (the phantom doesn't really bleed, but it's fun to play with fake blood...), and a few options for scars. sold.

the scar goo was some really sticky gunk that you rubbed with your hands to make pliable then applied to wherever you wanted scarred. in my case, it was the right side of my face. at first, it looked like i had a fruit rollup hanging on my cheek, but with a little sculpting, it soon looked pretty great. i didn't have much for brushes or sponges and i think i went too far with the rest of the facial makeup. bah.

i put some sickly green makeup on the ride side of my face to augment the horrors hidden under the mask, but that didn't go quite as planned. when i got to the institute, the first person i saw was my hometeaching companion (whom i had just met on sunday) who was dressed suspiciously like a phantom from an opera. i told him we should have planned things better and he said, "don't worry" as he pulled out his phantom mask, to show that we weren't the same costume. i pulled my mask out of my pocket to show that, yes, we were.

so, in polite deference, i decided not to wear my mask, letting him be the phantom for the evening. (besides, it's pretty awkward and stupid-looking to walk around wearing my glasses over that half-mask) this left me having to explain myself for to pretty much everyone i talked to for the rest of the evening, since without the context of the mask, i looked more or less like a zombie in sunday clothes.

i was looking forward to the dance, since i'm generally better at meeting people from church when i'm not actually at church. and i like to dance, too. sadly, it didn't seem like the rest of the ward was as pro-dance as me. still, i found enough people to mingle with that the world didn't end, and managed to move and scoot a little when small groups of dancing appeared for a moment or two.

i got some time to talk with my f.h.e. mom, who was dressed as the fashion police (apparently off duty), and used to opportunity to get a picture to appease the people who were asking for a picture (you sisters know who you are...)

when i couldn't find the amigos costumes, i wasn't too distraught, but once i actually saw them, i was kind of bummed that i did also get a skittles-colored sarape. as a reasonable consolation, i really like my cape (it's got a hood that is long enough to easily drape over your whole face! looks really cool... i just haven't found a costume to use it with, yet) (i really liked the dude from korea who dressed as kim jong il, too)

plus, i met the secretive "we're over 30" crowd. they seemed pretty cool (really good rhett butler and scarlet o'hara costumes) and all this time i thought i was the only one...

tonight, i watched a really crazy pseudo-horror/comedy japanese movie.

and tomorrow, the great pumpkin comes....

parachutes

this summer i worked a commercial with a way-cool german guy who was a camera assistant on the pirates of the caribbean movies. he had some really cool stories that made me glad i wasn't on those shows. he had also recently moved to utah and had an impressive experience on how he joined the church. and he said something that stuck with me: "i thought repentance would be the hardest part. but enduring to the end is much harder."

he wasn't being pessimistic or even giving up. it's simply the way things are.

it's one thing to make a decision to make changes, especially when you know that it's the right move. but when you've actually acted on that, left behind what you had in the jump to the better choice, it can be pretty dang rough.

hard to believe that there will actually be a better land ahead.

that the hardships you're going through now will lighten.

that the Lord does indeed see our sacrifices, that the battles we fight in the chambers of our heart are not meaningless, but that we are growing, moving to a better way of life.

that our joy we once felt will not be just returned, but in given in double.

i believe those things. i believe that, although the path has gotten dark and shadowy, that i'm just a little afraid of that dark but i trust that my Heavenly Father is walking with me, keeping me safe and is able to see further than my sudden near-sightedness.

utah, and all the various people there, i miss you.

at times, i wish that at the end of this semester i could pack everything up and be back behind the red door in time for a new season at the international cinema.

deep down, if you really asked me, i know i made the right choices.

these aren't the turns in my path i would have made for myself, but this is where my road goes, and i trust, even in the difficult footsteps.

2ne 2:24

psalms 31:22-24

i've found myself reading in psalms more of late.

and listening to coldplay.

but life is for living

we all know

and i don't want to live it alone

secret agent man

i write in code.

kind of.

but i wrote and manipulated 363 lines of code to make this pretty design. and with a little leftover time (before i head back into the lab for another full night of animating) i tried to give it an decent color scheme. it's something.

the scientist

we talked a little about lighting and the look of our project this morning in class. i used "chungking express" at my example. the visual look of this movie is so tremendous it makes me want to scream sometimes.

here today

i went for a walk tonight. i never go for walks. it was a full moon.

when i'm not watching "how to" videos for designing my character, here's a smattering of what i've been listening to lately, at home, at school, at play.

• elephant by the white stripes
• automatic for the people by r.e.m.
• day & age by the killers
• shepherd moons by enya
• everything is wrong by moby
• paul's boutique by the beastie boys
• dark side of the moon by pink floyd
• joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat
• thriller by michael jackson
• x&y by coldplay
• dial-a-song by they might be giants
• comfort eagle by cake
• radioactivity by kraftwerk
• a day without rain by enya
• global underground #30: paris by nick warren
• around the sun by r.e.m.
• pet sounds by the beach boys*

*amazon has "pet sounds" available for digital download for just $5 until the end of the month. it's often listed just after "sgt. pepper" as the greatest album ever made. i have no problem with that ranking. check it out.

is it any wonder?

...that this is one of my favorite movies?


just taking a break from a long day and night in the lab. which is a good thing.

status

kansas sucks.

doctrine and covenants one hundred one verses four and five

the following people are seriously dang awesome:

thank you.

i hate this kid

while i don't regret my decisions, jumping on airplanes to fly around the country to shoot interviews can be detrimental and deleterious to one's graduate studies. i felt this most acutely in my 3-D animation class, which i've come to find out is the steamroller class that always has the first-years scrambling.

in the class, we make a 30-second movie based on a nursery rhyme. we do everything ourselves, from conceiving the story and designing the characters to modeling them (creating the 3-D sculpture in the computer) and then rigging (building a skeleton for it and defining how it can move) to texturing (making the flat gray surfaces look like cloth, bricks, grass, whipped cream, whatever) and animating (you know) to lighting (which is what i'm really here for). that's a ton to do in fifteen weeks.

for the base of my story, i chose "star light, star bright" and pitched two story ideas. the one i preferred (and chose) was a little boy entering his room in tears, holding a fatally damaged teddy bear. he set the bear on the his bed and goes to the window and aimlessly looks up. the evening star is just appearing. realizing the star, he looks back at his bear and then starts to wish with all his might. the last shot pulls back from behind him (still at the window) to reveal a repaired teddy bear sitting on his bed.

i wasn't feeling too swell after my first few weeks in texas and decided i wanted to do something genuinely positive and hopeful.

you can see my storyboards here. (for the record, i cannot navigate myself to save my life on this crazy new age "tumblr" blogger site....)

from there, we had start modeling our characters. it's highly recommended to draw things out before trying to create them in 3-D, so i did some sketches of my little guy.

i liked how my first drawings came out, except that he looked like he was 14 and i wanted someone about half that age. so i played around and found what things to change, such as:

making his neck thinner. a thick neck looked like a tough guy. a thin neck looked like my nephew.

straightening his body. broader shoulders tapering to a thinner waist looked like the popular guy at the school dance. a straighter body looked like he belonged on the playground.

(you can still see my notes to myself at the top right of the paper.)

at the same time, i thought about some other changes to help tell the story as clearly as possible in 30 seconds. i originally imagined him in a typical house, like andy's from toy story. i decided to change it to a mobile home in a trailer park (the last shot will be from the exterior as we hear his laugh with delight), to make his damaged toy that much more dire. also, i gave him baggy hand-me-down clothes to again emphasize his plight and create pathos for him.

...plus, baggy clothing allowed me to hide poor animation...

from my time as a semi-legal alien at byu, i knew i hated modeling, and we weren't getting along any better now. i built, hated, deleted, and restarted him at least four times. the upside to this was that i would spend two hours trying to design a head or an arm or a shirt sleeve and have it get increasingly convoluted to the point of uselessness, yet learned enough in the process that v2.0 would come out looking much better in about 10-20 minutes.

still, on the big day when all of our models were due, i spent the night flying back from las vegas and then driving from houston to a&m, arriving shortly before class started and having essentially NOTHING to show. it was not pretty.

and i seemed to be falling further and further behind, which made this worse less and less fun, until i told myself i would not leave the lab until all was finished. i didn't think i'd be pulling an all-nighter one month in to school, and there were times when i just sat there, hating this kid staring back at me, but i pushed on and it was such a relief to say he was done around 2 a.m.

i still had five more models to make, but he was by far the most complicated. and i found myself returning to him to make tweaks a few more times that night and even since then. just today i totally redesigned his eyes. they're much better and he can blink very easily, which will avoid some very ugly situations in animation.

creating his hair was a nightmare. i really liked the way it looked in my sketches, but how would i make that in three dimensions? i tried and hated it so many times that i seriously considered making him a leukemia patient, citing my failure to adding sympathy for him. i kept going, though, and found a way that created a look that i'm really happy with, actually. his body is kind of blocky and i'm ok with that, but his hair is pretty much just the way i want it. cool.

i looked at several different teddy bears and decided to base the design off of the one i had a child (and i did consider modeling mickey, for those of you who know (which is most of my readership, i think)).

yeah, the bear is kind of blocky. it was after three in the morning and i had to design another version with the head starting to tear off....

for his bed, i tried to keep it a little lumpy still. he's done his best to make his bed, but likely he has to do a lot of things for himself in the morning and doesn't have a whole lot of time to spend on a perfectly made bed. (the irony was that i didn't either--it was probably 4 in the morning by now--and a neatly made bed would have been much simpler...

currently, i'm pretty much caught up. i spent several hours in the lab today rigging his skeleton, actually kind of enjoying it and being grateful that i have rather low-impact animation in my story.

today our professor reminded us that this class is simply to get us acquainted with the program, not to be experts at it all.

it's a "cbb" project. "could've been better."

knowing that, i can adapt accordingly.

i'll keep you updated.