Stanwickian Issue

So. I have two competing issues in the machine right now. One is that we simply must, must I tell you, shoot another movie so that we can have a trailer for the end of October/beginning of November. And then we have to have the movie done with post-production such that it'll be available by February 1st.
And I've done virtually no pre-production on that picture. I cannot fathom what the sets will look like. I don't even have a concept for costumes.
The other thing is that I have to finish post-production on this dragon movie.
This dragon picture. It went through a lot of rewrites. And now I think I've done hands down the most asinine thing I could do to any movie. It goes like this:
I wrote a movie which was structurally based on The Road Warrior. That's a good idea and everything but there were going to be way too many dragon shots in it to shoot it effectively. So Steve Niles did a page-one rewrite on it. He made the movie much better. Then Tom Rowen did another pass on it.
So we shot it. And we edited it. And we found that the movie came up very short. Too short to get distribution as a feature.
Note that I'd decided to play the evil guy myself. Nobody, I mean freakin' nobody (with the exception of Rebecca Kush) thought that was a good idea. But I did it anyway.
Now I'd had this idea that the lead character in the picture might end up with some sort of voiceover at the head and tail of the film -- just to bookend the whole thing and give us a bit of the story. But I thought about it (in the shower, where all my ideas come from) and decided it would be a bit of my character sort of setting up the world. So I shot a bit of improvised dialog and Mandira Chauhan edited it.
We were still short so I thought; why not make a bunch of interstitials in order to move the story along and give us a bit of rest between the action?
Which means, in effect, that now the story is about my character. Oof. I so did not mean for that to happen. As a "friend" of mine pointed out, I look like Falstaff. It wouldn't be so bad except that... I look like Falstaff.
Um. So that's where we are.

Time for Decongestants

• There's actually a dive computer which is based on the iPhone. It's only $329. Called the iGi))s. Doesn't seem to work with the iPhone 5, which is understandable. 

• There's an Italian company called Mareshop which sells scuba stuff very cheaply. The online reviews on independent sites seem to be pretty good. The biggest deal is that they seemingly ship the USB cable you need with your dive computer with the unit (and not charge an additional $75 for it.) I presume they use a 3rd-party cable rather than the manufacturer's cable. I dunno.

In any case, I'm looking at the Suunto Vyper. I would go for the Zoop except that my older brother has convinced me of the merits of night diving and the Vyper is probably better for night diving.

Talking Back

As more and more members of Diatomaceous Earth get better and better headphones, we're stuck with an ironic problem in rehearsals. Although we can hear one another's instruments better while playing, we can't hear one another talk.
Now I realize that for most bands, not hearing what the idiot horn player has to say is a plus. But for us it really would be nice to know when someone calls out chord changes and the like. Or even discuss the way we're supposed to come up to the coda. Or what-have-you. Sometimes jokes.
The JamHub we've got works great for us. And there are inputs for microphones. Now, if we all had headset microphones and cough switches we could have usable full-duplex talkback between all the musicians.
Right?

So thing: I own two pair of Sennheiser HD280's. And Ethan just got himself a pair. They are great, cheap, isolating headphones. But personally I don't find them that comfortable. And the low end sounds a tad "boxy" to me. And when you add a boom microphone (like the link above) you're spending around about $265 on them (with the appropriate connectors).
Okay, so that's over $1250 just to cover each member of the band. Ah. But we're not done. Because we would each need an on/off "cough" switch.  Think another $50.
 
Plus, you know, cabling. We're essentially doubling the amount of cabling we carry when adding a talkback system like that. 
Now one might think "Hey, start slow, just get yourself one headset mic and go from there." Yeah. About that.
The person with the headset mic gains a lot of control over the band. Right now the band has no clear leader. I like it that way.
Hmm.
Now that I say that out loud I realize I'm making a hierarchical unilateral decision which systematically maintains a democracy. Uh. Yeah. So there's that.
What if we put a switch in the middle of the floor and a single omnidirectional microphone somewhere near it? That's good for everyone but the drummer, right? Well, it's not quite as practical as I'd like as it's difficult for us to all get to the center of the floor. And yes, it's impossible for the drummer to get to.
That brings me back to just thinking I should get myself a headset microphone and a single switch. Because, you know, ME. That would violate some of my earlier terms herein but I could also use the headset for recording commentary tracks.
I don't know. This is an issue only in that it's a bit of a pain to flip off headphones in order to hear what someone is saying or to hear someone say "You take the solo here" or whatever. Personally it means that I make more dramatic motions coming up on a change and I yell "hea!" a lot.
The other thing which just occurred to me is that when someone opens the contact on a microphone for talkback the drums will likely get loud. Er. Maybe not. Maybe not if the gain is such that you're practically kissing the mic. Uh. Maybe. In my head I imagine the snare becoming much louder in the headphone mix.
So like I said. I dunno.

Porcupines

Now just note this is not an album. No. It's instead an aural mess.

But that's okay. This rehearsal (Greg, Drew, Lou, and Ethan) was in part a proof-of-concept and was also an experiment in how we can work a song.
The process is pretty straightforward. We take a song which was improvised at one point (the melody and the Dm to Em chords). Then we play it some more and somebody suggests the B section. Then somebody suggests the C section. Then somebody suggests new chord changes and we discuss where those chords should go (the last time we come back to the A section, as it turns out.)
Then we learn how we want to interact with one another. Then someone comes up with a descant -- an opposing line to the B section which works really well. And off we go to the races. Plus, somehow, I get to play blues guitar.


In practice this means, er, lots of practice. In this case, two hours playing two chords. I'm going to guess that we'll have done about 20 hours on this one song; working together in the studio. And the song will be about 20 minutes on an album.
That's not too bad actually. Especially if one is happy with the results.

Porcupine Part Dream

Tonight we played two chords for two hours. That's an hour of Dm and another hour of Em.

Still, Lou wanted something he could listen to at home in order to make up a part.
Here is that thing:


We had no Lily tonight as she was a bit tired and under the weather. So this is just Ethan on Stick, Greg and Me on Guitars. The piece "for Lou" has no drums on it. 

Transitions

So I'll admit I've been watching a lot of Spaced lately, which I hadn't seen before. Stylistically it's really streets ahead of even stuff like Community. Virtually every shot is some sort of genre-inspired transition. That's not actually factual but it feels like it's true.

Back in the olden days we would get yelled at by distributors and trailer editors for not having a moving camera. So by the time we shot Alien Insurrection we'd decided to do as much of the movie handheld as possible. This was a real bear with the HVX2000 and the Letus adapter with a 35mm lens on the front.
Since then I've had a tendency to go for a more "immediate" sort of "you are there" look with shooting handheld. The Firefly TV series might have had a hand in encouraging that tendency in me.
But the thing I realized from watching Spaced is that I never shoot transition shots. 
This is mostly because I have no idea how we'll want to edit a scene when we shoot it. This may in fact be a fairly large whole in my filmmaking methodology. Maybe I should know how we're getting from one scene to the next.
Of course, as a technique it way pull attention to itself. "Ooh! Look how smart we are doing this dolly move which is picked up by the next shot." So yeah, there's that. But I think I'm still in the Firefly style rather than the very formal style with glacially slow camera moves. I think
Our next movie is clearly a handheld and security camera extravaganza. But after that? Do we use a dolly more?

That being said, I got my certification today

My SCUBA instructor grabs me at about 20 feet and has me ascend with him while the rest of the class stays below. After we get to the surface this exchange occurs:

Me: "Hey. Whatssup?"
Him: "There's blood in your mask."
Me: "Awesome."
Him: "Not awesome."

Seems I just gave myself a nosebleed while equalizing. Either that or the nanobots in my bloodstream have received the kill code and are beginning the zombie apocalypse with me as patient zero. Again.

And the backs of my hands are sunburned

Day one of open water dives.
My instructor, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Ted Raimi (although he points out, rightly, that he usually gets "Harry Connick Jr.") assuaged my one concern which was to let me go really slowly to depth. It just takes a while for my ears to equalize.
In practice this meant that I went down to the 24' platform with the former company member of the San Francisco Ballet* as she has similar concerns to me. So we go slow.

I certainly have to hydrate better for tomorrow.
Even in the quarry the water was not particularly cold although we may go deeper tomorrow and will need hoods and gloves.
You know that whole thing where I learned how to use dive tables and such? I think we don't do that at all in the PADI Open Water Diver certification. I mean zero. Nothing. Nada.
This morning it occurred to me that I'm doing this solely to impress my friends. I'm lookin' at you, Joe Chapman.

*I say this in order to make my life seem more glamorous. Is it working?

Andrew Bellware

It has been presented to my attention that I need to include my name [Andrew Bellware] any time I blog in order to Andrew Bellware have my name come up (Andrew Bellware) on a Google -- Andrew Bellware -- search for Bellware {Andrew Bellware} first.

I am in desperate and deep competition with cousins of mine for this #Andrew Bellware # contest wherein the victor is awarded one (1) Internet.

Tags: Andrew Bellware. Bellware, Andrew

Rebecca Kush Rises Again

Joe Chapman has discovered that once again people like those pictures of Rebecca Kush.

Here HALO has clearly used her for inspiration.

Robot Cop

We need some powered armor. These images are from Nightmare Armor (which seems to not exist anymore).

We need a full suit of armor for Dead Residents.

Of course I love the robot with red eyes. I wonder how that neck gasket works.

We would have ordered a suit from Nightmare Armor but we can't get their email address or even communicate with them on Facebook. So we'll have to make our own.

Blognitude

Every once in a while I like to remind that my blognitude is multifurbicated.

blog.pandoramachine.com is the "official" blog of Pandora Machine, the film company.
blog.pleasurefortheempire.com is whatever random thing Andrew Bellware is saying (and making his dad complain about because it causes too much email with posts about, you know, whatever I say on here.)
blog.tyrannosaurusmouse.com is the blog for music and suchly, including the band Diatomaceous Earth

Ed's Message

Are you sure? Are you really sure? You know this can't be undone, right? Do you really want to go through with this? Do you want to think about it first?

Table Dive

So I feel more comfy with my dive shop now that I called them and got the guy who was interested in, you know, helping customers to talk to me about what the open water dive is all about. Because otherwise I was just going to cancel and go through another shop (see comments below).

From what I can tell, the whole thing where I studied how to read dive tables and calculate my pressure group based on how much time I've had in-between dives and such is completely irrelevant to the first level of open water diver. I can't understand why that would be true but apparently it is.