Time

So I keep forgetting that I made this arty flash website thing for a class the summer before last (summer of 2005). It's more to be artistic than useful, so yeah. Move your arrow around and randomly click on stuff. Most things aren't buttons, but you should explore the site anyway. It's kinda weird, but if you know me, it decently expresses most things that I believe about time. Also, it's one of the few things I've made that I'm proud of. Here's the link:

http://www.unc.edu/%7Ejtardieu/times.swf

Sorry you can't just click on it. I'm lame at technology. Just copy and paste it.

Cool.

youtube.com

So, I'm discovering youtube.com. For COMM 159 I'm putting the videos from the Rocky Raccoon's event at the Local 506 on youtube.com.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B4AA20AA231EBE32

It's free and pretty easy to use, so that's cool - can't complain about that. The drop in the picture quality b/c of the compression takes a bit of getting used to (but I'm new to putting stuff on the web anyway, so who am I to talk). I'll probably make myself a DVD of all of it to keep for myself, though. But again, it's free, easy, and all in all, a pretty great concept for a website. Anyone can upload their videos to it. How prolitarian. Especially considering potential threats to public access channels on TV, I'm really glad that a site like youtube.com exists.

Perhaps I'll have more to say later, but I'm tired and I need to get back to work.

The Future

This summer I'm interning at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood - I'll be doing something with DVD mastering or something like that (occasionally looking at how video transfers to different/new DVD formats). Anyway, it should be fun, the guy I'm working under sounds really nice and laid-back on the phone. So needless to say, I'm thoroughly excited.

So, for class, we're supposed to come up with a 5 year plan. I'd like to be doing something with media production - maybe I'll actually get to do some editing for a living by the time 5 years have passed. But I really am not very picky, I'll do pretty much anything that has to do with media production. We'll see how that goes.

All this sounds very vague (because it is), but I came up with an idea for my 20 year plan. Or at least my plan for when I make a couple million dollars. I'm excited about being a millionaire by the way. When that happens, I'm gonna come back to Chapel Hill and re-open the Carolina theatre and show student films there. I'll make some nice donations to UNC's Student Television and Carolina Production Guild, and of course UNC's COMM dept, so that kids will definitely still make movies. But yeah, I'm still working on figuring out the details. I imagine I'll lose at least a million dollars or so on it in the first few years, but hopefully it'll become more successful after that. And if not, I'll have had a blast. I gotta get back to finishing the editing for my live footage from the Rocky Raccoon event. Catch you later.

A Huge Week Ahead

So, next week is gonna be crazy.
On Tuesday, there's the class event at the Local 506 - it'll be an artistic entrepreneurship extravaganza - bands of all different genres will play, there will be art displayed, and there's a fashion show too. Anyone reading this should come out and see it - a life changing experience really - and tickets are only $5.00

Then Wednesday, there's Student Television's Premiere Night (6pm-12:30am). STV premieres all new episodes and the cast/crew of each show introduces their episodes live! There's free food for anyone who comes down to the studio (located in the Student Union under the DTH) . You can watch it on channel 4 off-campus and channel 15 on-campus. At 7:30pm Anything Goes will air - that's the show I produce. But all the shows are good so watch as many as you can.

An awesome week, but on the flip-side, I'm not going to get any sleep til next Thursday. Talk about putting the power of caffiene to the ultimate test.

potentially cool software...

So, a little while ago, my cousin emailed me with a link to this software that helps you organize your script(s). I haven't had much time to look at it, but it seems to help you organize your notes - you could put a note saying that you need to find a certain prop, or perhaps a note about a plot point you need to improve on later. Here's the link:

http://www.celtx.com

If anyone has any experience with this software, please let me know what you think. I'm not much of a writer right now, but I'm trying to get more into it. Any information anyone has about this software (or other software you'd recommend), I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

spring break

So, it's spring break. Largely I'm just hanging out with friends and working. But I'm also trying to make DVD's for STV. I'm working on putting together a sampler DVD which would include a short skit or scene from each show. It's taking quite a bit of time - STV has ten airing shows. Plus I'm not that great with DVD Studio Pro yet. But I'm getting the hang of it. I think that's pretty much how it is with cool programs - they're really frustrating at first because there's so much stuff that it offers that it can be challenging to figure out what the basics are. Then once you get the hang of it, you see how much it has to offer and how cool it is. Well, back to work. I hope everyone is having a great spring break.

http://www.tatteredcoat.com/archives/2005/09/28/the-shining-redux/

I'm posting this link to a hilarious trailer for The Shining. It's a great example of why I love editing, but also of why people should be aware that movie trailers can be misleading.

On an almost related note, I think that this is largely why the last few M. Night Shyamalan's films were not well received by the public (The Village, and to a lesser extent, Signs). His films have been advertised as though they are the same type of thriller/scary movie that The 6th Sense was, but his more recent movies have been really different from that (while still having similar elements). Since his more recent movies don't fit as neatly into genre categories as The 6th Sense, they're harder to advertize. It's now getting to the point where he is famous enough that his name alone is marketable. His most recent film, Lady in the Water has a very simple trailer, with no words/voiceover and at the end it says the name of the movie and that it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I'm pretty happy about this, and so I'll pretty much go see anything he directs, and I'm also tired of seeing trailers for his movies where the trailer makes the movie look much scarier than it really is. But then again, I'm a scary movie wuss, so I get nervous about seeing movies that are supposed to be really scary. And that's my random thought for the day.