OK, so right when you think all the hard work and frustration never pays off and the years of eating shit have made you a sour, haggard pissed off casualty, somebody comes and throws you in a wheelbarrel and carries you a couple more miles, (or until, you wake up from your drunken stupor and realize, that you are too old to change professions.) The wheelbarrel came to me in the form of a review this time around. Another film festival down…. Another set of steak knives… But maybe a win worth more than the Grand Prize cash. As my lack of sleep from not having enough time to get pre production done on TA and JEP, made me a basket case and again, put me at the point of saying, "Eff it," and finding a new career, I receive a review from a small paper publication in Wilmington. It read like this:
In the words of Al Pacino, "I try to get out and they KEEP PULLLINNNGGG MMMEEE BACCCCKKKK IIIINNNNN!" – Without the heart attack of course.
If I had to compare my life to a sports teams success and unsuccess, I would be right at home with choosing my very own team, the Buffalo Bills. In my 26 years of being a fan, I have seen them at their best and seen them at their worst. Just like a life like most people. There are ups and downs, but where theirs varies from normal life, is all of the 'almosts.' If the Bills were a Horseshoes or a Projectile Vomiting Team, they would be the frickin' longest running champs that had ever graced our planet. Unfortunately, in football, 1 point will beat you every time… Again, and again. The reason I say the Bills mirror my life is simple… I have had more disappointments in my life than I have successes, BUT when I had or have successes, they are huge, BUT those successes will always fall short of GREAT. They are GOOD, but not great. This situation is usually due to some late monkey wrench or munson that I carelessly miss or just some act of the Gods that comes out of nowhere to ruin the moment. (I'm not being a drama queen here. I take part responsibility for many of my ALMOSTS in my life.)
With that said, I sat down for Monday Night Football last night as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. For the first time in 13 years the freakin' Buffalo Bills were hosting MNF!!!! And who against, the most hated team of mine and most Bill fans: The Dallas Cowgirls. This was the team that basically wiped their ass with us two years in a row in the biggest most watched football game in the world—The Super Bowl.
Note 1 – Success, but Not Good Enough Example 132: The year after losing the 2nd Super Bowl to them, the Bills played them in the first game of the season. The Bills won it. I believe it was 28-14. The season after that…. Won again, but apparently we just couldn't beat them in the big game.
So, the Bills… Well they've sucked for a very long time. In fact, they have sucked ass well since another one of their ALMOST MOMENTS that again goes down in Infamy as one of their 7 games that made NFL history of BIGGEST CHOKE: The Music City Miracle. For anyone that doesn't know: The Bills were playing the Titans in the Wild Card Game. Doug Flutie drove down with seconds left of the game to score and put the Bills ahead. It looked as if they were going to advance to the Semis. It should have been a sure thing and what happens: On the ensuing kickoff, the Titans with an erray of backward laterals went all the way down the field with no time left, scored and won. The Titans went on to lose the Super Bowl by 1 yard.
OK, the Bills suck ass. I was expecting a massacre against the undefeated Cowgirls, but I would watch it being a loyal fan. Over the years, I had become numb to the many Bill losses, what was another? Then something happened. Tony Romo threw 5 picks and fumbled one for a whopping 6 turnovers. The Bills scored two TD's from the interceptions. They then ran a kick off back and held Dallas in a defensive bombardment and I am sitting there with 9 minutes left in the game, saying, this win may change the momentum of the Bills' season and would be huge for Buffalo fans all over the country. It may have been as big a win since the greatest Bills game ever played when they came back from being twenty eight down to the Oilers in the playoffs the year they went on to face the Redskins and LOSE.
Then…. The Buffalo Bill Munson began to take its evil shape. The echo of the Scott Norwood wide right field goal that would have given the Bills one ring of the four consecutive Super Bowls we went to, began to take its evil shape as well. The kick that had it gone through, may have given the Bills the confidence in the big game to win the 3 after.
Tony Romo, who had not done a damn thing for almost 53 minutes of the game, managed to put together a 9 out of 11 with no interception drive to score off of an Edwards interception. Then minutes later go on a rampage again only to score with 20 seconds left in the game. The Cowboys had no timeouts left and had to score a two point conversion to tie the game. Terrell Owens then was stripped of the ball and the two point conversion failed, leaving the Bills ahead. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS RECOVER THE INEVITABLE ONSIDE KICK and the game would be over. The Bills biggest win in years would again go down as one of the most exciting games in MNF history.
The Special Teams, who had not made a mistake all night, would screw the world on that play.
The Cowboys got the onside kick. Then Romo threw an incomplete putting the clock down to thirteen seconds. Right after that on that play, a five yarder. Then WHAT!!!! Another almost ten yarder. A 52 yard field goal would be the fate of the Bills win with 1 second left. The kicker's longest was 47 yards. He split the uprights, but WAIT!!!! Jauron, Buffalo's coach, called a timeout at the last second. The Cowgirls would have to kick it again…. Unlike Scott Norwood--- He split the uprights again. Game Over. I cut the TV off mid air on that game winning field goal. It was an easy prediction being a Bills fan. It may have been the most upset I've been since that Norwood kick. I have never cried over a football game but that one time. I almost did again on this occasion. I lied in bed for an hour thinking about yet another 'classic Bills performance.' I wondered how they could have been in so much control for most of the game only to somehow lose?
Then I thought of the many opportunities I made the wrong decision on and how many great things I was on my way to doing only to have the slightest hang up change the course of my life. Then it all of sudden was easy to understand…. The Bills and I were the poster boys for the famous Marlon Brando saying in 'On the Waterfront', "We could have been a contender." It is a fuckin' travesty.
The Sometime in October Film Festival in Wilmington, will be the next stop for my little bastard film, "Meter." I'm very excited, but am disappointed in the same, because I will not be able to make the trip down. I will be in Charlotte with one of my partners, the ever so talented Skip, shooting a wedding. The film will be there nonetheless and is again in the running for best short. I'm unsure if a panel or the audience decide who wins. Either way, who knows? 'The Van' and 'Warlord,' (the two films that beat us out in the last two,) will not be playing. If I were to place money on it, I would say I will be collecting another 'set of steak knives.'**
Saturday, October 6th 7pm-10pm Rhino Club 125 Market Street
If you are in the Wilmington Area, stop in and see it if you haven't already. I think the admission is four dolla'.
**Ok, so anybody wanting to know where I get the 'steak knives' saying from… I'll tell you now. In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, the wonderfully talented, Alec Baldwin comes into this office of smoes to give them an ultimatum on their real estate salesmanship. (Glengarry Glen Ross is actually a play, but the Alec Baldwin character was written especially for the movie.)
At the end of his gut wrenching, condescending spill he leans on the desk and tells them the incentives that are offered for closing.
He says: "First Place, a new Corvette… Second Place, set of steak knives… Third Place….. You're Fired!"
My wedding weekend was a blast. My friends from LA came in on their own dollar to see get married and volunteered to shoot in and around my wedding which I am very grateful for. I love and appreciate them tremendously. So with that said it's time for a Film School Lesson.
Lesson 716 USING MULTI-CAMERAS FOR A LIVE SHOW
How this rule blew by all three of my friends, I will never know. Correction: How it blew by two of them, I will never know… BUT IT DID. What is the number 1 rule when shooting multiple cameras on a live event? Here's a Multiple Choice Question:
A- Be Sure you are capturing different angles from one another. B- Make sure you designate a master shot C- Once Recording, DO NOT TURN THE BLOODY CAMERA OFF!!!!!!
Now does this help? Not even if you are running hand held and come down with a sudden case of the shits, do you cut the camera off. You simply keep rolling, excuse yourself and come back and pick it up. Why is this? Real simple… So the Editor only has to sync the sound up once. Sure, you can call it lazy, but it is more about efficiency and sanity. In big productions where they are running soundboards, live feeds, massive editing systems with all the bells and whistles, it is much easier for anyone to quickly put everything back in sync. For little ole' me, its fuckin' impossible. On top of having to resync the footage I was dealing with sound issues. It is a church with internal mics. That makes matters worse, because unfortunately I am going to have to use some of one camera's audio in spots and some of another in other spots. THANK GOD FOR AMANDA, who never once cut the camera off and got a full recording of my ceremony and established the master, to which I could sync the others to. Forget that the white balance on that particular camera was way off, because I would much rather color correct than to deal with sound. OK, so here's the issue I am bitching about: If I am going to use three angles to make my ceremony look professional, like I do when I shoot weddings then they are going to all have to be in sync. Every time the camera is cut off, I have to resync that particular cameras footage on the time line. Forget that the two cameras were cutting off in different places in what felt like two minute intervals, but my God, they were cutting off numerous times during the two songs that were performed. OF ALL THE SPOTS! The place in the Ceremony where it is imperative to cut from camera to camera while the song is playing to prevent redundancy. (CUT TO: Bride and Groom --- Dissolve to person SINGING – DISSOLVE to bridesmaids, groomsmen and back to BRIDE & GROOM) It's standard. My wedding ceremony will not have so much as a dissolve in it, because one, the footage is so shaky, I have cut a particular clip right at the part of shakiness because there is not enough time of still camera to cover what that shot is covering up on the others OR I can't dissolve because well…. THE SOUND IS OFF. Between the two cameras a whopping 11 times they were cut off in a sixteen minute period. My ceremony took nearly two weeks to cut and closely estimating about 35 hours to complete… (And that's just the syncing sound and picture.) I still have to color correct, image stabilize and find the best combination of the audio. I have never been so frustrated in my life editing. (Not even when cutting Meter's sound) Not only did this process take so long that I didn't finish the entire wedding video before the busy time of my schedule, (I'm booked for every weekend for about two months straight,) but as shitty as it is to say, it almost sucked the creativity of the process out of me. I had so many visions of what I wanted to do with MY WEDDING VIDEO, but now it is just a matter of COMPLETING THE FUCKING THING BEFORE CHRISTMAS. While family members hound me to get finished, they don't understand how much I wanted to put into this thing and I knew the longer it sat and the further I got away from that magic weekend, the harder it would be to carry out my vision. Cutting the Ceremony did just that. It kicked me in my nuts and spoiled my creative feast for the NC Incident. I am not mad at them at all. How were they suppose to know. Others may say, "it's your own fault. I would have gone with Amanda's one shot and moved on," but you know what, I've been shooting weddings, commercials, and everything else for years and have put 100% into every one of the productions. I never hogged the lens and have shot many family functions and friends' wedding for free. Would it be too much to ask that mine look as good as theirs. Would Mandi be disappointed if she felt I half assed our own wedding video never understanding the reason I did it, so I struggle on.
To give you a better understanding here are two examples. The first example is the actual train wreck of a timeline for my ceremony. The read boxes are every spot I had to literally sync that cameras sound back up. (I usually used the beginning of my daughter's cry in the audience to mark the sync spot—Funny.) The little triangles are where I cut the timeline to be able to switch out the overflow of audio clips I had to move. That timeline looks like what an action sequence in a Die Hard movie would look like after adding all the sound effects and ADR.
This is what a 3 camera ceremony, effects sound and all took me about two hours to cut. This is how easy it should have been.
This is what a 3 camera ceremony, effects sound and all took me about two hours to cut. This is how easy it should have been:
With Bobby Badluck, Tag Along and Jeopardy penned for the rest of the year into next summer and everything pending finally finished, I found myself with a minute or two. I was going to finish my Wedding Video and then look ahead. I had spent some hours QCing Jobbers Deluxe Edition DVD and Tag Along Promo Trailers, finished early and really didn’t have enough time that night to start on anything else. So I started watching some of the raw files and DVD extra clips of Jobbers, as I have done so many times before. The movie that basically started, ended and restarted my career had always been my ‘memory lane’ given I had time to walk down it. Despite how horribly hated or how horribly loved that film may be to people, it will always stay in my heart as my favorite. They say your life passes before you as you die. There will probably be a good six minute block of the Jobbers experience in my last breath… Guaranteed.
Obviously the memory that stands out, (both mentally AND PHYSICALLY,) on and in MY HEAD is the set up between Justin and I. It was the first match we actually shot for the film. I had shot two others just to get a feel of how these “wrasslin’ matches” were suppose to pan out. This one was the first shot in what has been referred to since that night til now ‘THE INFAMOUS GARAGE.’ We had purchased some fake blood for the occasion but it just didn’t shoot good under the seedy light of the garage, so I decided, if Ric Flair could do it, I could so the plan was to blade my head and produce a little of the real thing. Seconds after I did the deed, Justin proceeded to grab and slam my forehead into an old metal fence. With just enough torque, and angle applied, a point on that fence fish hooked that little incision I had made and ripped the wound down across the crest of my temple. We continued to fight for a minute before the cameras stopped to realize, I was in bad trouble. With the crew wanting to stop and get me to a hospital, I insisted that we might as well continue on. The damage had been done and I thought, “well, this would really halt production if minutes into the first set up the first actor was physically injured. We had planned and prepped for this for months. I had tacked on ten pounds of muscle weight for this. So what my brains were hanging out, I was the captain of this ship. If I pussied out, so would everybody else. The cameras whipped back on and Justin and I went at it. For five minutes, we fell, slipped and fought up and down that garage with pints of my blood washing away every footprint we made. When I finally stifled the word, “cut.” The parking garage looked like kids had played ‘slip and slide’ in ketchup through it.
After a quick quip to the camera, Justin whizzed me to the ER.
This is the actual match from about a minute before the injury until the end. Watching the match like this, (out of context of the film,) you will probably say, “Man, how boring,” and will no matter what say, “What a frickin’ idiot!!!!” But if you have seen the film or plan on picking it up in the store at Christmas, then you will see what a great element it adds to MY character and the story itself. It may still be the deemed, “The Best Directing Decision I ever made,” even if it cost me $1500.00.
If you can not tolerate blood. I would not watch this.
Music is an important if not the most important part of what I call, "Chop Suey" editing. (Def: Chop Suey Editing – basically home video footage cut into montages, documentaries, or MTV style vignettes.) In shooting weddings, is it important? Sure. Is it easy? Oh Gosh, yes…. Most of the time. When I shoot people's weddings, I document the songs they use from their ceremony to their reception. Go home, get on Itunes buy five dollars worth of songs and drop them on the timeline. From there it's just a matter of pacing the picture around the music.
In doing my wedding, it has not been so easy. Sure, I'm deathly attached to it which makes it harder for me to just slap it on a timeline and start cutting, but again, this one, like Wheeler & Steff's, Ryan and Jess' is no regular wedding video. This was the FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE TRILOGY. (You get that if you read my wedding intro on my site.)
So OK, with the Wheeler Wedding, I actually maintained a theme both visually and musically. In the visual department, I kept the color flat with restricting saturation on all levels so if you watch the film the footage appears very blown out in parts and your color palette is white, gray and blue. Sure there is color, but your primaries are very cool neutrals. Even the titles stayed relatively flat. Musically, I mixed it. Some older stuff with some new stuff of all variations from rap, the Beatles, Staind was used. The older stuff was mainly, music Wheeler and I listened to in High School and early college. (It had meaning.)
In the Weitz Wedding, I had approached it differently. This was my College Gang and we had developed quite a different taste in music. I hardly forsaw having Ryan and Jess say their vows, kiss and walk down the aisle as Slipknot kicks in when they hit the doors. Their wedding also took place in Vegas. What could be a better theme than an Oceans 11 style. Ten friends reuniting in Vegas after years of being a part was destined for that kind of feel. The footage was saturated. The color palette was off the screen and the titles were big color, big pop. With the heavy metal years of college being a nit even for one of my friend's weddings, Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were on the mark, only going out of the range for the finale of Coldplay that would pave the way for future montages with this reunion of friends.
With that, it leaves my wedding, and a stumped editor that has no idea what to do. I have made some creative decisions so far, but still kind of out in the dark on others. I have mixed and matched music far too much to feel safe with my decisions. One of the decisions I have made is the color palette. It will eat up a least a week of editing because it is very hard to convey to even well rounded camera men and women who are shooting on the fly and from the hip that I want every thing slightly desaturated so I can treat it with a warming filter to give it sort of a bronze effect. Their reaction would have probably been, "fucking film student." With that said, I will have to do it all in post, hence time. So as the Wheeler wedding was grey and cool, the Weitz wedding fully saturated, the Lane Wedding would be orange and warm. I wanted to keep sort of a Southern feel to it. Here's the rub: The way I did the titles for this one I fell in love with immediately and almost refuse to change them. They are simple yet, contemporary so don't really fit into a more traditional southern kind of feel. That is problem 1.
Problem 2 is much bigger. The music used. Like I said, I have already traded out music several times which worries me, because I normally know what song I am going to use the minute I envision the clip edited. That is not the case this time. I won't say I am over analyzing this because it is MY wedding and I want it to be perfect, because that would be easy to make that assumption. There are actual variables to which I find the conflict.
The weekend went by so fast I don't remember any music ever being played. I drove a big white van around for three days. In that white van there was only one CD. It was a timeless classic from the Black Crowes entitled, 'Amorica,' and I could really almost cut the whole show using that whole album and get away with me being completely satisfied, but there is another more important person involved… Mandi… And we have the exact opposite taste in music. Granted, there are exceptions that manage to conform to both of our likings, (See Wedding CD we gave away at reception,) but honestly there is no way to evenly spread the different tastes out in this video. So you say, well why not use your Wedding Compilation CD to do it… Well, half the CD again, does not fit with the video and some of the songs we share are rather gritty. Mandi and I are not saps, so there really are not any O Town, Mariah, Rod Stewart or Shania Twain love songs in our I Pods. So then I went to the 'Southern Rock and Roll Theme.' It would include some of my Crowes and anybody's favorite rock songs. I could mix up a little of Mandi's Rascal Flatts, but would leave off entirely any hip hop or 80's music that I am sure she would like put on.
I mean even the songs I picked from the start, (my first instinct in editing is always the best…. In some cases,) are not flowing. Hell, I was dead set on putting Pearl Jam's 'Alive' in it somewhere for my boys and I and I can't find even a remotely good place for it unless it belongs at the party back at the hotel after the reception. The Ceremony walk and picture montage was to be Peter Gabriel's 'Book of Love.' It is a beautiful song, but it does not transition into Rascal Flatts 'The Day Before You.' Which basically starts off right after it. Hell, the opener!!! It looked great… The first ten times I saw it, but the more I look at it, the more I think it's not right and it's the effing music there that is throwing the monkey wrench. Uggghhhh.
I will say that I am happy thus far with two songs used and it makes me happy that both of them were on my list to start and were to be used exactly where I had envisioned them. Train's 'Free,' which is one of Mandi and I's shared songs and 'Simple Man' by Lynryd Skynrd. The first script I wrote my Sophomore year of high school was fucking awful, BUT there was one really good scene where the main character, busts into the bad guy's brother's house walks through the kitchen, up the stairs, and into the bedroom where he and a whore are goofing off under the sheets. The brother looks up and not one pause, beat or word is said and the main character fires three bullets, killing them both. We follow him back down the stairs and out and the whole scene is in real time and the radio in the house is playing 'Simple Man.' I have for 18 years tried to find a way to incorporate that song into something. It works here.
OK, you are saying… "Dude, it's a wedding video." I am saying, yes it is, but I have my vices and my particulars and this is one of them. Yes, it's my wedding. No it doesn't have to be perfect, but this one will be the one, that I will watch in six years and don't want to say when I do, "Why did I use that song there? I should have used this," or "I could have cut five minutes off this scene, tied it in with those two and just used that one song." I want to be able to sit down and watch it and be relieved that it was perfectly put together. God knows, if I had the time and energy, I would recut the Wheeler Wedding in a heart beat. Now think about how I feel about mine if I second guess anything.
I have had a break from it while doing some corporate jobs and Tag Along, so maybe when I go back, it will come to me.
To give you a little insight of what all this mumbo jumbo means, I have stuff to look at.
This was a scratch piece of paper I wrote on as I watched all this footage being captured. I made a timeline, inserting different songs in different places, trying to figure out before hand how I was going to cut it.
When I spoke of color palettes, titles, etc—
This was the trailer for the Wheeler Wedding aka The Jersey Bootleg. Notice the color in the clips. Lots of white, blown out, flat, gray and neutral color.
This is the trailer leading up to the Weitz Wedding aka Vegas Wedding. Although there is no actual footage of the wedding in this clip you will immediate get the idea of the 'Vegas/Ocean's 11' theme used.
And finally, a clip from the Lane Wedding aka The NC Incident. I wasn't big on giving any sneak peeks, but I feel I need to explain myself so you don't think I'm crazy. The clip is still rough so sound and picture will be a bit unclean but you will get the point. This is the clip where Train's 'Free' is used. It's the night everybody gets in. The title flashes across the screen, but this is really already about 15 minutes in. Notice the warm bronze look and the simple yet non traditional use of titles.
On August 4th, Tag Along, Freddy's Spiritual Thriller began its journey as production started. Although we have a long road ahead of us, it was nice to be doing it again and know that the first film, (which I thought was just going to be a once in a blue moon run,) had built the foundations of a filmmaking machine. With having to work full time jobs and do pre production over the computer and phone due to distance and schedules, the process has been slow, but with Freddy helming the Up Close And Personal Aspects of raising money and awareness and me, being the proverbial "Man Behind the Curtain," we've managed to put some of this together and with funding in place for this one, (or the trailer being finished away from it,) I hope this begins the glorious journey into the exciting unknown... And just maybe this last ten years of starving, eating shit and doing shit jobs will be behind me and at least I can live comfortably enjoying the only thing besides my friends and family that I can say I truly love. Here is a clip of our production.
I have always wanted to get into Flash Animation or just animation in general. I have tried to tinker around with it for quite sometime. I read tutorials, books… Pretty much everything, but right when I sat down to utilize the stuff I learned, a video gig would come up so I would put it on the back burner. I say over and over that I should go the animation route instead of film, simply because with animation, for me there is no depending on anybody else. I could make my cartoon all by my lonesome, locked in my room and I wouldn't have to do the run around, get the run around, and be frustrated when gigs would and will fall through. To me, it's worth it. Granted, I am 33 now… Meaning I would be getting into it a little late. I'm sure my skills would not be at "professional level" for at least 4 years unless I am a natural and that I can tell you I am not. I've always, always had trouble drawing women and finding the perfect perspective for which my people's surroundings are based around, so there would be that hump to get over in general. SO, I'm going to start as simple as possible. One Dimension, simple movement, funny cartoon is where I will start. "Bobby Badluck," who is basically a Charlie Brown on meth . He is the guy I will start with. He is a guy who seems like he is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is pummeled, laughed at, hated by and just seems like a perfect target for the most unusual disasters. He's haggard and beat by the world, yet he continues with everyday life. It should be fun. In clip number one, he is knocked into a sink hole by a kamikaze bird. Yes… I know. I'm still working on scenarios. Here are my quick early concept sketches.
If anybody out there is interested in animation in anyway and has some time on their hands, John Kricfalusi has been generous enough to share his insight, education, and knowledge to how to do, what to look for, and what makes it good on his Blog. If you don't know him... He is the man that created George Liquor and Ren & Stimpy, (among others) He does an in depth entry everyday. How he finds time, I don't know, but it may be THEE most comprehensive text book ever created by any industry professional. If you don't have time to read online, I suggest, do what I did. Stock up on printer cartridge and paper and print the months dating back to '06 and read it as a book.
In Los Angeles, I dropped the art pens for a camera. By the eighth week in, I was shooting on 16mm, writing story and script after story and script. When I wasn't in class or working, I was typing away. I would drive down the road and come up with five story ideas. Everything from drawings to outlandish ideas to raise money to make a movie, I was thinking out. One week my sophomore year in college during Spring Break, my head had filled its capacity and I had to get it emptied or I would have been 'certifiable.' I locked myself in my room and punched out four first drafts of screen plays at 120 pages a piece. Not just to write, mind you, but full fledged characters, story and settings in these manuscripts. Upon review of my friends and colleagues, they were 'damn good.' They needed adjustments like any other story, but nonetheless my brain was empty if only for a day. By my junior year, I had written a 307 page fantasy adventure story & script that was grand in scale and elaborate, complete with sketches, maps, timelines and back story to all of it. By my senior year I had shot two films and written a post-apocalyptic script that was given rave reviews, even if the films were 'green,' (novice Student Films.) Along the way, I had compiled journal after journal, (nearly fifty,) of every move and story idea, I had thought of in my life. I didn't go anywhere without a pocket notebook and pen, because if I got to thinking I had to get it out. I have pocket notebooks full of just bulleted set ups for scenes. When I went to my first,(and only Rave,) I filled up a whole book on just the experience. (That being the only surrounding that had me fill up a book. I wrote everything, person and light I saw, because at the time, I knew there would come a day where a film of mine would require a rave scene.) Funny part and here's what I am trying to get out: I didn't need those notebooks, because I remember every look and feel that's ever caught my eye or interest. A song playing on the radio takes me on a journey. When I shoot or edit something, if one of those scenes pops into my head that matches, I use it and the music involved. Friends and Co-Workers will always say, "Garrick, where do you come up with this stuff?" or "Man, that song and the way you did that scene was perfect." My answer, "it just happens." I remember all those little or large moments and store them. Does that sound like an ignorant ADD riddled person? If it does, I'd like to meet the smart ADD guy.
There is only one problem I have with my method of madness and that is, I sometimes let my mouth go as fast as my brain. I blurt out things that may not be dead on, but not so much to 'lie' or 'tell people what they want to hear' but because in my brain I have already figured out how the story will go and I let everybody in on it before the story has actually finished running its course from being excited about it. It's an impulsive thing that I have managed to tone down but not out quite yet. For instance, I would be offered a contract job and get it in my head and begin telling everybody and planning everything, then they would call and cancel the job and I'm stuck telling everybody that I am not doing it now or I'm real bad about saying that a job is done, when I know I still had a couple more adjustments to make. It's not to outright 'lie,' it's just that being done on a job is so exciting, I tend to after all the work say it's done because to me, after 60 hours in front of an editing bay and I am down to my last few, it's finished. These accusers of ignorance and attention deficit will also say, I don't listen or follow through. That may or may not be true. I may appear to be a space cadet or off in "Garrick Town." It's because I'm planning my next venture and when the thoughts of it embed into my brain, it overruns every spare thought I have. Then it builds on others and then those build on others and the only way I can keep myself sane is to push it out of there whether by, writing, shooting, drawing or whatever. Why do I have that big website full of shit??? Because I have to put it somewhere or it would sit in Garrick Town and crowd my creative process. Why do I write these blogs? It is not because I want to be popular. It's not because I feel like this will get me noticed or to be a part of this MySpace craze. Hell, I don't think but a select few read the damn thing to begin with, but it is easier to do it this way and get it out then leave it in a pocket notebook somewhere. Maybe one person will read it and feel the same way about them selves. Who knows, maybe somebody will say, "Man, that Garrick guy is as fucked up as a mayonnaise biscuit." At least somebody sees the ABC's of me.
If all that I have done in my small 33 years sounds like the works of an incompetent, ignorant, space cadet who has no direction in life, I'd hate to pick Bill Gates, John Ford or Colin Powell's brains.
