Web Site

The web site is up.

It started as part of my Web design class but, I've wanted to do this for ages, and now finally I have something to be proud of. All of my videos, showcased categorically and in one place. The whole world can see it, but really just friends and family will, and that's okay.
Some of this stuff is grandly nostalgic. Especially the Basement Studios Prime stuff.

I'm very glad I got the green light from Nick to have the two BPS videos on my site. The only conditions are that I credit him and keep Progressive as an unlisted video (can't search for it or watch it in myspace, only here, where I allow it to be seen). That's best. Of course, I shouldn't have worried so much, It's not like I'm uploading the Faction trailer again. Oh the mishaps.

For those not in the know, we had a trailer that showed most of the action-oriented scenes of the Faction, rather than the society building scenes. Y'know, it was showy. We shared this with the wrong type of people, high school teachers. They freaked out and misinterpreted the words "history repeats itself" with something to do with Columbine, which was just before our time so we don't really know anything about it. So when our friend Damien, who was in the trailer came to school with a bullet proof vest on for a school project, they freaked out. Now I understand procaution, but lecturing us and saying it was anything more than a misunderstanding was just wrong. They acted like we had done something wrong. I think they actually might've said the word terrorist.

That trailer will never be online again, because it brings back memories of half of our parents acting psychotic. Lots of parents understood it was a misunderstanding of art, and it was wrong of the school to act as they did after finding out the benevolence of the situation. Others just closed their ears and ran around with their heads cut off.

Since then, disclaimers and legalese have been a part of a lot of content we post.

So yea, Youtube and Myspace videos are together there, the Google Video stuff seems to no longer work, so that's more work on me to re-upload stuff to myspace or youtube. Uploading takes so long. On top of that, the school has a really wonky internet connection. I thought we were supposed to have a T1 line? Everyone should just go optical, it would ease a lot of pain.

I don't yet have a domain name. No I intend to wait. That'll cost me a little bit yearly, but the site is really in beta.

New Video, Stuff, Lena

To Have Or Have Not


So, Wow. I finally got around to editing that sucker. It's much nicer with tunes to back it up.

Lots of stuff came in. My VGA switcher box came in. I need some VGA cables now. I'll Probably go to ESS (Electronics Surplus Store) tomorrow morning. My Converse Chucks came in. So happy about that, and on top of all that, my ipod battery came in. It's like christmas in June!

Yesterday I spent the day with Lena. It was such a nice day out. That girl is wonderful. She's so smart, and easy to talk to, and I can really be myself when we're together instead of loosing myself to an "us" like I did with a lot of past relationships. I happens when you're obsessive. She looked so gorgeous when we were walking in the woods after a swim in the lake, the light shimmering in her hair. *Melt* I love that girl. She cooked me turkey burgers. She apologizes for dumping oregano in it by accident, but I think that made them even tastier. Wonderful.

Seriously folks, Life couldn't get much nicer. I feel awesome, I am awesome, my buds are awesome (Graham with a new girl, Simon with a new car to play with), my job is awesome (one is a computer store where I teach, and the other is a gas station that's really laid back), and my girlfriend is awesome!

Awesomeness. Total Awesomeness.

Too Long since my last post

So I've Decided to buy myself an iPod Touch. I know, I know, I'm gonna have to crack it and use wifi and sshfs junk to transfer to ubuntu. Oh well, it sounds like a fun project, and if all else fails I'll use my macbook. It's too cool not to get. I've got two broken iPods from Kyle, who works over at Nadeau's, the restaurant inside the gas station I work at. So the plan is to fix them, sell them and my own iPod, and then purchase touch goodness. I've fixed the broken 4G iPod and Becca is gonna buy it. The 5G iPod (Video)

is still broken, but hopefully it's just a battery fix. So altogether I should make out with $300 from ipod sales. The iPod Touch is $300 for 8 GB, but thats not enough memory for me, I'm going for the 16 Gb for $400. I still need a buyer for my own 4G iPod.


Remember folks, these aren't Touches or iPhones, so they work with amarok and winamp as well as iTunes!

On another note, I've bought a VGA adapter for my xbox and a VGA switcher box. So now I can hook up my dreamcast, xbox, and computer all on the same screen. NICE.

Oh, and if you haven't heard, I'm changing my major from Film to Computer Science. The film's I've made this past year have been great and were a wonderful learning experience, but if I'm to pay for my education, I'd like to learn to program. Film can be a hobby I experiment with. It was a good excuse to get a macbook (though Keene doesn't use Final Cut, stupid Avid), but I really think I'll benefit from this more.

If you haven't seen my films,


Fallen



Fallen: Director's Cut



Jeremy's First Day



Tear

Millyard Collaborative Studios

Alright,
So I've made a few little videos in the past right?
WRONG... it turns out I've helped make A LOT of films.

Brainstorming with nick Pascoal, my long time friend and film collegue, and I decided that we ought to start something new. Nick united our group of film making friends under one organization, Basement Prime Studios. Theres nothing official in document, but a name in itself can inspire and rally support. BPS was made to represent our beginnings, the basement. When it came to the videos we made at his house, that was literal. So, we came up with an idea to have new teams of people to make films with when we went off to places and schools to make films, yet we still are interconnected.

Thats where Millyard Collaborative Studios comes along, yet again a name. I'm going to produce films under the name Ambient Smoke Team, a member of the Millyard Collaborative Studios. It keeps us connected to our centralized location, Manchester ergo Millyard, yet allaws us the freedom of newness.

Now you may ask "why go through all this complexity?" If you keep people organized, connected, and give them a sense of a greater cause, then they are more willing and excited about the work. It says, "Hi! I mean something! I want to go into film festivals!" instead of "Hi' I'm making an amateur youtube film!"

SO I made a website and showcased all of our (Sam and Nick) work made under Basement Prime Studios as a "legacy collection", telling people that though good, we are going to do better. Man, there i so many things here. It really inspires me and its so much nicer to have a website than to have just a CD-ROM filled with oddly labeled videos. These are films.

I can't wait to watch these old videos with Zach. He helped me out with those videos I made more than I thought or gave him credit for.

The Site

The Legacy Collection

My Early Stuff

My Later Stuff

Cellulose is (nearly) forever

So I finally got to look at all my miniDV tapes today. I hooked up my camera to my computer, and I'm going to make sure this camera lasts forever. But I popped the tapes in one by one and looked through them all.
The first tape was labeled "maskers '06". My goodness. Maskers room cleaning, the clips of newspaper on the door, the Anne Frank rehearsals, the goofing off with Graham Grinell and Sam Chamberlain, it was all amazing. I think I really miss the board.

My goodness those were good times.
The next tape I looked through was my Young Artist's and Film Maker's Camp. I captured my roommates Ian and Levi on tape. They were great photographers. Ian was a tall lanky kid, but real down to Earth. This kid went everywhere around the world and had AMAZING pictures to prove it. I still have a folder filled with just his photos. Levi... Levi was that cool guy with long hair who listened to Bob Dylan for a while. Levi always had the artsy chicks swooning around him. Neat guys. Then I saw the shot of the mirror and saw that fedora and matrix shirt. I wore that hat everywhere, because it was the easiest way for people to pick me out as an individual within the one week I was there.

The last tape is my favorite. "Movies '06". It had all the creative film stuff I did since 2006. It had my urban french grafitti film, clips from when Nick and I helped Jayme out with his Civilization class project, clips from the scene of "Theta" I finished, and, most recently, two scenes from "Rose Colored Bleu". Rose Colored Bleu was a film too big for me to have made at that time. The first scene was when I had Aaron Gaylord and Brian Neveaux play the characters. It was rewritten a thousand times since then. The other scene was with me and Emelia from this summer. I was a terrible writer and only an okay writer. The best bits were when we kept the camera rolling for fun. Geez those were good times. This past summer was the best time of my life, and that tape reminded me just HOW good it was.

Portland Fun and Creative Boredom

I went to see Jeff Hoffman a couple weeks ago now. It was an amazing trip.
Simon picked me up around noon and we went back to his house. It was so good to blast Infected Mushroom in a car and be comfortable again. I'm still slightly uncomfortable with all of my friends here. It's probably because I don't have too many guy friends here and everyone is obsessed with whiny emo bands.
Anywho, so at his house we played some Halo 3 and listened to some music. Halo 3 is a very well made, theatrical game. I was impressed, good story and game play. So, we did that all night. In the morning, his mom made us eggs. I love eggs: real, honest-to-goodness eggs.
We took Mac (his little brother) over to his grandmothers. Mac walks now! He's an awesome little kid. When we finished that, his mom drove us up to Exeter to the Amtrak terminal.

We picked up our tickets at this machine in a small convenience store/diner. I love diners, theres something so cultural and human to them.
The train was neat. I'd never been on a train before. I enjoyed looking down the train seeing the cars sway... it looked like a camera/monitor loop.
Simon and I talked when we weren't listening to music. He made a neat point. The cities were built upon the train tracks. Now, we're all told this and understand it, but to visually pass all these towns and noticing how much more developed they are from the towns I've been to that aren't near the tracks. Thinking about stuff like that is cool.

We arrived at the station (yes a proper train station) and headed to find the bus. We did not know where we were going at all, just MECA (MainE College of Art). The bus pulled up in five minutes, and our train ticket stubs let us ride free, VERY APPRECIATED. He told us about the bridge that stands in place of a bridge called the "million dollar bridge" due to it's maintenance costs. He showed us things and places. We thanked him as we left.
Simon and I walked the streets for a few minutes, when he decided to call Jeff. It was one of those times when you call to find out where someone is, only to find them right in front of you. Big awesome man-hugs.

Jeff looked like he was doing really well for himself. We ate and conversed before he took us to his room. We swapped lots of music, played some Soul Caliber, went to the bathroom. We took a lot of silly photobooth pictures on Jeff's Macbook. Theres just something so silly about making pompadours.

Portland has so much beautiful graffiti. In the elevator of his dorm there was a little face that would peek out of the sliding door when it closed inside. There was one building whose entire face was covered with urban art. There were red buildings on a black sky, an explosion, V for Vendetta inspired Guy Fawkes masks and lots of words (which i didnt take the time to try and read). Too bad I don't have better pictures.

Jeff showed us around town. I gave us some groovy walking music with the huge headphones Simon made for me. Jeff missed my music taste I'm sure. We went to art galleries, coffee shops, record stores, even this amazing vintage clothing store.
There were so many neat hats there, but sadly they were all too small for my head. Hoffa picked up this great corduroy jacket that fit him perfectly. I saw a brown leather jacket that looked a million dollars on me, but it was too short. The sleeves were tight. Too bad, I thought it looked amazing, but you don't spend money on something that doesn't fit.
We ate twice during the trip at this place called Portland Pie Co. It was really good pizza, quality pie. We had pepperoni with 3 cheese, sweet barbeque chicked with bacon, and Spicy buffalo chicken (not all at once). I will never forget such food. *chuckle*
I got to wish Emma a happy birthday. She seemed ecstatic.
Heading home, I took us down to catch the 7:10 bus because I knew we'd miss it. Waiting for the 7:30 bus, we got a little worried, and my keen eye spotted a cab with the cab phone number on the side. We were calling for the taxi, just as the bus pulled up. We made it to Exeter safe and sound. Simon's uncle drove us back to Simon's and it was way too late to drive me home so we hit the hay.
In the morning, I went home to see my little sister. My dad offered to drive me back to school, which wasn't a bad idea seeing how tired Simon looked.

We basically just had a guy's weekend, which is something we had far and few between, but something we needed real badly.

***

So lately I've been really tired, in the morning I find it hard to get out of bed. My dreams are like comfy blankets. This is a real annoyance, because I like to get up early and get my day going.
Also, I've been getting that creative bug. I've been writing or feeling like I need to film/write and I haven't. That changes now.
I've decided to cut back on TV shows, Video Games, Music, and a couple other things. I need to think when I'm bored. I have to stop blotting out my thoughts with escapism. Sensory overload. Al these things aren't bad, but too much is too much. Especially my music. Its on when I'm at my computer, its on when I'm walking with my iPod, in class I get songs stuck in my head. Boredom is important. Up until high school, my most creative things were made when I was bored.
I feel very unaccomplished when it comes to making movies. I plan and plan and plan. I get the camera, I write and revise the script, but I hardly ever go and film it.

I made tons of Lego films. I am proud of what I could do back then, but it's a little painful to watch now, as with all childhood film clips.
I worked on things with Nick Pascoal. I am extremely proud of what I made with him. Such creativity, comedic improvisation, and vision. This man is a visionary genious that brings out the creative best in me.
I did one scene of Theta, and didn't have the script with me... so it's not so much mysterious as confusing.
I filmed a scene of Rose Colored Blue, but I haven't edited it yet, and I'm not sure how it will compare to what was in my head.
I did lots of silly things with Noah. those I am proud of.
I've made and edited countless school projects, I am very proud of that work.
Now is the time I need to go out and find my film. Something I can do now, with everyday events, and believable characters.

I need to relax. I need to stop being so melodramatic. I need to allow myself to be bored. Boredom is more valuable than I ever anticipated.