so not motivated

Not going to lie, too many liars in this world. I'll not join them.

But yeah the hard editing is about to begin. That dreaded, ugh, of struggle to create something that works despite not know what the flying hell you're doing. The forest battle so far has been a mess, got lucky a track I liked a lot worked and made certain scenes beautiful to watch and artistic.

I want that same depth, same feel to the rest of this, but I don't know if I can achieve that.

My mind swirls with confusing, doubt, thoughts of past failures, thoughts of a girl I could have had, such stupid emo shit. Why now? Just bust out the edit and have a wrap party for f's sake.

Yeah, would be nice to just have infinite motivation, but it's not always the case isn't it.

I'll struggle with this all day, fighting the demons telling me to stop don't do what I promised myself I'd do.

Isn't that just awkward. You set upon a quest to do something cool and you get scared of completing the journey?

I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of failure. What the hell...

so not me, but here I am. I'm stinking afraid.

I can't tell you if I'll be able to overcome this. I can't see the other side... let's see...

Rush to finish

I'm in rush mode basically, I've cobbled together something that's watchable, not good but watchable.

Sad to hear someone swatted a person to death. Not something I saw coming. I mean if I could call the cops on half the assholes I've met in my years online, would have been nice. Wow, there ya go, all these years of surfing the web for porn, and never knew it could have such serious consequences. Damn, hope all involved with this tragedy get fullest punishment possible.

Well continuing the fight to finish my project.
I mean no bones about it I've missed the target date and although I want it out by new years day, good luck with that.

I seriously underestimated how tough it would be to edit the forest battle. It may take several days more to complete it. It's my mistake. I didn't organize anything and every time I have to go search for a clip it takes forever to find it.

It should be much easier to find and edit the other scenes though they too are very complex and demanding stuff that will take days, so I can only guarantee I'll have the rough cut of the final battle out by new years which should be good enough.

Practically all the movie is encapsulated in these elements, such as the beginning, gassing, middle part where he fights and trains, then it all goes straight to the forest fight, that's all the movie is. It's not nor ever was meant to be long serious movie. It's a short film/fan film thing.

Got to take a little break then what I'm going to attempt to do is get started on the second part of the fight.

It's all scripted. but it's 3 pages of script. I've been working for 3 days straight on 1 PAGE. Of the fight, granted I did some stupid shit. I just basically story boarded a bunch of it, then put a box with the word "fightin" in it and that's what I've been struggling with. I didn't story board it so I had to make it up out my ass.

Rookie mistake and I learned never to do that again. Preparation is everything... Yeah, wish I was like actually good at this, would be helpful.

Edit:

Here it is, prettymuch the rough cut. One shot needs to be fixed other than that this is basically how the thing will flow. I tried to fit everything in so it came out so long. Considering the length of this clip, the final film will likely be a good hour. Geeze, never wanted that...wow had no clue it was going to be this long... nut it's shaping into something cool and this isn't even half of the more epic visuals I have in my render folder . The second half which I'll be putting together today will be I hope smoother to assemble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqBaUgHFV-g

Where I'm at

Goddamn it's hell to edit this thing. I've been doing fx work all day. When you edit, yeah whatever cut this, cut that. It gets tedious. So I decided to do the fine tuning on the frieda static scene. Sadly I had the brightness on the monitor dialed waaaay down so when I finally remember to put it back up to take a look at my work, wow, turns out the footage is a lot brighter than I thought and all my renders are garbage. But whatever, I'll still work on it some more.

As for the final battle. The rough cut of it is all done. It flows, it makes sense, it progresses from point to point without anything too jarring, but needs fine tuning of course. And found a bunch of scenes I shot months ago that are perfect for points in it. But yeah I knew this would be hard, my biggest mistake being that I didn't organize anything much. Would have helped to stick things that are for whatever parts of the fight into folders. So dumb and now everything's delayed because sometimes it takes me hours to track down lost bits.

Some things excite you about doing this. I actually fully repaired footage I had of me landing for the battle with boom. The canon camera has a wonderful bit of dust in the lens that adds a nice big brown dark spot in the middle of some good footage. I decided I need the footage so I cut it into the scene and said to myself I have no choice, just going to have to live with the blotch. Turns out a little after effects saved my ass there. Little masking, little brightness and contrast adjustment, probably could have de-saturated it, but it's practically gone because all the grain did was darken the light the camera caught as the light didn't get around the dust well, but everything behind it was still there, just darker. Brightened it up and it looks clean and nice now, amazing....

Well that's all, kinda a slow day nothing major getting done really, though when I was going through it today decided to shift things add things so I did improve it. But what I really have to jump on is getting all of completely finished, half is done, so much left to go. Tomorrow has to count.

Still editing

It's that massive a final battle. spared no expense jurassic park style. I mean this was the most elaborate thing i've ever decided to pull off artistically speaking. My projects have been big massive tasks that I struggled with but nooo this is the worst. I look at the video time line and it's just impossibly long and full of complex tiny edits.

It's starting to shape into a coherent thing.. So painful to abandon good decent footage that was shot. It's always tough never something you want to do...

I should be more ruthless and cut it to be lean and mean and not take forever to get to the point but some stuff I shot was so good I have to squeeze it in. Like the whole gun thing with the boom character. Sadly it's my biggest blunder here. Nothing wrong with it conceptually and I did script him to use a gun he pulls out but it's such a pain to have to edit it in when it could have been edited together without him getting out the gun at all, just fight and lead to the rest of the script and storyboards, no pointless gun element, but I trapped myself and ultimately I spent money on the gun, shot the footage, I don't want it to just be a waste the whole thing. I mean yeah there's really nice action stuff I did using that damn gun, sad to say... so it's taken hours to organize and cut in the gun bits when they're not pivotal to the fight, just a bit of a fun extra, so stupid.

Gonna take a break can't edit like this for hours and not rest. I wonder though will anyone watch it. Well I occcasionally go watch a fan edit when those guys make em. Would releasing this on fan edit.org get it exposure enough to where people will take a peak at it and get a good laugh and I'd get positive feedback. Would be cool.

I mean, yeah, it'd be something. I've never truly made stuff for an audience though. So if they don't care it won't really bother me....

so here we go, be back tomorrow with more updates on progress I'm done for the night.

Back to the Edit...

Sour berries if I do say so myself...

I mean, I knew it would be hard but this is definitely above and beyond my expectations.

I'm like honestly not wanting to bother and take a vacation but I know it'll be cool if I get it done and finish it so yeah going to do it...

Sad that I missed my target date, really am... but it's over, no going back. Unless I bust out the movie within the hour, I ain't gonna make it.

But yeah it'll be a fun little fan film just like the ones from the good ol days of the early 2000s before the internet became a corporatized nightmare. I never saw that coming, but I'm guessing people smarter than me did and knew the net would become what it is today, a big exploited corporatized mcdonalds version of what it once was. It's like the difference between small indie cinema and the current big blockbuster trends that seek to create big meaningless cgi circuses for the money.

I miss the days when yeah I was just 14 at my computer talking out my ass about star wars on the internet and browsing the occasional porn site and looking up info on cartoons.

To have everything be politics this and that, to hell with that. I'm still that punk looking at a blurry nip slip from kazaa. And life was innocent back then, plus no one knew anybody. You just didn't have this territorialism that there is now. the net was like space, just infinite and open, no law, no rules. I miss that. And it's made random nobodies online feel like they're real deal celebrities, no offense, but you're not. You're just a random nobody. And that's what we all started as isn't it. It's not wrong to be that.

Like back in the day, it was amazing what we kinda did online. Lots of parody films and fan films came and went. There was no expectations of fame and glory it was just a fun thing to do at the time, then you went and found something else to think about. The lack today of the ability to let go of stuff is truly nuts. I mean I've watched hundreds of comedy sketches and stuff and videos made by online personalities that are gone now. I don't know those people and don't follow them and don't know what they had for dinner tonight. It's ok, that was what i had back then. And they didn't expect success, they made that stuff then shrugged and lived their life afterwards. It was a true indipendent comedy fan film bonanza and it was better than this instagratification bs era we're in today where in my opinion art has been replaced by ego building corporatized shock value humor or sexual exploitation for fame and money. It's sad. I mean I enjoy the good looking chicks posting endless hot pics of themselves on a daily basis, not going to complain, but I come from a time where that stuff wasn't considered meaningfull. Now a quick stupid silly pic or comedy sketch about boobs is supposed to be a big thing now? for reals?

Well I'm bringing it all back with static. I actually wrote a script, a clever one, lots of in jokes, humor, drama, lots of it. It oozes with my personality and quirks and I'm proud of it. And it doesn't simply resort to TLCD level stuff like most internet humor does sadly. And when the dust clears I'll have gone the distance like Rocky, no fame, no glory, but personally feel victorious.

The Lucas tragedy

Kinda a diversion I want to go on as I abandon the project to clear my head. Recently watched Lucas sparring with autograph hounders on youtube. He's got no love for people seeking autographs though I can imagine a regular fan spots him he'd gladly give one. I've noticed Lucas doesn't truly walk the streets with body guards. People have caught him casually walking around town at times. He's nuts if he thinks he can do that but whatever, I guess.

Interesting to see this side of Lucas. He's very rarely shown emotion. This time he let his fury bubble to the surface as he became frustrated by the hounders and tried to explain to them why he's not giving them an autograph. They're obviously just after money and not true star wars fans.

It breaks my heart to watch Lucas himself sour to star wars because of jerks like them trying to exploit him.

I get it now why Michael Jai White ignored me. He's encountered complete assholes at cons and events trying to exploit him. He's developed a cruel cold callous attitude to deal with that. Most celebs probably do.

Tragedy of getting famous. You get shit from people just as much as you get praise.

I don't know, guess that's just the world we live in. You can't feel secure in this world. I've seen and experienced that myself.

How can I personally get across that I'm a true fanboy, not a guy trying to exploit these celebs if I ever meet them in the future.

Hard to say really. They're very open these days to being exploited because most of them have opened that door via twitter and facebook. They must be cautions, the internet truly is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I don't know, been doing the star wars thing since I was 8 years old. I've gotten too deep in fandom to ever try to be like a jerk towards my heros. Would Hamill etc. understand that? Or if I did meet them they'd have no idea if I was a good dude and shun me like with Jai White. Whatever...

True enough, Lucas says, the autograph hounds are just like him when HE started, he didn't have a dime to his name worth crap and worked hard to get to where he is.

That's why celebs who crossed that bridge don't care about you, at least the ones who have a hard earned success.

It makes me think, yeah, if I want respect it should be earned.

Here I stand

sucks, it's not going to happen for me. I guess I have to learn to accept defeat some times which is tough because I am usually pretty lucky and get things I want done... this is just another case of screwing up when you don't want to and definitely don't mean to.

I will not be releasing the full movie tomorrow in any final capacity. I'll likely get the final battle majorly completed as I currently struggle to edit it, it's hundreds of video files, meaning I over shot it and now have to take time organizing every single file to find what I want.

Plus haven't even gotten to the music aspect of things.

Does anyone care? My videos I've release have gotten no views. Safe to say when this project is completed it'll sit on my youtube page stagnant and unwatched so why bother... for me. I want to actually see it completed and I enjoy parts of it tremendously. I want to watch it and enjoy it, sadly the reality is that most people won't see it even as some cat video on vine gets a billion views cuz dat shit is lit.

I'm going to bump full release up to New years  day. Consider it a Jan 1 release, the movie will be out next year.

That gives me a good decent couple of days to work on it and finally finish it.

Stay tuned if you are interested. It will be out, I do think I can finish this, and when it's over and out of my life, I do plan to continue working on other projects. This isn't the only thing I dream of doing. I've got loads of ideas and concepts for fan films and stuff, now that I've gone through this and done it actually shot and put together a movie, I think I can defintely more smartly approach the next one. Story boarding is everything, EVERYTHING... Green screen helps when you want to do a close up but don't want to go outside, stuff like that I've figured out. Action photography is something I've learned a lot about. It just is more fun to see things happening. When it's just a stagnant boring shot, eh, nothing fun about it. But when I have the action cam on my car and drive with it, now we have fun visuals.

We're getting there... I don't feel too ashamed of not meeting my dead line because it's been rough here. Freezing cold, the heater making the room too hot, the monitor being too bright and killing my eyes. General nonsense of this house. A lot of things have impeded this process yet I persisted through the night and struggled against my desire to sleep in order to cut and find missing footage. Sad to say but it's just a time thing. I'm currently looking for a clip I KNOW I have and have seen before, but screw me, I can't find it now. This will demand some time to hunt it back down and who knows how fast I'll be able to cut the remaining footage. And I'm only through HALF of the forest fight. If it's taken 2 days to do this much, I won't make it, I know that much. But you'll get this half tomorrow, then TO BE CONTINUED till I cut the other half.... my apologies.

Breaking the ice

I feel what I always feel before doing a tough edit to things, that sense of dread about not having the right footage not having enough time...

I've begun the toughest part of this editing process, getting started. I've crossed that bridge now and I feel better and more at peace yunno. I was like, fuck, what am I going to do. I have no clear plan for this part of the thing, just going to be a mess. As I've been watching what I shot, it's actually somewhat coherent. So there's hope of there being a meaningful realistic good flow to it when I get it cut together properly. It's in that stage where I usually just toss the footage in randomly to just see how it might flow if it was going to possibly be used. It's starting to shape up and develop a little narrative and I hope I can goddamn make sense of what I made.

But the hurdle is jumped. Despite having jumped it many times in the past as I hesitate and procrastinate for hours maybe days before doing this stuff, this time I said, you got to take the pain and just bulldose through it.

I did. It did suck, it was a pain, but having sat here and watched and watched my footage, I feel a bit more confident in putting it together than I was hours ago.

It most likely will be done tomorrow the full forest fight. If I can make some sense of this beginning battle, the actual full final battle will be a breeze since everything about that is story boarded. So it's just a matter of find the footage, plug it in. Like I said editing without a guide is tough and stupidly I did not story board the what I call space jam scene, I plan to have space jam running as the sound track as they fight so it's called space jam. We'll f'n see if it works in the end won't we...

Hard times

For me I don't know bout you... currently kicking myself for having scheduled instacart for today when I could be working on the film. My mistake. I'll not get it all edited for a good while from now. I think we're not going to hit Christmas day here. It depends. If I finish the working cut by then thats what you'll get. If I can put in fx that are decent enough to pass I'll chuck em in there. Just put up the fight in the streets... that took forever to edit and nothing is final in that. Still have to tighten it up and put in good music. And that wasn't even the final battle which I stupidly made huge and epic so it's a nightmare to edit. Luckily I have my script so I'm going to stick close to it. Editing without a guide is very hard. If I can get back to the house soon I can get into finding and organizing the footage then plug it in according to the story boards. Sucks got 4 days to push this thing out when I could have had this whole day and tomorrow. Do sucks.

What next for Lando

Well, I'm of course thinking about star wars right now...

was The Last Jedi a good star wars film or just a good regular film that has star wars' name on it.

When I personally think of star wars, I don't think about the movies. I think about the stuff I grew up wondering about beyond the films. Why was the VHS box set having the faces of the characters on it in such an epic style with the troopers and minor characters in the background.

Of course the posters made the movie more epic than they eventually were although once I got to ESB on VHS Star Wars was cemented in my mind as Legendary. But even before popping in that movie, I looked at the box art and just was kinda blown away by the epic stuff going on.

Nothing in the movie matched the epic box art and posters for star wars. Say whatever you want but the true genius beyond the genius of the films themselves was in the marketing. Pouring their soul into great art for the boxes and stuff alone really made star wars look like something waaaaay more than it actually was.

So to my point, this movie feels like one big box art of star wars. It's not a real star wars movie then when you get down to it, but it sure is a damn good work of star wars art. You'd never claim Lucas was the man who painted the Drew Struzian posters but you hold those dear to you just as much as the movies. That's how I view Last Jedi, it's not authentic star wars, nor does it really want to be. I think the director may have been struggling with this concept. Should he make it a star wars tribute or an attempt to mimmick and own the Star Wars brand now divorced/untouched by Lucas himself.

In the end, he was defeated. I feel he could never hope to make it feel like Lucas himself made it, so he settled on making the best star wars tribute film of all time. Indeed it is. It's a tribute to star wars.

I believe it's over. There is no 3rd trilogy anymore. I never was fully in love with force awakens and I honestly don't give two spits about its characters and where their story will go. It means nothing to me. I'm invested in Luke, Leia, Han, Anakin's story, always have been. They tried, disney, wanted us to jump on the new cast's story and ride that one to wherever it goes but I must conclude I don't care. They're not strong enough to carry our attention for 2 hours and it's sad because I like the actors, they just have nothing to work with.

Sad too because if these movies basically function as a big star wars reunion special which is what they are, no one can deny that anymore. Billy Dee Williams is getting serious shade.

Sad sad sad. He's not going to be with us forever and he's just as iconic and meaningful to star wars fans as goddamn nien nub or whoever else they've brought back, goddamn Ackbar. He's still capable of doing the part, and it would have made sense for him to have been a part of this story if he didn't happen to re-appear at some point during Force Awakens.

It is what it is, he wasn't in ANH and that's the play. They're not truly concerned with his character who did indeed come later and wasn't a part of the story from the start, but neither were a lot of the characters they did decide to bring back, so this just looks so insane not to even kinda toss in a line about Lando or something.

That's kinda my personal gripe with the new movies. They have problems, you can list them all day, but the fact that they're ignoring Han's best friend, Rebel hero who destroyed the second death star, wow, huge oversight they HAVE TO fix once we get to Ep 9.

If Billy Dee was gone, yeah it'd make sense they didn't bring his character back, but for the love of God the man's still with us and still has that voice, still doing things, still showing up at conventions and celebrations, people still want him to show up. And he's sure as hell voicing Lando to much satisfaction in the games, so nothing makes sense about him not getting a last hoorah as Lando.

It'd even make sense ya know since Han is gone, he kinda stands in for him, helps out on the Falcon if it needs repairs. That's what Chewie's role is now, falcon repair boy, but it's not the same, chewie never made han's mods, only Lando would understand them. Would be fun if Lando got the Falcon back, Chewie and him argued about the modifications Han made, whatever, it'd be genius. Such a missed opportunity. But oh that Rose and Finn super star wars casino level that's important or something...

What's my thoughts on Ron Howard's movie and will it be better than TLJ. I think it'll be a shit ton better. Now my confidence is boosted. Rian Johnson is a fan of star wars given free reign by disney to make his fanboy film. Fine. Ron Howard is Lucas' fucking apprentice. Wait until you see what this son of a bitch will do...

He's not going to miss anything pivotal like Johnson did. He's going to know the tiniest fanboy shit to stick in the corners of the film to make us fanboys say oh shit this is star wars I love.

I mean yeah this new trilogy is a very big awkward thing now. TFA was a decent if unspectacular star to things. TLJ is a total trashing of TFA and reboot of things. I love the reviews that say TLJ kinda rebooted TFA. It does. It's not a debate. There's a contempt for TFA throughout TLJ. Johnson is no fan of JJ's movie and rightfully so. JJ pulled all his punches, took it too damn easy and wasted what could have been a serious return for star wars, made a prequel level soft film.

when I watch goddamn Lost in Space as a kid, I said to myself yeah this is good, Star wars is better.

When I watched Star trek and shit as a kid, I said yeah this is good but star wars is better.

On and on, every space movie. This is good, star wars is better.

And then TFA... this... it's good.... Star Wars is better. (( OH OH ))

TLJ? This... is... Star Wars!

where am I going now...

I will be finishing this movie, hook or by crook but a few things first.

Need to rest. Been working very hard non stop on getting the rough cut out. Now the drive which I hoped would just work and not fail has proven that it is the drive I've been worried would start clicking the click of failure and I have been delayed severely by that. I must move the pivotal files off of it to a drive I got recently, small drive nothing good, but it'll be enough.

Once the files are moved, the hard core editing process will continue and we'll edit the ending. Once that's out of the way, I'll get to the middle just kinda make something of it, but I'm not at all concerned with the middle if the dreaded ending battle isn't fully worked out.

Sucks, but I don't really care. The release will be Christmas day and makes sense since a major theme in the static shock film is about christmas and some of my own christian upbringing coming into it. Unavoidable. I actually like religious themes. I believe in that stuff.

So kinda happy right now. I actually looked into my external drive looking for things to delete to make space and stumbled upon the original footage of my saucer grab from the static trailer I made years ago. I mean it means nothing to any of you, but it was devastating, huge spirtual loss to have felt like I deleted it and would never get the original footage back for that scene. I mean it's me, at that time, years ago, a good well shot scene that I never thought I'd delete since it kinda is an essential part of things, but then it was seemingly gone and all I had was the trailer stuff. I mean glad to find it, but yeah other stuff I shot I'm not having as easy a time finding but really it hurt most not to have that shot anymore in its full complete untouched quality. Like a true geeky idiot, I'm just my brain exploded from finding it and was just like wow when I finally hit on it and it had everything I shot back then... so dorky, but yeah I was that happy about it.

So I'm not going to edit tonight I think... might do a little something, but editing is a psychologically draining discipline. It's a discipline. I hate it. so much concentration, back breaking, hard meticulous precise cutting, then you hit one button and it all falls apart and sucks.

hate it... don't want to go through that shit right now.

Review of THE LAST JEDI (spoilers)

Masterpiece.

It won't be viewed that way now, but it will in maybe a few years time or more. It's very very far ahead of its time. It's like shawshank, rocketeer, hulk, loads of movies that nobody was ready for at the time... It's such an overwhelmingly great movie that no one can pinpoint what to feel about it.

It's a giant middle finger to JJ Abrams too.

I'm bold enough to say that. I mean, just look at how this thing takes a giant foul dump all over everything JJ was attempting to do with TFA.

I've been around a long time with star wars. It's been a bumpy ass ride. It's left me broken at times the intense passion we have for the franchise.

I'm exhausted by it and maybe star wars should have just died and stayed that way... But thank the maker this film came along out of all the bull shit we've been getting down the pipe.

This movie works. As what? As reviewers have stated a million times by now it doesn't answer the questions raised in TFA satisfactorily, kinda doesn't even care about TFA.

At its backbone this movie is a star wars fan making a star wars film with his teeth grit and full on boner for star wars on display. He doesn't give a rat's ass if you remember anything that happened in TFA the star wars rebels episode.

Back to making a hard tough balls star wars film... that's going to kick your ass.

Thank you for this Rian Johnson. He doesn't give a fuck, we're back to epic amazing star wars movies, fuck JJ Abrams and his pussy shit.

And the way he honors the Goddess Carrie Fisher is above and beyond brilliant. That alone would make the movie a masterpiece but it keeps bringing MORE genius to the table. More greatness, great lines, great acting, great moments that some how squeeze life into the limp nuts characters from TFA.

That's the flaw in the movie that it's being held back by TFA's shortcomings. If this son of a bitch made TFA, we would have something beyond amazing. No wonder they gave him his own trilogy. You bet your ass it's going to be something to behold if this is what he can do with JJ Abram's table scraps. All the reviewers wondering WHY Johnson is given a blank check to make his own movies has to realize Disney was probably blown away by how he managed to clean up JJ's mess so well.

Simply put, if you are a fan of the OT at all, this movie will kick your ass and make you believe a jedi can fly.

It's a massive love letter to star wars, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT. It doesn't care what you think it SHOULD be. It's a self aware star wars love letter, full stop. And it works. It's fully aware YOU know they could have shot or written it differently but it doesn't give a fuck. It's about honoring Lucas' genius and for that it wins.

It so wins.

Yeah, I agree with so many reviewers, it's like this really was the last film in the series, but apparently we're going to get another. Likely going to be garbage if JJ gets his grubby dumbass hands on it. And lacking Fisher means it'll make no sense. Sadly we're in Empire Strikes Back land with this film. This will stand for all time as the best of the new trilogy.

It's like poetry.

It rhymes...

Rough Cut will be delayed

I mean I've done the best I can and as fast as I can and I won't make it for midnight, I know that much.

So whatever I got I'm releasing.

Will write complete full review of Last Jedi, might do a video of it too. Definitely going to be probably... well I'll get to that...

Here's all clips so far:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDLvORWoQbe08jOgQV94y8A

Just saw the Last Jedi

Fuck YES. 

Thawtz on musical choices

Running into complications of course as I predicted.

Congratz to Doug Jones for winning, was actally asking God to give the man a hand, and just I guess God gave a damn tonight, wow... some things make you believe...

Well, as I edit the opening scene, I mean, that's the trick. M. Night is editing Unbreakable 2 right now. Says he's starting at the end and working backwards or whatever.

I already have the end of my film edited in my head. So I'm kinda on the same page. I know how this thing ends. I know what music I want to use, it's just a matter of figuring out what comes before it. I just am stumped on how to open the damn thing and truth is I've never done this, opened a live action thing with a flash back. I mean if it was linear and I'm just starting on the scene on the train etc. Fine I can stick the landing on all that stuff, easy stuff, no music in those scenes, just need to edit it nicely. But here, it's all about setting a ominous tone from the start then some how leading to the past since this is one of those things you see where things start at a point in the present then you see the flash back to the beginning of the story...

It'll all be like a book really. Chapters. That's how I constructed the story when I wrote it. It has 3 main chapters. A bunch of sub sections, but it's supposed to run along a course of 3 main chunks.

I want to keep the music simple as possible but I find the intense action stuff works very well with hip hop music. I might experiment with putting the fight scene to a hip hop track since they blend so damn well. Was watching clips of stuff on martial arts on youtube like I generally do and had some hip hop beyonce music in the background on twitter and was surprised it was fitting the fighting like magic, so I'll be trying that.

It's something I grew up on truth be told. Movies where hip hop and rap actually were utilized in movies and not just something in some bad corny music video they used to promote the film, I mean actually part of the film's score for real. Gotta say, yeah fighting and rap and hip hop work together, why don't they use that combo more?

Excited but it will be a tight squeeze this dead line I've cursed myself with.

I have prepared my computer, got massive old hard drive hooked up so any clips I think would be best to have quick access to will be copied to that drive for easy retrieval.

What will I do about sound and fx. Gotta say this cut will be very very very rough.... Green screen shots unfinished, sound off, all that stuff. But consider it like a workprint.

Literally that's what this will be the workprint. I need to know what I have to figure out where I'm going with this thing so that's the reality. Enjoy TLJ if it's really what the reviews say it is, then check out my workprint when I'm done with it... And, then come christmas this sob should be done and I can finally relax...

Alright time to edit

Got the little shots I need to make the finished product. I mean there's still stuff to shoot but nothing I can't do right here in the house instead of trying to get it on location.

This will suck. Editing is a tougher thing to do than many think. It's about cutting things together precisely right, there's no guess work. It's timing, pacing, all that....

But compared to going out and shooting, I'd rather sit and edit this crap all day. I will not be doing fx work though I'm tempted. I can't. If I intend to release my rough cut by the 15...

Going through the footage I shot, it's pretty good. I like it. I was wise to do my best to get a clean visual since the cam I got was a less powerful one for the forest fight, I tried my best to make sure it caught as crisp an image as possible and that worked since hopefully it won't be too jarring going from the superior cam to the cheaper one.

Will the damn editing software be able to handle this stuff, I honestly don't know. I think it's much wiser to move all the essential stuff to one core hard drive and edit it off of there so it doesn't have to look on multiple drives to find everything.

I don't know man... if I hit render and the computer goes nuts, then that will prettymuch end my hopes of doing this, but who knows....

rough cut on the way, stay tuned.

Finishing principle photography

Almost there, need to do a few pieces left to the puzzle and all the  main guts of the story will have been completely shot.

Sitting only 5 days from release date that originally was set. Like I said, I'll do the best I can to release a rough cut on the date of TLJ's release here, then upload it to vimeo and then go see TLJ myself over at AMC at bay plaza.

You can go see the movie, come back and watch my fan film pretty much after the big main course of star wars.

I guess I'll shoot those little second unit bits today, then concentrate everything on getting that rough cut put together.

The fx work will demand weeks of work from me. It takes tons of gigs, time, and little precise stuff to do fx work, sad to say. And I can't begin the fx work until the rough cut is constructed, see what I'm saying and the rough cut may indeed take all of the 5 days up until TLJ's release. Sorry for squishing things up.

Rough cut 15th. Final cut Christmas day.

Overall, this project has been very tough to do, about 4 years of work. And it will if all works out be something to behold and a serious love letter to the franchise.

Trying to get this done by myself has yielded serious consequences and embarrassment and all kinds of personal angst, which hopefully will pay off if indeed this computer doesn't explode when I try to render the video. Sadly it's known to just buckle and glitch out when it doesn't like being pushed too hard.

Oh how I wish I could just do a steady job and buy a great top of the line PC instead of scrapping together what I can from a few app gigs now and then...

Well here goes baby!

Wtf today was worse

word to the wise, keep your clothes on in public.... I mean I probably should have reworked the scene to have me with my shirt on but I felt like I was going to drop the weight and bulk up enough to look fine. Sad day, I mean, I did drop the weight, my body was nice for a few days prior to today. I get out there, thinking I still look good, then I see myself in the footage and not so much. I gained at least a pound or two in the last few days due to eating so much carbs at night. I thought I read you could do that. No, just don't eat carbs at night before sleeping. I was on a roll, my body was dropping so much fat, but I ate cereal and a burger at night and have been snacking on my luna bars at night a lot, turns out to be a bad decision. I had to simply fight to hide my jelly rolls all day today and struggle to find decent angles.

Plus some weirdo woman showed up to eat donuts in the woods. I was just wtf with that mess... I purposefully go deep into the woods to avoid anyone. You can write a book about the kinds of psychos who go hanging around in the woods at odd times of the day especially f'n winter, I've come across so many lately, today being another fun one. She comes, sits down to rest for a bit, then I wait it out for what seems like ages and she finally leaves. then I start smelling goddamn donuts. She's having lunch or something up there as I notice she returns and the air fills with donut smell. Couldn't be more confused as hell.

Will I go back and reshoot the shots again to make up for my lack of foresight and poor diet strategy?

No. I've been through so much to get this stupid film made, I don't want to spend more time on it, want to finish what I began and move on from it at this point. Prettymuch all the hard tough stuff is now completed. I only have to work on the goddamn final scene where static jumps on the saucer or whatever I decide to do. Thinking about having the true final shot be on top of a sewer lid as the thing fades out...

I mean, I'm so done with dieting like a mad man. If I look pudgy and out of shape, so be it. I've really poured my soul into this project, yeah too bad I couldn't look super ripped up like I wanted, but you'll see, I've done far more to solidify my passion for this thing than that.

Long day

Too long. I've done some stupid hard shots, today though, just incredibly difficult due to the circumstances.

I mean the situation is this. My father's not allowing me to use the ladder to go to the roof to shoot. So me being a goddamn smart sob, I figured he scratched the lock code into the lock like he always does. He did, the code is in the back just in case he forgets it. I simply steal the ladder at my leisure, problem is that I can't be caught or he'll change the lock. He's that much of a psycho and will go down that road.

So I was trapped today, got the big body double prepared for the shot, then I lost track of him...had no idea where he'd gone and so if I go dropping the thing, he'll hear it and I'm found out. I've had moments doing this shit where he's showed up while I'm shooting and had to dodge his sight, it's that stupid...

well I got the shot, only because he called me and told me he wasn't even in the house and was out in the car, I convinced him to go leave and get some eggs or whatever. So yeah, I had all the time in the world to get the shot after that... TOOK 4 TRIES... this is just the nuttiest part and really killed me to have gone through it. I did it, I dragged the body double up on the roof, kicked it off the roof and well, totally didn't land on the freakin spot I wanted it to land on... I mean the footage is good, it's cartoony and wacky and awesome, but I set up a table with junk on it so the body would hit it. It didn't hit it and then I said ok second time will do, tossed it again, COMPLETELY MISSED. This time it didn't even look funny, just straight missed all the shit. This fall actually broke the legs of the thing so it was really going to be hard. I said, ok, damn that sucks. Tossed it a third time, this time giving it everything I had to hit the target. It hits, YAY, fuuuuckkkk head fell off. That's exactly what I feared happening and of course because I'm cursed it does... So I give up and figure, use the first take, it's close to what I want. Then I said, hell no. I got no time left, either it gets done today or it's over. I'm not putting this goddamn joker makeup on again and doing this, hell no. I went for it one  more time, rubber banded the shit out of the head to keep it attached to the body, set up a little something since well, the table shattered from the 3rd fall, so I had no table, just propped stuff up. Tossed the thing and it was perfect, it should look amazing. No limbs flying off, no head falling off and that killed me. If indeed that head stayed on during the 3rd take, it'd have been perfect. Such a shame.

This body double I constructed was truly  heavy as hell and I didn't expect it to be. Turns out though that due to the wind resistance and just the pillows I used to cushion it, it made barely any sound at all when dropped. If my father was here or whatever he'd have not heard it at all. It just makes a dull thump when dropped nothing dramatic at all....

I kinda over panicked about it.

So, that's all, after doing the heavy stuff regarding joker, I then decided to kinda just take pics of myself in full costume for the memories since most likely I'll never wear this make up again...

Yeah, anyone who sees people fully made up as joker or anyone with serious face paing on has no idea what that person goes through until they try it. It's arduous, it's crazy, it's just a pain. I did what I could. I am no pro at make up and most likely yes it will look pretty lame but I did the best I could and do look very good as joker, at least to me... I've always looked awkward so I think that works for joker, just looking awkward.

In other news, Al franken steps down cuz some money hungry sluts shamed him in public. Word is that a lot of the women who accused him were paid to do it after the first girl came forth. He should have fought, but I guess he figured it'd be a constant distraction his titty grab photo popping up. Bullshit. Sad to say but if Clump has the temerity to forge forward after literally just telling everyone what he's done to women and we have all kinds of bad behavior from him and his little gang coming forth now, why's anything he did a big deal. We honest to God have a president who's shamelessly taken aid from foreign enemies to help him get elected, has no conscience and will let people die because of his decisions. Sad day when indeed the nice guy finishes last. God's speed Franken, got into politics, had fun for a while, then REALLY got into politics and yeah, screw that crap right....

I'm never getting political EVER it's so dirty so horrible the lengths people will go to for some meaningless agenda or ideology. Just stick to the truth, the real deal, honesty. The lies, the distortion, not for me thanks...

I am the Joker

Well I did it... kinda am exhausted from today's shoot. I actually finally decided to do it and go full joker, make up, filmed it, did the whole damn thing. Here I am:

Will be doing a few reshoots tomorrow and hopefully getting the actual full final scene finished and squared away with all the little bits and stuff I want to do. Sadly can't find the smiley face ball I had, so I can't include it, but the scene will have a bunch of little gags and jokes I think work and make joker joker.

He's just not creepy and scary, he's kinda a big goof you can't predict. That's all he is. He's freaky to some extent. Playing joker off as this by the numbers psycho murderer doesn't appeal to me. Romero was basically what I based my joker on. Pure clown but with a big ego.

Why not Hamill? Yunno now that I really really truly think about it, Hamill probably had my same philosophy and thought it would be funny as hell, base joker on Romero and roll with that. As iconic as hamill's joker is, he's kinda just a much more grandiose version of Romero's take. Really watch the 60s joker and see the same attitude as hamill's version just cheesier by miles.

My voice will be identical to Hamill's though. I will mostly have to dub my stuff since talking loudly wasn't easy to do, so I'll do some good ol' joker voice work that I've been doing forever since watching Batman TAS.

Kinda want to squeeze some thawtz on politics in on here as well... supposedly franken is contemplating resignation admist accusations and stuff. I think yeah if it's true, you're hiding something, then resign, if you know these women are overreacting and trying to take you down, fight it. We'll see if his conscience is clear on this or not. I do think though that he's not that strong of character to try to fight and stay in the senate, someone else maybe, not him. I watch him in videos, he's very level headed, cool, highly intelligent, and makes good points, but doesn't have the aggressiveness and possibly darkness enough to stand firm in the face of opposition and public hostility. The thing is that simply he's not good at being an asshole. He's sadly possibly another nice guy getting crushed out of this dog eat dog grinder of a world.

Nice guys finish last, isn't it...

I mean me personally stopped buying into the whole 'be nice and everything will be ok' ideology thing long ago. The jerks do get the good stuff in this world.

Will they die respected is the true question...

Well, here goes. I got a mountain to climb to finish this project and am too lazy to want to climb it. It's working out though which is surprising....

Not much going on

Kinda got a bunch of shots for the basketball themed poster. Actually was surprised to go out there and have no interference. That's like IMPOSSIBLE in black neighborhoods. Always some blackity black person hanging around on  neighborhood watch ready to bother you. I don't know why black people do that crap but it's a guarantee, you can be doing anything and the black brigade will show up and chuckle or try to give you a tv interview on your project or worse try to screw you over completely and just beat you up. So no, I'm not stupid to how the bronx/mt vernon works. Don't go near black communities and act funny, you'll never survive.

Which is why I'm shocked nobody was up my ass while I was working. Now of course I had a lot of people eyeing me, cuz lawdy lawd, a black person taking pictures of themself, that's awkward as hell, betta look and make sho nuttin going on... One guy tried to bother me about what I was doing but it was nothing. What I was afraid of was the local gangsta crew trying to hassle me, got lucky. That park is where they go to hang and talk. Today must have been too damn cold.

Guess black parks are only safe when it's cold!

Well, it's good what's going on with the world of battlefront. Although in my opinion we shouldn't even be here having EA fixing and patching the game after launch like this desperate crew aboard a sinking ship. The game isn't great. BF2 2005 is great, much bigger more amazing game play than anything in the current game and that's a huge shame. If I want amazing graphics shooting space game, there's tons. You really have no solid reason to choose BF17 over a billion other space shooter games. What's truly sad is that all they had to do was just make bf4 with star wars stuff, and it'd have been great. They just don't know what they're doing. Give the license to a proper team plz. I'm not waiting for patches to fix their problems.

As for me. I'm struggling as usual with my own demons. Want to eat and eat some more but know it'll just get stored as fat. I can see abs. The body is burnig off the fat and I can see myself actually shooting the scenes I want with the intended fitness level I want. Yeah I'm getting there and shit, ya know. I just want it to be over with so bad. Get the shots then just cut the f'n movie and move on to the fx work that's going to be hell to do...

As for the Joker scene, well, I was just waiting for my voice to go back to normal. That's the only thing holding that up, and of course I have to be sneaky with things so not to draw attention. A guy with green hair and make up walking on a roof top is going to be top story in this little fart of a neighborhood where not much happens.

I think what I'll do is all the make up testing to get the look right tomorrow, if I get it the way I want, then we'll shoot something as opportunity presents itself. It's all about the split shot I want to get. once I got that, it's just nothing but finishing my role as static and joker then whatever, moving on...

Yeah, then I can really kick the ass of the balloon shot, then take a day or so break, then go shoot the reshoots. I know I didn't shoot some stuff I was supposed to shoot and I really don't want to go through the mountains of footage to find out if I did anyway.... so yeah that's what's goin onnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

The plan

I think I can get somewhere with the static shock thing I'm slowly pushing forward here...

Today is the last day of november. I currently am in decent shape, if I had to shoot the actual final scenes and nail that stuff down, I'd be fine with it honestly.

I really am annoyed with the balloon scene still needing to get done and so I'd like to just get it out of the way.

Today was good. I did the batman shot I've been itching to get and even discovered that batman looks amazing at low angle perspective. I was just going to shoot him purely straight forward, but when I accidentally just had the camera down low for a bit shit looked awesome so that's how I'll have some of his stuff in the final cut since it gives the illusion that batman has some actual size to him. Sadly I look awful as batman, I'll have to mostly NOT show how I look in full costume if I want to sell this in any realistic fashion. I don't want it to be so awkward and lame like batman tends to look constantly. I don't think any live batmen have actually looked right. They've yet to figure batman out, except for Adam west. Now that I think about it, he was the most comfortable relaxed natural batman of them all. He just made sense all around.

I mean it's tiresome and putting the pressure of the deadline on me has taken its toll. I simply will try to release a rough cut of the film by then. What that means is that stuff will be unfinished.... Until I find the time to get the fx work done.

Still just kinda ball parking the film. Nothing is planned meticulously. I'm still writing the script in my head to this day. I know the overall structure  but the finer details are tough to pin down....

Let me show you this though:

Yep, that's how intense this project will be. I'm going down that road of inserting myself into stuff in order to fake that I'm really there with someone. Not even wearing the shirt I want to be wearing but I was just sick of sitting on this scene in my brain all this time and not actually getting off my ass to do it, so I said screw it and got it shot and it actually came out decent when I was expecting it to be total balls. That's the journey with this project. I go out work on it expect ass, then it suddenly works and makes sense and fits. It's magical when those moments happen. 

It wasn't easy. I had to find frames where the person I'm cropping out isn't there and some how force myself into the shot. I don't even have the ecto cooler and minion in the shot yet that's how early in the process this shot was. I had to put them in there to cover the woman's hand who I'm putting myself on top of... kept on moving it in the scene and ruining things so I just tossed a minion on it.

Why static brings a minion the bar, who knows. It's a running gag that the minion keeps showing up at awkward moments. Look for him a lot actually. I just tossed him in shots for no reason whatsoever.

Alright. Rough cut when TLJ is out. I'll release it after I go see the movie. And on Christmas the final director's cut will be out. 

IF I can some how squeeze the final version out on the 15, yeah right, but if some how I drop 10 pounds in the next 3 days, shoot the balloon stuff, shoot the joker stuff, shoot the final scene, plus the funny joke scenes I want, then ok release.

Matt Lauer is the new O Reilly?

Will he too start a twitter undergound version of his show to keep up a bit of his former prestige?

No all joking aside, sad to hear about his firing today. Not a huge fan of his, but he was always around all my life, a good classy person.

Well shit. You know what I think happened, he was caught on tape or camera making unwanted advances or saying something dickish to a girl at work.

But he's too smart to do that in today's paranoid pussy world we're in, something doesn't make sense... could be a hit job, could be. It's all so sudden and we have no proof, no full story on this, just a sudden dismissal. Couldn't they have respected him enough to let him quietly resign instead of publicly shaming him? Say whatever you want about what he did or didn't do, but he some how knocked the show out every day and got it done with such dignity and grace. He was the best. People are now calling for Roker's firing because he's well, he's Roker at times.... Maybe it's coming...

Well who knows. I'm going to guess he got irritated by a girl at work who was harassing him and decided to return the favor. I've been there. Girls LOVE to harass and belittle us then when we fight back they cry about it, been there at my old job. I didn't want to start anything with this chick, but she brought it HARD to me every chance she could get, and it was just a wake up to how females operate, super tough when it comes to attacking males, then turn into little princess when you blow up at them. I think he met the same girl, he did something in an act of rage and now she has the fuel she wanted to burn him. Sad but real talk, that's how I've experienced it, women are tough to figure out, bro.

Good luck Matt, we're not all hating ya...

Edit: Further thawtz.

I don't know what's going on but apparently Lauer had a history of being a dick to people at Today and may have been responsible for one of his co workers getting fired.

Sad, so sad... why can't people try to be better and not give in to the dark side. It does come back to bite you, it so does as is clear here.

I'd like to know what he did. What finally broke the last straw here. I guess we'll never know. He'll never speak about it, ever. But Lauer can't just disappear at all. Whatever he does, this ghost will follow him, this mystery will be there. Maybe man up and say sorry, it's a start, bro....

Progress report and stuff

Gosh, didn't know I'd still be alive, but yunno, if I'm going to have to be here, I'm going to try to make something cool.

Luckily for me I've discovered a way to get up to the garage roof so I will some time this week shoot and complete the entire joker meets static scene. I've done some acting tests:

Then after that, it's all stuff I can shoot here locally so I don't worry about it. The only major piece left to the puzzle is the finale where static shoots boom with his shit. I mean Amazing what cutting sodium actually does. I've started to actually lose a bit more fat and I can start to see my abs. So we'll see where I am a week from now and if I'm nicely shaped, I'll shoot it. Honestly, what I should do is just go shoot the balloon elements since that'll be a quick shot and then go work my ass off to get shredded as a mufuga and finally shoot the final boom blast.

We'll muffugin see... am currently sick with a cold due to short changing my immune system in an attempt to go on a water and magnesium only diet. Learned the hard way that's a bad idea.

I can't afford to do the film's adr with this cold so hopefully it's going to pass soon, strangely it kinda helps the joker voice get pitched pretty good though....

there is a GOD

I say that with tears swelling in my eyes...

I'm just, let me gather my thoughts at this very moment.

I am just now sitting here having found my power glove. I know you all don't care about that shit. But I've been spending the last 4 hours since I woke up to go do a shot early before the cars started coming in full costume as boom. I went to look for my glove in the car where I thought I left it, not there...

I didn't find it. I figured it's in my room somewhere. NADA, gone.

I say to myself, oops left the power glove in the woods like I've done to other things, just go and fetch it, no big deal. It's probably where I tossed it.

I literally go combing the woods for the glove, GONE.

I drop emotionally. Start thinking about why this happened, why a power glove worth maybe 100 bucks is now gone from me....

I lost my mind searching for it some more. Returned to the park 3 times to look for it. Looked through footage on my camera to identify where the goddamn hell I left it. Looked like I dropped it behind a tree, go look, not there.

I then just told myself, let it go, it's over. Someone stole the damn thing out of the woods and I will never see it again.

Felt like my soul had been crushed and a part of me gone forever. That sense of this abyss in life where things just are gone for good.

I accepted defeat, held on to a slight glimmer that I might see it again if it fell off the edge of the bed or under it, whatever the case. But I accepted it was gone...

It's now here safe, next to me. But I still feel like its gone. I fully was prepared to forge forward with the rest of the film without it for possible new footage and reshoots.

My spirits are shaken right now. I feel a sense of overwhelming loss and overwhelming relief at the same time. Making this movie has been and continues to be more of a sacrafice than I ever anticapated but it is one I'm willing to make, it's who I am.

How did I find it. I didn't 'FIND' it. I looked at all the footage I shot for that day and noticed I was smart enough to always have the power glove in hand. Made me wonder if I stashed it in my bag since that 's all I was carrying that day. So on a bit of of a weird silly what the heck moment of spontinaity or whatever, I just took a look in my bag, which I already previously searched multiple times, and at the very bottom, under EVERYTHING, found the glove. Makes no sense that it would end up that deep in it. and the thing that is weird is that I searched the bag for it, just not to the bottom I guess.

I can't begin to make sense of this hectic morning I've had thus far, needless to say, I'm very happy and very messed up and need a break from this project. It probably will be delayed. The reason for losing things and doing things off step is because I'm trying to rush it. I got to just let it come when it comes from here forward....

Thanks to God, thank the force, all who brought my glove back to me. You don't know how great I feel knowing it's still here, still with me right now...

Might move release date to the 25th

Might... depends on what shape I'm in by the target date and how much progress I make on editing and fx work that still has to be done in the ensuing weeks.

I figure, chrismas day makes more sense than the 15th. I want it to coincide with the release of TLJ but then I remembered christmas is more significant a day than the 15.

Kinda a downer for me to have missed my target but whatever, the film will be better for it.

filming continues

It does indeed.

I've been doing the art thing forever, so it's nothing new to me, just more of the same arduous nonsense to the step by step grind of getting it done...

Stupid thanksgiving has definitely put a dent in my diet program I'm on to try to lose the last flab on my body in order to get the final shot of static beast moding super saiyan style... I mean, I'm not bad right now, but I was hoping to be looking too good. Little do I know that sodium was such a huge diet killer. I was unaware of how it can impact the body and of course did not limit my sodium intake all this time. So despite dropping weight and getting lean due to limiting sugar and calories. I was still high on sodium and basically sodium causes you to maintain bulgy fat as your body retains water... so yeah, that's been a huge issue.

I now have to go on a severe diet and basically starve myself to fulfill my hopes of slimming down to look the right way for the shot... Yay, this is going to suck ass..

Don't know what I'm doing diet wise, just don't know. I know that yeah high fiber, high protein, and low calories, sodium, and sugar will cause weight loss, that I do know. But it's been hell to get there...

Got to shoot the joker vs static bits some point. Not looking to rush it. Been doing bits of makeup tests for joker and it's going to be amazing, I can gurantee that. I've been a huge joker nut all my life. So there's no doubt in my mind I'll nail his character. Got to learn how to do flamboyant mannerisms though on camera. I mean, it's tough once the camera is rolling to figure out how to keep the momentum of the performance and not dip into moments where you think about wtf you want to say. Indeed the  best performances are natural ones. When I find that groove and I just go with my gut and just let it all go, stop being a bitch about it, and just let the force flow, that's when the magic happens and the scene kicks ass. Nice natural acting...

Don't really know what else I got to shoot, got a good tons of gigs worth of footage shot and am almost ready to cut the film together and make it somewhat work.

Gotta shoot the boom forest stuff I want to reshoot and of course finish with the final scenes. I mean, we'll see how this thing all culminates in the end.

Thawtz on Battle Fart

That's what I call it.

I have very little time left in the trial period on battle front 2. It's as usual a star wars cluster fuck. Brilliance mixed with garbage.

I'm glad the tolkens are gone. That was among many things a huge issue with me. Getting the hero meant just finding a random tolken, so some idiot little punk kid would be the hero and waste it. But yeah many issues with BF 1 that I'll try to get to here.

They have wisely added back multi colored laser fire. I was just wondering why in a star wars freaking game were lasers all the same color when star wars features so many kinds and it would help you know who's shooting from where. So now as I've played today, there was a nice ability to figure out which team was shooting at you... good change.

Now getting the goddamn higher grade characters and heros is where I have an issue... Basically to get the hero you have to be some kind of juggernaut bitch and mow through the other team getting tons of kills and objective score until you reach 6 or 8000 goddamn points. I haven't played the hero ONCE, good grief. Almost got to 6000 but no the match ended. Matches are too short and the whole phases and sections thing is all kinds of stupid. You die because the phase changed and the map forces you to leave an area. How about not doing that, and letting us goddamn have time to leave or choose to stay and get killed, whatever. It was just unbelievable how the stage killed me more than the other players. I'm getting skilled, and figuring out how to survive battles, but oh no, phase change, map count down to death, better run! shit.

Doesn't feel like a star wars game. Watered down halo/call duty/battlefield. I'm so over EA having the license to make this. They've long since proven they don't understand star wars and are making expensive skin mods to battlefield, nothing more, nothing less. I gave them a pass on the first game. It was them getting their feet wet and figuring things out, fine. This time, they've learned nothing. The maps are bland rehashes of everything that came before, nothing new except maybe kamino. But they ruined that map with the phase time limit making you have to move indoors instead of playing on the superior outside map, why did they do that shit?

Agreed that the game is basically a grenade fest on the close quarters maps. It's just wait, get killed by random grenade thrown from nowhere. That's the game in those maps.

Just really standard issue lazy map design, nothing truly utilizes the vast infinite possibilities of star wars, granted I've not yet truly played them all and doubt I ever will. People have been saying the naboo map fails to be chosen every time they play, and it's true. Why the hell can't we choose our maps?

Why can't we play in friends lists and squads? Is it the end of the world to add interactive elements to the map, collapsable buildings, you did it already with bf4... Bridges we can blow up to stop the other team. It's star wars, that's kinda what it's always embodied little traps and tricks and sarlacc pits.

So you can't skin the characters to your preference so it feels very detached, boring and impersonal, that's something that you'd think they'd put in after it being damn bare bones in the first one. But no. And who knows how much money they'd make if it was pay to buy new skins and emblems whatever you want... skins is big business in gaming, so dumb.

Overall it's a game that needs a steep learning curve to figure out and adjust to. It's tough on you just for being a star wars fan and wanting to have a good time and that's wrong of them to do. It should be about celebrating star wars, not making you pissed off about how crappy the design and game mechanics are, or how much you can't afford to upgrade anything while other players have the best stuff and stomp all over you.

Just a bland game with some smidges of brilliance here and there and the concept of being able to upgrade through experience points this time is a good one, but too damn slow and awfully designed, the idea that the hero goes to the best players with the most points is wonderful now, but good luck having any time to enjoy it since the matches are short as hell...

Too bad the maps are ass, the phase system is ass, the costs for things is ass. It's a mountain to climb just to become the rocket dude and then you die in no time flat. He should be a mini tank for f's sake. They didn't care...

That's how i feel about this game. THEY. DIDN'T. CARE....

everybody getting grabbed by the pussy

I thought Franken had it bad before, might as well give up on credibility in the future at this point. At least when the first girl accused him of stuff, people quickly figured out that she was hyperbolizing the incident as if it was more than it was. Turns out he was going with the actual culture of the USO event. LOTS of grabbing and touching and sexual jokes going on. Video has surfaced of her doing the same thing to men at the USO show. As much as she wants to play victim, kinda hard to do so when there's tons of proof showing you playing sexually with guys at the damn show itself. I personally loathe when girls do this stuff. It's something I've witnessed all my life. Girls that act playful and sexual towards men then whine when the men think the door is open to being sexual towards them in return. I've just experienced way too much of that nonsense and can see right through it every time it happens. She invited the photo all throughout the tour, and now is using it to smeer franken politically. 

As for the new accusation, franken grabbing ass of some girl at some event while taking a photo. It's going to be believed, even if it's bullshit. And you know what, even if he did grab some ass. Why's that the end of the world? It's an ass. Pretty sure we all brush up against asses in close quarters situations which an event is. I can definitely see there being some over reaction going on here. I can't tell you all how many times I've mistakingly touched a girl on the freakin subway and she seemed to think I was doing it purposefully. Girls will play that game, turn a light touch into a full on assault and everyone will reflexively believe them. 

Do I think Franken is an innocent little angel in all of this is the real question. Of course not. Nobody is. It's striking as hell to me to wake up to the way people grown ass people act like babies about every single little shit that goes on in life. Good LORD. If I got to goddamn complain about all the times people bullied, hit, harassed, and fucked with me, wouldn't life be grand. But I can't, and I live in the real world, SHIT HAPPENS. Used to be the motto of a lot of people, but now it's, WAAAAH HE TOUCHED ME MOMMY!!! OH good lord. 

What do I think about Roy Moore and the multiple accusations against him and now people defending his actions saying some 14 year olds mature faster than others... yunno, that's true. Some girls are well beyond their years and look older. I don't agree with the whole age limit thing myself, not because I'm hungry for high school girl ass, but because yeah, in this thing called reality, there are girls who are still knocking around in their teens who are having tons of sex. It's this fantasy fairy tale land that people live in where a 14 year old is comparable to a 8 year old, pure nonsense. Do I condone what Roy Moore most likely did? No way. He well enough probably is an asshole and preyed on dumbass teens back in the old days and now is paying the price for it...

How much of this stuff was common place back then is really the question and are people voting for him because they don't really see what he did as being criminal? I step on egg shells here, but yeah even if what he did is true, it's legal somewhere. Only here is there some huge shit fest over age limits on sex... don't know the real reason behind it and don't give a shit. 

What I do know is that there are people who will argue for the sake of arguing not because they believe what they're saying to be true. Like the whole college thing... I mean, I still am baffled by people's devotion to something that they had no hand in creating, but ok, whatever floats your butt. 

And yeah, nobody gets to feel morally superior about sex. Just look at the internet. Look at the goddamn mountains of porn. That's what generations of kids are being witness to as the world we live in. You don't get to stand on a moral high horse after acting like that for the world to see, that ship has long sailed to me. 

Enough ranting, will be hopefully surviving today's bout of caviar orders in manhattan. make like 15 bucks per order on that app job. Pure win...

no, still getting a refund

I don't think I had an impact on it,  but maybe I did. EA has decided to take out the pay system and make the game solely based on skill to progress and upgrade your stuff...

It is a fantastic thing to do and for the kids that will be playing it'll be a boon for them and that makes me happy about it. I'd hate to be a stupid kid sign in to the game then get destroyed by some jackass who just payed to upgrade himself to the top. That's just awful. So yeah this is a good sign.

I'll be jumping in when the game gets cheaper though. I've been stressed way too much by this and I don't want to go further and play again another unbalanced, shitty, EA star wars battlefront. People have been saying the problems with the game go beyond the pay system. It's bugged, poor balancing, unfair prices for upgrades, infinite grinding, and just not that good a game, period.

I'll opt for the EA access option, sign up, then play it for a trial period.

I've been down this road already with them, gave them damn near a 100 dollars buying all the dlc and stuff for the now barren wasteland that is BF1. Why would I spend more for a buggy shitty poorly produced sequel?

Screw you, make better games, or piss off.

I'm not buying.

Not getting this battlefront

Going to get a refund, and yeah it hurts me. It pulls at my heart to deny myself this game. But I'm not going to support star wars even when it sucks, definitely going to get it when the price drops as per usual. I've NEVER bought a star wars game full price besides battlefront and honestly looking back, I should have waited and gotten it for pennies and played it later on. It was just that I hadn't played a battlefront in eons, so I had to jump on it first thing. Honestly since I have battlefront and sometimes you can get a decent game going, I'll just play that and occasionally the old 2005 version which to this day remains the best battlefront game which makes no f'n sense at all...

And yunno what's ridiculous about it, I'm not the hardest star wars fan to please. I've struggled through tons of awful star wars games and just enjoyed that it was star wars, I didn't care. Teraskasi was really tough to figure out but eventually I adapted and it was a bit more fun. Jedi power battles for GBA, hell any system, was downright awful but I managed to figure out how to get through it. On and on. Super star wars for snes, don't get me started on that test of will.

Point is, I can hang with a bad star wars game, always have. It's just that I agree with the reviewers. EA is playing us. They want us to get mowed down constantly by people who pay to upgrade themselves and get the best weapons and force players to either quit or pay up to be able to stand a chance. And on top of that, I was there when they released updates that broke battlefront 1 and all the nonsense unbalanced heros and weapons from that game they went with. AWFUL game design, yet they just counted their money and didn't care. Well I've had enough, sorry. Truly sorry to turn my back on battlefront, but I've been shown their true colors. If they want to just screw us, then forget it... you've lost a customer.

I certainly hope we can get a better proper battlefront down the line. I'm tired of this die and respawn fest that it ended up being.

Al Franken grabs em by the titty

New bullshit of the day I guess:

This woman, pictured above has come forth to accuse Al Franken of sexual assault.

She claims he kissed her with tongue during rehearsal for a comedy bit, then took a lude photo of groping her titties after wards without consent:

Fox News will be going insane with this story in merely hours and will keep it going for probably a good long while to fuel their base. 

Sadly that's how media works, whatever side you stand on you biasedly push it to fuel your own agenda. 

What do I think personally? She's a model and porn star. She kinda invited this kind of treatment to some extent, not like she was just an actress. Some speculate this is actually a hit job they're trying to pull on franken. 

Will he resign? Hard to say. If what we have as president is any indication, he could brush past this and continue his career undetered and freaking pedophile still has a serious chance of winning a senate seat at this very moment. 

I can't possibly be more confused by the political world and how it treats a pedo vs a dumb moment from a comedian turned politician. 

Sucks, I like franken. He's going to get it BAD now. Lots of hyperbole going to come flying at him from this mistake he made years ago, nothing more nothing less. 

If you've ever worked with a gorgeous female in any capacity, you can't possibly argue that you've never ever made sexual jokes with her not once, not ever. Just no. I did. It was unavoidable. That much hotness in a place that it shouldn't exist was just too much awkward not to be met with sexual humor. So now we live in the paranoid over sensitive age where jokes about hot girls being hot is blown way out of proportion, when I remember there being a time when you could have a sexual sense of humor with a girl without it resulting in law suits and serious stuff. I can imagine people would indeed cry about the warner brothers jizzing themselves over the nurse in animaniacs... 

Like I said long ago in this blog, some girls are like cool with you acknowledging that they're attractive and others are completely cold on it and offended. I can bet at the time this was done, she was one of those cool girls making it clear she's not over sensitive and is ok with guys enjoying her looks. Oh, but today, now it's so horrible to be attractive and gorgeous, woe is me...

I mean it's just tough. I was at work at TSA one day and yeah one of the chicks there was mad cool as hell, huge boobs, and joked about  them all the time, it's what girls do. If indeed I did similar stuff and made joking photos with her and years later she came back and tried to claim I groped her, yeah, that's the bullshit isn't it....

had a tough shooting day

I guess I underestimated how hard shooting this movie in the public eye would be. I've been shooting so much of it in the forest that I forgot how ass it would be to have actual people annoying you during it. I don't really want to recount what happened. It was too stupid to be noted, suffice it to say it was a task to get my shots because of some overly paranoid guy who was just I don't know, I just don't know. We live in a tough town, the bronx. I don't feel safe here, no one should. I don't blame him, but he's still a damn annoying twerp who pissed me off during what I hoped would be a fly by thing. It wasn't. I got so much attention. I got so much BS for trying to shoot.

I even have a continuity error now that I won't dare go back and fix with a reshoot since I don't want to go through the drama again. I'll just have to leave it in there and it'll be an eye sore for all eternity thanks to the situation...

What can you do? Nuttin... well am satisfied enough with it. I often tell myself that well, not like the original footage I shot for this is any good anyway. When I started this shit, the cam I used was a samsung cell phone. Wasn't until losing the cell that I decided to go 60p with it and attempt a more modern level fan film.

What's left to do? Finish polishing and fnish all the batman stuff. I damn well will finish that shit tomorrow. I THINK I can possibly shoot the joker scenes tomorrow too. Very tough shoot, but I literally have the tools to do it so hell yeah. Batman and Joker will appear in this film and I'll do what I can. I should be the guy to take over joker for Hamill since I do a damn good joker, you'll see. I have no doubt you'll all like what I do with him. Baker who?? Can a blackish guy play joker? yunno, that's an interesting question. I don't look at joker as a white guy, he's got too much style and flare to him, he's so not white, that's why he's such a clowny personality. It'd actually work if a black guy played Joker, it really would.

Trying to figure out what's left to do before I go shoot the topless scene in like 40 below weather out in the jungle...

Want to get shots of static in freakin manhattan where the visuals would be amazing shit, but it's tough to get a chance due to lack of parking and just so many onlookers. I don't want bs and that's what you'll get as a black guy in a funny costume in the middle of manhattan, big whopping crap load of bs. Just kills me to drive around see steam blowing out of the sewer lids and pipes and thinking how badass would a shot of static right there be. Now if I do that, get costumed up and go walk out there and get the shot, I'll have so much bs, so yeah kinda am going to avoid that but I drive with the costume in the car ready to go just in case I can do it, but yeah, there's no place more paranoid than manhattan. They're preparing for big time terror season, the holidays, so no dice, bro.

Got to shoot as far as out door stuff is concerned. I have one scene for indoors that I want to get, Static talking to his sister frieda, easy scene, I can get that done easy. I'm concentrating on the hard parts right now....

Shoot Bank Robbery scene. Static's first heroic fight. I have to get this shot using whatever bank I can find over in mount vernon, set up the camera, shoot it. put in the alarm sounds later. Done.

After that, shoot localy static chasing the bank robber. Then the encounter with batman who catches him and tells static he'd make a good partner one day or something...

After that, I'm not gonna stress it. I've done some aspects of it already where he fights random thugs. One villain is specific to what I want to accomplish, red cape. I'll get him going as soon as possible. Problem is continuity is screwed because the scene I want happening after static fights red cape is kinda not having the same costume elements to it. I guess I'll have to just insert a bit where static puts his goku hoodie on for it to work.

Other than that gonna need to get crackin on flight scenes of course, fx work will be tough as balls....

Dunno really got to revist this... make sense of where I'm going and how much can be accomplished as time permits.

Getting this thing done

Took the bitter pill and decided to run instacrap down in manhattan yesterday for like just a few bucks whatever. It turned out to net me at least 70 bucks. Good haul. Just doing maybe 5 hours of work on the super busy days will make you a decent buck. So it was a smart move. I don't mind it but I do mind it, it's not hard but a bore and they will screw you with long distance bull crap. Drove MILES to deliver a few bars of chocolate. Does that make any sense? Who the hell orders chocolate bars from a super market miles away instead of maybe ebay or just getting off your lazy ass and going to get it. I can't say any of that kind of delivery like that makes sense. You get deliveries to people who are like taking care of their kids and CAN'T just leave to go grocery shopping because as parents know it's a horror show going out and juggling kids anywhere. So those deliveries make perfect sense. But the stupid ones, god are they meaningless.


Going to go down and do it again today; again, not going to enjoy it, but at least I'll get closer to affording my car insurance.

Wonderful I must say to come home from the Spawn anniversary and just chill and watch dragonball super. Took me back to the toonami days. I do wonder if the voice actors are feeling stretched too thin with dragonball still going as they get older, hell as the original voice of goku is now 80+, it's getting ridiculous... What a joke. Dragonball is still pumping out new episodes, still getting viewers young and old, still being popular and people still talking about it, yet the movies have completely been ruined and the sad fact is that no one involved with the films wanted it to just be a flop and fail. So much honest passion for db was put into aspects of the movie and yeah chatwin was to me the perfect Goku and physically would have put in the work to get there and achieve the live action goku we all were dreaming of. He himself looks upon the film as a mistake he made nothing more, to this day, him and all involved with it, an oops, didn't mean to make that thing, moving on. But doesn't change that we COULD under different circumstances be standing here today with maybe 3 movies made chronicling goku's journey from boy to man. It was possible. It was so possible.

M. Night making Glass, new behind the scenes video released showing a fight between beast and Dunn.

I can't wait for that obviously. It's going to be epic, and probably break the box office like no film ever has. I mean what M. Night is going to do is actually make a solid film under this guise of an epic super hero movie... it's not going to be epic or flashy, it's going to be intimate, small, like he said he wanted it to be. It's not going to try to be bombastic, we'll see. I wouldn't mind at all if he did epic big stuff. It's the final unbreakable movie and truth is, it's late. I won't let him get away with taking so long to make it. Should have been done years ago. Years damnit.

As far as static shock? Well I'm like still flabby so I can't put the final nail in it yet. Got stuff shot for the scene where Boom blows  up stuff in the neighborhood and then static shows up, need to hopefully finish shooting that bit today and get it out of my head. I want to focus on the bank robbery scene and joker scene. Going to go down in the subway and shoot a fight elements for when static encounters red cape guy. Then tons of green screen work etc. I mean It's about just like taking the subway at the right time of day. You have free reign over the subway at certain hours vs others. If I can get some privacy in a car, I can get tons of stuff shot, but you need to get on at like maybe 2am to have a shot at shooting without someone seeing it...

I'll get that going on tuesday. In fact this week I will shoot prettymuch everythng I have left to shoot.

I don't know, I mean I'm thinking about it, actually showing it at like the urban action expo thing.... But unfortunately it'd be more embarrassing than worth it due to the nature of HOW I'm adding people to it instead of having legit actors to work with. It's a silly fan film thing I've been doing since I was a star wars nerd years ago and we all made stuff like this, it's what the star wars scene was like back in the day, tons of fan projects came and went, were never held up and put on big screens or none of that shit...

Just, this project will be special, will indeed be something to behold. There's things I came up with that are really amazing, even to me, it's like actual good film making kinda stuff...

I've also recently become aware that there are rumblings of a live action static shock film in the works. Long overdue.... but yeah recently, a fan film for black lightning that was shown at the expo had static in it, live action style, and that's what it's all about, making the right people want to make it happen. It's going to be released online on nov 14, I'll have to check out the competition to see what this static was like vs mine... He's kinda alright, but not very interesting a performance. That's the hardest part about playing static, making him interesting. You have to do it phil lamar style. He made static have a sense of humor and just awkward nerdy quirks to him, that's how he punched static up, brought him more character than he initially had perhaps. Don't really know, but yeah. I don't think the comic version was that vibrant or complex. To play him straight as this kinda bland person with powers, just doesn't work as well. I basically do phil's version plus add a sense of drama and weight to him since he's masking his inner pain all the time, that sort of stuff... And I freaking look like him. The guy in the film doesn't look like static, like an obviously older guy cosplaying static. So I win.

What to say about today

Best part was the people you meet there, they're genuinely enthusiastic about being amongst like minded people, the celebs who attend are truly, at least this time, good spirited about what they've been allowed to be apart of... It was a bit hectic and jumbled because of Jai White himself appearing. He's a down to earth millionare celeb meaning you can find him just walking the street without a big deal going on. So when he showed up to the event, there was no announcement, NOTHING he just walked in humble as a mouse, then you get a taste of who he is, a BIG shot hollywood personality, and yeah he's a bit of a contradiction, walks the streets like an ordinary man, anything but ordinary in reality... master martial artist and huge hollywood personality with super star status. I was unfortunately fooled into thinking I could be cordial with him. He'll stomp on you and move on if you get in his way and his agenda in life... He doesn't mess around. He's LEGIT Celebrity, first I've ever encountered..... someone who's actually a goddamn huge star and has probably a mansion somewhere... I was just shocked when I kinda saw how he mowed past me like I was an insect... no eye contact, nothing, I didn't register in his freakin brain.

I just wanted to hopefully tell him I was the guy he responded to on facebook that one time, had no chance of getting that across. His reply was done apparently in a joking spare moment he had between being wealthy and ignoring the common folk. I don't know the truth about him, but others there have commented to me about his personality not being easy to manage. No duh...

Sounds like I hate the guy. Far from it. Just got caught off guard with how he'd behave in the actual event and stuff. He's nice to you to a point, then beyond that, forget it. That's how people describe him prettymuch and that's how he came across to me. Interesting.

Do I think celebs should be fake and act nice when they don't really want to be? No, be yourself and that's what you'll get from Jai White for better or worse, he's himself. If he's annoyed and doesn't like you he'll make that clear. I mean, better than the plastic personalities we always get from people in the public eye even if it's not easy to handle.

Glad I did what I did... I have the autograph, a photo, have a ton of video of the actual celebration of spawn's 20th anniversary. I mean, usually I read about t his stuff after the fact. But no, I was there, I saw all the crazyiness that went on. It was great fun, wish I wasn't so exausted and sick from the weather, but other than that, my inner child was going nuts.

Rumor has it Wesley Snipes will be appearing at next years event. OMG. I doubt jai white will be back. This was actually sort of a thing he personally felt obligated to do having contributed to the showcase in the past and to some extent this was about celebrating spawn and no one else would really best celebrate it than the event he helped start, and it made sense, spawn truly was like the first time a major studio took interest in making a black centric super hero film. Jai white was one of the first celebs at the showcase when it began. Only fitting he use the event to promote his company (there's the truth about his appearance) and to celebrate the film that shot him into super stardom. (He doesn't like the film, but can't deny it's what put his name on the map.)

A lot to take in and absorb and make sense of. I think over time I'll look back on this day I went through, warts and all, and be proud of myself for having gone out and showed respect to my heroes. Too bad they sometimes don't seem to care squat that you're a huge fan.... that's hopefully going to be something some celebs work on... kinda need fans don't ya think?