Zombie Warfare

Weather and sickness are proving themselves worthy obstacles in the filming of DCUP Land. Most every attempt we've made so far has been squashed. We DID however manage to film a small bit of Ariel's verse the other day. 1 second long kind of small, but it came out quite well and its seems everyone's happy with it. Even small victories are reason for celebration no? We also shot a behind the scenes bit featuring Brekken 360. The important part is that we continue to make advances. And regardless of these initial setbacks, all else seems to be falling into place for the video.

I don't really know what else to say. When you go without working for long periods of time life tends to become a little obscure, days of the week matter little, most days resemble the prior day and the one following. It's just a weird thing. So that's kind of where I am.

Today I just did all the catch-up chores neglected during the week such as putting my apartment in order, grocery shopping, laundry, blah blah blah. It was all kind of blah today, but I DID manage to get a decent amount of stuff done.

Tomorrow though I am finally working. It's an early call, and I'm hoping a long day. Perhaps I will bring my laptop and attempt some writing, at the very least a book for reading. I started World War Z the other day.

What Can Brown Do For You?

Wow, that was an uncomfortable position to be in. We're on set of the DCUP Land video Saturday, me, Brek and the crew and Ariel Starbody had yet to arrive. So Brek is on the phone non-stop leaving her voicemail after voicemail, screaming at her, insulting her, threatening her, telling her she better be on set in 30 minutes or he was going to piss on her drum set back at the studio. Still no word from Ariel Starbody. 30 more minutes pass and Brek punches out three crew members, spits on my shoes and walks out. Needless to say we didn't get any filming done. Apparently Ariel's Vespa broke down on the highway and the nearest garage didn't have any parts for her model. Go figure. Two hours late, she shows up stumbling out the passenger side of a UPS truck drunk. But by then we were all packed up and Brek was at the shooting range cooling down.

I guess they made up, lets hope so.... for the sake of DCUP Land.

3..2..1..

TOMORROW!!!! How's that song go? Oh yeah!!! "I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it!" I love the feeling right before filming, it always been one of the best moments in the process. Everything coming together yet everything still up in the air. Ariel and I have done an excellent job, in my opinion, of making this music video the best it can possibly be. We have a variety of locations secured, i.e. a boxing ring, a bar in Queens, we have actors all set up, we have props, equipment and little movie magic items that will hopefully will allow us our vision, a couple of good friends helping out, costumes, wigs! It's an extravaganza baby!!! And the party starts tomorrow! I think I am prepared, I think I am ready for this! I highly suspect its going to be incredibly fun. And I am pretty sure it should come out fucking awesome, because I have total faith in my colleagues and hell even myself.

Today I'm just going over my dialect book to capture a few of the subtilties of the New York dialect. Then I'll probably do a few more lighting tests. Brek was gracious enough to stop by this morning for a few tests. This is how that came out...











DCUP Land! DCUP Land! DCUP Land!!

Trials and Tribulations

Today was not an easy day. It should have been. But it most certainly was not. The idea was to take a quick trip to Home Depot on 59th and 3rd, pick up the cable I need for the lights for the DCUP Land video, hit the grocery store on the way back and do some lighting tests in the apartment. Well this all happened just not in the efficiently smooth way I saw it in my head. Home Depot disappointed for the 2nd time in one week. They did not have the cables. I guess I should explain what I was looking for. You see when you're making a production with no budget, you seek out the cheapest ways to make the image look as good as possible. For instance the lighting is extremely costly. So instead you take stock in Chinese Lanterns which can serve the purpose for the most part if used properly. The problem is you need to find these little fuckers and then assemble them. Unfortunately the place I bought my light from didn't have the cable/socket things with them, so I had to go again looking for them. Because Home Depot sucks I had to go down to Chinatown once again and search for some store for about an hour. Apparently as I found out today Broadway and West Broadway are NOT the same. But before I found that out I was walking in circles going crazy. Finally I found the place, The Pearl River Market, which is an AWESOME asian store with everything there from clothing to statues to tableware to weaponary to gongs to lights to musical instruments. If I had the means, I would have taken a whole lotta Japan out of that store! But I didn't so I grabbed my wire sets and power outlet strip and got the hell out of there. Unfortunately I forgot to grab the lightbulbs I wanted at Home Depot. The enery savers. This idea I was really proud of. You see because Chinses lanterns are made out of thin paper, they have a tendency to burn up when in contact with regular bulbs because the bulbs burn so hot. But the energy savers, they don't burn nearly as hot as just as bright. So I can actually get better light with less risk of fiery surprise.

From there I went back into Queens to check out prices on t-shirts at a local store, then to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for a Thai dish. However, I forgot a certain ingredient so I had to turn right back around once I reached my place and head out again to get it. The ingredient was brown sugar and the brown sugar I bought happened to come in the form of an indestructable brick. I tried microwaving a bit of it, and forgot that sugar burns and smells awful!!! Then I finally cut through it. To be honest I thought the dinner was going to turn out horrible, but I kept giving it my all and it ended up pretty damn good. Room for improvement, but still good.

Then it was on to the lighting tests. Since it was just me, I had to put a few screws in the ceiling to position the lights. Long story short I gave myself a quick self-taught lesson on lighting and the results seem pretty good. I plan on doing some more work with it tomorrow and well as some dialect stuff for Saturday and then I'll be set I think. More on this tomorrow.

All Things DCUP

It's been a busy day in some sense. I spent the day cleaning and painting and designing. I guess most of the day was spent working on this...

I had to paint all those fucking Japanese characters. I've never tried doing Japanese calligraphy before. Though I didn't find it terribly difficult (mind you I wasn't doing in correct form), the fact that I had to paint the characters onto a fabric made it a very slow and less than exact process. But between last night and today I finished the job. Why would I spend several hours painting the Japanese alphabet onto my partition? Well that's a good question. It's for the DCUP video, well for something relating to the video anyway. I'm trying to get everything together and/or done for the official start date (this Saturday). Fortunately (and unfortunately) I'm not getting ANY calls for work this week so I have plenty of time.

When I finished this project, I moved onto another, the official DCUP t-shirt. Much of the detail

is lost in this rendering, but you get the idea. You know, I really don't think DCUP knows how lucky they are to have such a dedicated fan as me. Well I know they don't. Brek seems to think I am his personal doormat, but it's all cool. I am happy to help out, cuz I consider it an honor. Anyway, that's life now. Not much else is going on. I caught up with Heroes yesterday. The show has me completely drawn in. So much goddamn suspense!!!

Ok, tomorrow I NEED to write, I need to fucking sit down and plow through this fucking impossible scene I'm stuck on and then I'll be ok.

Shit cocksucker motherfucker bitch ass shitting son of a bitch fuckface MOTHA FUCKIN SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!

HSBC you fucking prick ass suckas!!! You blew it, you fucking sent me flying! It's over, I'm finding a new bank and leaving you in the fucking dust you bunch of misguiding, uninformed assholes!

Woman on the subway, packing into the car when it's too crowded to fit your fat ass. Don't look at me with that coy fucking smile. I don't find it funny that you're making five people a little too up close and personal to me than I'd like. I don't find it cute at all. And if I was a better person I'd put my foot into your back and lounge kick that fat ass off the train, so everyone can breath again.

Breath....breath....breath....phewwww....again....phewwww....ok...ok....alright....I'm ok. Sorry everyone.

Where you from?

I've since taken this dialect test again, this time giving it more consideration and the results changed. Though it says that I do not have an accent, I know some on my words are a bit ...regional, or maybe its just me. Instance my "for" sounds a lot like "fur" conversationally....

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The Inland North
The Northeast
The West
The South
Philadelphia
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz