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He gets it.
Kinda miss Lou O’. Miss his brain and his mindthoughts, which I can only explain look just like this photograph.
(Source: louobedlam)
I’m feeling like a newb. If you know me, you know that I don’t like feeling like an idiot, an ignoramus, a knucklehead (my brother used to call me that..I hated that). I like to feel informed and experienced before I jump into anything big. When I wanted a tattoo I planned for close to 9 months before actually setting down my money in front of my artist. Before officially choosing my 4 year film college I went on forums and checked every school website and visited all of my top three choices. I don’t mess around. And before I even experience what I’m researching, I know more about it than some people who have experienced it time and again (that part makes me sad). But at the beginning of all the planning there is always that stage where you don’t know shit about what’s going on. All you know is that you’re interested and that you’re pretty sure that this will happen one way or another. That’s me right now with surfing and long boarding. I have my long board. The fact that I haven’t skated much yet makes me feel even more newbish, but that’s another story. But on the surfing front, well I know that it hurts (my roommate informed me of that), I know that it’s hard (everyone has informed me of that), and I know that I am hardly strong enough to lift my own body weight let alone paddle myself and a board fast enough to catch anything (I have informed myself of that, multiple times).
So yesterday, when I bought my first swim suit, not meant for simply splashing around and sitting in the sun, and rash guard I felt completely and utterly out of place. I thought about all of the videos and pictures of female surfers and body boarders I’ve seen and thought, “Would they wear this? Would I get made fun of for wearing this?”. Surfers are reckless folks, they aren’t easy on the compliments sometimes. And then I thought about how this could all be a joke I’m playing on myself. Who do I think I am, buying a freaking rash guard, acting like I know my shit and am prepared for this? Well the truth is, I don’t know anything and I’m certainly not prepared for this. Even just the few times I’ve hopped on my beautiful long board (I’m sorry board, I promise your surface will wear and your trucks will bear more weight soon), I know that eventually, I would get hurt or break my very first bone or lose some portion of skin I will not be fond of losing. I can feel the utter truth in its foreshadowing. But I haven’t even gotten a glimmer of what the ocean will feel like as I scramble my way onto a surfboard. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve even held a board. I’m guessing that will look hilarious too.
But it must be done. And if I feel too weak or it hurts or I can’t stand up for a full 5 days, I will not stop. I have made this oath to myself. So this shit’s on lock, if you know what I mean. That rash guard will get used. And I will no longer be a newb.
(Source: maggness, via thesurfingkid)
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GPOYT
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There’s something weird about the internet phenomena that some people don’t seem to understand. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had an online journal where I shared some pretty boring secrets with some pretty much strangers. But you know, I figured out privacy settings and set some stuff straight and I was 17 and my angst got the best of me. What I’m really trying to understand are people’s attraction towards this sort of confidence with Facebook. Why is it that people are so comfortable with openly reflecting upon their innermost emotions with upwards of 100 people? Okay, all judgements aside, reflect upon this. Imagine yourself standing in a crowd of people. A handful of them you consider your closest friends. About 30 of them you know enough to list a few key facts about their person. And the majority of them you can recall where you met them, how you’ve associated yourselves with them, and what their name is…and not much else. And then all of a sudden, in the silence, you scream something pretty personal out into the crowd and everyone who is paying attention can hear every word you say. How would you feel then? Pretty embarrassed? Pretty awkward? Most likely. Well the internet has expanded in such a way that people use it as a main source of interaction. We learn new, important facts in a rapid manner, from international and national news to updates from out friends and family. Sometimes faster than we would expect. Seeing as this is our greatest form of communication, why have we not treated it as we have every other form of communication before now? Privacy has always been under wraps. A private phone call, a pulling aside into the next room, a whisper. So why are people so self-assured now? Is it because we can’t see, face to face, who we are speaking to? Or maybe text makes it easier to share how we feel. Either way, you are sharing yourself with the world, with more people than anyone has ever been able to communicate with ever before. It’s a strange juxtaposition.
Best face.
(Source: partizany, via sisterhimalaya)
“Here’s how it is. You’ve got some things to decide. You can either be extremely self-deprecating. Constantly in denial of your every thought. Worried about what you’re doing and what you will do depending upon the moment. Unsure of who you are and what you’ll become. Or you can give it up. Throw it all to the wind, wherever it may take you, and decide once and for all that you will not, can not, and should not give a shit. Be free and calm and sexy and confident. Depending upon the animosity you have towards yourself is easy enough. But giving yourself up to life and deciding it’s worth it to just be okay, that’s when it starts to make the most sense.”
(via charmaineolivia)
Not sure if you’ve had this happen before, but I guess now I can say I have. I mean it wasn’t anything prolific and I didn’t partially die, but it was nuts. Yesterday I got myself into a minor bicycle accident. Nothing bad, a scraped elbow and a skinned pinky, hardly anything to call exciting. But for me it was bizarre. I was running late for class so I grabbed my bike to try and get there at least a few minutes into it. There’s this shit of a road on the way to campus. It’s pretty steep going down and down the whole right side, and some of the left, there are what I can only describe as a quandary of fucked up pot holes and the like. I’ve gone down this what you may call a “road” multiple times on my bike and every time, if I ride on the correct side, I’m faced with a very uncomfortable roller coaster that lasts for about 45 seconds. Seeing as I prefer my pelvic bone to stay unbruised, yesterday I chose to go down the left side of the road, or the less fucked up side. That too ended up being a bad idea. I was feeling cool, thinking I was being all intelligent and avoiding the protrusions unnecessarily coming out of the right side of the street, when I see a car pulling out of its driveway right ahead of me. Since the whole right side of the street is lined with parked cars, I knew that driver could not see me, or half assedly tried to see me. And seeing as I was on the left side of the road I figured, at least for half of a second, that I would be all good. No. I was fucked. The whole back end of the car was sitting in front of me, further moving backwards towards the side of the road that I had so “wittily” chosen. So I hit my brake. Well yeah, sure, that’s good, but the incline is so that if you do hit both brakes you’ll fly over your handle bars automatically. So I hit my right brake, and because I’m not a skilled bicyclist, that may or may not have been the right thing to do. And I skidded out; back wheel turning so that I was now flying horizontally towards the butt end of the black mass that was slowly blocking my escape. I knew it right there that I would hit that stupid ass car. “Should I feel like the idiot? Is this person an idiot? Do I care?” Because right then I knew that I was going to run into it. And right then I think I maybe jumped out of my body and watched myself flying off my bike and onto the ground. I swear it. It just all felt absolutely matter-of-fact that I think my whole mind’s eye was like, “well, let’s take a look at how this pans out, seeing as you’ve already chosen and accepted your fate.” I also think I like to watch myself turn surely and slowly from a normal human being into a complete spazz of an idiot; I just do it so often.
Now I’m typing this, my bike’s fine, and the left side of my ass is most likely going to have a gnarly bruise, reminding me for the next week or so about the damned left side of the road that I just happened to decide was the best choice. By the way, the Los Angeles county needs to take a second look at how they are attending to the upkeep of their streets. It’s practically a joke that all of this happened, seeing as I live in one of the most prolific cities in the world but can’t safely ride my bike because whomever is in charge of taking care of this stuff is obviously too busy making sure constant construction is always happening around the 405, thus making things worse, instead of fixing one single street that has been that way for god knows how long and is a big hazard.
How would you define the word “food”?
Ochazuke no aji (1952)
Starting next week I have a screenwriting class that I neglected to take last year..I think so I could take English. But I’m glad I kept it off. I know that then I hated screenwriting and I’m pretty sure I would have bullshat all over that class. Now I have complete intentions of using the course to my advantage and writing a screenplay that I can film once I’m done with it.
Recently I took a class centered around Japanese and Chinese cinema. The class itself wasn’t very good but the films he chose were spot on and I really enjoyed directors like Ozu (whom I had already an affiliation), Koreeda, Wong Kar Wai, and more. I had no idea that Japanese cinema had such a huge realm of something so unique. Films about families or ordinary people living ordinary lives and doing ordinary things. Nothing special, to be honest, but the directors create something out of the ordinary.
I already get it. I think I have a firm understanding of the imagery. After looking for most of my life at Japanese paintings, photographs, television shows, and films, I’m finding a few formulas that make up the aesthetics behind Japanese art and its style. Stereotyping a culture and it’s aesthetics isn’t always the wisest thing to do. There are always trends and ebs and flows in every culture. And contemporary art likes to defy the standard, which I love just as much. But for the film I wish to make, I’m looking for the standard and trying to make it my own (American I guess you could say). So here’s what I got…
Composition has got an anchor directly at the center. We see the floor, usually the ceiling (this is sometimes called the tatami level shot, especially in Ozu films like the one pictured above), and most of the time the subject favors the center. And when they don’t, like the girl who we focus on on the right of frame, the center still has something to weigh it down.
Depth is always present. Rooms span back as far as we can see. And composition does not lack when the background is concerned. There will always be a set of stairs back there, leading ever further backwards, or a door or windows to show us the never-ending outside.
Weight distributes outwards, so that frames are symmetrical. Especially regarding clusters of people. Symmetry is important so the eye does not get lost.
Cameras never move. It is not the job of the camera to follow hastily around the subjects it sees. Instead it stays stationary and blocking of the actors is important for the audience to experience motion.
Lighting is general and set to be natural.
Now I just need to figure out dialogue.