California Love

So, the past week has been spent in CA, hanging out with friends, making new ones, and exploring the southern part of this greta state. Man, it's such a crazy place. I got some of the best pictures I have ever seen here and I bought a 24mm lens just for the trip because I am tired of the damn 50mm that I was using before. Here's what we did
Teusday:
- arrived in Long beach
- waited for Michelle to pick us up...she was having sex with her boyfriend at her house when we called
- Michelle picked us up and we went back to her house and hung out in the paradise that is her back yard...fucking amazing (I got some great pictures of the yard, using the two lenses and some nice NC film)
- had a smoothie at the Secret Spot
- smoked a bowl (of tobacco products)
- became a traveling mariachi band with Hank on the way from there
- went to Laguna beach and took some more pictures with Ali, Michelle, and Hank.
- left Laguna beach in this weird parade full of hip, cool people that Michelle got friendly with (she reminds me of Bridget Kelly with her crazy friendliness)...Michelle brought her shaker and was in on it...so funny
- went to a Thai restaurant and met Michelle's sisters (Lily is cool but the other one was kind of a jerk right form the start)
- went home and hung out across the street and slept in Lily's bed with Ali
Wednesday:
- left for LA in Michelle's 1990 Volvo...that she so nicely let us borrow
- got to LA and parked in Glenn's hood
- went on an excursion down the walk of the stars
- saw the Hollywood sign
- saw a lot of weird things and had lunch at a Mexican grill that served to Ali
- took more photos and got to the Chinese movie theater (world famous one) and noticed that there was a shoot going on (an Arri 435 Extreme w/ anamorphic lenses...crazy shit)
- walked further down
- went back to the car
- drove to Malibu beach and had a romantic time there...so much so that we ended up having sex there...he he he
- drove back to Glenn's
- went with Glenn to the package store
- on the way we got sidetracked by Peter Quesada (an AWESOME guy that is Glenn's neighbor)...who is a Sagitarius and it shows...seriously...another dude who was there was a DP and he had claimed that he had used the Panavision Genesis on a recent shoot...I am kind of skeptical
- went to the package store
- hung out with Ali, Ali (Glenn's roomie who was in Spy Kids 3...the main villian actually), Glenn, and Ali's girl who's name escapes me at the moment
- slept uncomfortably on the floor while Ali slept on the couch
Thursday:
- hung out in Hollywood for a little longer
- ate at El Pollo Loco
- went to the Arclight that Glen works at and were about to see a movie when we spotted these maniquens (sp?) that we photographed where the opening of the Hills Have Eyes was going to be
- decided to not see a movie
- went back to Peter's house to photograph him
- talked with him for a LONG time about philosophy
- left LA
- Ali almost killed three Mexican women in a crosswalk after taking a quick left at a green light in front of oncoming traffic and I yelled, "please don't kill those women!!!" as she sped towards them
- got back to Michelle's
- she had to work
- hung out at Lily's before we left for dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant (never get a Jalab at a restaurant...a drink "infused with incense".....GROSS)
- went back to Lily's
- fell asleep with Ali on Michelle's bed
- Michelle let us sleep there and pulled my shoes off...I had stinky feet...gross
Friday:
- woke up to some kickass omelets
- Michelle left for work
- Hank drove us to the train station but accidentally went too far and caused us to end up at "The Mission"
- arrived in Encinitas and met Ali's Mom who is really really cool/nice..(she dated Marvin Gaye at one point in her life..crayz I know)
- ate dinner at a Japanese place
- hung out
- slept
Saturday:
I will write more about it tomorrow
Sunday:
- woke up
- ?????
I am sick of typing....kind of uneventful so far
Monday:
leaving at 9:40 PM from Long Beach and won't be at school until Teusday

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Last night, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's and I was impressed by the cinematographer's use of black in the first bedroom scene where Audrey comes in "Fred's" window...the way that he was framed in black parts of the set was really interesting.

I wasn't really impressed by what Hollywood tried to make pass as "dark"...even the night and party scenes were stuck in the harsh lighting of old film and it's inability to deal with underexposure. It was interesting to see how it resembled the flat lighting in the party scene of a rap video that I did that looked particularly unrealistic.

Mediocre Film Depts don't care

So, this week, I am heading out to California to see Glenn and get things in order out there. Also, I am heading out there to see what it's like so I don't end up fucking myself over by moving to a place that I hate.The thing is, I was going to bring a camera but I came to find out that the faculty has it. and that REALLY pisses me off. So, I have to use the shitty PD-170 (as I had to with Scott Willis's shoot because someone in the department thinks that besides getting paid (probably pretty meagerly I admit), they deserve to be able to take away from student's productivity.

It's also hilarious that the Sophmore class ties up the best equipment for the ENTIRE semester so that we literally have to work a small miracle just to shoot something of quality. It was funny when we had to beg, borrow, and steal from people other than the film department just to get some quality lights to use on the Advanced Production Class...a class sponsored by the same department that purposely (I would argue) tried to handicap it in order to see the one narrative fim tacher at MassArt fail and perhaps get fired for this same reason.

It's also quite silly to me that this department is finally going to start moving in the right direction only AFTER me and my peers are gone.

Don't know about you, but I went to college for equipment access...not film theory (the word film theory makes me laugh when I think of this school. ha ha ha)
It's not enough that we only have 2 cameras for 12 students to shoot a 30 minute piece each and the shooting ratios that that needs (you do the math) we have to be given more of a middle finger by the fact that our teachers are taking away from our time to create pieces by taking the cameras out over the single most productive time of the semester..Spring Break. I remember having to wait for three weeks at the beginning of the semester for various people to "let" us take the cameras out. Now, we all know that the first few weeks of September are the best time to shoot because of the weather and people's schedules, but NO, that's just when teachers/studio managers want them to sit there. Man, am I pissed that I have to use a PD-170 for three different projects just because the HDV has been taken out of commission (I heard a faculty memeber had it). Call me old fashioned, but I think I should probably be able to use it if I am forking over this amount of money...but no. Man, I could go on and on about why I hate the film department, but I won't. I'll just say that when I graduate, I won't be giving any money to this terrible school because all it did was make it an impossible uphill battle for me to make anything of quality while I was here...no wonder no one knows about this film department. No lie...everything I have ever attempted at this school was shortened or truncated by the department's facilities, equipment, students, and sometimes even teachers (esp in this case). At this point, I am ready to go away and never even look back. And mark my words, if I am famous/rich one day, I still won't contribute a penny to this terrible program because the way I see it, it owes me $12,000.00 for each year I wasted here.

I could have been making films. But, instead, I went to this school that actually prevented me from making them in any way that it could.