Laminar Flow

Do you know what lucid dreams are? In short, they are dreams in which you are aware that you are dreaming. Some people have them often; some will never have them in their life. I had my first one last week, and it was bizarre and fascinating. In my dream, I was sleeping. I heard the whir of skateboard wheels outside my window and then the outside door opening, and then my bedroom door opening…and someone saying hello. The phantom intruder said hello a few more times, and somehow when, in my dream, I awoke there was a shift from a vivid chimera to a cognizant experience. In reality I did not wake up, but I knew I was dreaming. I could control my wraithlike doppelganger like a video game protagonist. It’s wish fulfillment, if you want to be eight feet high, or sleep with Scarlett Johansson or fly to Mozambique you can do it as the speed of thought.

From controlling a dream to living one, we had our third and final for-school shoot on Friday. It was the best fucking set I’ve ever been on. I can’t wait for you to see it. We were fully on schedule (as AD, it was my job to ensure this) the director cared a lot about my story and the actors brought their A-game and were well taken care of on the chilly set. It was an exterior night shoot and involved the poor-ass performers lying on damp cement for hours, Laena, Kurt, Rina…you are troopers all.

One of the highlights was a scene where a woman attacks a rapist with a two-by-four (I’m not sure why my stories always have to be so grim, I’m a generally sunny guy), there was a happy accident produced on location when we found out we could obscure Kurt’s head with a nearby bush, and place sandbags beside it so Laena could swing full-force at his noggin, with his body still in the frame, and not hurt him. It looks so real and I know will make the audience cringe, yeah, I’m editing it with Tim and it’s all I can think about. A wonderful way to ease out of the semester. And by ease out, I mean, get crushed by constant homework assignments and final exams.

Speaking of duties that have nothing to do with film, we had a class on conflict resolution give by a guest speaker who was eerily akin to Greg Kinnear’s character in Little Miss Sunshine. Let me bust the précis: people at times climb Anger Mountain, to assuage their wrath you should always paraphrase what they say to signal to them that you are listening and empathetic. I don’t know about you, but nothing would infuriate me more, if I was already angry, than some twerp repeating everything I said with a sympathetic, Bill Clinton-frown on his face. But what do I know? Maybe I’m just bitter: according to the little personality exercise he put us through, my strongest ability is to compromise…that was a little depressing to learn.

It snowed last night and is continuing to come down today. Big, ultra-white flakes, sticking perfectly for snowballs and snow people. We had a little battle last night after my second shoot of the weekend. I was acting in my friend Kelly’s project. I had to play a sleaze ball card player named Vince. It was fun, and emboldening, being on their poorly run set (which is not a slight against Kelly, her fellow crewmates were the fuck-ups) – I felt even better about our production afterwards.

I’m going to finish my laundry, go spend the money I got for my birthday on things I don’t need and put off my homework until 11pm. I love you all, and feel like saying that.

THE WINDS OF SEX

We have started pre-production on our third and final film project for this semester. I’m working with people from the other sections; we had our first meet-and-greet on Friday. I was nervous I was going to be stuck with a bunch of buckets of yuck and fuck ups, but my group got the ball rolling quickly and I’m super stoked we’ll make a sweet-ass flick. Since I like to brag, I impart: my script was chosen to be made. That makes me three for three, suckas! I dig it, besides the 15-minute script I wrote, it’s my favorite story I’ve done. I will be Assistant Director on the set and Assistant Editor in post.

The above picture of myself, Davis (in the middle) and Dylan looking like the biggest losers you have ever met was taken on Wednesday at Davis’ place by his…”friend” Jessica (it’s complicated).

Anyway, Davis was directing a short about two people having an affair and I was doing sound, which is a fancy way of saying I held the boom pole and Dylan was Camera. Davis cast his two roommates, Jim and Sophie, as the illicit couple. They are both professional, trained actors which was a scholastic accomplishment I was, historically, skeptical of – but they did great and the questions they asked and the attention and listening they displayed in the scene entrenched in me the belief there is something to be said of those who study acting.

It looks great, and is part of the collective piece that I shot my junkie scene with Jess for. It’s due in two weeks, so I’ll be sure to get a DVD copy made. Perhaps for an Alberta premiere when I get back to Edmonton on December 17th. Mark your calendars.

During a scene that had Jim and Sophie lying in bed, post-coitus, there was a continuity error so it had to be re-shot. What had happened was that before they got it on, Sophie lit a candle on the bedside table that was out as they lied there. Davis noticed this and wanted to have the candle still going. However, Dylan offered that it was fine that the flame was extinguished, as Dyl put it: “You know, maybe the candle went out because of the winds of sex…” I nearly collapsed. There it is: the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.

AMERICA'S NEXT TOP STORM

Well, as you may have heard, it’s been raining cats and dogs and even some manatees over the last few weeks:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2006/11/15/bc-storm.html

Thanks to Steve the Sleeve for the article. Due to the storm (I think) a water main (mane? Maine?) broke at Cap College and I haven’t had school since Thursday. This extended long weekend consisted of paying respects to those who died believing God was on their side (I pray you did the same). I also caught up on some homework, did some writing, drank a lot of Wild Cat 8-packs – 6.1% plus Eight Cans equals hurt stomach. We also continued our proud tradition of hand hockey, it is the world’s most perfect sport.

We begin our third main film project for school on Friday. This time my group will consist of people from the other sections that I haven’t met yet. That should prove interesting I hope they aren’t losers and/or are beautiful women.

I’m two for two as far as my story getting chosen to be produced, and this most recent script is my favorite thing I’ve written so far. So cross your various digits for me. I still can’t direct anything until next semester but I think I would like to be First Assistant Director. These are the cats in charge of scheduling and the general, non-creative running of the set. It’s good – you can be really bossy and yell a lot.

I’ll keep you posted.

The Democrats took the house so let’s see if a black guy whose name rhymes with Osama or Mrs. Clinton, who, like most capable women, gets the label of an icy bitch can oust the shameless playing of 9-11 sympathies Guliani will most likely employ to beat out McCain for the nomination in 2008. But, hey, I’m an optimist.

I Promised Myself I Wouldn't Write Posts Like This

You know what’s weird? You can buy fireworks in Vancouver everywhere. Apparently it’s tradition around here to set them off during the entire week of Halloween with a large, city-sponsored display on the 31st. What an odd place this is. Such fanfare for what is, essentially, the Ringo Starr of holidays.

School is going well (I got my first ever 100% on a midterm! Lick my taint in appreciation!). At times, though, I feel like we are spending too much time on the business, practicality side of things and not enough on the craft, story-telling, art of moviemaking side of things, but I guess this is a school and their job is to prepare you for employment. Although, I must say I’m having the most of fun (and learning the most as well) from our ‘off the grid’ shoots on weekends and after school. Last night I was camera operator/DOP for a short Nathan was directing/starring in. It was about a suicide and Nate Dogg bought this fake skin shit so he could actually slice into his arm and also got loads of fake blood. It looked so gross, and therefore, awesome. I can’t wait to show y’all.

Today I spent the entire day inside my room, which, coincidentally, is my entire living area. I caught up on sleep mostly and wrote a short 8-page script the boys and I will hopefully shoot in late November. It was nice to sit around and eat out of the container and jerk-off with impunity, but truthfully it would’ve been a good, rainy day to spend eating ice cream and watching movies in your pajamas with a pretty girl.

I wrote in a previous entry about how sentiments can be all you need sometimes, that the idea of a person or the blanks you fill in for said person can sustain you for a while. But not forever. Those types of relationships don’t survive – they come in beautiful and die early, spitting blood in an ICU.

Sometimes you view those in your past and yearn for that familiar embrace, the person who you know goes beyond sentiments. The person who you already know the secrets of and whom with you share a kind of shorthand.

It’s dangerous though, kid. I mean, and this is the question always presented, do you miss having a girlfriend or do you just miss having a girl around? Hmmm…that’s tricky. I’ve been on a few dates and had some drunken hook-ups and one truly special night with a kind woman that I had met in Edmonton and only the latter left me sated in the morning. I think I’m one of THOSE guys. The kind who wants to burn CDs and write poetry. To hold hands and stroke her hair. To gush in public and annoy all my friends. This can also lead to thoughts of those girls from your past with their shallow breaths in the dark of their rooms, the familiar pale stomachs you place your hand on under their old, faded sleeping t-shirts.

Which, in turn, leads to more tricky and obvious questions: do you miss that specific girlfriend or the concept of having a girlfriend? I don’t know. Perhaps it is merely the concept and when I find that girl who fulfills not only my desires, but her own potential as well, I will rest. I will rest knowing that I can be happy here and let all the doubts and need to reconnect with the past fade and yellow and wither away like discarded newsprint.

Or maybe I truly do miss that girl from my past, and that I’m currently searching for something I’ve already had and know where to go back, and through apologizing and attrition, regain what I ruined.

These are conundrums without solutions, and until I am presented with one of the above scenarios of either meeting a new girl I can envision a future with or succumb to my fiery bouts of nostomania and have a true, naked conversation with an ex I still think about (I mean naked emotionally – we can talk with our clothes on) I will adhere to the only truthful thing anyone can really respond with in situations like these:

I don’t know.