Official Trailer HD

   The trailer for the On Our Own remake, now officially titled "Collapse," is in. Does that make sense as a sentence? I think it does. Okay, how's this: The trailer for "Collapse," the remake of... No, that still runs into the same problems. "Collapse," the On Our Own remake,'s trailer is in. Gruhhh, all right. That's decent. So, I'm telling you about this now.

   Okay, it makes sense that I didn't get this earlier because the director uploaded it to his son's YouTube channel, because, as the director put it, "he has almost 8,000 subscribers and my channel has 3." Makes sense to me. (Who knew you could get so many subscribers as a review channel for Korean Pop music? K-pop does rock, but still. Are there... bigger channels out there, devoted primarily to stuff like this? Looking at it, they're actually one of the biggest. Huh.)

   My name's not in the credits, but be on the lookout for things I told you about in the production diaries.

 

   Civilization unravels as the nation is gripped by a widespread economic catastrophe. Without market distribution, supplies dwindle, and the truth of human nature is revealed when the thin veil of order as we know it is stripped away in the absence of authority.

   Two young brothers find themselves orphaned in a world where the rules of society are superseded by the need to survive. Forced from their home, 14-year-old Luke must protect his young brother from looters, gangs, hunger, and 1,200 miles of wilderness which stand between them and safety.

   Luke and Scott face heartbreaking decisions and ethical questions as they struggle to find the will to keep each other going.

   "Collapse" is an independent dramatic feature film produced in northern Nevada. The film is scheduled to be completed in October 2012, and screened at select festivals in 2013.

The Universal Angle

   I've done even more thinking. What do we do? To return to Aurora now that we have Oak Creek. It would seem callous not to return at all. There is still much to be said about it, isn't there? It's hard to relate to the more recent tragedy than the last one, or even the one before that. Tuscon, Toronto, Aurora, Oak Creek. Oak Creek may or may not be just senseless domestic terrorism, which is an unfortunate part of our lives but hopefully widespread dissemination this incident will make people realize that Sikhism had nothing to do with Islam. Tucson is back in the news, with Loughner pleading guilty. I guess it's just natural to revisit these.

   Tucson, that affected us. Aurora affected us. Going to temple to worship is different from going to the cinema to see Batman, is different from going to a political rally to see your representatives is different from going to the Eaton Centre Mall food-court to get a drink. All these we can relate to: politics, worship, the arts. Food especially.

   The universal, then; maybe I was wrong to go for the personal angle. We don't need things that separate us; we need things that connect us. Mutual experiences and feelings that we had on it. What we thought when we heard the news, making sense out of the senseless. Some men just want to watch the world burn. I know that I thought it; I know that you thought it. That this would be the equivalent of Heath Ledger, terrible as it is.

   Here's the part where I wrap it up, but I have nothing else to say.

Is There Life on Maaaars?

   Oh, man... I was so excited about this, but I decided to wait until after I posted my promised post. It would have tied together so beautifully with current events and everything, how I had commented on the Sikh temple shooting and then this happened. I couldn't really find a way to tie it together elseways, though, with my Journeyman post, so I didn't and just posted the post I promised you. But now I realize that this totally ties into Life on Mars. Because, well, you know.

Still Highly Specific, Slightly More Prolific Than I Had Thought, Still Equal Parts Entertaining and Unsucessful

   A continuation/addendum to post A Highly Specific, Highly Prolific, Highly Entertaining Yet Highly Unsuccessful Genre.

   Journeyman. Another gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama show that couldn't make it out of one season. This show, like Awake, is also brought to us by NBC, which only proves my point how they drop shows like fresh beats (though NBC isn't the only one guilty of dropping a gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama show (even though time travel aspects of Awake are debatable and it really might all be happening in Jason Isaac's head, but it could be argued time travel and that's really my point) and most of the major networks are equally if not more guilty of this (ABC, natch, since they're the network behind Lost and their following of the leader is the most excusable) I'm talking specifically about NBC right now (CBS doesn't have, like, any gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama shows. What's up with that?)) Anyway, NBC.

   I had specifically brought up the Cape last time because it was a show designed to pick up those flagging ratings, but also couldn't make it out of a season. (No time travel in this one... or at least none in the first and only season; maybe they were planning on expanding the superhero mythos later on.) It's baffling how NBC orders groundbreaking experimental new shows to pick up flagging ratings and then drops then if it takes a while for said experimental shows to find viewership. Seriously, they didn't do that with Law and Order even though it initially had poor ratings. NBC stuck with it until people got used to the then-revolutionary idea of combining lawyer and cop genres like that, and now it's one of the most successful television franchises of all time. That worked out, in the end. But generally they've been skittish after the infamous "no-hitter" year of '83. You'd think they'd learn to be either bolder or more conservative and then stick with it, but they go from one extreme to another. Anyway, Journeyman.

   I was nebulously aware of this show when I first posted A Highly Specific, Highly Prolific, Highly Entertaining Yet Highly Unsuccessful Genre, but I had just figured it to be a docudrama based around the bestselling Journeyman Project series of video games (yes, seriously). This is one of those scenarios in which it would have been better for me to have been an outsider to the sci-fi field/industry, as there obviously would have been no chance of me making that mistake had I never heard of the Journeyman Project.

   So, now that I know that the show also belongs in that category, I have to review it separately from Awake and the other shows from that post. To get its own post, this had better be the best of the lot. 

   It is.

   The series revolves around Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd), a journalist for the San Francisco Register who finds himself suddenly plagued by unexplained headaches. These apparently trigger warps through time, where he tracks and must help people through various stages of their lives. The casting director here is to be commended, as the characters throughout the stages of their lives are very believably casted timeshifted actors.

   Dan does his best to help out those he's tracking to see where these people are at in life in the present to find and fix whatever's broken, using his own connections in the newspaper agency, his cop brother Jack (Reed Diamond), and judicious use of Finder-Spyder. The time travel mechanics as he tracks people and changes the past are secondary to the drama going on in Dan's life; that being said, it would seem to be a mutable timeline, with some element of fate over all of Dan's shifts. The word destiny is never explicitly dropped, but it seems to be a prevalent theme. "My life is slipping through my hands, and you're talking about some kind of order to all this. All I see is chaos."

   Back at home in the present, Dan has to deal with the fact that his shifts are interrupting his work life at the newspaper and his home life with his son Zack and wife Katie (Gretchen Egolf), as well as his aforementioned brother Jack, who used to be engaged to Katie and still might have feelings for her. When Dan begins shifting, Jack suspects him to be gambling again, or worse. Try as Dan might, he can't seem to convince him of the shifts. Katie knows his secret, though, and Zack kind of accidentally sees him warp one time. Dan's warps happen at the most inopportune of moments, straining the relationship between him and Katie, who is at least understanding because she knows that Dan really can't control when he goes.

   Throw in the wrinkle of Livia Beale (Moon Bloodgood), Dan's ex-fiance who was thought to have died in a plane crash but transpires to be warping through time too, and who is herself tracking Dan with her time shifts. Although initially Katie is suspicious of this development, she trusts Dan.

   Moon Bloodgood plays this part with-... Wait. What the heck? Moonbloodgood? Are all gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama shows conspiring to be connected somehow? Anyway, she's, like, Moon Bloodgood. I don't even need to tell you. She was in Day Break. Which was similar. It was on the list at number one, but now at number 2. Pushed down. Which, right, the list. Needs to be adjusted to fit Journeyman, now, doesn't it?

   So, here's the complete updated list of all of the gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama shows that only lasted one season, with footnotes.

• Journeyman~ † (NBC, 2007, 13 episodes)

• Day Break~ (ABC, 2006, 13 episodes)

• Awake* †  (NBC, 2012, 13 episodes)

• Life on Mars † (ABC, 2008-2009, 17 episodes) 

• Alcatraz ‡ (FOX, 2012, 13 episodes) 

• FlashForward* †  ‡ (ABC, 2009-2010, 22 episodes) 

• Terra Nova † (FOX, 2011, 11 episodes)

~ Has Moon Bloodgood

* Time travel themes present with no actual time travel, with timeline split (Awake) or visions of the future (FlashForward.)

† Main character American not played by American (Kevin McKidd, Jason Isaacs, Joseph Fiennes, and Jason O'Mara twice.)

‡ Major character played by Lost actor (Jorge Garcia and Dominic Monaghan.)

Beginning to Sound Familiar

   Another mass shooting. I'd leave it alone, as I'm more of a pop culture type blogging guy, but this is too too soon on the heels of the last one (which did have something to do with pop culture), and, ah man, I really like Sikhs. What's up with that? Though I really can't see anyone being able to say for sure. It'd be too easy to assume motive for the killers, too easy to assume they want fame or infamy and for us to share their names. Too easy to assume that the victims would want their stories told, that they weren't the sort of people who were private about their lives. Too easy just to talk about it and say that everything's too easy.

   I know I've been guilty about these assumptions in the past, at least in passing reference, but I've had time to do more thinking and research on the subject. You do something, you follow through with it. Here's my follow-through.

   More follow-through: the thing I'm hopefully going to post tomorrow; the fact that the reason I had to backdate last post was because I was waiting to see if the official film trailer would come out, for me to post, like it was supposed to yesterday; the reason that my post being backdated is somewhat appropriate because my next post has to do with time travel (but maybe that's giving too much away already); Dolly Parton is still alive, and I don't think anyone at all believed when I claimed otherwise. Though I sure hope I sent them scrambling to verify that.

Sorry... More Backdating

   I said yesterday that I would do a followup post today. Well, now that would be yesterday. "Today," I mean. I mean, I said the day before yesterday that I would do a followup post yesterday, but to you it would seem to be today. Well, no, because it would never seem to be today because that is already yesterday.

   What I mean to say is, in Friday, August third's post, I said that I would do a followup post on Saturday, August fourth. It is already Sunday the fifth but I am backdating this post so that it is the fourth's post. I was held up from doing my actual August fourth post (this one) on the fourth because I was called into filming unexpectedly. More motorcycle stuff; the only thing really exciting about today's shoot is that it's the last really big shoot of the film.

   I guess I'm going to have to do the promised post today, that is, not yesterday (this post.)

What Hands Do

Preston Blair shows how it's done. (In his Disney-animated cartoon sort of way, of course.) Scan taken from James Gurney's awesome wonderful art blog, Gurney Journey; post: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2012/03/drawing-cartoon-hands.html

   It's interesting to note what people do with their hands. We humans are bipedal, giving up the quadrupedal gait for one in which we can use our front appendages for grasping and whatnot. What do we do with our hands when we're not grasping is fascinating. Cupping, folding our arms, letting them hang down by the side. It's good practice to (discretely?) sketch the hands of those around you, on the bus or subway or at church or work or-- you get the idea. I say discretely so that people don't notice you're sketching them and pose- that would defeat the purpose of the exercise, which is capturing the hand in its natural environment.

SO MANY HANDS. And that's not nearly all of the sketches I did. Still, this many hands wouldn't take that long-- see a pose, sketch it, see a pose, sketch it. It gives you something to do, and you get excellent practice time in.

   I've been working on this technique for a while now; it's the technique I told you about all the way back in May, here, (back when Adam was still among us!) Sorry. Sometimes that can still hit, like... well, not like a brick per se, but, still, it's weird.

   You can see the technique there, how I start out with a more flattened-bell-shaped palm then get a feel for the positioning of the digits. Getting the position of fingers and wrist is the most important part, along with the relative location of the other hand if they're interacting at all.

   Well, I guess I'm off of animation techniques for a while. Tomorrow, a follow-up of something else from around that time period. Don't miss out. (And if you do, you can just go back and read in the archives. Whatever, mmm.)

Animation Techniques, Part II

   Practicing. Character models being honed in on. It's not enough to have talent if you don't have technique. I've got skills, but I clearly don't know how to use them. Talent is application of technique. I think I heard someone say recently. Within a few months. Other//half could be up and running within a few years. (I bring this up because it could be sooner, but I doubt anyone's going to care before then. I mean, really, I could start it today. You can start your own webcomic today! ComicPress for WordPress free download! Technology is amazing!) So, we build up our cred first. One project at a time. You have to space these things out, give them time to grow naturally. Take breaks. So, one project at a time, with breaks in between in which you can work on other projects? Other projects. Wasn't I editing Persistence of Memory? It's August now. Only three months left till NaNoWriMo. Should have it then.

   I've been reading a lot of animation technique books lately. I talked about Ollie and Frank yesterday. Today's examples come from Preston Blair's excellent Walter Foster-series books on animation (I know!). I spoke yesterday of technique differences between cartoon art and animation techniques. Even in the realms of non-animation, there's still some good technique tricks and a lot you can learn from it. Action lines, silhouettes, framing of subjects, body types that speak about what kind of archetype the character is.

   For movement (in this case posing of movement) to be fluid and believable there has to be a "line of action" running down the length of the figure's body. This line flows through the pose and binds the movement together into one continuous idea of action.

   Action and character has to be clear through the silhouette of the figure. If you have someone, say, writing a letter, you have to draw that in profile, meaning not with the pencil (or pen or quill or whatever) hunched up in front of their frame. If it's not in profile like that, it's not immediately clear what's going on, and the impact is lost.

   There's many other techniques to be learned. It's kind of overwhelming at first. They say learn one thing at a time, master it, move onto something else. This requires a sort of methodical patience, but, if you have the ability to always surprise yourself, you'll see results soon enough.

Once, or Twenty-Four Times a Second

   Why don't I do much fanart like I used to?

Fanarts of animated characters, I mean.

   I used to do many animated character fanarts, but then I realized, I just drew a character. A character that an animator had to draw 24 of (in slightly different poses) per second! You take so long, put so much love into your art, but even the highest ideal, having it be on-model, only matches that flash-by. There's other concerns on animation here. Fluidity of movement. Here it's just a still frame, so all you have to worry about is being on model. Figure, it takes me a few minutes to get the gist of a character down, about half an hour to make it not be off-model, maybe longer to finesse it if I really wanted to.

Case in point: I didn't take my time with these, as I only had 24 hours to do this entire comic, and even then I wasn't really paying attention what with all the other stuff that day, so, I guess I'm justified here? That's a well in the first panel foreground there, thanks for asking.

   What took me 30 minutes to do, the animators had to do 24 of, in a second. Doing the math, that means that animators are, on average, 43200 times faster at drawing than I am. That's how that works, right?

   With a character or prop or whatever up on cellulose, it flashes by like that. When it's down on paper, though, it's meant to be studied. An entirely different style of drawing between animation and non-animation? Well, quite probably. Out of Frank and Ollie's iconic twelve principles of animation, only three or four of them are really applicable to art and design. The rest are in the animation itself: timing, overlapping action, going from pose to pose...  Having the character act with their movement. With still images, as in a comics sequence, you can understandably only show part of a sequence of moment at a time. However, continuity doesn't matter nearly as much here, which definitely allows the artist to get lazy...

It's FORESHORTENING, guys. His head and everything. That's why  he's so... not tall-looking in that panel.

...but, it also allows the artist to make up for the lack of mime through unparalleled use of color and line, as well as specific framing: close ups, angles, backgrounds... There's a wealth of techniques to be explored.

   Solid construction of characters is important, like Frank and Ollie say. Characters must hold appeal to the audience. Yes. But comics has to separate itself from animation on other matters; with only one panel to work with, not animating frames in real time, you have to learn to utilize unique metaphor. A comic panel ofttimes must depict that which is not literally there. In animation, you can capture the sweep of the scene, action and reaction. But it is more necessary to squeeze action and reaction onto a single panel in comics, in order to preserve the timing that would naturally be there as part of animation's nature! Good animation requires exaggeration of movement, good cartoon (for want of a better term) requires exaggeration of spacetime itself!

As seen in the fact that I'm clearly not trying to pad out my lack of expertise in the subject matter through use of these images over and over again.

   To paraphrase Jean-Luc Godard, the truth comes in 24 frames a second; lies lie there on the paper to be soaked in.

   In the whole, animated-characters-vs.-comic-art-characters fanart transition thing, I guess I'm just shifting my style of visual metaphor right now? Sure, that makes sense.

Yep, it's all right there in the- the metaphor there. Yep.

I'm Glad I Wore Pants (Running Out of Post Names Here...)

   I went to bed immediately after making yesterday's post. That was around 11 at night. I woke up, I took a shower, I looked at the clock. It was 11 in the morning. For intents and purposes of productivity and being in sleep/wake mode, I slept for twelve hours last night. It is 11:00 pm while I write this. I have been awake for 12 hours now.

   It's just, with photographs, old photographs, like I was saying. What will these eyes see, these eyes that for one brief moment looked in earnestness to the camera? How many tears will they know?

   Stuff like that.

   Plato uses the analogy of a line divided into four sections. Plato loved that kind of stuff. Forms as the highest ideal, illusions as the lowest. You get the drill. I... guess this has something to do with the form versus content theme. As I think about it, less and less so. Meaning I'm stuck for a topic today. Besides bad fanfic. I could tell you stories, man.

   Oh, the stories I could tell...

Old Photographs

   I... cried. There's no other way to describe it.

And That's It

   Alright, sorry for the diversions. I really still couldn't get the scanner to work. Now I've got it, we're ready to continue. Back to the topics I was discussing; hopefully this will tie it all up, pull all these different strands together.

   Scott McCloud, the inventor of 24 hour comics, also authored Understanding Comics, one of if not the most premier guides to understanding the medium. In it he proposed a six-tiered creativity module, from the core idea of a work of art to its surface. I already knew that, but just now realized that fit together with this, so this should make it come full circle, tying the form-vs.-content thing to the 24 hour comic all via Scott over there.

   Between the surface and the structure lies the craft. (Between the ship and the land, the force. Between the thought and the action, the shadow.) He defines structure as "putting it all together... what to include, what to leave out... how to arrange, how to compose the work." Sounds eerily similar to my discussion of substance, so, so far so good. Surface, he defines as "production values, finishing... the aspects most apparent on first superficial exposure to the work." In other words, style. In between them, he has craft: "constructing the work, applying skills, practical knowledge, invention, problem solving, getting the 'job' done." See, this was the brilliant theory that blasts right the heck through mine that I said someone out there had. Had I known that I already knew it...

   And now, in not at all a non sequitur because the surface of my drawing is good but the structure sucks, is another snippet from my 24 hour comic:

   Urrgghh... I seriously need to learn consistency with my character models. They're just zigzagging all over. I mean look at that that is not even funny. Is his head... what? That's why I need more practice. See? I talked about needing practice Sat- Friday, totally not at 1:41 in the morning Saturday but 6:30 Friday afternoon, so, it ties together.

Dollycide

   I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this, but it would seem that Dolly Parton was killed in her apartment last night during a botched home invasion. Witnesses witnessed two adult white male Caucasian men flee from the scene. That's... that's all I've got so far.

Not Redbox, Practice Makes Perfect, Rewrites, and Style and Substance

   I'd post another Redbox pic up here, but I can't access the scanner program while the system is updating or some stuff. I knew I should have clicked on the "remind me later" option. Gahhh well. Since anything from telling you the plot to even revealing what the titular box is would sort of constitute as being spoilers, change of topic.

   Topic, topic...

   I feel I should really get some work behind me. Practice achieved, and all that. As a daily blogger, do I really expect people to go back into all of the archives? It'd be a tall order. I only skim the blogs of some of the people I actually care about as it is, why would anyone want to delve back into this blog? Though to be fair, I mostly only skim those because I'm busy delving into the archives of their web comics, and not every announcement they have to make alongside the comic would be up-to-date.

   Though there are some of those people, the kind where you revel in hanging onto every word they say. I'm not going to be that if no one cares, and no one's going to care if I don't put out professional-quality stuff. That's why I need to practice and get stuff done. Harrumph. That's logic for you, I suppose. (Though there's nothing really logical in that, as logic involves induction and we're not deducing anything new?) That's just good sense, for you, then.

   Rewriting Persistence is kind of harder than it sounds, really. Not that it's a chore or anything. That's the point. It's not a chore, is the thing. Cailin's got a real skill with laying out scenes and breathing life into characters. The dialog really sizzles. It's too entertaining to read than to rewrite. I'm not sure if this is self-congratulatory or not, oh ha ha look guys my book's so awesome, but I'm not talking about my own stuff here, so I guess it's okay? She'd be a really skilled screenwriter or something. Yet rewriting is necessary.

   Yep, it's the other parts I'm having trouble with. The... sentence structures, and everything. But the rest of it is so good, I'm tempted to ignore the style and just copy-paste it word-for-word, as style is just the way to get to substance and her style seems like the most logical way to get across what she's trying to say. But, still, it just reads like bad fanfiction at some points. In a slush pile, it would scream "amateur." So, rewrite those parts, stepping carefully around the good stuff. I have to thus develop my own hybrid style that fits in not only with her style in the good stuff but also my own style in the scenes not directly from her draft, which also fits lake a frame over her substance in the way that her style did.

   It just comes around to the old problem of voice again. You probably remember it; I'm sure I've covered it elsewhere. That the problem of voice isn't a problem; it develops naturally so you just have to trust yourself, and even though that sounds like the moral of a bad direct-to-VHS sequel, it's true in this case. Just... don't worry about voice. It's the natural style to tackle the substance. Though as I think about that that's not really 100% accurate, as there's some kind of intermediary between the style and the substance, the way you tackle how you'll tackle the substance. You have things happening, then you have what to show happening, then you have how to show what to show happening. Things happening: substance; how to show it: style; what to show: ??? Also substance? Though it could be argued as style?

   Let's say you were to direct a film version of Rumpelstiltskin. Substance: Rumpelstiltskin. Let's say you use a lot of dutch angles. Clearly, that's a stylistic choice. All well and good (so long as you don't overuse those dutch angles, mister mister! Though it's not like I'm harshing on dutch angles; that could be said of any technique.) All well and good. You decide to tell the story non-linearly, using flashbacks and nested storylines (did I really just have to explain to you what I meant by "non-linearly?") Is this style, or substance? The non-linearity is written into the script. So, substance, right? But it doesn't have to be told non-linearly. Does that make it style?

   There's probably someone out there who offers a brilliant theory on this that blasts right the heck through mine; I'm just kind of going to have to break my cardinal rule of always doing the research because it's too goshdarn late as it is, and I'm already forced to backdate this several hours to make it look like I posted this today, that is, Friday instead of Saturday. It's kind of so late at night, it's early in the morning... But I suppose it really wouldn't hurt it any, since I'm already late as it is. To the researchmobile I go.

... 

   Alright, I'm back. Style vs. substance is also called form against content. Aristotle spoke of lexis and logos; the Romans often wrote of verba and res. I guess that what I'm speaking of would be considered a form of style, but I think this is cutting into it a bit, not splitting hairs but actually carving away until we're left with almost a Platonian cum Levi-Straussian essentially symbolic universe. Hold on, I think that's what I was arguing in the first place...

... 

   Alright, got it. The Greeks and Romans spoke of form and content only as they applied in logical forensic arguments. Rhetoric, in other words. Although the distinction between form and content is inherently artificial, that's not what I'm talking about. Verbal expression and ideas are fundamentally indivisible, yeah, yeah. That's basic Sapir-Whorf stuff. That's with rhetoric. Pure ideas. In fiction, in a narrative, there's a story. There clearly is a difference between the message and the messenger. The messenger is the guy on horseback galloping into the court, the message is the scroll he's got. Metaphorically, of course.

(Thanks Silva Rhetoricae!)

Redbox

   So, I guess I did a 24 hour comic yesterday. Well, not in so many words, but, yes, I suppose in so many words. It has 24 pages, it was conceived and written and drawn within a period of 24 hours. I realized that I could not do the idea I dreamt as a movie or anything else, so, whatever. Comic. 24 hour comic? Why not. 24 pages, plus cover. Since the premise is from a dream, I'm not sure exactly how much time I had to draw, since the rules are that the story and everything has to be come up with within the 24 hours. I was not sure when the dream began and so on, but I had switched beds at around 4:00, in which bed I dreamed the dream. Four, then? I got finished right around 3:00, so. I made a 24 hour comic yesterday (and so early this morning it counts as yesterday.) I also went to the doctor's and to the thrift shop (no comic books there, unfortunately, but some nice albums) and played water badminton. I should have also done an hourly comic. But, no.

The Personal Angle

   I mentioned briefly in my last post that people will only listen to your opinion if you go for the personal angle, give them a reason for why you have your opinion. I said that I've learned from my Batman posts, learning that I was far from the only one to post such things. I've learned that it doesn't matter if you're not the only one to say something. What matters is that you're one of the ones to say it. If you're really lucky, you'll be the one to express that concept the most eloquently. If you're really really lucky, other people will recognize this fact. This is the personal angle I told you about. You have your own experiences to spin it however you want it, in a way that no one else can, so your opinion is worth having and worth being recognized. Individuality. A breath of fresh air.


    Go for the personal angle. You've got to have the personal angle in current events, otherwise anyone could tell the story. You've got to have the personal angle in anything, otherwise what makes you worth listening to over anyone else? Even the experts; after all, what is expertise but this?


   It's taken me a while to know what to say on this when there's so much said already. Hopefully this will do justice to anything at all.


   In times of tragedy, anyone who was there can tell the story, but we don't need that. We don't need people explaining how it's impossible for us to know how we feel. We don't need the story, we need their story. We need to see these people as people to get the sense of loss. Come to praise Caesar, not to kill him and bury him over and over again. Life is not short. Life is long, and this allows us all to be connected more than you could know. Do you want a personal angle? Connections. Potentially it's already there.

   Personal angle. I didn't feel anything at all during the attacks of September 11. Should I have? They took place hundreds of miles away, to people I did not care about. I may or may not have learned empathy since then. I felt something during this, but maybe that's because this was much closer to home, in more ways than one.


   Personal angle. This takes place too quickly on the heels of Adam's death. Or, not that. That Adam's death happened at all, and then this happened. Now that I know bad news. I'm not sure, if 9/11 happened again, if I would still feel nothing. Which is closer to home? Businessmen or moviegoers? Which is closer to home? New York or Colorado?

   Personal angle. The University of Colorado is a nice school; I don't know why he'd want to give that up. I've been there. I've seen things he's seen, maybe met people he's met. I wouldn't doubt it. Did he spend his time in the library or down in the bookstore? Those were some of my favorite haunts while I was there.


   Personal angle. I've always felt the deaths of minor characters in films moreso than I've felt the deaths of the major ones. The minor ones are just civilians, going about their lives till they get disintegrated meaninglessly. Our heroes' deaths, however, are not in vain, even if it's something as simple as advancing the plot. Heroes are orphans, lone wanderers with no attachments. They leave no grieving families in the wake of their deaths.


   Personal angle. We all hold the potential for great evil. It is right there, nearest to all of our cores. In this sense it's the most intimate yet least personal angle of them all. It is dispassionate, ruthless. Why would anyone listen to these? There are a million different reasons why, but only one reason why not. Influences are not actions, though.


   So it only matters if you're one of the ones to say something? Well, no. Even then, you should do your research beforehand, to get a sense of what's in the field, to know which aspects of your own personal angle would seem fresh. If you do your research, odds are someone's expressed it more eloquently than you could have had before, and now you know it. Their words are now part of your shared experience. You are now free to put the personal angle on it, as much as you want, and look like you know what you're talking about.

   No, I'm not saying it's okay to speak your mind. You keep your mouth shut. It's precisely that kind of entitled attitude that leads to stuff like this in the first place.

The Moon Will Wax

   Remember when we eagerly awaited for this film to come out? Less than a week ago, if you can believe it. It all just seems like a horrible nightmare now. There's a scar there, one that's never going to fully heal. The moon continues waxing, away from the tragedy. New moons are supposed to be new beginnings, but this new moon is only the beginning of... of a fire rising. Huh.

   I did my research this time, to see other's reactions. I've learned to do my research ever since the answer to Am I the Only One Who Noticed This? turned out to be a "no." I've learned that anyone can still have their opinions, but people will only listen to yours if you go for the personal angle. I guess it's come full circle since then.

   Searching for images of badgers again. "Badgers! Oh, there's an animal I haven't got any-- no wait." Is this going to become a running thing with me? Google's got this algorithm to give you mostly fresh stuff though, so that's good. That is, it scans your history to see your preferences. It's not an invasion of privacy if you ask for it. Who would be interested in you personally anyway? There's a lot of people out there on the internet. A lot of stuff. In this instance, badger pics. Not all of it is of very high quality. There's a line there. 90% of everything. Why share the crap at all, why put it up?


   I don't know.


   I mean, a lot of my own stuff isn't all that good, but I still share it. It's better than a lot of other people's stuff, at least, but... mmm? Well, at least I feel I'm still improving. That's more than can be said for a lot of people. But then, a lot of people don't even try. Still, like I said, what with the movie, I feel confident on my career path, secure on my voyage from fledgling amateurism up to worthwhile prodom.


   The sun sets quickly in the high mountains, leaving it twilight for hours. This was another sunset shoot, just like the others, including the scene they apparently did partially reshoot yesterday. It makes sense; after all, it did not rain all that much, just enough to settle the dust. The new footage is supposed to be even more powerful than the superemotional first take I told you about. Which, for those of you who are not aware when something is said, is saying something. We discussed briefly maybe adding a single violin or something, for the music there, but the emotions stand fine on their own, so maybe all of the music will be pulled out for that scene. Whichever. So far all we've got is the acting there. If there's a commentary track on the DVD, you're going to hear the amusing anecdote of what makes that so effective.


   It involves bugs.


   That's all I'm going to say. You'd just better hope for that commentary track.

And Yet

   It's, just, hard to be lighthearted when the world is never going to look at Batman the same way again. When going to the cinema will never be the same again. When I can't in good conscience even tell you what I'll be unable to do, since it'd seem like a distasteful joke.

   No filming today. Maybe I just wasn't invited, but I was invited for shooting tomorrow, so I think it was just decided that it would be kind of bad to do a collapse-from-dehydration scene on a rainy day. Smart move. This scene coming up's going to be awesome. Look for a familiar face in it. That's all I'm going to say.

Nothing I Couldn't Have Told You Yesterday

   Nothing seems appropriate.

   Then again, when is anything appropriate? I'm still stalling. Still working out what to say. I'm almost ready to tackle this thing head-on. But as for now...

   As for now, I'll continue to stall.

   Yesterday's film shoot involved some live firing there at the end. If I had not have been plugging my ears, one of the flying shells would have clocked me right in the side of the head. Instead, it bounced harmlessly off of my fingernail.

   I said that there's a short reshoot tomorrow of a little bit of the collapsing scene. I'm not sure if I can make that. It shouldn't take too long to do, but, it depends on a lot of things. There's more filming the day after that, and that seems more certain.

   Delaying discussion on this for right now. It hasn't been two days. Not enough time. Not nearly enough time. It's clear nothing's going to be the same again, but other than that, there's nothing really we can say yet. Something else, then.

   More shooting for the On Our Own remake. More dusk scenes. Racing against the sun can be challenging under ideal circumstances, filmed with multiple cameras in real time with all of the actors having their lines down pat. With only one camera not filming in real time, working with amateur child actors, especially when "amateur" here is not in the in it for the love of the art sense but in the other sense, and are just kind of coerced into it by their father, it's... well, I guess it speaks for his talent as a director that the scenes even work at all?

   Turns out we'll have to do a partial reshoot Monday of the dusk scene where Luke collapses, because part of it was too dark. I don't know exactly what needs to be reshot, so I'm not sure if this means that the fudge container on the ground with the ants will still be in the background like it was. We'll, uh... We'll see, I guess.

   ...