Small Place

People like to say it's a small world, sometimes when noticing similarities between people in or from different places, usually when running into someone who knows a person place or thing that is very far away from where you both are, but close to where you once were, or something. Of course, small is relative and we only have this world to compare ours to, if we were talking planets, it certainly is a relatively small one, compared to the Jupiters and Saturns and the like, but one doesn't usually call those planets worlds.

I was mildly amused the other day, on the second day of shooting when I met someone in the beergarden who I know pretty well, who actually wasn't there for the shoot. Prague isn't a hugely populous city, and this beergarden is a pretty popular place with the expat crowd, particularly the arty/filmy subset of that crowd, so just amused, mildly at this point. Later on when one of the extras went over to jam with him and his friend, someone I've met before but don't really know, he came back saying that he (the other guy, one I don't know so well) was composing the score for a movie about a homeless 12 year old boy who goes on an adventure on the streets of Prague I told him.. I worked on that movie.. she (the girl playing my daughter in this film) was in that movie! World getting smaller.

Still only amusing though, what was really weird was when on the first day of the shoot we asked some girls if they minded us filming them at their table as general beergarden patrons, then asked where they were from etc etc.. they were from LA like one or a few of the students. Well apart from the fact that this was a FAMU film (a prestigious Prague film school) and they were on a program from NYU, though they all seem to be from California, it wasn't a big deal because.. LA, large city, and this is an area where a lot of foreigners, not only expats hang out. When it turned out that one of them new this guy's cousin, then the world became small. Well LA anyway. I thought it was on the big side for a city. I dunno, maybe there are a lot of poor people, so the pool of folk who go traveling and stuff is small. I mean, apart from all those super rich Hollywood people of course, and all the other super rich people. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Like I may have said, small world.

Not so bad, after all.

It's been a kind of I don't know if I'd call it productive, I certainly wouldn't call it great, but, it's been a week. I've done more to push my acting career forward in this week, (plus last Saturday, I think) than I have since about August last year.

Shot some footage for something I've had for ages actually already had some incomplete and crappy footage of it but I wanted it done again and did it again. And I went to a casting, for a real movie with a proper agency and I won't get it but I never even get called for these castings so, big deal kinda and I hope they call for more though.. er, probably won't... and I also worked on a movie set again. Met some people through the internet, said they're making a movie. I told them yeah I'll help.. so they show up, I was kinda sick and sniffly.. but I went and met them anyway, with no clue what they wanted me to do.. so what I did was basically show them how to get a place or 2 and act in a scene.

Not a bad week, in spite of the feeling sick and coughing and sneezing and the CONTINUING GREY AND COLD, but I probably mentioned that enough already so, that's nothing new.

You know.. I like it warm and stuff..

but there's only so much of it  you really need... jeez.. today it got up to 37 degrees.. 37! That's really hot for those of you who use some non celsius form of measuring temperature.. figure it out yourself.

Fortunately, due to whatever we had another day off.. no filming today, a good thing as I imagine anywhere we might have gone would have been too bloody hot.. to point out something that should be obvious due to the content already present in the beginning of the post.

I've done very little today. I totally meant to do stuff, at least 4 different kinds of stuff at various times of the day, none of which worked out. Just wasn't feeling it.

Anyway back on tomorrow.. I think it should be a bit cooler.

We're doing it..

We're actually doing it!

*goes quiet and stuff*

*all will be revealed*

*well something will be revealed*

*not so much revealed as much as something that has been mentioned often, both very vaguely and with some description might come to fruition soon*

I may be speaking too soon but.. it's a possibility.

Oh and I didn't screw up anything the other day, not so much because I'm not a fuckup, but because I didn't really do anything, but I still have a chance to screw up.. doesn't matter so much.

And I should be donning a drab grey suit soon.. if I'm lucky :)

And finally.. we have.. *cough*

..something resembling late spring. So a lovely day fell on a Saturday after yet another whole week of overcast and downright cold weather, but.. I seem to, at some point in the week, perhaps while out going on tours on windy cool days, or a night out where I failed to dress like it's fucking winter.. have not so much come down with something as I have a really fucking sore throat which is not only painful and annoying but it keep some from sleeping.

So the perfect idyllic weekend will have to wait. Of course weekends are not just for lolling about, when you're trying to develop a new and vibrant multimedia (ok it's pretty much one media) project.. with people who have like.. jobs, you need to work on the weekend. And we did, yesterday was pretty productive and I'm proud of us and also glad we have a fair bit of footage because it's going to be yet another 2 weeks before we can all meet again and do this properly due to family engagements.. this time it's my fault.. my mother is coming here again, of all things, not to Prague of course, she couldn't be bothered to do that, but I'm required to go and visit her and the rels at the old ancestral home, so I'll be gone next weekend.. and then one of our crew are off on another trip somewhere..

Oh well.. we've got tons of stuff to edit and knowing us none of that will get done before then. I swear oe day there will be something to show for this... just can't say when.

*coughs*

Doing things really makes you want to do things.

Well, in my case anyway. Ok only sometimes. Well rarely, but it does happen.

Just finished editing one video, see post below, and now I just want to get my hands on more footage! I'm on an editing spree. I worked with some other earlier inferior footage (yes that's footage inferior to the footage used in the video I spoke of, it is possible) earlier on and it was surprisingly easy, compared to when I first got my hands on the aforementioned footage, which took me ages, though on and off, mostly off to edit.

I need more! It's a bit more difficult to actually get the footage, I've noticed, despite the enthusiasm when I speak to others that are involved in these projects, usually when we're drinking and such, that enthusiasm doesn't seem so great when it would be otherwise a good time to film. And it also means (sometimes) going outside, setting things up, doing things over again and other complicated things that just seem like work.

Oh well.. there will be more! At some point :/

Despite it all.. it's been pretty good.

Been a pretty good weekend, despite having to work, and the ongoing battle of the demon which returned, did I mention that? Well it was banished again this morning so we'll see how that goes.. however, in spite of all this, we've had a pretty good time these past 2 days o the weekend.

One reason being, that standard, boring old chestnut that people have a tendency to bang on about ad nauseum, the weather. It's been nice! Sunny and stuff, something that rarely happens on the weekends so, took the opp to go out, hang out in a beergarden and play Scrabble. Yes, Scrabble!

Had to work, but just one tour and it was quite nice, a small cozy group, which are always more fun. Today I was actually productive and am terribly proud of myself, finally got around to uploading something I filmed a week ago, the delay has been due to the elaborate editing I planned to do on it, and well, after about a week of not getting around to it, I edited it, without some of the bits I wanted to do, and the parts which I did done very crudely, but you know, at this point I'm happy to have it uploaded.. so pats on the back for me. As well as that, I filmed something new, and I shan't promise a time frame for when that will be seen, but I just want to say this one will be up faster, yes, you can quote me on that. Of course that doesn't mean it will be, necessarily..

and that's pretty much it, off to work in an hour, and tomorrow it's Monday. Looks like rain...

So I'm done..

We just finished the shooting for this film we're doing. Well maybe, there's one little bit to do, and as I'm providing the cam I will have to be there for it and we might have to reshoot something or do another scene to replace it because.. well at first I thought I'd lost it, or rather hadn't shot it.. well I forgot about it actually and thought I had lost/hadn't shot some amusing outtakes of us dancing and being super dorks.. but there was also some footage that was supposed to go in the film, but it turned out I had it.. I just hadn't seen it at first.. it was inside this folder and there were 2 folders in the folder and there was 2 of them and it was different folders that I'm used to because I'm using a different camera you know what I mean?

Well anyway, we have it, but the footage is total crap. So we might have to replace it, or do without it, we'll see. I'm not editing.. so I don't have to be bothered with that.

So.. it went well. Much better than the first night we did it.. and I don't want to downplay the importance experience, even a little bit makes to this, but quite frankly a certain person that was part of the other shooting that wasn't at this one... who is just the slightest bit exasperating, may have more to do with it. I mean.. it's messy, the footage is bad quality and the movie idea is average at best.. but we're learning something.. I think.

I had fun. We laughed, we talked, we shot stuff. Now that's done, until we do another.

Well except for the editing which I'm not doing but there's still the final film to see, and the bits we may end up reshooting.

What was that I was whining about again?

Oh yeah, getting older, getting old, getting even further away from an age where I can pretend I'm young enough to be young and stupid, and carefree and all the things we like about being "young".

I was going to stop but... I haven't had a great time of it since this last milestone.. actually, ever since the Sunday before the milestone, aka the day after the night that I actually celebrated said milestone, it being a Saturday at all.. I mean, I have a couple of drinks which by now I've mentioned more than once was a quite respectable night of not total debauchery, was all fucked with a hangover all the next day, felt almost fine the next morning except for what seemed like a tickle in my throat which may or may not have been the start of a cold/flu.. go outside, which in all fairness was very cold and contained a lot of snow, for about 5 minutes.. and then later on come down with the very cold/flu I'd been dreading.

Today I woke up all stuffy and frogthroated, and on top of that I've been getting these sharp pains in my back. What the fuck is wrong with me? I get that it's normal to get colds when it's like, really cold but this is really fucking tedious.

Ideally, I wouldn't have any of this, but second ideally I'd have a bunch of drugs here with me to deal with it.. I'm talking aspirin and cold remedies people.. don't get carried away, and nowhere to go, I'd just laze around, watching movies and feeling high.. but no, not only do I not have anything, not even a single aspirin, but I've got like.. stuff to do.. tonight I have to meet with this director person, tomorrow night I have class, the last one of the term so I really should go even though I still need to think of a fucking activity to do.. and Thursday I'm filming, all day, outside, on some hill somewhere.

I might have mentioned all this already.

Lucky I got that extra hour..

Boo.

Yeah it's halloween, whatever. It's also the day we (at least we here where I am) change back to regular time as opposed to daylight savings time, and therefore get an extra hour in the day, which I probably would have done fine without today but it was good I had it, I think. I did go out last night, nothing too Halloweeny but pretty drinky which is nothing to write home about so I shall neither write home, nor to my blog about it, except to relay the facts I have already related.

Finally got around to filming a bit for this film thing I'm doing. We didn't actually film for the film but for a short trailer for the website. It consisted of me, and one other person acting all scared and stuff, like we were tied up. I think we did ok. To simulate the being tied up bit, which didn't have to be shown because the shots are all closeups of our faces, we had to.. well I had to sit on the floor in front of her and put my hand around her neck, or at least half her neck, not too tightly of course, keeping out of the frame, then we got a cord which was wrapped around her and I had to pull it back, but with holding my hand above her head so it wouldn't get in the shot. It was a very uncomfortable position, but had to be done, that's life on no budget sets. So, after that she did that to me and I sat in the chair and hyperventilated and pretended to be scared in a over the top hammy manner, but the director took over from her after about 20 seconds because her hand hurt.. aww.

Anyway.. I don't know what it looked like, they said it looked ok so I guess I'll believe them. I gave myself a head rush from all that fake scarediness so maybe I did something that looked vaguely convincing. I'm sure with all the effects the scenes will look kinda cool, you wouldn't tell from the set, a room with a blue curtain on the wall, and a chair. Like I said, no budget.

We'll be filming the actual film.. I don't know when, still very up in the air but we seem to be doing stuff now, which I quite like.

Well I tried it.

And it didn't work. What I need to do is transfer some filmed footage from a tape to the computer. I looked it up, found out you can do that with Windows Movie Maker 2, I tried to download that, kept being taken to another page and couldn't find a download for the actual program, then I realized it's the version I already had.

I wiped the egg off my face and carried on. Well this is after trying it in the version I had, and it not working and the battery dying almost immediately after I did, so I charged it and tried it again after all the previously mentioned stuff.. knowing that it's the right version and it still didn't work so I don't know.. I need another connection cord or something, this one fits the camera but isn't the one the cam came with, don't know where that is, if it's even in this flat, but you'd think if the knobs fit in the bits then that means it's compatible.. apparently not. Either that or there's some other problem.

So that stuff is still stuck there until such time as I figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with it. And I've got a sore throat, I hate having a sore throat. Grrr.

Thanks for the support.

I've recently received a bit of egging on to do the stuff that I said I wanted to be egged on for earlier and recently said I'd sort of done but didn't have the means for transferring it to a format which would make it possible for me to work on further, thus deflating my motivation for doing more of the same/fine tuning my craft/coming up with more ideas/doing other stuff sort of related that doesn't really need for this particular footage to be converted but it's made me less enthusiastic about it all the same etc.

*breathes*

So thanks. And I absolutely promise.. sorta, that I will get it out there. I really really intend to google a possible way to do this when I've finished whatever I'm wasting time on at the moment. So by the next time you ask I will have done that.. unless I totally forget about it until another time I'm in the middle of something else in which case it probably won't get done. And please keep in mind "getting it done" refers to me googling something and probably not finding what I'm looking for due to it either not existing or not being presented to me in a clear enough format for my lazy ass to really do something.

Ok ok.. I'll get something up there. Soon. Soonish. Maybe.

I did it!

I was recently talking about certain stuff that I intended to do. You know if you've been reading and if you haven't you probably don't care so whatev..

Anyway, I didn't do it.. then put it off.. and then some more time went by and I'd done nothing of the sort. Then I put up a reminder on the blog, so that people would egg me on more.. no one did as you care so fucking much but what can one do.

Then.. I did something! It wasn't a whole lot, mostly the embryo of what's allegedly to come, and some practice filming, but it was something. That's like a week ago now, but it involved using a borrowed video camera with film.. you know like for video 8 or something.. and as I don't have a player.. don't know where the cables for the thing are and how to convert them to something we can put on the comp even if we do find them so in all that time I've yet been unable to put the footage that was shot onto the computer, and without having stuff on the computer nothing happens in this day and age so.. well, nothing. Haven't been able to do anything more with it, ie get it out there so people can see what is admittedly excruciatingly awful and embarrassing and potentially never to see the light of day anyway... and haven't been motivated to shoot more because when you can't do anymore with it why bother.

But I did film some stuff.

Swashbuckling and singing in the rather pleasant weather..

So. Did a bit more with this tv show thingy I'm sorta involved in. This was an acting gig this time. Well.. sorta. I met them at 15:30 at Narodni Divadlo ok so I didn't, I waited and waited and no one was there and I was thinking "they can't all be late" and so I called the guy and he said oh we're held up. Turns out they were all getting into costume somewhere else and were on their way so whatever.. obviously no costume for me then. No fair!

Anway they show up and the word "extra" is mentioned in relation to me which I didn't like so much but we did what we did, first of all sang around with umbrellas and did a bit of a dance routine.. did a lot of getting in each other's way but I guess it didn't have to look too polished so it was ok. Oh and then we spun around with umbrellas. This got us dizzy.

Went down to the river where it was very crowded and shot a bit more, this time a pirate came up and threatened us. It was silly, and quite fun. After that we went to the island to which we'd been vanquished by the pirate and did some more silly stuff. Superman showed up this time as well as some ambiguously weird guy in a mask and a hat that kept falling off.

Overall it was cool.. I try to keep myself from grumbling that I wasn't completely fully part of the cast.. (I didn't get a costume.. no fair) but I do anyway, you know me, grumbling is what I do.

Afterwards we went to a cafe (I was hoping it'd be some cheap pub) and was going to have a drink and then I realized I didn't have enough on me to get anything on the menu so I was hoping the waiter would just go off and leave us for a bit so I could slip out.. but he stayed there discussing something with the others so I sat there extremely awkwardly. Finally he left without asking me again what I wanted so I could slip out quietly. Bloody ell.. can't even go to a simple drinks with cast afterwards without making a fool of myself.. why doesn't anyone go to cheap pubs anymore? What the fuck is going on with the world? Seriously.. this needs to be looked into.

And that's about it.