i would like to posit that i have had the best break ever. mind you, this is the only relevant to those who are living in jack maatman's body, but for those of you that this applies to, let me tell you, this break i just had was spectacular.

30 people over at our house on easter. 30! what a time and place. that was so cool. i was really happy that there were so many people. it was refreshing.

mom and dad were alive and kickin' let me tell you! it was really good to see them, and hear what is all happenin' with them. it was good times.

ah, the dordt place. as mom likes to call it. i got to see almost everyone i wanted to see. and spend a good amount of time with a lot of those people. thanks to everyone who spent time with me. it was rockin!

well. my flight back was a-ok. no problems at all. although, my ears decided that it would be fun to not pop when we landed in burbank. that frustrated me. silly ears. i think i have a cold coming on, so that is likely the culprit. i go to work in about 10 minutes. la traffic, what's that? i don't recall...

well. that's what i've got. the break was fantastic. and i'm rejuvinated to finish out this last month.

Posted by jack. |

well, i'm home. i have a feeling, that i'm going to see most people that read this. so yea. home is good times.

Posted by jack. |

today i am doing nothing. what a good feeling. nice to relax a little. i may work for 900 frames again. that excites me. a night thing. worked from home again on friday. saw the sister named nicki. it was cool. we ate at jonny corinos. fairly good italian food. yesterday i shot another movie. this one is about a writer. i like the way it looks. then at night the lafsc, and the cmc, contemporary music center, got together and hung out at this club. it was fun. peter case, a blues musician was there and played for us. he was amazing. very talented. i'm doing laundry today. it was much over due. i'm glad a have a slow day. it might be crazy before i get to leave on tuesday.

well. that's the short version. sometime i'll write about finding the club we went to. shady shady.

jack.

Posted by jack. |

well, it seems that i will be in the sioux center a week from today. i'm not sure how i feel about it, but i guess that i'm excited.

my right hand hurts because i used my computer all day today. i was working illustrator making the press kit for our film, and my mouse is placed in such a fashion that i set the back of my palm of my hand right on top of my computer. my hand is down, because of the angle, and it just pushes on my hand. so now it's sore. i should put it somewhere different if i'm to work on this computer for long periods of time.

i worked from home today. it was kinda different. i had to be more selfmotivated. but it wasn't bad at all. i worked on that press kit basically all day. i like the place that it ended up, so that is good news.

i'm wondering if anyone watched my films, and what you thought. i've talked with some of you, like mom and dad, but i guess, i don't know who else reads this. so if you do and you watched my movies, let me know what you thought. if you don't want your comments to be public, feel free to email me. jckmtmn @ dordt (dot) edu (remove the (dot) and replace it with a '.')is the address of my email. i'm curious what communicated.

i'm reading e-myth, a book about starting small businesses for work. it's interesting. basically this fella, whoever he is, says that you need to have a vision for what your business will be, to accomplish anything. i guess i agree with that. whether or not that is an indicator of whether you do actually succeed is up in the air for me, but it seems like a good idea, to plan.

there was a bit of a fiasco yesterday. you see, we have two sort of filmmaking classes, filmmaking which makes three films, and producing which makes one film. filmmaking concentrates on getting experience and becoming technically skilled and becoming good visiual story-tellers, producing is focusing on the producing aspect of things. organization, and all that. somethign that i'm not terribly fond of, but recognize when it's done well and i do appreciate it. so, the fiasco, producing class is supposed to find people to work on their films from the filmmaking class. they are supposed to fill the three big roles from that class, so, the director, DP (director of photography), and the editor. so, producing students were going around this week, and talking to people and suggesting that we work for them etc. some peole wanted to do more than one thing for different producers. and for what ever sane reason, they figured that was a-ok. well, it wasn't. there are 34 filmmaking students, and 11 films with three roles for each film, totalling 33 roles to fill. so, to double up on roles, say editing and directing would mean someone else wouldn't be able to do that role. so, one role for each person. it's not that big of a deal, but some people really aren't qualified to do any of the three roles. they've never picked up a camera, or edited before this program so to be the editor for someone or the director, is a little scary. taht was the fiasco of it. some people may be upset about who they get to do stuff, and maybe don't get the "best" or whatever. i'm happy with where i am. i'm working with chris, a friend of mine, on a zombie/romantic movie. so it's all good. and the people working on his project are very competent. so it's good. i'm very interested to see how all these final films turn out.

well. that's what's going on with me.

Posted by jack. |

homer said that, in a simpsons. it's a good quote. today was really slack at work. i maybe worked for like three hours. it was a good day. actually, i wished i could have done more. sitting around can get boring. anywho. i got off work early, so i came down here to the center, and worked on a second pass of my second movie--editing wise. it was good times. and then, get this, i compressed and played with them on the computer, and i now have them online. how cool is that.

here is the address: http://jack.thinkwonder.com the paint one is reuben's other two are mine. enjoy!

let me know what you think. the gift was my first film here, shot on a trv-900, the crappier camera, not that that says anything about the story, but i guess i did consider it when shooting.

1+1=2 was my second, the one that i worked on this afternoon. i'm proud of it.

well. i guess that's what i've been up to. i am helping shoot a movie today, that has heads getting chopped off, blood squirting and general halairity. good times. there have been some really really funny moments.

well, that's all i gots. hope those that read this are well.

Posted by jack. |

So, today was the day of my critique for my film. It went well. I felt like i improved quite a bit from my last film. Although, i will admit, that i didn't work extremely hard on my last film--it was the quintessential run and gun. I spent more time on this film, and i also like it a lot better. What i like more about this one is that in general it looks better, the story is a little more accessible, and a feel like the end product is very close to the idea/vision i had for it initially. So, that being said, i like this one better than the last, and i'm really quite happy with how it turned out.

Similarly, i guess i'm decent at doing the whole photography thing. my film was quite visually interesting, and i've been doing a lot of dp (director of photography) for other people. i realize that i've written about this before, but i was reminded of it again today, when people in my class really liked my photography. i can't really justify having someone else do my camera work, because i think i might be way to, "no, do it this way" kinda thing.

in other news, we watched The Last Temptation of Christ this evening for Faith Film and Culture. and, you know what? i really liked it. it was great. i feel like it was what the passion wasn't, which was artful. i may be generalizing the passion a little in my head because i saw it about a year ago, and i watched temptation tonight, but i feel like temptation was more allusive and more about what it would have been like to be fully God and fully man, a very interesting and complicated senario. i in general found the plot/premise for temptation more interesting. i supose that is why i liked it more. part of me probably likes liking temptation because so many people didn't like it in the late 80s.

My internship is changing a little. We are finishing the short, and ryan, is doing some more freelance editing work, which means that i'll be going to justin's more often, and it means that the work that i'll be doing won't be the short film work, but rather more get the business going type things. even though my the work is changing, i really like the way they are going about it. they are including me in a lot of stuff, which is really great as far as experience goes, and they are willing to let me sit and read about writing--because i want to learn to write well. so today i bought Steven King-On Writing and The Elements of Style. i found both of them at used book stores. it was grand. i also bought another copy of The Confessions by Augustine, and The problem of Pain by CS Lewis. i'm hoping that i'll find time to read some more in general. less tv more books i say!

i'm toying with the idea of doing a comedy for my last movie. a lot of the stuff i've done in general is really serious and heavy, i'd like to make a short character movie that is really funny. i guess i'll see what i come up with.

Posted by jack. |

well. it's monday of week 7 or 8. worked out again this morning. i'm liking that stuff more and more. it's good to work out with someone. even if you don't really talk, but the fact that there is someone there who will knock on your door to do it. it's nice.

i started my screenplay yesterday. i have the first few pages complete. i'm happy so far. i need a driving question for the protagonist. like, if he helps the professor with this whole heisenberg experiment, he'll get grand awards. or something. i'm not sure. i have the first 15-20 pages mapped out.


it's been another busy weekend. i shot my movie on saturday. i was another bum on sunday morning. and i shot another one on sunday afternoon. busy busy. i did get a chance to put my footage on the computer. and i started editing it. i like it so far. i'm hoping i can find a place to put some of these projects online so that people can watch them. at least i should have them on a dvd so that i can bring them back with me when i visit. i'm visiting on march 22-27. if you didn't know, now you do.

having a crew helped a ton on my last shoot. one of my friends, ericka, was great at keeping me in check, and at remembering to remind me to white balance and other things i often forget. that was really nice.

i have to have my movie done on tuesday. so i will be editing more this evening. and maybe tomorrow morning. i'm confident that i'll get it done.

on friday, i watched tombstone at work, with justin. it was great. we basically hung out all friday afternoon. it was grand. after we watched the movie, we had a great discussion about what a good director is, what kind of director i am, and what i need to work on, do, to become able to be a great director. it was a humbling, good, exciting conversation. it was hard, but also very rewarding. i get to go into work late this morning. woohoo!

Posted by jack. |

well. hi. how are you? i am well.

did you ever not?

i may be in a strange mood.

today was slow. i talked with michael, one of the profs here, for a long time. like two hours. we talked about life and education and movies. i enjoyed it. then i slept for a while. then i didn't eat supper. then i watched alien. which i liked a lot. good movie. then i went to big boy, and had breakfast, at eleven pm. mmm.mmmm.good.

im filming this weekend. i hope. saturday.

i don't have to go into work until 1 pm manana. i like that. i may even get up and like, do homework or something. woohoo!

i'm thinking about film school. it's really expensive though.

Posted by jack. |