Even though I don’t blog often, I’m working on some updates to the website. I’ve upgraded Wordpress, and am currently working on re-doing the skin and adding a new section.
I haven’t been writing much lately, primarily because I usually can’t be bothered fleshing out an entire post about anything I’d want to post about. Henceforth, all sub-140-character updates will be posted via Twitter. I’ve updated the blog to include a list of my most recent 8 tweets and the 4 most recently listened to tracks that last.fm knows of, although I haven’t actually used the scrobbler since January (if I had, my most recently listened to tracks would primarily consist of Kings of Leon). I probably should use the scrobbler more often, just for last.fm’s datamining purposes.
I’ve been following some of the WSOP 2009. Negreanu cashed in 2nd place at Event 14 – $2500 Six-handed Limit Hold ‘em. Phil Ivey won Event 8 – $2,500 No Limit Deuce to Seven Draw. One of the exciting turning points was when it got down to heads up:
$2,500 No Limit Deuce to Seven Draw
Blinds 5,000/10,000
Monette (SB): 604,000
Ivey (BB): 506,000
John Monnette raised to 30,000 and Phil Ivey called. Ivey drew two and Monnette took one. Ivey checked and Monnette fired 45,000. Ivey counted out some chips and studied Monnette with his eyes darting and mouth wide open — the famous Ivey pose. Ivey then called and Monnette nodded as Ivey showed an ace low for the best hand.
The previous team I’ve worked with in the 48 hours film competition couldn’t participate in it this year, since the camera and lighting guys had work commitments for that weekend. Eager to be involved in a team, I posted on the 48 Hours forums to see if any team needed a musician/scorer. In included a clip of some music I did last year.
I got a few e-mails, but the one that seemed the most interesting was from a guy named AJ. He sent me some links to what his team did previously, and also Blair’s (his director’s) website, which included some music videos Blair had worked on. He seemed to have a lot of resources available (production-wise) so it was the most appealing for me.
We drew the genre “Parallel World”. Not completely sure on the exact definition, but I think it’s an umbrella genre which includes films like Wizard of Oz (dream), The Matrix (alternate reality), Army of Darkness (alternate time travel) or even Sliding Doors (two parallel timelines). A character was “Alex Puddle”, an exaggerator. The mandatory prop was “rock”, and we had to fit in a line “It doesn’t fit”.
Friday night started off with a few hours of brainstorming what storylines/styles we could go for. A lot of these people were film buffs, and referenced a lot of film/television work I’d never seen (I’m very unlearned when it comes to movies/tv).
After the team bounced around several ideas, the writers/actors fleshed a script out. It involved a guy named Alex Puddle going through several disconnected scenes, not knowing why he’s there, and eventually saving the life a love interest. The story/flow still doesn’t really parse for me, but it seems to be one of those things that you have to be a film geek get.
After reading the script, and admitting I was quite confused about the plot and what style they were going for, I went along with them on Saturday to where they shot a bar scene to try and understand what kind of vibe they were going for. I also briefly watched them shoot a dinner table scene, and then got a vague idea. I started playing around with some casual sounding background music for a couple of scenes, some “spook” textures (generally involving some light percusion being echoed really quickly) and some menacing sounding ambience, and assembled a rough palette to work with.
Editting/filming took longer than scheduled, and I ended up getting a master copy about 1 hour and 15 minutes before the deadline. This was really rough on time, since they wanted to leave 45 minutes before the deadline, so I had roughly half an hour to score, export and deliver a soundtrack to the editor. When they tried to compress the film into a DVD format, it took way longer than expected, and we ended up 5 minutes too late to qualify.
We worked on polishing it further (since DQ’d submissions are accepted until a few hours after the deadline and can still get a showing at the heats), so I managed to smooth it out some more. The final work (which is in the video above) seems very pretty, and, minus a few rough edges, quite well polished. I would definitely like to work with the same team again. After watching our heat, I think it was definitely the most well-produced/best-acted film.
The scoring for this was a bit minimalistic (which saves on time). There is one part of the scoring that I actually like a lot: In the first bar scene (0:06 – 1:30), there’s some very non-distinctive generic bar music playing in the background. Eventually, something weird in the plot happens from 1:30 – 1:42. During this, the acoustic pop-rock background music switches to an Em-A7sus4 progression (tension!) with some strings riff which ends on holding a note (trying to emulate some generic pop ballad). While the accompaniment fades out, that note still holds and ends up sounding like cheesey-tension-strings. Background music becomes meta-music! As the mood gets “scarier”, I bring in some of those “spook” textures I had ready. I also added some tremelo to the strings, which quickly alternates it playing from left to right, for a bit of a psychedelic effect as the first scene transition occurs. It’s just a small part of the score, but I thought it was a pretty clever way to handle that scene transition using the existing background music.
Anyway, have a watch. The lighting and camera work is very cool. If you don’t get the story, don’t worry; you are not alone.
-pchow!
P.S.
I still have soundbytes of the bartender saying “Run, Dickhead!” which I want to sample in some techo/dance song. Will post later.
So, poker home game robberies have been going on in the US for a long time. Home games are legally questionable, but they’re played as an alternative to casino games which take a relatively high rake. They’re also more likely to have card mechanics, since there’s no “house” dealer.
I read this news story about a house in New York getting robbed by two guys in police uniforms.
Authorities believe the gunmen made off with about $2,000 from that victim.
Investigators said that poker games might have been going on at the house. Tables were set up in the house when deputies arrived, but no cards or money were present.
Security camera footage shows that 2 black males entered, and left with another person. It looks like this was one of those secret games and the robbery was an inside job.
Once the door flew open, one of the robbers screamed, ‘This is a robbery.’ One of the patrons said, ‘No, it’s not,’ and they started exchanging gunfire.
So, I was walking back home on Saturday night/Sunday morning, when I realized I had left my keys at the flat. No problem, I’d just txt/ring Paul or Stefan when I’m outside the building.
A block away from Prince’s Wharf, my cellphone ran out of batteries. Luckily, there was an intercom alternative. I rang our flat from the intercom three times, only to be unanswered all three times. I was thinking Paul probably can’t hear it cause he’ll be playing World of Warcraft, and Stefan would be either engaged with some Joss Whedon marathon or have some ridiculous Euro-Trance playing too loud.
I proceeded to the nearby StarMart and got one of those prepay phone cards. Rang Paul’s phone from the nearest phone booth. Answering machine. Doh!
I paced around Quay St for a while, considering options, when I finally came to a solution. I strolled to the nearest internet cafe, and one dollar and fifteen minutes later, I made contact with Paul via the wonderful World of Warcraft!
