For My Country Post Update

Finished a first cut. I have to go over it and see how I might be able to make some changes. I feel like in squeezing this ambitious of an idea into a 3 minute film forced me to skim over a lot of dramatic beats I would have taken otherwise. Maybe I can cut out a scene to give the others more attention. I guess we'll have to see though. I still need to sound design. Hopefully the sound design will also give it more of the rhythm I'm feeling is missing right now. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, however, here are some more stills for you all. ^_^

Jury Duty

EXT. STREET. DAY.

A silver 2003 Honda Accord cruises at a leisurely pace down the street. It slows down to make a turn and is honked at by the car behind it.

INT. CAR. CONTINUOUS.

MATTHEW, 22, dressed in a Cowboy hat and a shirt that says "Internet Predator" on it, looks around confused; there doesn't appear to be any signs that say no turning. He continues onto the next street and begins to turn there.

EXT. STREET. DAY.

The car from earlier follows him and honks at him again.

INT. CAR. CONTINUOUS.

Matt ignores the car behind him and continues driving at his leisurely pace. The car behind him honks at him again, clearly wanting him to go faster. By this time Matt is fed up with him so he flips him off and slows down, bringing the car to a nice 15mph. The car behind him starts honking more but Matt keeps at his own speed. Eventually they pass a light and the car behind him pulls into the lane next to him. As the car next to him pulls away he honks at Matt. Matt just shrugs and smiles.

EXT. STREET. DAY.

The silver Honda Accord pulls into a parking lot. Matt reaches out the window and grabs a ticket as he enters. He pulls the car up to the second level and parks where he has a good view and exits the car.

INT. COURTHOUSE. DAY

Matthew picks up his things from the end of the security check-in and walks up the stairs and into the juror's waiting area and gets on line. As he stands on the back of the line a tall man with a light mustache and stubby beard as well as a buzzed head stares at Matt. Matt figures it's probably because of the cowboy hat, until he gets a closer look at the man looking at him and he figures out why he's staring at him.

Matthew
Hey George!

GEORGE, 22, is an old friend of Matthew's dating back to their time in first grade. He was best known for his large afro as well as his amazing piano and other musical skills.

George
Matt Chao! Wow, that's amazing.
Wait, let me call my dad and tell him.

George pulls out his cell phone, flips it open and dials home.

George (Con't)
(Over the phone)
Hey Dad. Yea, I'm in the courthouse now.
Guess who's waiting behind me?
(beat)
Matt Chao.
(beat)
hahaha, ok, love you. Bye dad.

George hangs up the phone and turns to Matthew

George (Con't)
He said that's like the draft. You
run into people you know on line.

There's more, I just don't have the energy to write it all right now so maybe later.
Anyway, yes, I did wear all that to jury duty, here's a picture of the shirt and hat.

People, Politics and Obama

Today I saw Air Force One.

My parents, grandma and myself got on the bus to Terminal 2 after returning our sedan to the Hertz rental company. The bus driver informed us that we were being delayed because the president was coming back from the Grand Canyon so the airport was locked up for security reasons.

The first think I heard from my mom was "what a jerk, what's he doing here?" Now, you have to know my mom to understand this statement. This statement is nothing close to political, in fact, it is a lot more selfish than that. This statement actually translates into, "dammit, I don't wanna have to wait here," of which, I call her out on and say "the only reason you're saying that is because it's inconveniencing you ," all of which, I might add, for an additional 10 minutes. Really, we don't need to be anywhere 10 minutes faster than we are currently already traveling.

Aside from her I hear another few grumbles about the delay and figure it's the same thing as my mom. However, there is one woman that takes it further and questions how he's reforming health care by going to the Grand Canyon and brings up some point that we're paying for his little vacation and "what's he doing?"

I'm not a political person. I, actually, am the least politically versed member of all my friends; but for one thing, this was why our president was in the area and while he was here he took a trip to the Grand Canyon with his family. I just wonder why, though, we spend so much time carefully scrutinizing every move President Obama makes in his personal life. It's not even as if he's doing anything scandalous like former president Clinton. Have we been a nation so engrossed by gossip that it has moved beyond our Hollywood stars and begun intermingling with our politics?

I digress. What really annoys me, more than this woman ignorantly yelling her political views on health reform or the continual decline of our nations' news venues to the point where they've all become mere gossip rags, is the general attitude.

I feel old or ignorant in saying this; but I seem to remember a time when people were excited when their president was within a 5 mile radius of them. I feel as though our nation has been engulfed by some sort of cynicism and I'm bothered by it. I'd like to think that even when George W. Bush was president, if he was in the area, I would have been at least remotely excited by the fact that the president of my country was around.

Part of this also brings me back to graduation when I heard that a college had President Obama as a speaker for their commencement ceremony but a lot of people protested because he was pro choice. (My response to which was "well shit, fuck you guys then, we'll take him,".)

Honestly, he's the president, can't we just have a little respect?

As we pass Air Force One the bus driver points it out and everyone, especially the ones grumbling before whip out their cameras and start clicking away (with the exception of my mother, she actually doesn't care about anything.)

I speak to my brother about it upon my arrival back home and he reminds me of something I should have known already; "people just like to complain,".

Anyway, here's a picture that my dad took. It's not great but you can see the plane in the back.

Arizona Overview

Two weeks ago I thought about an upcoming trip to Arizona with just my parents and my grandma and I cringed. A week in the middle of the desert with parental units? Sounds horrible; a week full of nagging, boredom and ruined moments as I'm forced to "appreciate" the beautiful nature around me.

Tonight is my last night in Arizona and I can't say I had a bad time. I've found myself rolling my eyes a lot but at the same time I've managed to find moments to myself to appreciate my surroundings. I was also probably too busy working on producing F.a.N.G. over the phone (and internet) to really be annoyed.

All in all I had a good time and got to see some beautiful sights as well as spend a lot of time in a car driving from town to town. I have to rate Arizona pretty positively (aside from their love of the traffic circle, those I just don't quite understand their obsession with). Arizona is definately a nice break from the fast-paced environment of Manhattan.

The music video seems to be going alright as well. Not quite smoothly (actually, a lot of hiccups), but it's going, which is good to hear. We'll see how everything turns out tomorrow.

Additionally, I now have a cowboy hat.

Here are some more pictures I've taken.

Montezuma's Castle --

After a while all these Sinagua houses begin to look the same, this one is just different because it's high up in the side of a mountain.

They were clearly preparead for my coming:

Prickly Pears and their fruits (the purple budding thing) are edible apparently:

Arizona Pt. 2

Went on a crazy ride today, called the Pink Jeep Tour of Broken Arrow (the film was filmed here). It was a cool trip and the tour guide was pretty cool too.

Aside from that, nothing much else went on aside from the usual sight-seeing. More pictures here and maybe some from the Pink Jeep Tour later but for now here are some pictures from a sunset yesterday. It started storming but I wasn't fortunate enough to get a shot of a lightning bolt, how unfortunate. Maybe next time.

Arizona Pt. 1

"Hey, it's sweltering hot in New York/New Jersey. We should get away from all this heat. I know, lets go to a desert!"

Who's idea was that anyway?!!? (Apparently my mom's, but don't tell her I said that)

Well, I would have liked to have started my entry with "Greetings from Arizona!" but the begining that's there seemed a lot more entertaining so I went with that instead.

At any rate, I'm here in Arizona, more specifically, Sedona, having just finished up day 3, the latter half of the second day and the beginning half of this past day having been at the Grand Canyon (yes, I did climb some of it, camera in hand).

Overall, Arizona is a beautiful place, full of majestic landscape and bright breathtaking colors and heights. I'm not one for the long distances you have to travel to get from one place to another.

I, however, have not gotten any stroke of brilliance or inspiration or what have you to ignite the "artist inside,". There are no images that pop into my mind for me to draw and there are no words that appear and demand to be added to my more-or-less-still-where-it-was-3-months-ago screenplay that I've brought with me. That, has been frustrating.

Despite all this, however, I have discovered that I am still, in some capacity, a workaholic. After having been kept from the internet for two days and my phone being dead for the better part of one of those days, upon return to the Sedona hotel, which thankfully has wifi (although it cuts out randomly every now and then) I jumped on my laptop to see what e-mails I've been missing regarding this music video shoot that's coming up for Nyle, my former Junior year roommate and Freshmen year floor-mate, and I guess that guy that kept borrowing my clothes without asking me the duration of those two years.

I really hope, however, that something will come up soon in the more creative department of my brain because I really want this screenplay to be done.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

I climbed down from there.

and all the way across to that platform in the distance.

Here's just another picture. No, I didn't climb that, although that would have been fun.

More pictures to come. I got some nice ones at sunrise/sunset but I might be out of memory for now.

Oh wait, no I'm not, here are some more:

I guess more to come.