i believe in the existence of a higher power. call it god, or whatever you want, but the more i learn about the farthest cutting edge sciences like quantum mechanics and sub-sub-atomic particles, the stranger and less explainable the fully rational, everything explained by logic, the world becomes. even though i tend to look at religions as (mostly) positive constructs of man to help him be morally upright and provide him a handy social fabric, being an atheist seems, well, not logical.

for me, a nice metaphor of this underlying unifying force can be found in 'The Tao of Physics' by Fritjof Capra " ...particles are dynamically composed of one another in a self-consistent way, and in that sense can be said to 'contain' one another. In Buddhism, a very similar notion is applied to the whole universe. This cosmic network of interpenetrating things is illustrated in the Avatamsaka Sutra by the metaphor of Indra's net, a vast network of precious gems hanging over the palace of the god Indra. In the words of Sir Charles Eliot:

In the Heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact IS everything else. "In every particle of dust, there are present Buddhas without number."

The similarity of this image to the hadron bootstrap theory is indeed striking. The metaphor of Indra's net may justly be called the first bootstrap model, created by the Eastern sages some 2,500 years before the beginning of particle physics."

again, for me, god is this orderly force present in all things. it isn't some big white guy sitting in a chair in the sky, looking down on us - despite what many people in western religions think, sometimes with unpleasant results:

KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

The incident, Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction.

posted by bluematrix at 06/28/06 09:31 | link | comments (2)

well the awards screening was fun. like i figured we won for best credits, which, from seeing the others, i'd have to agree with. and while i don't think our film was the worst of the 15 finalists, we were definitely towards the bottom. but what the heck, we made it to the finalist's screening, i got to walk up and receive an award, and we made it on the 'best of' dvd...not everyone got to do that.

i'm not sure how scary it was, but i've seen it a hundred times and i still laugh at parts. i be thinkin next year we're going to do a lot better and hopefully draw a better genre.

posted by bluematrix at 06/25/06 16:47 | link | comments (3)

the thursday thought...

well i'm thinking i've been too busy to blog much lately. but...

surprisingly, my little film made it to the awards round tonite. now before you go thinkin its a finely crafted piece of short horror (to see this go to bazaidescent blog and click his june 11 entry) you should realize that 14 of 48 films are being recognized at tonites 2nd showing at the tivoli theater downtown. Not because they were the top 14 overall, but because the awards are set up to recognize different elements, not just best short film, but things like 'best actor', 'best credits' (which are the two possible ones i see for unisex), best story, best location, etc.

and before i list the link to our little horror thingy, i have to remind everyone this was my first film, (though i've done my share of music, corporate and wedding videos and... WEONLYHAD48HOURS!!!

its funny, the area i thought we'd kick ass in, was audio and soundtrack, because we're all musicians or musically inclined, but i think it was the weak link, because we had so many other things to take care of first like, oh, a plot, an ending, replacing the lead actress the day of the shoot, and did i mention a plot?

anyways here's the link and i'll post what category we got later... 'unisex and disturbing'

posted by bluematrix at 06/22/06 16:08 | link | comments (3)

i've figured out my next endeavor - it's called the 48hour sleep project. it's me, two ambiens and a dark soundproof room and should be a real sleeper.

but i did finish the film and turned it in on time (unlike 20% of the teams who didn't make it), and i'm not embarrassed by it. not an award winner by any means but i think our cinematography stood up to any of the others in our group. with 48 short films to screen, they had to break us up into 4 groups of 12 and we each picked a genre.

we started off ominously and had some major mishaps but i guess thats part of the project. at 6pm friday, an hour before the start of the contest, i get a call from one of my main writers - she probably won't be attending tonites script writing meeting because her best friends father just shot the mother then himself the night before (it made national news) and she was over at the house consoling them. after i hang up i pick my genre - horror. not one i was hoping for, but better than some. it was going to be hard not to be cliche, have no budget, and very little time, but hey, i'm a creative guy.

so we all meet over at jeffs recording, who tells us that he is flying out to LA and will have very little time to help us. great, there goes the audio.

1am friday and we're still haven't decided on an idea. finally i put my foot down and go with the one about a woman on a roadtrip on a backroad who has to stop to pee in a scary bathroom and a psycho walks in while she's in the stall. then we all split up and go driving around looking for scary, isolated bathrooms. when we meet back at jeffs around 2:30am, most of us had no luck, 2 people got a ticket for going down a one way illegally, but pat the main actor calls his friend at the mekong, a very eclectic thai restaurant with a small but very cool bar upstairs. the owners are out of town and we can shoot in the very small and very scary and very smelly bathroom all day on saturday. we finally catch a break.

at 5am we have a rough script and a basic shot list - everybody leaves or crashes on the floor, but i do some more caffeine and hammer out the dialogue and polish the script finally putting my head down around 7 for an hour or two. at 9am i get up to make copies of the script and to get coffee and donuts for when everybody wakes up.

at noon on saturday we're still waiting for pat the main actor to get us in at the mekong. at one he calls to say he's on his way, but i get another call from the lead actress - she's been rear ended and the car is non functional. she's not seriously hurt but she's going to the hospital to get checked out. great, we lost 3 hours waiting for pat and now we have no female lead. todd, one of my two editors, says liz will do it. she's never acted before but is studying film making in college and is attractive. she runs home to change.

2pm we're prepping the nastiest smelling bathroom in the city. the lights are making it even hotter and smellier. liz is a trooper about working in the vile conditions and we get some useable shots. pat does a very convincing psycho performance and we wrap at 7pm just before the bar opens.

back to jeffs and we start dumping the footage in the computer. we realize we missed some key shots, and we still don't have an ending. we figure out some workarounds and decide to send todd with a camera crew and liz out to get some exterior location shot. the newscast comes on to say a violent hailstorm is quickly moving thru the st. louis area. great. they go out anyways, and not only find a location but use the lightning all around them to good effect. they arrive back around midnight and the rest of us are starting to drag for lack of sleep. todd and drew (the other editor i found off the 48hour website) continue to edit, while a 2nd crew works on the funky credits idea involving writing the names in dry erase marker, spraying them with rubbing alcohol and filming the dripping dissolving text.

2am we still don't have an ending. when someone suggest taking the glass out of a coffee table, cutting some foam core and making it look like pat's head been cut off, we somehow think thats a great idea and for the next hour we do the goofiest shoot i've ever done. later i go out to liz's car outside and flashing a blue flashlight to simulate thunder we get a few more seconds of clips to cover some of the cuts we had to do.

6am sunday we have a rough cut and do a test render to guage how long it will take. my g5 mac rips thru in no time and relieved we crash for a few hours.

the rest of the day goes fairly smoothly as we try to cover gaping plot holes and piece together some audio, an area which i thought we would nail, but turns out to be a weak link. we also pick a title - unisex and disturbing - a line she uses in the bathroom.

at 6:30 we head over the bar downtown where we turn in our film. there is a reception with food and drink and a hundred tired and frazzled but pleased filmmakers drink and share stories.

at 9pm i am driving home, sunroof open, beautiful sunset, tunes up loud, reliving the moments and feeling pretty pleased with myself. everyone wants to do it again next year. i can't wait to see it up on a big screen in a real theatre.

next up (the official screening)

posted by bluematrix at 06/16/06 09:25 | link | comments (2)

this is the weekend of the 48 hour film project. i keep going back and forth from 'this is going to be so cool' to 'what the hell was i thinking - competing against people who do this for a living?'.

on the plus side, we have some good ideas for stories; todd, my videoguy from mary's dream is not going to texas that weekend and will now be joining us; and i have some really talented and creative people on board.

on the downside, with 48 teams scrambling around this town i can't find a boom mic (those big foam-covered directional mics that people hold on long rods) and as noted above, i'm competing against people who actually know what they're doing (and presumably have boom mics).

some of the ideas we came up for 15 different genres we might end up with include: 'the Lie-Podd' a small mp3 player that is hardwired to give subliminal commands to the user (sci-fi and the drama genres), 'day of the dead' an artsy treatment of the mexican holiday honoring the deceased (holiday film and maybe horror), and 'avatars in the office' about two people who portray themselves online as very different people than they really are, who fall in love but actually work in the same office and hate each other in real life (romance and silent film)

by 7pm sunday nite it will be over, one way or the other. i don't expect to win, i just don't want to be embarrassed

posted by bluematrix at 06/06/06 10:13 | link | comments (3)

i missed my new feature, 'the thursday thought' so i am debuting a new one, 'the friday factoid'

In an average hour, there are over 61,000 Americans airborne over the United States.

posted by bluematrix at 06/02/06 12:54 | link | comments (1)