Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Uttermost



Life life life-ety life life.  Absolute madness, ladies and gentlemen. I know. I sound like a broken record. I always say how life is crazy, I'm learning a lot, I'm so busy, yada yada yada. But it's all true. Every week. For some reason, the busyness never lightens up, it seems to expand. Just when I think it's impossible to be "more busy," something comes up and, well, it's definitely possible to be "more busy."

I had an assignment due today.


Infatuation. I bought 15 hamburgers from 5 different fast food restaurants: McDonalds, Burger King, Carl's Jr., Wendy's, and Jack in the Box, and two sets of fries.

What's funny is this piece was in response to this poem:

A GIRL by Ezra Pound

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast -
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child - so high - you are,
And all this is folly to the world. 


Last week, I mentioned I was working on the Biola Film "Little Red Elephant" and it was madness. It is still madness, but we wrapped shooting on Sunday! This experience was unreal and a lot goes into why it was unreal. I pulled my focus, developed my eye, and learned that RED camera like it was one of my own. My position and craft was to make sure that frame was crystal clear, a job I quickly found was not near as easy as it sounds. This crew was easily the best crew I've been a part of. Everybody knew and perfected their jobs on set, there was little to no conflict between positions. There were little to no arguments. People got along. People laughed. Lots of inside jokes. When you spend 8 days of 8 hours or more together, this kind of thing happens.  Camera team was rock solid, Mr. Camon Davison as the camera operator, Mr. Justin Rood as the 2nd Assistant Cameraman, myself as the 1st AC, Ms. Ivana Jiron as the camera PA, Ms. Giselle Gonzalez as the ever important DIT, and Mr. Matt Schouten heading the team as the Director of Photography.  Good times to say the least, yeah? Yeah, good times. My roommate Mr. Joel Limbauan is the beast of an editor and Little Red Elephant is going down in history.

D R O P   T H E   B A S S.










This week has been uttermost chaotic. It's been nuts. So this is my goodbye. Goodbye. We'll talk soon.




Drink a smoothie of your second favorite fruit. Second favorite. That way you can look forward to a smoothie of your first favorite fruit.






Thursday, March 22, 2012

Shoes



I feel like there is something stuck to the bottom of my shoe.  It might be busyness. The sheer busyness of life that just sticks there like a nasty bundle of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Annoying to say the least. But you just have to live with it, there's not much you can do.

This blog has been getting the boot. So gnarlys busy.

Here's the trailers to the films that have been taking the majority of my hours. Take a look:

Wagner Teaser from Mawwiage Films on Vimeo.



Animal Fiction - Official Trailer from Morgan Lott on Vimeo.





These two weeks in particular have been OFF THE CHAIN. Every film major at Biola has to participate in the "BIOLA FILM" at least one semester, coming together to plan, produce, execute, and release a short film.  Our film is called Little Red Elephant, a story about a newspaper writer who meets Zach, a special needs student at a school she is covering for the local newspaper.  Take a look.

Little Red Elephant Promo from kevin maksimenko on Vimeo.




For the production, I am the 1st Assistant Cameraman. I pull the focus. Make sure what needs to be crisp and clear is indeed crisp and clear. It's been a learning experience, no doubt, and the opportunity to learn the RED One camera inside and out has been especially beneficial.  We'll see what happens, eh? We continue shooting through this weekend. Here are some production stills.'


Lead actor, Zach, on the left and lead actress, Riley, on the right. Not to mention our wonderful writer Ms. Julia Rothenbuhler hanging out in the middle.










Qual.




Tomorrow's going to be a long day. Friday's going to be a long day. Saturday's going to be a long day. Sunday's going to be a long day.


FOR THE SAKE OF FILM.





Have a wonderfully wonderful day, friends and neighbors.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Paint


This week has been one of the more interesting in my recent memory. I've learned a bunch ton about myself, noticed things I've never noticed before. I took a good hard look at myself. This is college. And ambiguous. YES!

It's Mission's Conference. There's a bunch ton of ironic things about the PERFECT timing of this conference, and the majority of that bunch ton won't make it onto this blog, unfortunately, due to lack of time, and honestly, I don't even think I could sensycally write it down. I think it's substantially hysterical, the irony. I may tell you about it if you ask. You may not even think it's a bunch ton of crazy.

But hey, we're movin'. Life's movin'. Movin' real quick. Like a bunch ton.


Last Friday, a crew of us went to Biola's arch-rival, Azusa Pacific University for a ridiculousity of a paint dance party: SPLATTER. Here's a picture of our absurdity.


Pretty rockin' fun. Getting doused with loads and loads of paint. Seein' my cuz Mr. Zach McMahon. Losing two pairs of glasses (sorry Amanda). Gaining one pair of glasses (as seen above). Having an absolute ball. Enjoying Denny's afterwards with Ms. Amanda Cooper, Ms. Megan Vesevick, and Mr. Ben Jacuk. "Did you guys go paintballing?"

+ rainbow snot the next day. Blast of a night.







And that's it. It's been a crazy week, just gonna get crazy crazier. Like, yeah, for real.




See you later, Alligator.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Imminence



What a week, what a week, what a week.

You're going to get some serious Reader's Digestion going on here. Super fast, super imminent, les go, les go.

Thursday.

Thursday was big. So, on Facebook, I'm "friends" with people I do not necessarily know. These can be people I look up to, industry pros, social icons, the list goes on. Early last week, I noticed Mr. Eliot Rausch posted a status asking for young, action sports savvy, LA area, DSLR cinematographers for an opportunity. I sent my info. That was that. By the way, Mr. Rausch is a GENIUS when it comes to short documentaries. His most famous is below:

Last Minutes with ODEN from Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures on Vimeo.


So then, last Wednesday, I get an email from Vans Off The Wall asking me to come to the headquarters for an interview. WHAT. So I did. And it was rad. AND CLOSE! The Vans HQ is just 9 miles away from Biola's campus. We'll see what happens from here. I'm stoked to be collaborating.

Thursday night, I cruised all over LA with Ms. Amanda Cooper. We went to Downtown Disney, we went to Universal CityWalk, we went to Mulholland Drive (and explored it to kingdom come), we went to Hollywood Blvd, we saw RIDICULOUS architecture, we witnessed the Ed Hardy outlet store (I really want to return), we saw lots of closed storefronts, talking and laughing about all of the above + more. Great time, to say the least!

Don't know what happened Friday. Bummer.

Saturday morning, I went to the famed Urth Cafe with new friend Ms. Danae Garcia and old friend Ms. Jenn Larcomb. Jenn hails from Simi Valley, my beloved hometown, and we lived through and experience high school together, enjoying our years at the wonderful Royal High School.  Not only did great conversation commence, but Urth Cafe provided delightful eats. Very LA. Super cool to catch up.

Sunday, I set my alarm for 7:30AM and woke up at 12:45PM. Not okay. But at the same time, okay. My body, that I abuse and neglect, needed that sleep more than I know... I guess. Kinda changed the makeup of the day, but hey, we do what we gotta do. You may remember I mentioned a PHATTY event that ADAMO Collection threw a few Friday's ago and Sunday is the day the video was released. Check check it:


Underground Art Showcase from ADAMO Collection on Vimeo.


Monday, don't really know what happened. Actually, I believe Monday night was the night we watched Signs. I don't really remember why we watched Signs. All I know is Ms. Amanda Cooper wanted to watch Mr. Michael Warnecke watch signs. So we watched Signs. Signs is easily one of the best films I've ever seen. Smash Mr. M. Night all you want but he definitely did something right in Signs. The way silence is taken advantage of, the way white space in the edit is abused, this is quality quality filmmaking. Movies this day in age aren't made with this much care anymore. At least it seems that way. DIG IT. Once the film commenced and bed was calling names, it was 3 some in the morning. I heard Michael yell "EYY" and "I'M CALLIN' THE COPS" from inside his room, and I started running because that's somewhat of an urgent call. Turns out there was a boy and girl making quite the scene outside our apartment, a scene right out of movies such as "The Notebook" or "Twilight." Face-sucking is a pretty good term for it. Let's just say the "I'M CALLIN' THE COPS" scared them just a bit. We laughed, a bunch. It felt like summer camp, laughin' real hard, running around the apartment, gettin' all giddy, wakin' up neighbors, having conversations through windows, the whole bit. It was a good night.

Tuesday. Copy + Paste from the facebook.


Had so many SOLID conversations today with old and new faces. Thank you for exchanging words with me, it's more encouraging than you know. And that's including you, "R.D." Thanks.
 Seriously though. So many good conversations with good friends, acquaintances, strangers. So much to talk about, so much to learn about, to much to listen to. And then "R.D." comes out of the blue. I find this piece of paper in my mailbox and it goes on to be perhaps the most encouraging few sentences I've ever had the privilege to read.  Rocked my world. "R.D.", if you're reading this, you made my day, week, month, year. Thanks a million.

And then BOOM. Here we are today. All over again. Here we go. And you know what's funny? Last week I thought I had no time. It's still true. I don't have time. But look at all this stuff that spilled out onto this blog... it just kinda happened. I think that's what this blog is about. Spillage.


Have a great week my friends. Enjoy the weather. Hot and cold. Sunday was Hot. And now that I think of it, this was from Sunday:

It's a beautiful day. Rejoice. #ecclesiastes11:7 #theSUN #theSON http://instagr.am/p/HxF409TBOs/



Or freezing, like yesterday.  Enjoy it, no matter what.



Until next time,