Sunday Afternoon Noodle: Sunday After Noon Do Whatever Increases Creativity & Happiness

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Sunday After Noon Do Whatever Increases Creativity & Happiness

S.AN.D.W.I.C.H.

Maybe a little too often I go into trance-like obsessions with past events in my life, sometimes glorifying moments, sometimes adding extra shame to things I regret. It always turns into something of a research project, or an excavation of mementos I've kept with me. I am a bit of an archivist, but more on that later.

To get to the point, this line of thought came to me tonight while reliving my college years. Or more precisely, reliving moments in film classes, my predominant course of study. I discovered web sites of two people I went to school with who seem to be enjoying very active careers in tv and cinema and photography. Another ghost of my past has resurfaced with a vimeo account presenting a single short film project he put together.

In the last few days I've been toying with the idea of participating in the world of vlogs (aka video logs). I had become obsessed with retracing my steps since youtube's debut in late 2006, and the rise of current youtube celebrities. It becomes far too easy to find oneself envying these young vloggers' exploits, and wanting to become initiated--wanting to be a member of their exclusive society and become a legitimate videographer like they are.

And then it hit me. I spent thousands of dollars and 5 years of my life learning about professional filmmaking. Vlogging should be like using toilet paper: it should require a little skill, practice, and planning, but should be a nearly effortless and regular routine. Poop humor. Aren't my aspirations set high?

All vlog-deprecation aside, I think it would be really healthy for me to dive right in. Youtube and other vlog hosting sites are like internet sketchpads where one could rough out the framework of a colorful and ebullient career. From my initial experience with the world wide web (waaaay back in 1995) I had stumbled on the idea that publishing one's work would become a largely democratic phenomenon. And now it would seem to me that the major obstacle for me would be self-censorship.

Far be it from me to rehash clichés regarding the journey of a thousand steps or pebbles in a pond. In fact, this pontification is already pretty tiresome. So here's a sketch-dump:

notes: please excuse the sloppiness. the doubles are a) scanned and adjusted for exposure b) taken with a camera. i need to learn the finer art of getting the most of my scanner. the last two are scans as well while the first is a photo. pencil (2h) and blue pen have a hard time showing up in scans.

Yes, long before I picked up an arriflex-s, or learned to boom a sennheiser, I drew my heart out. Mostly my inspiration came from flipping through early-eighties era X-Men; John Romita Jr., Paul Smith, early Marc Silvestri with Dan Green, Rick Leonardi, etc. Occasionally I just got overwhelmed by the joy of pre-adolescent power fantasies in awesome cartoons like Thundercats, Voltron, or the Mighty Galtar.

I want to buy a Kodak Zi6 that I found clearanced for $100. Maybe soon I'll start vlogging. I have a cheesy little cover song vlog to post pretty soon. Who knows if I'll advertise that here, though.

Camera tech is getting so kwazy mah neezy!