the awesome/terrifying freedom

woah.. this just happened.. crazy! the sunlight just turned bright orange from all the smoke. my assistant took the pic. click for larger:

i'm editing a very cool little short for chad and celeste's acting reels. it's very much in the style of 'the shield,' and 'nypd blue.'

we shot the first scene on a gorgeous sunday. chad plays a detective, and celeste plays a chinese woman, frantic because her husband has been murdered in the garden.

there are so many little discoveries i'm having as i do more editing. probably these are things that they teach you in film school, but i'm happy to learn through the doing.

i love that viewers are sophisticated enough now that it's no longer taboo to cut to a different take within the same angle. soderberg and von trier do this a lot, and i love the unsettling effect.

a big thing i discovered on this piece, though, is how much color correction can affect the way the scene plays. it's very emotional work for celeste, and i realized that the bright colors were working against her performance. here's the colors as shot:



i turned down the saturation a little, tipped the mids to blue, and it completely changed the scene.



the thing to be careful of is that you don't use the technique in a way that makes the scene redundant. it would be interesting to try on a different piece, if a scene seems too heavy, to bump up the saturation and see what happens.

first, thank you so much to everyone who wrote, commented, and emailed me good wishes about both my recent breakup and job interview. i think, rather than this being a 'new chapter,' it feels more apropos to define my time here in tv terms, so: we are now beginning season 2.

i'm newly single, and on friday, gave my notice at work, because holy shit, in 2 weeks i will be starting my new job!

i got the fuckin job. i got the fuckin job, which means a lot of things are about to change.

so second, i have to thank my friend chad, who i owe everything to, for recommending me for this job, for talking me up to his bosses, and for making the whole thing happen - it's thanks to chad and celeste i was able to work a few days as a dishwasher on the cooking shows, and now i must thank them again for essentially making my cross-country dream come true.

so i'll be working as an associate producer on a full season of a half-hour series for an as-yet unlaunched network. i'll be working with the host of the show to brainstorm content, and organize that content into episode outlines. i have so much to learn, a lot to prove, and it's just the beginning.

it's also the first time in my life that my job has been in line with my career, which is maybe the most exciting part of all this.

this seems to be a week of pages turning; sadly, (but amicably) my romantic relationship with sam has ended. i have a job interview on thursday for something incredibly exciting, and hopefully i'll have great news soon to offset rather disappointing recent developments.

uh, tell me i'm not the only one who's noticed the similarity...

it's official. my metabolism has slowed down/la is a lazier place than new york. or some combination of the two. i'm not running up 5 flights of stairs and walking 4 avenues daily anymore. and going to the gym means half an hour of trying to find parking. still haven't found the right routine, but now i have to. i'm heaver than i've ever been, and it's not the kind of weight you gain from being at the gym all the time.

my god, for years, years! i ate double meals and drank cement shakes to try and gain weight and here it is. it's seriously time to set new habits.

fincher's new movie is a masterpiece - i decided to read up on the zodiac killer's wikipedia page before seeing the film, which maybe ruined a bit of the suspense, but i was astonished by fincher's respect for the truth of this story, and his attention to detail. and i'm now completely sucked in, as was greysmith, allen, and toschi (played by gyllenhall, downey jr., and ruffalo). i want to read greysmith's book, but in the meantime, most of the case evidence, including all of the zodiac letters and envelopes are available here.