Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[codezero]

Drinking can be the difference between a -pickup line- and a +pickup line+. At least in your head. What is this school anyway, that seems to have a lot of 'tards in it? I know it's a boarding school but for what ages?

[chaoticag]

I thought it was a university.

[Kagus]

It's a college\high school\fuck all.  Essentially, it's a social school.  Minimum age is 18, and I think the oldest student here is around 23\25.  Actually, I think the sound guy might be older...  But I'm not sure.

And it's not that we have a lot of mental leakage cases, it's just that the one we have makes up for the lack.  Drops doesn't count as mentally retarded.  He's just infernally dumb.


About the school...  There's really nothing like it in the states.  It's a special kind of optional school that's taken after high school (or rather, the equivalent thereof.  Videregående).  I can't speak for all the different schools of this type, but this one has a nine month school year (which is drawing perilously close to its end...) and no tests.  There are assignments from time to time, but aside from putting on a good show there's no "real" incentive to complete them, since there are no grades.  The only thing you need in order to complete the year is to show up more than 90% of the time.

Also, don't drink or do drugs on school grounds.  That'll get you kicked out.  But that's just this school, might be different in other spots.


Codezero, I don't *do* pickup lines.  Furthermore, that's only a one-step increment of quality, bumping a relatively crappy line up to a slightly less crappy line.  The amounts of alcohol consumed by these people can quite easily cause major quality leaps.  For instance, one girl was on the verge of being wooed out of her clothes by a large metalhead kneading her shoulders and bellowing "I know what I'm f%&!in' doing!" in a Scottish accent.

Maybe I should try that some time...


Well, not a whole lot of excitement today.  I made the brilliant decision of going to bed at 9:00 last night, so I've actually been slightly awake for most of the day.  Rather impressive.

Apparently, Film and TV has morning collective this week.  A deal was struck with one of the other classes so that they could show off some drunken dance footage from the party at yesterday's collective, so I wasn't aware of it until now.

Anyways, we had something special today.  One of the other groups needed footage of a morning collective, and had decided to film the real deal (with some special lines fed to the teacher who starts things off).  This is the same group that I've been working with off and on, where I play a scary janitor ghost.

Honestly, these poor saps have no idea what they're doing...  I was sitting in the back row (and thus elevated above everyone else), wearing clothes that helped the contrast between me and the blank wall behind me, and not even pretending to make myself hidden.  I had to yell at the one filming to inform him that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have a 50-year-old ghost sitting in on morning collective.

While wearing a Quiksilver hoodie.


However, judging from their previous decisions and filmmaking savvy, they're probably going to pick one of the clips with me in it anyways.  And they're going to explain it away with "nobody's going to notice anyways". 

You know, there's a rather noticeable amount of things "nobody would notice" in that film of theirs...   And they still think they can save it from being an utter and complete comedy (hopeless).


Then I got to sing some of "the circle of life" in minichoir.  Drops was being an idiot, as is to be expected.  Oh immeasurable joy.

Band class was actually kinda fun.  Thankfully, the teacher picked the song we were going to work on, instead of letting ego-pumped bodybuilder-man pick another Rihanna or Cold Play song.  I tend to agree with the teacher's taste in music a lot more than that of a lot of other people here...

Instead of Scared of Heights or Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, we played Hotel California.  Or at least pretended to.  The teach is still somehow expecting me to perfect a chord sequence after demonstrating it for me once.

Anyways, it worked out.  As usual, the other band members trickled away and left me, the Brit drummer, and the teacher to jam for a while.  Now that was damn fun.  I managed a burning (well, okay, maybe just blistering) Blues solo in that session, and followed it up with some more fine lead guitar work when we played a Bluesy version of "Born to be Wild".  When class hours were just about over, everyone came back to the music room (where we were) and we all had a massive jam.  I even managed to contribute in a non-retarded fashion.


Well, that's that.  We're probably going to sneak off and do some filming tomorrow, preferably "missing" principal's hour.  Good god that man is dull...


Woog...  Just remembered that I have to write half a page about my roommate for the yearbook before Monday...  I've got several pages of things to say, but how much of that is appropriate for a yearbook?  That'll take some creative thinking.  And some even more creative writing...

[Kagus]

Film day tomorrow.  Five minutes to midnight right now.  Wanted to go to bed at 8:00.

Gotta wrap up some logistics.  That should push me just over the midnight boundary.


Yay.

[Kagus]

Gadzooks and jumping singularity devices, what a day.

I am, of course, referring to Wednesday.


Here's the scoop:  We took off from school after surviving principal's hour (that man is not only incredibly boring, he is also demented in ways that can only mean severe childhood trauma involving large bats and a tea kettle), and were chauffeured up to the film location (namely, the farm of the guy we had previously intended to be the lead role).

We got there, took his chair inside (we had borrowed it for some filming, and never got around to bringing it back), told him to go and build a wooden cross for us, and then started preparing for the first scene we were going to film.


We filmed the entire day.  We were forced to film some scenes when it was pitch black outside (luckily, they were indoor scenes) since we took so long.  Did I mention that those scenes were directly attached to the ones which were filmed outside in full daylight?

I was the one who packed the camera bag before we left, and I had the brilliant forethought to bring along an extra battery, in case the one we were using got drained.  I didn't take an extra cassette though, since the last time we filmed for a day we only came away with half an hour of footage (the tapes we use can hold one hour).

Well, the monster of a battery we used was at about half capacity when the day was through.  However, the tape was a jumble of clips due to my having to search through what we had already filmed in hopes of finding some failed takes that we could film over.  Yes, that's correct.  I was completely backwards in my preparations.

We ran out of tape space, but had plenty of electricity to go on.


Luckily, we did manage to film everything that needed filming.  We (I) also filmed several things that most certainly did not need filming, such as our host dancing around with a funny face and clapping his hands together during a take to distract our current lead actor.  Hey, it'll make for a nice blooper reel.

At first, we thought we would probably be able to get back in time for dinner.  Dinner came and went (3:00PM).  Then we thought we might be able to make it back in time for evening food.  That also came and went.

We ended up ordering pizza for dinner.  And, of course, since no one thought to bring their wallets, our delightful host paid for everything.  And since I still don't know how much I owe him for my share, that means I currently owe him nothing.  Muahaha.

So, yeah.  It was cold.  The camera managed to accumulate a layer of snow (our secondary film teacher would have had a coronary if he saw that...), we had to bring in a floodlight and shine it at the ceiling for some of the indoor scenes, and we poured raspberry-sauce blood on the floor, on the actress, and on the actor.  And then we spat some of it onto the snow outside.


We were all very, very happy when the filming was over and done with.  We managed to get back to school some time around eleven.  I lay down in bed quarter to midnight.


Then on Thursday, we took care of the very last bit of filming that was required.  This was done on school grounds, since we were fortunate enough to take care of all the farm scenes in one swoop. 

Ironically, this bit of filming included the very first image seen in the film. 

I had to appear in some of the clips on Thursday, which of course meant getting back into my delightfully warm costume of an unbuttoned cotton undershirt and brown leather shoes with no insoles.

Then I had to stand in a foot of snow and get into character.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to point in a direction and not look utterly ridiculous?


We've spent a fair amount of time just going over what we've filmed, and we've started patching the film together.  We've made it about halfway into the intro.  Yippee.


However, it would appear that fate is not quite finished with pestering us.  I took a look at the exported .avi file of our trailer.  I noticed that it looked slightly different than what it looked like in the editing program...

Frankly, it looked like something not even a dung beetle would touch.  In short, it looked just like amateur home camera footage.

Except it was blue.  But then it was brown, with spots.


The reason for this, I believe, is because the editing program is not capable of showing a high enough rate of frames per second when previewing the footage.  However, a packaged-deal video file can show as many bleedin' frames as there are to show.  The result is overly-smooth footage that looks absolutely terrible.

The blueness and brown spottiness are results of using the tinting abilities inherent in the editing program itself, instead of a designated effect program.


Speaking of designated effect programs, did I mention that the school recently ordered some copies of Adobe AfterEffects, a designated effect program, and then installed them on the editing machines?  No?  Well, it gets better.

Two out of the five editing machines have had AfterEffects installed on them.  Guess which one of the other three we're using.


So this means that we are practically forced to drag the whole project onto one of the other computers, and then examine the wreckage, with the hope that there's something in AfterEffects that can save our bacon.  Either that, or we can try taking the cheapo route and just slowing down the clips some.

That second option has the slightly disturbing result of making the film even longer than it already is (I swear, we're making the longest ten-minute film in the world), and also screwing up every single second of syncing we've done with the music (and what few sound effects we currently have).


The cherry on top?  Deadline is either Wednesday or Thursday next week.  We're going to be rubbing some hairs in what is most certainly the wrong way if we take longer than that, since winter vacation starts next Friday, and we're supposed to dedicate all the time between winter vacation and easter vacation to cooking up a TV broadcast.

That is, of course, not mentioning the student night for clothing and costumes, which takes place shortly after getting back from vacation.  Perhaps I mentioned that we have to pay our side of the bargain in regards to helping out with student night?


Speaking of fate, today's philosophy class dealt with astrology and tarot readings.  The teacher read the fate of one student, as full a reading as it gets (ten cards).  Tarot is actually pretty cool, I may just have to check a bit more into it for fun.  I love the illustrations, and those specially-shaped cards are just too cool.


Well, drawing class has student night tomorrow.  Everyone is supposed to come dressed as a hippie.  Unfortunately, I do not have any hippie clothes.  I figured I could try to compensate by putting some hippie music on my phone, but I don't really have hippie music either.  I've just got music from that era.

And I was even silly enough to shave yesterday.  This means I can't use any of the scruff I had built up from several forgotten shaving arrangements.  You can't be a clean-shaven hippie unless you're female.

Hell, I don't even have a good headband...  I'll have to use a formal black tie I've got for my dress suit.  That's just silly.


Yay, I get to spend Saturday trying to pull some colorful clothes out of my predominantly neutral wardrobe.

Oh, just remembered something even more fun.  I still haven't written anything about my roommate for the yearbook.  Half a page is due by Monday.  Joy to the world.

Speaking of the yearbook, the title voting took place today.  However, it took place at a time when one of the classes was starting (we start half an hour before the others), and nobody said anything about it happening.  I don't know how many people actually voted.

I had asked one of the members the night before if it might be possible to add in a "Crazy Hobo" category, due to the rumors I'd heard about me.  She said she'd bring it up with the others. 

So there's a chance I may be immortalized in the yearbook as a schizophrenic vagrant. 


Fingers crossed...

[Kagus]

Absolutely 100% lovalicious.


Hippie night tonight, also known as the student night for Drawing and Painting.  As everyone was preparing their costumes, I got to see that I was not the only person with a decidedly non-hippie wardrobe.  Most folks just went with colorful T-shirts and some small woven headband, with maybe some shades if they were lucky enough to find a suitable pair.   But there were a few people who had released their inner flower child with full radiant bloom.

I would've slid in as one of the many, just another brick in the wall.  Sure, my costume wasn't a T-shirt, but it wasn't particularly hippie, either.

But I am both resourceful and agile, things that come in handy when the door to Theater's costume storage area is kept under lock and key.

I clambered over the top, taking the same route I took when snagging some of the clothes needed for our film project.  Inside, I found several highly suitable items, and after checking out some possibilities, finally ended up with something that was quite remarkably hippie.  My sense of style even managed to prevail through the ordeal, and I must say that I make a rather fashionable hippie.

I was at first slightly worried that this costume would be a bit cold...  After all, it's mostly light material, and I of course insisted on wearing the shirt slightly open to display my wild and free tangle of chest hair.  However, the pants I had picked out were quite large, and I ended up wearing three pairs of legwear in the end (long underwear, jeans, and baggy hippie pants).  This provided me with all the warmth I needed.

The excessively huge headcloth was also a factor.


Dinner was a widely varied assortment of foods, ranging from asparagus wraps to tortilla chips and salsa to egg rolls and sweet-sour sauce.  Quite tasty, although rather confusing.   This was apparently a trend to be carried out throughout the evening.

The entertainment started off with a song and dance routine, wherein the four dancers were clothed in white bodysuits that looked like they were supposed to be easily disposable or something.  Four people stood in the background and pretended to play various "instruments" (one guy was soloing on a plastic shovel, while someone else was swinging a broom for no apparent reason).  One guy stood up front and actually sang, the only part of the song that wasn't a recording.

We moved on to some assorted videos, most of which I had seen part of the editing of.  One was a short Charlie Chaplin parody, wherein the lead character was trying various methods of growing his hair to an appropriately long hippie length.  His first attempt was tying string to his hair.  This was naturally quite unsuccessful, but he eventually moved onto a hairspray which gave him a full Rasta flood of locks.

There was another video which was essentially a parody of the parody that Outdoorsmanship made of the school (instead of an advertisement for a Christian Skiringssal, it was an advertisement for a Hippie Skiringssal).  Quite fun, especially since Film and TV was apparently the class you went to if you wanted to have a massive orgy.

Actually...  That might not be that great.  We've already received homosexual jabs for being an all-male class, and there's nothing explicitly saying that you need women for an orgy...  Eep.


After that there was a "stomp" (improvised instruments) skit, which was actually a teensy bit long...  Personally, I think F&TV did a better job when we had our own student night.  Still quite fun though, especially with the painting-related instruments (one guy was providing bass-percussion by slamming the legs of an easel together).

Then came another batch of confusion, as the next skit came into play.  One of the gals from the stomp sketch, as part of the final hardcore solo, had fallen over onto her easel and was lying there in mock sleep.  This went on for a little bit, and then she was rudely awakened by the sound of an alarm clock ringing.

I started to feel my anticipation grow significantly.  Why?  Because this was no ordinary alarm clock, or even batch of alarm clocks (more started chiming in after the first).  This was the opening sequence of Time, one of my all-time (haha) favorite Pink Floyd songs.

She got up, and started looking around warily at the stage around her.  Dark shadows moved across the curtains, and strange noises were coming from backstage.  She got her easel upright and started trying to paint as the sounds continued.  She was obviously quite distraught from the various things going on around her.

Eventually, one of her classmates walked onto the stage from the side, pinging away at the cup she had used during the stomp segment.  She walked purposefully towards the other side of the stage, completely heedless of the excited calls of the painter girl.  The painter followed her offstage, calling out "Hello?  Hello!" repeatedly.  The other sounds continued, and grew in strength.  More shadows moved across the curtains.

After a while, the painter girl ran back out onto stage, still crying out her hellos.  A few moments later, the classmate pops out from the side, points her finger at the girl on stage, and says "I kill you" (in English, no less).  The girl drops dead, and the music fades out.

I was thoroughly and completely confused, not to mention slightly disappointed that the song got cut short.


The girl then stood up and introduced the next segment, which included the philosophy teacher (who has been subbing for Drawing class for the past couple of weeks) playing guitar for several songs, while the rest of the class sang along.  The songs included Hey Jude, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die, Heart of Gold (which was thrown in for reasons along the line of "just because"), I Am the Walrus, California Dreaming, and other suitable hippie songs.

I'm screwing up the chronology here, but there was also a segment where three of the class members got out and gave what was actually a very clever and well-performed rap about how they were the greatest of all the majors (misguided, of course, but still entertaining).

There was also an Indian-esque dance in the beginning, with four girls holding candles, long skirts and lots of hip-waggling.  It started out relatively "serious", but was given the gift of humor when the unusually tall, gangly and peculiar male Drawing student came out in similar garb as the gals, and began doing his own hip-waggling.

The show wrapped up with some more singing and guitar-playing.  A nice, solid evening, but not spectacular.  The main problem was really that it seemed so short.  It could've gone on for much longer, as the content they had was all good.


After the show, folks sat around in the rec room for a while.  I had started feeling the guitarist's itch, and had picked up one of the available guitars in order to scratch it for a while.  Some time later, I heard a bit of a commotion and looked up.

Several folks had collected together on a batch of mattresses in the corner (hippie furniture), and they had started singing Kumbaya (and they were doing so without a guitar, which is sacrilege).  The philosophy teacher came in and started playing for them in an attempt to save their poor misguided flower child souls.

This of course led to several of the previous songs being played, not to mention having all attention focused on that corner of the room (the guy is, after all, a great musician).  However, he was just one guitarist.  Feeling the urge, I plopped down next to him and started playing lead to his rhythm. 

I have no idea how long we played like that, but it could have easily been an hour.  Whatever it was, it was fun.  He would take song requests from those gathered, and I would figure out what key he was playing in and try to follow along with something appropriate.  The guitar I was playing on wasn't particularly great, but it had at least some sound in it.


So, yeah.  People have started filing off to their rooms, as they're quite tired right now (it is almost 2:00AM...).  I'm still wearing my hippie getup, and I've got the extra choices lying on the floor.  I'm starting to build a mountain of clothes on the side of my bed, the reason for which essentially boils down to laziness.  I really didn't need the extras...


The string on my key-medallion ended up snapping rather early on, but someone was kind enough to find the damn thing and return it to me.  I should probably get around to returning that to the teacher we borrowed it from, oh-so-many weeks ago...


Uggh...  Still have to write half a page about my roomie, and I have to do it tomorrow.  Yay. 

Maybe I can tweak my screen resolution way down, and thus have an excuse for a lower amount of text...  That'd be smart.


Anyways, it's way past my bedtime.  Goodnight everybody, peace out.


P.S.
Oh yeah, I came up with a sign-combo.  Make the peace sign, the "L", and the rocker horns in that order.  "V-L-U", "Peace, Love and Understanding".  I showed it to John Smith, who was more impressed than I thought he would be.  But then again, that kind of stuff is right up his alley.

[Kagus]

Un-friggin' believable, all this time later, and there's only been one photo of hippie-me posted.  And it's not even a particularly good one...  I know there are more out there.  I just need to lean on a few people and get them to
cough 'em up...



Dude on the left is the philosophy\band teacher, who has also been subbing for Film and Drawing classes.  Dude in the middle is one of the guys from Film, who is trying to play on the hated -7 Guitar of Stupidity.  That guitar has the loosest G-string of any physical object in the school.

Dude on the right is me wearing my guitar face.  Why is it that you always end up looking so damned moronic when playing lead?


Anyways, our turn for morning collective today.  Showed off our trailer.  Actually managed to spook a couple folks, and I think that most of them liked it.

Which is good, because if they thought that was good, then we've got absolutely nothing to worry about for the actual film.

[Kagus]

Rumor spreads at the speed of sound...


Okay, so apparently word does not spread as fast as the plague.  If it did, we wouldn't have healthy people who had heard of the plague, now would we?

Anyways, it would appear that word has gotten out about my being almost convince-able on the subject of trimming my hair.  Earlier today, someone at the table I was sitting at brought it up.  Just now, right before kveldsmat (I'm getting tired of translating it into "evening food".  Just accept that that's what it's called), I was mobbed by a group of gals who tried their damnedest to enlighten me as to how incredibly awesome it would be if I would just let them trim my hair.  And, of course, take "before and after" pictures.  And film it. 

They would put it in the yearbook.  Hell, they'd put footage of the trimming in the yearvideo which is being made alongside the book.  They would, essentially, do anything to get me to trim my hair.  Why?  Because, as they repeatedly insisted, it would be freakin' awesome. 

I heard again the "if you don't like it, you can just grow it out again" shtick.  People seem highly surprised when I inform that yeah, it would indeed grow out again.  In six years.


I've decided to start pushing the democratic method, and encouraged them to go around and pick up votes from everyone at school as to whether I should keep my hair long or cut it short (this latest group was at least willing to let me have a couple inches, which is essentially the "'shag me' shag".  A length which can net you looks from the girls like no other.  It is also an incredibly annoying length, as it is PERMANENTLY stuck in your eyes).

If they do decide to start gathering the tally, I'm going to hope that there are more long-minded people around here than short-sighted.  If the sheet shows a strong majority on the short-hair side, I will give a moving speech about how they gathered the votes from all the people who do not know me, do not care about me, and will not have their opinions changed of me if I cut my hair short.  I will state that I am a human being, not just a doll that they can play dress up with and then cast aside once I've gained the same style as the other dozen.

Or, then again, maybe I'll let them trim me.  After all, it is my decision.  And heck, 24 is a great age to have long hair.  Manage to get a few years in before it's written off to mid-life crisis.


I think that's what I had to say...  I'd just like to comment that I think it's funny how many people are more interested in my hair than they are me.

Think I'll head back down again.  I was having a conversation about my hair possibilities with one girl when we were interrupted by the coming of kveldsmat.  She said we would continue later on, and I think she's probably hunting for me right now.

It's such a warm feeling to be wanted...  Which is nice, because it's bloody cold in here.  Roomie left the window open after cleaning today, so we've had an open portal to the frozen realm for half the day.  It'd probably be snowing in here if he hadn't also left the heater on. 

90% of the heat went out the window, of course.  His logic defies my comprehension from time to time.

[chaoticag]

He was combating global freezing...

[Kagus]

And here we are brought to another Tuesday.  The plan was to have one of the other groups show bloopers from their film project as part of morning collective, but then the social teacher said that she had been contacted by a couple guys from the music technology section of the Rose Bruford college in London, who were making their way around Norwegian schools to see if anyone might be interested.  They would use the morning collective period to say a few words about the school, so the blooper showing was called off to accommodate for the demonstration.

Well, as it turns out, they were held up and wouldn't be arriving at the school until later.  As such, morning collective was decidedly shorter than it tends to be.


Anyways, after collective, I went back to my room to chill for a while, since I had a little over an hour before minichoir was set to start.  When I went over to the main building, I saw the guys sitting around in the lobby.  One of them had picked up the screwed-up acoustic and was doing a pretty impressive job of making it actually sound good.

I started chatting them with a bit, talking about guitars and music and whatnot.  While we were talking, the music room was unlocked and the class started to file in.  I wasn't that concerned about it, since I had read an announcement that the minichoir teacher was in sick that day, so we were supposed to just practice on our own.

Considering the usual effectiveness of such a setup, I figured it wouldn't be hurting productivity too much if I showed the Brits (one of them was actually a student from Norway who had gone to the school.  Apparently, they were checking out Norwegian schools because they had had a lot of luck with guys like him) around the music room.

Inside, I found not only the minichoir class, but also the school's vice-principal, who was giving the class the details regarding their current teacherless situation.

After a quick introduction, the Bruford Boys asked a bit about the school and talked a little bit about their own academic facilities.  Then, in order to let the class commence, they decided to excuse themselves.  I offered to show them around a bit more, particularly the sound recording studio which had been mentioned during the little chat inside the music room. 

And with that, I proceeded on a little tour down to the studio, pointing out various items of interest along the way.

When we got down to the studio, we decided to have a little jam.  I won't say that my performance was particularly great, but the one guy had been hankering for a jam for so long that he didn't seem to care.

They wondered if they could check out the actual sound tweaking room, which is normally kept locked.  I set off to find someone who could open the thing, and got to show them inside.  My tour abilities kinda stopped there, since I haven't the foggiest clue how to work most of the stuff in there.  Luckily, they did.

Soon after that, a couple guys from one of the other classes filtered in and started talking with the Bruford Boys.  Over time, more and more people ended up collecting there and ended up getting some info about the school, which was provided quite willingly.  One of the students they ended up talking to had actually already applied to the school.

A few of the interested folks got to write down their contact information on a list, so that if they do decide to apply, they'll get preferential treatment due to having actually met some people from the school.  I'm not particularly interested in the school (I'm more interested in the music than the technology), but I decided to put my name on the list anyways.  Hell, free bonus if I opt to check it out.

After the sound room session, I showed them to the office of the social teacher (they were going to leave extra information with her, so that she could distribute it to any other students who might be interested).  The tour was pretty much over, but I got to chat with them a little more, loosen them up a bit.  By the time they had cleared everything that needed to be done and were getting ready to take off, it was 11:15, which is when a lot of classes let out so that the students get a little breathing time before lunch.  I bid farewell to the guys, and then went back to chilling, having successfully avoided warbling my tone-mute voice in minichoir.


Man, a guy's gotta go through a lot to skip class around here...


After that came band class, which is of course great fun, but got to be a bit much for me since the group I was in was being dominated by two guys who have some music tastes that are drastically separated from mine... 

The point of today's class was to work on "Imagine".  Some time later, while the teacher was checking on the other group, the two guys moved the song over to the significantly more limp-wristed "Apologize" by OneRepublic.

After listening to that for a while (and following along for a little bit, which was hampered by the way one of the two would abruptly stop playing at various intervals, sometimes just to comment on how well everything was going), I stepped outside and started listening to Money on my phone.  It was then that I bumped into the teacher, who promptly asked me if I wanted to play that. 

I started explaining that I had just stepped outside to listen to something I liked, but the factoid that I know how to play at least part of the Money bass line slipped out instead.


So, yeah...  During the sort of "afterglow" period of band class, we made a slightly pitiful attempt at Money (it's been a long time since I played that bass riff, so I ended up slipping quite a bit).  The teacher said that if I worked on the bass line, he would see what he could do about the guitar work in that.


And with that, I think I may just have gotten myself into yet another delightful situation where I am expected to play a Pink Floyd song.  Have I ever mentioned just how ridiculously complex Pink Floyd beats are?  If we really do try playing this thing, the drummer is going to be ripping out his hair and eating it.


Which, of course, is totally worth seeing.  Think I'll head down to the music room and see what I can do on that bass...

[Kagus]

Brain-damaged loverboy is beginning to get out of hand...  Speaking of hands, he was walking back from having taken a shower (and was thus clothed only in a towel and some shorts) last night when he grabbed the posterior of a gal he passed by.  She happened to be talking with a friend of hers, who had previously had her breasts groped in passing by the same guy.  He seems to have escalated from just ogling since the last boozefest...


I will admit though, the guy has some priceless expressions.  I've got a picture from the hippie party that I'd like to share with y'all.



I would like to comment that he doesn't normally look that intelligent.  And yes, that's his hippie costume.  He had a little band around his head at one point, but I guess he took it off.

[Strife26]

I'll just keep my stunned silence here.

Oh and keep writting Kagus! Sandy Fjord is one of the higlights of my day. Although I've taken to only reading it when I have time to spare.

[Kagus]

FINISHED.  Oh, sweet smell of completion...

We've finally managed to finish off the film project.  I'd say we did it last night, but that's technically not true since it was 3:00 AM today when we finished.  We had to make special arrangements with the staff in order to stay in the editing room that late.  It was the final crunch to get this film done before we took off for winter vacation, our final-final deadline, and we managed it.  We crunched a little the night before, but we only stayed up until 11:00 then. 

So, yeah.  Over half the day spent staring at a screen and trying to make up scene transitions that didn't exist.  While editing, we noticed something interesting.  The film can essentially be summed up with three things: Fall on knees, dip to black, and slow motion.

We also noticed that when you are sleep deprived and have been working on the same damn video for twelve hours that playing that video at very high speed is incredibly entertaining.  In fact, quite a few things were incredibly entertaining, including the grunt that the lead character makes when he's shot in the stomach (if you're listening for it, it sounds like he's saying "dust", which is the Norwegian equivalent of "jerk".  It is, after all, highly impolite to shoot someone).

So it's finished.  We even managed to slap on some rudimentary color schemes and functional rolling credits (which are actually damn hard to get, for some idiotic reason.  I've grown to hate our editing program).

Uggh, I'm beat.  I'm currently up at my granddad's farm, where I'll be spending winter vacation.  My current agenda includes sleeping through the whole damn thing.  My eyes are still burning from last night.


The film is somewhat passable.  At least to someone who is sick and tired of working on it, and who hasn't had a good night's sleep in a week.  We still haven't exported it to a finished moviefile yet, so it'll probably look even better (I.E. worse) when we've taken care of that.


The thing actually managed to maintain a relatively good length.  22 minutes.  We were actually expecting it to be a little over half an hour.


As for the other films, well...  Y'know, maybe our film really isn't that bad after all.

I hope we get to show our film after the others.


The film that Drops has been working on went from promising (idea phase), to okay (preliminary draft stage), to doubtful (filming stage), to even worse (rough clipping stage), to downright laughable (fine-clipping and editing stage) and finally to brain meltdown (after-effects stage).


Oh, speaking of which, I managed to snatch a partial copy of the script Drops wrote for the film.  This script luckily never saw the light of day, as far as the actual film is concerned.  But boy, did we get a kick out of it...  In light of just how insane this thing is, I decided that it needed to be shared with the world.  So, here it is folks, one of the more infamous excerpts from the script that should never have been, translated as faithfully as possible.  All punctuation, notation and formatting is preserved as closely to how it was on the original copy (he prints everything).  The following scene describes when the two main characters (Jonas and Maria) are going on their ordained rounds, where they must shut off all lights, empty the trash cans, and essentially lock the place up for the night.  Jonas is played by Drops in the film.  Maria is played by X.   I am the janitor.  The only place this scene took place was the demented happy fun land of Dropsville.

• 11. Rounds day 2
  
  
• This is what they hear:
  
  
• Crackling
• Creaking
• Footsteps
• Mumbling
• Sobbing
• Screams
• Angry voices
• Threats
• Gruesome murder

This is what they see and experience:

• Shadows that are acting strangely (stressed, angsty, scared etc)
• Blood running down a wall
• Objects that spontaneously move or fall over.
• A shadow (the janitor) grabbing a young girl (Maria) in a stranglehold
• Ghosts peeking up from a toilet or through a window.
• The students begin to feel limp, dizzy, disorientated, dehydrated and nauseaus.
• Suddenly a ghost puts out a leg in front of Maria.  She trips and falls forward.  A ghost grabs Jonas in a stranglehold and pinches him in the penis.  The ghost also shoves him hard into a wall.

Both Jonas and Maria suddenly have their ears pinched or are punched in the stomach.  They feel pain and collapse.

• Jonas gets cramps and has an epileptic seizure.  Maria begins to vomit.
• Their skin goes dry, they feel lethargic and their eyes begin to burn. They are weak and notice that their bodies are becoming paralyzed. They understand that they must get out quickly before they are incapable of moving a millimeter. Then the ghosts would most likely beat them up. The problem is that the ghosts have encircled them and are proceeding to hem them in.
• While Jonas and Maria lie helpless and petrified on the ground they see that more shadows are closing in on them.

All the shadows laugh at them derogatorily. They have all manner of murderous items. Knives, axes, pitchforks and rifles.
The ground they are lying on begins to get colder. Jonas and Maria begin to shiver violently.
They eventually get cold damage. Almost frostburns. They also notice that they are having trouble breathing and that their voices are hoarse. Suddenly it gets very warm. Then it gets even harder for Jonas and Maria to breathe. They also notice an intense itching and burning sensation over their entire bodies. They suddenly get amnesia and ask each other why they are where they are.
Eventually Jonas gets a serious stomachache. Maria begins to have a headache and goes into hysterics. Jonas shivers from fear.
Suddenly the ghosts disappear. Jonas and Maria fall asleep for a couple minutes and wake up whole and healthy without remembering a thing.



--END TRANSMISSION FROM DROPSVILLE--

So, that was fun.  Yes, he really wrote all that.  Yes, he was being completely serious.  I have no idea what goes on in the weird little head of his, and I would prefer that things stay that way. 

Stunned silence perfectly acceptable.  I don't know if there really is anything that can be said about this.


In other news, a pretty girl was stealing glances at me on the train ride.  Whee.  I shall use this mildly pleasant thought to cleanse my mind of the poison that is Drops. 

Ahh, vacation...  Sleep, eat, work on secret project that may or may not go anywhere, and update Facebook profile far more often than needed.  Such is life when you're driven by corrupt intentions.


With so much talk about Drops, I feel almost inclined to include a picture of him, too.  There's not really anything in the picture to show the infernally-enhanced stupidity or the deranged state of his cognitive functions, but you can at least see that he has no idea what a hippie looks like.



Yes, that's his costume.  Now, to show you how it's really done, here's my costume:



I know I look pretty creepy, but that's actually progress for me.

[Kagus]

Okay, forgot a couple things.  First of all, since our last day of work was Thursday, we had our secondary teacher.  He gathered everybody together up in the classroom, and started talking about what the class agenda was after winter vacation, when we're going to have the film night, and what the arrangement was with the Clothing class, regarding their elevkveld.

He had told us about what we were going to do after winter vacation last time, we didn't give a damn about laying down an absolute date for the film night, and we knew more about the arrangement with Clothing than he did.  That didn't stop him talking about it, even when we made it quite clear that we did remember our agreement with Clothing, we had spoken with them about what our role was to be, and we weren't all flopping into it without a plan and reducing efficiency.  He just kept telling us what we already knew, and what was not at all important enough to take priority over the final film editing that we were going to do that day.  We could just have taken it up after vacation, when it would actually have some bearing.

We had spoken with some representatives of Clothing several weeks before, and had talked about some of the potential things that we would be involved in.  There was a solo act involving one of the other class members, and he was going to talk with them again on that Thursday to act as our own representative, and just discuss some of the other possibilities.

This was brought up when the teacher suggested that we might want to talk with Clothing class at some time, to talk about some of the potential things they might need us for.  Again, even though we already said that that's what we had done, he had gathered up so much momentum that he just had to say it a couple more times.

Then he stopped the guy from going off and doing just that by trying to get ideas from the rest of the class regarding the elevkveld, so that we could tell them to the rep and he could forward them to Clothing.


Not only was this against the agreement (we were going to help Clothing carry out their ideas, not try and take over the show with our own stuff) and repetitive, it was also counter-productive.  We had already spent half an hour talking about stuff that could just have easily been taken up after the vacation period, and we were steadily losing our last hours of editing time before vacation (a deadline that was, as most other deadlines, strongly enforced by the teacher that was currently making it harder).

By this point I had started getting a bit annoyed at being kept around doing nothing when I could have been finishing off the film.  So, not long into the silence following the teacher's request for elevkveld ideas, I spoke up.


"Hey, I have an idea!  How about we go down and work on our film, and you can talk with the other guys?  Because we actually have a lot that needs to be taken care of".


Well, that broke his momentum.  Shortly after that, the groups that needed to work on their projects were released, and only the group that had long since completed their project were kept behind.

But not before he reminded us to spend some time thinking about possibilities for the TV broadcast we're going to have after winter vacation.  Like we've got time to think about that.


I really have no idea how long he would have kept us in there, but I know that it was time I didn't want to give up.  Plus it just felt really, really good to speak out so openly against an authority figure.  I don't give my respect freely, people have to earn it.  And he wasn't doing a very good job of that.


Oh yeah, one last thing.  On the last day, morning collective was held not by Film and TV, but by the members of the Blues group in band class (except the drummer, who has been spending his time in my class.  But they kind of had to use him, since the Blues drummer couldn't keep a beat to save his life).  They had an on-stage Blues jam for our pleasure.

At 8:30 AM on a cold winter's morning.  And one of the guitarists hadn't tuned his guitar before the show.

Let's just say that being tired, having cold fingers, performing in front of the whole school, having an out-of-tune guitar and not getting a chance to warm up your playing abilities beforehand will not lend themselves to a stellar performance.  The bassist and the drummer were really the only guys who were awake enough to do anything.

Still though, considering the circumstances, it wasn't bad.  Certainly one of the more interesting collectives we've had in a while.

[Kagus]

Okay, so my granddad has a demented dog.  The thing has been ecstatically been trying to defy the laws of physics and get his matter to occupy the same location as my matter ever since I got here, and has thus been spending a lot of time snoozing on the couch I'm using as an office chair.

I recently just left to grab some breakfast/lunch, and I think he sneezed on my keyboard while I was gone.  When I came back there was a semi-solid glob of "something" sitting on the casing...

Luckily, it was easy enough to remove.  However, it bounced in a most disconcerting manner...

Of course, that dog's head is so filled with crazy it's not surprising that whatever comes out of it must be unusual as well.  You know how some animals will sit and stare at a TV screen and watch the animals that are running around in there?  Well, this dog does it when the set is turned off. 

He'll sit there for hours.  I really wonder what -if anything- is going through his head.


He's also been trying to lie down on the computer whenever he feels he's not getting enough attention.  This would be relatively unimpressive behaviour for something like a Chihuahua, but this bruiser's a Drahthaar.


So, uh, yeah...  What did you expect, content?  I'm on vacation.