It's been quite a year for me. It started normally enough, but it's picked up quite a bit with new short films, making new friends, my first paid editing gig, pregnancy, shooting at Vegoose, and wrapping up in the last days of the year working on a sample video that could become a pilot episode of a TV show. Next year promises nothing but videos of our new baby doing nothing but looking cute (just kidding - there will be some baby vids I'm sure, but this isn't going to become a daddy blog once I become a daddy, I promise). So today's video is another one from the Vau De Vire Society's Twisted Cabaret Tent at the Vegoose Festival. It's Dr. MadVibe, AKA Fishbone's Angelo Moore, laying down the spoken word with the help of his theremin and sax. Happy New Year!
Well the fine folks over at I Talk Too Much hate this blog. While I agree with them that my template sucks, I disagree that the content doesn't stand up on its own. Somebody even commented that "Half-Naked Thursday must be some 'i feel like I'm part of a group' blogger thing." Actually, it's a cheap ploy for more hits thing, duh. It's a shame you "don't feel like watching videos," since you're obviously not going to get a whole lot out of this blog without watching videos what with the fact that you hate my writing too. But I digress. Here's a video of Lucent Dossier from the Vau De Vire Society's Twisted Cabaret Tent at the Vegoose festival.
Trailer and Review: This is Not a Film (and a new blog renter too)
A few weeks ago, Anne found an ad on craigslist looking for bloggers who wanted to do film reviews. I thought it might be fun to get some indie films from a small distributor and run some reviews here, so this is the first one. The title is This is Not a Film and it's a comedic mocumentary about a guy who is looking for his girlfriend. The premise is that he's putting together a video as a "message in a bottle" so that people will see it and help him find his girlfriend who he severely messed things up with. Apparently there has been some discussion on whether or not this was a real plea and whether or not people should help him to find her.
So I brought the DVD with me for Christmas with Anne's parents and we started watching it on Christmas night. Before we put this on, there was a minor incident between Anne's folks and her brother over the Simpsons. For some reason completely unbeknownst to us, they REALLY hate the Simpsons, apparently even more than I hate Dr. Phil and those damn makeover reality shows. Nobody was watching any TV so my brother in law and I put on the Simpsons and the folks immediately started saying that we had to change it. It was definitely not my place to argue this so I kept my mouth shut, but my brother in law stormed off leaving me to sort of slink away. So the vibe in the house was a bit weird when Anne and I came back downstairs with this DVD and explained that we really didn't know much about it but it was something that I had to write a review for.
So we start watching it. The main character (or is he really a documentary subject?) begins by telling the audience about how his girlfriend Grace left and that he is making this video to find her. Then the camera crew stalks his friend Nadia who is an actress. He wants her to play Grace in order to flesh things out a bit. They start to re-enact their first date. Around this point, my father in law wonders how well this film will do with a lead character that isn't easy for the audience to sympathize with. I tell him that seems to be the point that we're not supposed to sympathize with him so much as laugh at him. Shortly thereafter, everybody decides it's time for bed and the dog decides it's time to poop on the livingroom rug.
So now it's a few days later and I've finally seen the whole thing. Without giving away the whole plot, this film that is not a film though it actually is a film is very funny, clever, well acted and offbeat. It's a cute romantic comedy without drifting into "chick flick" territory. It's a New York City film that pokes fun at New York City film cliches without being a cliche itself. It's a fun movie, though perhaps not for Christmas night with your inlaws (for that, I would recommend the original The Inlaws. You just can't go wrong with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. "Serpentine! Serpentine!"). Check out the trailer:
Also, please give a warm welcome to the latest blog renter, My Waisted Life. It's written by a smart and funny Belgian fellow living in England. If you're on blog explosion, you can usually catch him in the shoutbox just about any time of the day or night. Please visit him by clicking the "featured blog" button to the right. Technorati Tags: vlog, independent film
Half Naked Thursday - Vau De Vire Society in Pony Sleigh
Here's an amazing performance from Vegoose that you don't want to miss. While the Flaming Lips were getting ready to play outside, Vau De Vire Society was playing to a tent full of tripped out concert goers. Every single act in the Twisted Cabaret Tent was amazing, but this one particularly managed to wow the wide-pupiled crowd with extreme feats of contortion.
Barry Syska Orchestra with Vau De Vire Society at Vegoose
OK, it's time to get back to my footage from Vegoose! For those just joining this blog, I got to go to the Vegoose festival as a videographer for the Vau De Vire Society and their Twisted Cabaret Tent. The first act in the tent was the Barry Syska Orchestra, a 9 piece vaudeville orchestra. They are joined by dancers from the Vau De Vire Society.
First off, I'd like to give a shoutout to my newest blog renter, Rohin G. and his blog, Hold the Paprika. It's an intelligent, well written examination of pop culture and you should all click that button to the right and check it out.
No, I'm usually behind the camera in my videos, but this time I'm in front. Yesterday I did a shift as Santa Paws, taking pet photos with Santa as a benefit for Smiley Dog Rescue, a great East Bay dog rescue organization. It was rainy, so there weren't too many customers, but it was very fun playing Santa and petting doggies. Some dogs were more open to the idea of sitting on the lap of some stranger in a red suit and flowing white beard than others. The black poodle was particularly squirmy. This is just a slideshow of the stills that were shot, set to obnoxious music. Enjoy.
As promised, here's a cleaner cut of the video that I shot at Tookie Williams' execution. Since posting the rough cut on YouTube, it was featured on the front page and got over 10,000 views and 50 comments from all around the spectrum of the issue, and even a couple comments about my choice of music. It's the 6th most viewed video for today and the 15th most viewed for this week.
This is a very rough cut of my footage from Tookie Williams' execution protest. The sound is horrible, as are some of the cuts, but I wanted to get something up sooner rather than later. I expect to have a cleaner version sometime soon. Technorati Tags: vlog, tookie, execution, jesse jackson, mike farrel
I have not yet gotten my video from Tookie Williams' execution protest edited, so here's another Sleater Kinney clip from Vegoose. Hopefully I'll have my Tookie video tonight or tomorrow.
There's no video for today. Most of my videos are happy and festive and would not really fit in with how I'm feeling this morning. Last night I went to Tookie Williams' execution at San Quentin. My boss lives in San Quentin Village one block from the prison gates, so we had front row seats to the protest from a comfortable spot. I did go into the crowds and shoot some video which I plan on editing into something and posting sometime tonight or tomorrow. While I'm solidly against the death penalty and particularly the way it is unevenly dealt, I had mixed feelings about the protest, and I will sure try to convey that in my video. Technorati Tags: tookie, death penalty
Ween are one of my favorite bands and I have shot two of their shows before. This time, I just really wanted to see them, so I only shot a song or to, and badly.
Happy Sunday, everyone! It's a beautiful day here in San Francisco, but I see that it's snowing and otherwise nasty in other parts of the country. Today I've got the third song from Sleater Kinney's set at Vegoose, and with that another Sleater Kinney anecdote...
The second time I saw them, they were the opening band for Belle and Sebastian at the DAR Constitution Hall in DC. I had the B&S tickets for months, but later found out that SK were the opening band so it was an added bonus. It was shortly before One Beat came out and they played only songs from that album to a half empty concert hall with the houselights up. They seemed a little wierded out by that, but still rocked.
Happy Friday, everyone! Today I've got a new blog renter, and a very special video. First up, let's give a warm welcome to my new renter, Priscilla Grim, and her blog Red Statement. She found this blog on Blog Explosion and has become a quick friend. Her blog is both passionately political and deeply personal, and very well written. Agree with her or not, her blog will make you think. So please click on the featured blog thumbnail to the right, once you've watched this next video...
Radio Rockers is my very first paid editing gig. I answered an ad on Tribe.net looking for an editor for a pretty cheap rate. There was a bit of a flame war in the editing tribe about it, but I was looking for stuff to build my reel and at the point where getting paid anything for this was a good deal. Ricardo Carpenter came up with the idea for this film while riding trains through Amsterdam, and started shooting then and there. There was no script, just a strong idea of where he wanted to go with his story. After a few editing sessions, we came to the realization that we'd need to shoot a little more in order to make things work, so I helped out with some shooting, chasing him around the downtown BART stations with my steadycam and doing some lockdown shots in front of South of Market graffiti murals. This was a fun project to work on, and Ricardo and I are planning on collaborating on something else in the near future.
Half Naked Thursday - Vau De Vire Society's Naughty Recess
This is an extra special Half Naked Thursday. The Vau De Vire Society are an amazing avant cabaret troupe here in San Francisco, featuring aerialists, contortionists, dancers, fire performers and musicians. Their performances are as cutting edge as they are sexy, and they get some incredible gigs. Tonight they're performing with the SF Symphony. They performed on the Xingolati cruise with the Flaming Lips. And when the organizers of the Bonaroo Festival decided to put on Vegoose, they asked Vau De Vire to put together a cabaret tent. I was lucky enough to get to go with them to document this amazing weekend. This is Vau De Vire Society in Naughty Recess.
OK, here's another Sleater Kinney song from Vegoose. I've got 9 more of these and probably not enough Sleater Kinney anecdotes to go with them all, so I'll try to spread them out. The first time I saw this band was at the 9:30 club in DC in 2000. They were touring for All Hands on the Bad one. The first opening act was this two piece of a bassist/singer and a drummer. They were really boring so my friend and I went and had a beer downstairs. We heard that the next opening band was on stage and went back up to check them out. It was another two piece, and I was about to go back downstairs. My buddy suggested we at least give them a try, so we did. There was a girl on drums and a guy playing guitar and singing. They were both dressed in all red. The music was blues-based rock with a definite late 60's Brit-rock sound. At one point, the guitarist was playing this hollow body gibson with a slide and sounded exactly like Jimmy Page. The entire audience of jaded indie rock fans who usually ignore the opening band were standing there blown away at how good this band was, and people were rushing to the merch booth to buy their CD. In case you haven't figured it out yet, that band was the White Stripes and a year later they were everywhere. But enough about them, here's more Sleater Kinney...
I've been doing a little bit better in Battle of the Blogs since the last time I posted about it, but today I hit a new low. Blogspot was down for a while today. No blogs hosted on blogspot were displaying. I lost my battle to a blogspot blog during that outage period. That hurts, people. Was my video of jellyfish at the aquarium really worse than a freakin' error message? Well, if you didn't like that video, you probably won't like this next one too much either, but I don't care. I'm feeling evil. Did you see my ranking number? Muhwah ha ha! Evil evil evil!
So here's another video, even though you don't deserve it. It's another clip from the Vegoose Festival. When the Vau De Vire Society opened up their Twisted Cabaret Tent, they did it with a full on parade through the audience, led by Angelo Moore of Fishbone. You'll get to see more of the Vau De Vire Society in a couple of days for Half Naked Thursday!
This past Labor Day weekend, Anne and I took a little trip down the coast to Monterey. They have one of the best aquariums in the country there. There are lots of really neat fish and other sea life to check out, but the most beautiful and interesting display they have are the various jellyfish.
Two-fer Friday! Washington Interns Gone Bad Trailer
OK, in the spirit of Friday, I've got an extra video for you. It's the 2.5 minute trailer for my first film, Washington Interns Gone Bad. There are a couple of bad words, but it should otherwise be SFW.
As I've said before, this blog is not about my political rants. But some of my videos are rather political in nature. This is one of those videos. I did it for MoveOn.org's Bush in 30 Seconds contest. It's not the most original thing in the world, but given my lack of time or resources to get something done, it was all I could do. This silly little commercial really managed to get under one guy's skin on YouTube to the point where he not only spent days sending me a string of the most juvenile hatemail I've ever seen, but he even made his own video that superimposed irrelevant facts about oil usage over my video which he shot from his computer monitor. That's a better reaction than I got at MoveOn, where it was just one of many to spoof the old "your brain on drugs" commercials. So, here's Your Country on Bush...
Now I know that the last thing any of you want to see is me any percent naked, and on video no less! But I really wanted to participate in the latest blogging trend of Half Naked Thursday. Lucky for you, I've had the chance to shoot San Francisco's queen of burlesque, Kitten on the Keys, as she performed in the Vau De Vire Society's Twisted Cabaret Tent at the Vegoose Festival. Quite possibly NSFW, though technically pasties are not nudity.
I'd also like to give a shoutout to my new blog renter, Tor, of Tor's Rants. By his own words, his blog is "A Left-Libertarian Buddhist's take on Life (kitty-kats and fixing cars), the Universe (Maine) and Nothing (politics)." His posts are well thought and well written and while I don't always agree, it's a good read nonetheless. Please hit that button on the right and pay him a visit. Technorati Tags: vlog, hnt, burlesque, vegoose
Welcome to my Video Blog. I'm Jason and I will be your host. Armed with a couple of cheap camcorders and some PC Editing gear, I try to capture a little slice of my life. Sometimes I make movies. Sometimes I shoot at events. Sometimes I shoot random stuff that looks cool. Sometimes my footage is extremely cool. Sometimes it's mindnumbingly dull. Usually it's somewhere in between. All video content on this blog is shot and edited by me unless otherwise noted. Here's a short trailer you can watch. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy.
