Archive for the ‘Johnny Bertram’ tag

Trust me, I’m a scientist.

Tuesday night my friend Silas brought over his cut of the latest project for Praxis Church. We talked about some changes, how I would have done this different, how we could improve upon that, or add in something else. The data was transferred to Tome, my cheap but trusted external hard drive. This drive got me through most of film school and was where I kept almost all of my current work. I moved the drive from my Macbook Pro over to my PC so I could open a Premiere Pro project (I hate Premiere with every cell in my body, just FYI) and then decided not to open that Premiere project. I could explain this, but I promise the story would just get even more nerdy (boring) so I’ll skip that.
I use software called Mac Drive to read/write my Mac (HFS+) hard drive in Windows. This software no doubt employs some sort of dark magic gained by a deal with the devil and any decent professional only trusts it so far. But what the heck, it sorta works and I’m smarter than all those other pros. Right? No, I’m dumb. I pushed my luck, and when Windows was taking forever to shut down, I just pulled the plug. Yeah, we’re all told this is bad, but in reality there is only a small chance of getting hosed by it. And in this instance I did in fact get completely screwed over.

I kid you not, I feel like data loss is the worst thing than can happen in my profession. Yes, getting cheated by a client is bad, simply being without work is terrible. However, there is really nothing that devastates me like a drive that won’t mount, won’t repair and won’t rebuild.

I tried all the tricks I’ve got and then when I still couldn’t get it to mount I went into full freakout mode for a couple hours. I have a backup and archival system in place but, with the amount of data I’ve accumulated for Praxis projects in the last year, I hadn’t kept up. Nothing was in danger of being completely lost, thankfully I’m more responsible than that. I pride myself on keeping everything pertinent to a project, I love having the freedom to change a shot for my reel, or resurrect a cut for a client. You have to have some decent luck to keep that up though. My luck ran out and I lost 6 projects. I still have the master renders, I still have much of the capture scratch, but the project files, images, effects and color grading is all lost.

Meh, I let this sort of thing bother me way too much. Overall this year has been sorta lame. Other than BSU’s win I can’t say a lot of good has happened.
Which is bull shit, I shouldn’t have such a bad attitude. My life is rather kick ass, by even first world standards.
lol, that’s a terrible way of quantifying happiness.

I now live in a world temporarily without Jay Leno. So, I guess it can’t get much better.

Here is the video that was first mentioned in this post. Silas did all the real post production work, even without my drive crashing I quickly realized how terrible it was of me to want to change things. I won’t even say what I wanted to change, because it’s immaterial. Silas had finally gotten the chance to edit a video and he did a great job. It’s his edit with some normal changes from the rest of the team and it’s fantastic.

Identifying your Apocalypse – Survivor’s Guide to the Apocalypse. from Praxis Church on Vimeo.

The new sermon series is about the end of the world and thankfully it’s not some silly study of a movie including Kirk Cameron. It’s just an overview of the different theories with an emphasis on what really matters, not scary, imaginative theology. The videos however, are informational and made with the highest attention to biblical, historical and cinematic accuracy. :)

If you can figure out the source of the video’s music without looking at the description you’re my new favorite person.

Cameron the Safety Net

It’s been an alright week. I got sick last weekend but thankfully it didn’t last long. It did give me an excuse to chug some NyQuil though… NyQuil sleep is the best.

Last Friday I got to go see Baz Lurhmann’s newest film: Australia. It’s his attempt at making an epic, like a David Lean epic… I love David Lean, and while this movie is nothing compared to what Lawrence of Arabia is it’s definitely worth seeing. The sort of movie that is best seen in a theatre, I highly recommend it. At two and half hours it’s a tad long, but the performances are solid, the plot alright and the cinematography breathtaking. Evidently for some of the war shots are just composited footage from Tora! Tora! Tora!. Recycling effects shots is nothing new, but with footage that old and a production budget as big as this, it seemed a little odd to me. Some of the handy work was done by a friend so I paid extra attention… and the final product looks great.
This post’s soundtrack (as always if you’re reading this on Facebook follow the “original post” button below) is an early mix of a track on Johnny Bertram’s new album (I think I use to live with this one guy who hooked me up). I’m not sure if it’s ok that I’m posting it, but I just did. Do enjoy the track, the new album is good and great. When I first heard Luke’s brother’s music I was blown away at how talented he is, but even the early mixes of these new tracks show how he has really started to come into his own. The album (at least as I have it) includes a few tracks that are on his already available EPs, but they are completely remixed with some new instrumentation. I have no idea when the album will be out, my guess would be shortly after it’s done.

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I love Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, as a matter of fact it’s the best movie ever made. I think everyone wants to see themselves as Ferris; he’s confident, in charge, easy going and endlessly creative. However in the end I know I’m really Cameron, that’s not all bad. He is genuine, he is loyal… but he’s also just a bit pathetic.
A good thing in my life is at a crossroads. A few months ago a good friend and I decided to see if there was anything beyond our friendship. There were some really good times, there were some really awful ones… and while it’s taken me a while, I now feel it’s time to move on. I really care about her, and I know she cares about me. I kept telling myself that the worst thing that could happen was for us to not have a fair shot at a relationship. It’s become quite clear that I not only have no idea what that means, but it’s far from the worst thing that could have happened. We were close for a while, and I wish it could have lasted, but it didn’t. I wanted to be with her so badly, but more then I wanted a meaningful relationship I want other things for her and for us. I want her to really seek God, to really digest Blue Like Jazz, to find someone who shares her spiritual beliefs. I want her to feel safe and secure, to know that she has someone to talk to about anything. I want her to see how talented and beautiful she is, I want her to have more self respect. I want our friendship more then I want to never talk to her again, more then I want my pride or to avoid heartbreak. I now see that the pros and cons of me and her add up to a great friendship, nothing more.

Bleh… I’m glad that’s out.
Take it easy, I’m going to go try and not think about this for the next forever or so.
David Hildreth