Archive for the ‘Obama’ tag

Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse!

I got myself a job. I’m now editing for a little agency in Scottsdale called Mission E Commerce. So far things are going well, working all day and going to school at night is going to get real old really fast, but I’ve worked a full schedule and passed classes before, so I probably just need to HTFU. This is the first time I’ve had the job title of “editor” so I’m pretty stoked to have that first career hurdle behind me. The work we are doing isn’t real exciting and the clients are pretty particular, but I’m sure as we grow we’ll be able to get better and better jobs. In the mean time it pays well and they seem to like me, so I don’t really care what I have to edit.

The screening for my latest weekend film festival was saturday. Only seven teams finished the challenge but the ones that made it were pretty good. We ended up getting third place, which I am happy with. We went a very simplistic route so I’m not sure we deserved a whole lot more then that. The films that beat us were good, the production value of one was pretty low but it was clever and that’s kinda how these things work.

I got to go see Stars on friday and they put on a great concert. The opening band was a local act named Back Ted N Ted. A friend had shown them to me a few months ago because he was in talks to produce a music video for them. The music ranges from some cool electronic rock to some weirder almost experimental stuff but you should definitely check em out. After seeing them rock out on stage I’m definitely going to try to get that video to actually happen. Our little group has now done a few videos but all have been hip hop or rap and I really want to direct a rock video.
Stars took the stage soon after and while I’ve been into Stars for quite a while I’m sad to say that I had no idea Amy Millan played guitar. The band uses two vocalists on most of their songs but I didn’t know that both also played other instruments. There was a session guitarist who played a lot of the guitar stuff and almost every solo, which I hate to see, but Amy definitely played her share and did some acoustic stuff. The other lead, Torquil Campbell, actually plays the trumpet parts in a few songs, the keyboard and the melodica. The band rocked the house for the next hour, took a break and then proceeded to play just about every song on their last two albums. The show was at The Brickhouse, which I had never been too because I’m lame, but it’s a nice little bar and was packed. I’ve been pretty proud about how Phoenix turns out for indie shows. The band could have easily filled one of the small venues in town, they seemed pretty surprised at the turnout and were sincerely appreciative. After a great set the two founding members of the band came back out for an encore and played “Barricade” which was awesome.

I went out with a new friend of mine last night. We met a few weekends back on the set of an ASU production I was helping out on. I honestly had no plan of action, I just knew I wanted to see her so we took a walk down Mill Ave and ended up at Tempe Beach Park (which is surprisingly nice). It was really low key but a lot of fun. I felt a little bad that I didn’t have some great idea of what to do, but we simply enjoyed each other’s company and that seemed to turn out for the best.

I leave you with the following two videos, they have nothing in common other then the fact that I like them both. During the week I often collect links that I think I’d like to reference in a post and usually don’t end up writing about them. However these are too good to not share.

A great promo for the Discovery Channel, the VFX were done by a cool production house called Method.

If you’re still on the fence about the whole Hillary vs Obama thing this should pretty much cement things for ya :D

Thanks to everyone who send me a note or a card, I’ve had a pretty good Birthday. Being 23 was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to being 24 :D
David Hildreth

hope

I’ve talked a little about the upcoming election but I’d like to now make my position clear. I support Barack Obama for president. I do so for a variety of reasons, but the main reason is because I see something different in him. I like the above cartoon because I think it shows a difference in attitude between generations. Barack Obama’s message is mainly just hope, at the heart of his campaign is the idea that we CAN fix our countries problems. I really do believe that it’s time for us to look inward and begin to work on social issues. Say what you want about our role as world police, but I think that it’s time to turn our efforts and money back towards our own shores. Healthcare, social security and our economy have been neglected and I think that a real change in the White House is what is needed to fix our problems. “Socialized” medicine is a must, our government could very well be headed for bankruptcy but it’s citizens are guaranteed it without healthcare reform. I hate how pessimistic people are about it though, how can you change something if you don’t believe it can be done? A lot of the people I’ve talked to say they don’t want socialized medicine because they don’t believe the government is competent enough to run it. They don’t want the government telling them when and where to see a doctor, they don’t want to lose their perceived control of their health. It doesn’t take more then a few minutes of research to find out that in other countries (like Canada or the UK) people aren’t assigned a doctor, they don’t have to go though miles of red tape to visit the emergency room. Doctors make good wages and the overall quality of care is, by virtually every study done, a lot better than it is in the US. There is a lie in our country that says that publicly funded medicine is bad, it’s been around for more then half a decade and it’s time for it to be stopped. We have government run police and fire departments, federal mail delivery and even television, people just don’t like to think about it that way. If something as important as a local police department is overseen by a city, county, state and federal bureaucracy why do we then not trust our government to run our healthcare system? We are basically the only 1st world country without it and our overall standard of living and life expectancy is far worse then most of Europe. We spend more then anyone and get the least in return.

The header of Barack Obama’s website says “I’m asking you to believe not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I’m asking you to believe in yours.” I’ll take that over someone who has only failed in the past, someone who changes his story to get elected, someone who brings up tragedy to scare up votes or even someone who’s ideas sounds good but are without substance.

This is Barack Obama’s response to the 2008 State of the Union address, I think it does a great job of showing who he is. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing skip ahead to about 4:00 and watch until the end. He’ll be here in Arizona on 1/30/08 and I’m looking forward to going and hearing him speak.

I’ve seen quite a few movies since I last posted. One was of course Cloverfield, which I loved. I think you can really tell a lot about someone’s taste in film by their opinion of that movie. Some others were There Will Be Blood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Lives of Others. I should have seen The Lives of Others like a year ago, it won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006 and has been on DVD and Blu-Ray for a while. I really enjoyed it, it’s about a man who works for the East German secret police and how he gets involved in the lives of people he is suppose to be spying on. I highly recommend it, it’s no surprise it’s gotten all the attention it has. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was also very good, it’s about a man who has a stroke and is paralyzed from head to toe. His only means of communication is to blink, and with the help of others he writes a book. The movie is more about making the book and how the man felt as he lay helpless in the hospital. There are excerpts of the book in the movie but I am excited to read all of what he wrote. The movie is a french film so finding it in a theater might be a bit tough, but it’s definitely worth driving across town for. There Will Be Blood was incredible, people have been calling it the director’s masterpiece and I can only agree. It’s a dark drama about an oil man, who’s greed and competition ruins everyone around him. It’s a must see, just be ready for it, you do feel every minute it’s two hour running time.

It’s day 2454 of the job hunt (ok I made that up, I’m currently too lazy to open up iCal) and things are still going alright. I’ll probably start working something next week to pay some bills, but I’m not giving up on an editing position yet. I have some new leads and I’ve recently tweaked my demo reel a bit so we’ll see what happens. I’m also, once again, trying to get on work study. Hopefully now that I am a little further removed from my old job I’ll meet the requirements. I am also mulling over getting a stipend from my student loan. I can not begin to describe to you how amazing it has been to just focus on school. Is it worth about $6,000? I’m not sure yet, but when you figure I’m going to owe an embarrassing amount of money anyway, I might as well milk that 20 year payment plan for all it’s worth.

I’m not sure if many of the people who read this have ever gone through a photoshop tutorial, but in my years of interneting this is definitely the best and most educational series I’ve come across. You Suck at Photoshop is a real step forward in tutorials, the host is lovable and confident and he always gets across exactly what you need to know. There are three other episodes, and I highly recommend watching them all. The third is one of the funniest and probably the most accessible. enjoy ;)

Until the next time I’m bored enough to write here,
David

    Newer Entries »