BRAINS

So, this is a journal post that I am excited about!  A couple of Friends and I are putting together a short, independent film titled, BRAINS.  It's a comedy about one zombie and his search for a meal.

I'm also in the process of creating a website so I can post my works on the web for anyone interested in watching them.  If BRAINS comes out good, I plan on making it into a webisode series with a new webisode premiering on my website every 3 months.  I would preferably like to release more than 4 webisodes  a year, but due to school and basically life in general, this may not be possible.

I've had a couple of ideas about what I want to name my website, but so far all of these domain names have been taken.  I want to name it something along the lines of _________ Productions, or ________ Entertainment.

I've also been playing around with Final Cut Pro 7 recently and have found a lot of neat little tricks that I could use to make my BRAINS film look that much better and cooler.  Right now I am only in the script writing stages, but I have also acquired some props and makeup that I plan on using for my BRAINS idea.

Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

So much to do in so little time!

I am so busy lately with school, work, writing, and spending time with my fiancee and our new puppy that I could just SCREAM!  Basically, the photo to the left pretty much sums up how I have been feeling lately. . . minus the blood, of course.

Every Monday and Wednesday I am at school from nine in the morning till approximately 6 or 7 depending on how long I decide to work out after class.

Tuesdays is my worst day.  I'm at school from nine in the morning till 8:20 at night.  Then I go home and do some homework and relax a little.

Thursdays I am at school from nine in the morning till approximately 6 or 7 depending once again on how long I work out for.

Fridays are finally my day to relax as I only work 9AM-11AM and I have the rest of the day to either work out, have fun, and do homework.  The weekends are completely free and is the time when I should get most of my work done . . . but who wants to do homework on the weekends?

Don't get me wrong.  I love my life right now and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but sometimes it can be a bit too much.  I really have to work on getting more done on the weekends because I just do not have that much time during the week.

American Curriculum and the Debilitating Effect on Creativity

Dr. Linda Taylor presented a very well put-together speech on creativity and how it relates to education.  She described how education (particularly American education) confines creativity and only awards thinking that is not done out of the box.  Her mentioning the fact that Americans have not been winning Nobel Prizes as an example of how education has acted as a hindrance in some cases.  If children were taught early on that out of the box thinking was a good thing, then perhaps we would have more stand out individuals coming out of the school system.

The assertion that the heads of schools and school districts are overwhelmingly administrative types and do not start out as teachers is quite alarming.  I believe that there should be an equal ratio of teachers and non-teachers in administrative positions to make sure that all of the business decisions being made are first and foremost in the best interests of the students.

Perhaps the best part of Linda's talk were the examples she provided to illuminate us on how long the idea of thinking outside of the box has been around, but still works of art and articles are being created detailing how the schools are forcing children to think one way instead of approaching education from an outside the box perspective.  First came the poem which depicted a child's creativity being held back by the school systems, then came the song, then the article, and finally the video we all had to watch prior to her presentation.  All four illustrated the creative constraints students are placed under by the school system. 

 I particularly liked the song which told the story of a boy who wanted to color a flower all the colors of the rainbow, but he was told that flowers are red and that is how he should do it.  He conformed and once again, creativity was constrained.  But the last chorus or verse of the song almost made a call to arms to stop putting these children inside these boxes and destroying their creative impulses.  This last part of the song really spoke to me because it gave a little hope that the situation in some schools may be resolved and creativity may be allowed to flow from children after all.

Mulling Over the Final Creative Project

Although I am enjoying all of my classes so far this semester, I cannot help but think about and get excited about my final creative project which I will start next year.  I am so glad that there is a choice to do a thesis or a creative project.  While I have done several papers in the past with theses, I must admit that it is one of my weakest areas.  I am just not all that interested in or very good at developing a thesis. 

While my prose definitely needs work (which is evident by the 180 page novel I have sitting on my computer's hard drive collecting metaphorical dust), I believe the ability to develop and tell a good and sometimes intricate story is one of my strengths.  For my creative project, I will be shooting and acting in a mockumentary about a divorced, middle-aged vampire hunter with a goofy New York-like accent, a beer gut, a comb over, and a penchant for foul language and crude jokes.

This idea has been rolling around in my head for almost ten years now, and I have written several screenplays about this character, Wally Swayzek.  He is also the subject of the book I am currently writing.  Now, my ultimate goal is to someday make a fairly big budgeted film about Wally, but right now that is obviously not feasible.  So instead I am taking the low budget, mockumentary approach and placing my character with a small film crew which will film and only sometimes interact with him as he goes through his daily activities and culminating in a vampire hunt that doesn't exactly go to plan.

Even though this project is a long way's away, I have already begun to plan some things out, including a script (I hope to have the first draft done by Christmas '09).  For the film, I will be purchasing my own camera to film in my home town of Orland Park, Illinois.  I have already started to save up for the film's expenses, and I am also willing to use my credit card to finance the film as well.  

Well, I think that is enough about my creative project for now, but count on reading several more updates about the pre-pre-pre-production of this film in the very near future.

What I enjoy doing

So far for this journal, I have written some abstract pieces on what makes me tick and how I handle being creative in different artistic endeavors.  I also wrote about what inspires me to be creative and how I use that inspiration to create the things I do.

This time, I thought I might do something different and more practical.  I just want to detail what kinds of creative things I do and why I enjoy doing them.

Screenplay

Movies have always been my main passion, and I always wanted to be a writer.  When I was younger, I had no idea how movies were made and I was extremely pleased when I found out about the writing process that went into writing a movie.  I learned everything about screenplays: the format, the length, and technical aspects that needed to adhere to Hollywood guidelines.  I also enjoy writing novels (which I will discuss next) but what I find that is so unique about screenplays is how you can describe the way a scene comes together and it can influence the narrative.  An example of this would be a slow motion shot that, if described in a novel would just come across as silly.

Novel

Novels are far different than screenplays.  When I write a novel, I take advantage of the things that this format allows me to do.  When you write a screenplay, you have to usually keep it between 90 to 120 pages and this is quite a hindrance at times.  There have been so many times where I've had to cut things out of screenplays for the sake of keeping it at an appropriate length.  With novels, I am able to basically add in as many storylines and details as I want to without really worrying about the length.  I mean, The Stand by Stephen King is over a thousand pages for crying out loud.

SADIE

My fiancee and I just recently adopted a 3 month old puppy named Sadie.  She is just like any other young dog.  She's curious, silly, not house trained - yet - and has this absolutely undeniable energy that is just infectious.

The way she acts everyday is how I wish the creativeness that I know flows within me would come out on a daily basis.  Completely unhindered and without regard for the consequences.

It seems like everyone of her senses are constantly in overdrive.  She's always smelling the air, licking (taste) whatever she can reach, pawing (feeling) everything in the apartment, looking at us with her head slightly cocked to the left, or perking her ears up at the faintest of sounds.

She absorbs everything and doesn't let anything inhibit her in the slightest.  I believe if humans lived their lives like this, we would find so much more inspiration in the simplest of things in life.  From the way a tree sways in the wind to how a brand new puppy finds interest in seemingly everything around her.

It's all about balance

The school year is always tough for me creative-wise.  I like to take on many projects that interest me, and it is sometimes hard to do this when I am attending classes on a daily basis.  Not to mention work, which always manages to get in the way of interests.  Obviously, my school work and job has to come before my extracurricular activities because I will be penalized if I do not finish it right away.

However, I find that if I just take a moment, take a few deep breaths, I can sort everything out and complete everything I have to do.  This week alone I have to do almost a dozen readings, analyze a website, and catch up on a class that I wasn't registered for in time to attend the first meeting.

Oh, and did I mention it's a once a week three hour class?  Yeah, not a very good habit to miss the first meeting of one of those.  Besides my class load, I've also applied to several jobs and am still waiting to hear back from several of them.  My own little pet project I have going on right now is my very first novel which I have been working on for about three or four months now.  I'm on Chapter 11 and page 158 and I've been finding myself on a real roll now.

I've tried to write a novel before but only got so far as approximately 30 pages because either I found the daunting task of filling out 400 pages or so too hard or it just didn't flow as well as the books I have read.  With my book now flowing extremely well - at least I think so - and a in-depth outline for the remaining chapters and proposed sequels to this book in progress, I find that I just can't stop writing the book because of other obligations.

Luckily for me my classes as a Telecommunications (Digital Storytelling) have proven to be stimulating, challenging, and interesting, so when I am doing schoolwork instead of writing my book at least I am not frustrated or bored to tears.  

So far for this week of school, my schoolwork nor my novel have suffered.  I have found myself capable of performing both to the best of my ability, and I think I have the balance I have brought to both obligations to thank for that.