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So, I notice that my co-worker is acting strange while my boss chats with her. She can't seem to put a sentence together to contribute to the conversation. The only thing coming out of her mouth is "oh yeh, that's cool."

The boss retreats into her office leaving co-worker to the task at hand. She sits at a computer terminal with a stack of books to revise. I'm at the computer next to her trying to figure out how to link my lj with fb. I start idle chatting with her, but she requests silence becuz she can't concentrate. Out of the blue, however, she asks me "can you play SWEET JANE?"so I'm opening up grooveshark and searching out the Lou Reed song. She ups the volume. I exit (to actually get work done).

I'm in another part of the building when my boss walks up to ask me if I know what's wrong with my co-worker. I say that I got that peculiar feeling about her as her speech was oddly incoherent." And was she having an aneurysm?...

My boss goes back to her office trying to figure it all out. She probably approached co-worker with a confrontation about why she is acting weird. Next thing I know, the boss is telling employees that she'll be driving said co-worker to the hospital and she'll be back when she's back.

Hello blog readers:

I'm still here, hacking my way to the top by plugging at my keyboard for livejournal. If you've been reading my blog, then you've probably taken notice of the drastic change I've made in formatting my entries like scenes from a movie.

I have a lot more of those to come, but I'm placing them in a group filter. If you want access to my scattered feature film scripts, let me know. Some of you may already be included, so if you know who you are, rest easy.

19th May, 2013 © blanket sin – "macular_degeneration"

I've been stumped in a certain scene I've been trying to write.   It basically covers morning rituals in a blasé vogue.   From the moment the character in the story opens his eyes, he sees the ceiling lamp, his eyes pan over to the window to see day break, then the cat.   From there, he lifts himself out of bed and searches his slippers while checking the time.

I think there is more to the walking thru the house to get to the bathroom, however, which is why I'm getting so stuck.   There is a certain limp I do not know how to convey in this sequence without pointing the camera to the character.   I suppose it can be done by simply holding the camera while one walks to their destination AND mimicking an exaggerated limp for the purpose of camera effect.   Would it be understood? I dunno.

And maybe it's just me, but I find when I've been off my feet, it takes awhile to get the blood circulating.

These drawrings were done, I think, way back in 2008.   At least the rough sketches were done on the back of a calendar with my work hours for September '8, so… I left out the fish tank as a morning ritual, and because the rough sketch shows a goldfish in the tank, I'm 99% sure I've been hording this trash for five years.   And I'm still not done because these objects are supposed to be done in storyboard format.   The way I've done it here reminds me of my eye doctor diagnosing my eyes as eligible candidates for Macular Degeneration.

Ever since I can remember, I've always left out blank spots in my drawrings, but I think that's only because I wasn't very good at it, the blank spots I left out were usually a result of the pieces of the puzzle not fitting together proportion-wise.   For instance, a scenic landscape where a palm tree in the foreground of a skyrise building doesn't intersect the way it appears because I didn't take into account where to draw the base of the trunk.   That sort of thing.

Now look at me. Geez.

18th May, 2013 © blanket sin – "clutter"

Something came over me in April when I completely forgot my sister's birthday. I didn't remember I had forgotten until two weeks later. So I started thinking of how I was going to find a birthday card with a belated theme.

I had recently brought home a DVD from the library (Silver Linings) and when my landlady spoke to my sister about it, my sister asked if she could borrow it. I said sure, but it turns out she never got around to watching it anyway. I asked her why, and she responded that she didn't know how.

???

Apparently she has difficulty changing the TV mode to "input" and since her son is away at colleger, she has nobody to pop the DVD into her machine. I can't understand her lack of technological know-how because the movie Silver Linings is pretty good. Worth trying to figure out the TV remote, anyway. It was the sad face emoticon she texted back to me when I dismissed it all with "your loss" as I returned the DVD back to the library.

That sad face is what I recalled when it dawned on me that I forgot her b-day. After work I went to Amoeba Records and picked up a copy of Silver Linkings so she would have it when her son returned from college for the weekend. I drew up my own birthday card — all those years in art school finally coming in handy. I think it worked out well because I never know what to get my sister for her birthday (or x-mas for that matter) and this time I knew exactly what she wanted.

28th April, 2013 © blanket sin – "weblank"

So, I exported the letterhead and typed this all up in InDesign. The font I used is Chandler. I got the idea when I read one of the entries to the Teeritz Agenda. I really like how his letterhead stationary looks and I found it inspiring.

I won't, however, be typing with my typewriter on this letterhead because I don't like the effect laser jet printers give to a piece of paper. So, for my next project, I will work on making an illustration board with hand printed URL, return address, phone, etc. AND the WebLink logo shall be inked by yours truly. I have that font on the computer (Jugend), but I can't seem to print it properly because it is protected. Otherwise! of course I could care less about the effect a laser printer gives to a piece of paper. This version I've uploaded has jaggies.

I haven't done production for a long time. I'm no expert with the Roman style calligraphy lettering. I don't have rights to reproduce Jugend either. Oh well, I'm sure I'll hear from somebody's lawyer when and if they take note. I've got to keep my chops up to par somehow and I simply can't bring myself to practice calligraphy, paste-up production, and silkscreening without having a project that will mean something to me. I can't say how long it will take, but I'll try to make an effort to upload the finished version so that you can compare quality from inception to completion.

One thing I find fascinating is the difference between exporting a text document to pdf format from a computer (using this vintage typewriter font) and scanning a similar document into the computer from a hard copy (generated on my Royal Quiet De Luxe 1949 portable typewriter).

I don't know how long I've procrastinated buying the book Save the cat because I had gotten a copy from the library and skimmed through that one. Well, I met a fellow screenwriter who advised me to get myself a copy of it, read it, study it, and possibly light a candle for it. So I asked him if he had any tips on color-coding uses of highlighters and he showed me how he uses blue to highlite names and titles, yellow for all purposes highliting, pink is for only the most important stuff, etc. So I couldn't find my blue highlighter and I started to come up with my own system.

Because screenwriting has a basic rules for writing that doesn't stray too far from screenplays and theatrical plays and TV scripts, a lot of the terminology is the same. For instance, I bought myself a software program called PowerStructure to help me put my screenplay together. The manual which explains the basics for using PowerStructure doesn't go into the writing theory aspect of Character Roles and/or Story Stage. The software itself comes with pre-programmed descriptions for these categories and they are: [Shapeshifter, Trickster, Threshold Guardian, Shadow, Mentor, Hero, and Sleeping Giant]. I'm sure people who've taken a class or two on writing might be familiar with these terms, but I'm not. Fortunately, Powerstructure allows me to add and delete Character Roles (and Story Stages) as I see fit. So, because I really like Save the Cat, I'm going to apply Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet to the Story Stage descriptions. I'll be replacing the defaults [return to elixir, Resurrection, Road back, Reward, Ordeal, Approach to the inmost cave, Test, allies & enemies, Crossing the threshold, Meeting with the mentor, Refusal of call, Call to adventure, Ordinary world, and The lab rat (that last one seems liek something I might've added)] with [Opening image, Theme stated, Set-up, Catalyst, Debate, Break into two, B story, Fun and games, Midpoint, Bad guys close in, All is lost, Dark night of the soul, Break into three, Finale, Final image].

And, if you've been reading the screenplay scenes I've been scanning into my blog, you might've noticed that I type a title for the scene, right next to the page number. I'm going to try to utilize these titles as Character Role descriptions.

11th April, 2013 © blanket sin – "biomeme"

I lived in a house smack dab between downtown and Hollywood. It was a decent size house, with a storage room adjacent to the laundry room that would've made for an excellent bedroom. Being the youngest and terrified of closed spaces, that didn't happen mainly because the only entrance to the storage space was from the backyard. I guess my parents thought I would've had girls in and out of there all the time, even at age twelve. So I slept in an enclosed patio which was as small as a jail cell and cold as Machu Picchu during winter, while my sisters shared a bedroom and my parents shared a second bedroom. Now I live in the house behind the main house where I grew up. While not to be mistake for the storage unit, I pay a reduced rent because the landlords are family. I'm in close proximity to public transit, night life key points, and I've got a view of the citiscape that can impress the typical out-of-my league kind of girl.
I rode a Schwinn ten-speed. I took that bike on some long stretches of "running-away" mind frame expeditions. On the days when I went to the USC dental offices for my orthodontics appointment, I rode the bus. Now I drive a Chevy S10 pickup truck and ride a Harley Davidson. I don't commute very far to work, but traveling by bus would be more of a hassle since it would involve transferring to two different lines for a location that is only a ten minute drive on the freeway.
I was in a relationship with "the broad" whom I stalked during recess and lunch. She was a rebel who strayed from the norm of playground herding during lunch when she and her girlfriend would escape to a far off corner of campus during these breaks and play on the bungalows (exercise bars. aka monkey bars). Now I only have meaningless flings with girls I meet at bars, or if that doesn't pan out, I go to movies with the common housefly.
I feared gangs. I associated them with violence and killing as a result of a cousin who met an untimely end. One night, my uncle, a war veteran whom I feel looked and acted a lot like Ernest Hemingway (though I've never met Hemingway), rang our doorbell in the middle of the night. It must've been winter because I had moved my sleeping quarters to the living room sofa where the front door was, and my uncle was bawling incoherently trying to confide with my dad over the discovery that his nephew had been slain. Now I fear bears, mountain lions and the occasional text messaging driver.
I worked at home helping dad with the yard work, white washing fences, painting the house and just being a miniature version of him. No allowance other than what it cost for a bus pass to go to school. Now I work in a library. I wish I was a librarian, but I quit going to college before ever entertaining the idea that a degree in library science might be an option. I worked in a library as a Page when I was in high school too but I had to quit that job when I dropped out of high school.
I wanted to be a cartoonist because I could make my friends laugh when I drew their favorite cartoon characters. I loved reading comic strips. My favorite illustrator was Sergio Aragones of Mad Magazine. I also loved Gary Trudeau, creator of Doonsbury. Now I want to take long weekend trips to a remote location near a river where I can camp and fish for trout. I would set up a portable typewriter to work on the great American novel/screenplay and read Hunter S. Thompson so I could create a unique style of writing the way Hunter Thompson invented Gonzo Journalism.

Still haven't trekked my way to Hemingway's Lounge. Every time I make my way out there, on the way home from work, I get this negative vibe that ranges anywhere from 'how to get home after having a few drinks and avoid any encounters with the Hollywood beat popo' to 'what if a bunch of snotty librarians hang out there and I end up feeling left out'. I don't think I've ever been any good in a "new school" kind of environment, but the watering holes directly along my route home are few. I've got to suffer traffic because a bee line to Hollywood doesn't include the freeway, it's so close. Then there's the criteria of what day of the week would make for a memorable night of exploring the local bars. While Friday and Saturdays are fool proof done deals, those nights only increase the likelihood of having to hail down a cab and leave my transportation behind.

I digress, nevertheless, that being in Hollywood would allow for recuperation while sitting through a 90 minute movie. I know it must sound a bit psychotic to be planning a single night alone for a drink or two this way, but damn it! where's my birthday beer I was promised by the welsher at work!!! Talk about flakes.

So, in an effort to put this thing together, I stumbled onto an article about a blog maintained by volunteer New York librarians. While I'm all for meet-up rendezvous, it's the pictures I can do without. Who does that? I mean, it's understandable how somebody going out with a group of fellow co-workers might want to take a picture for prosperity, but when I go out and meet total strangers at meet-ups, who cares?