Erin Go Bragh
(a row in the town)
That was a blog break! I feel guilty about not blogging in so long, but in looking back on it I realize that I had very good reasons. The upgrade/Julie took the whole of the weekend. As for Thursday...
What a day!
It started off by agreeing to be in Margaret's 30-second film for her class. Actually, Thursday was unofficially 'Margaret Day'. We were filming as early as possible, so I dressed in my finest dark pants and best shirt (which got me a lot of compliments during the day) and I was into work early at 7 AM. I met Margaret for lunch, worked my hours in the afternoon and left work at 4 and we were off to filming!
The location of choice was Dave's (a mutual friend/acquaintance) apartment complex in Oakland. This is an old building, pushing 100, and the rooms had sinking floors and an extremely questionable heating system that had two settings - 'full blast' and 'none'. But that was nothing on the basement. There was only one hallway, a claustrophobic lengthy hallway with offshoots to either side. The ceiling was low, with rusted pipes and loose wires everywhere along its length, and when the ceiling was visible it showed off its decaying asbestos. But most freaky of all was the lighting, which was dim, sickly, and came at wildly irregular intervals. Needless to say, this was an awesome location for a thirty second film on fear.
I've never acted before, so it was good that this was a non-speaking movie in which I was not the main character. Mark Spitznagel, who is just a wonderfully fantastic guy to spend time with, played the role of the person doing their laundry (in the scary laundry room at the end of the hallway) when they notice something doesn't feel right. Now, depending on which version of the backstory Margaret's going to go with, I was either a collection agent or a ghost. Hahaha. But my role was the same regardless - I stayed in a closet that was impossible to see, seeing as how it was both in dark shadow and was off to the left. As Mark walked down the hallway, Margaret followed with the camera behind and over his left shoulder. I had to time stepping out with Margaret going (very quickly) past the back of Mark's head to his right shoulder. Done right, it looked like I had appeared out of nowhere. Mark would freeze, and after a moment, I would step out of the shadows towards him.
We ran 5 or 6 takes and let me tell you, it looked so much better than I thought. The freaky lighting and Margaret's camera work were dead on, but Mark stole the show by acting in ways that were not caught by the camera. But even never having acted before, Mark's performance was so convincing that right away it stopped occurring to me that he was acting as a scared guy and he simply was a scared guy. That, in turn, made me be a scary collection agent, not just a guy acting as one. Tough to describe, but really amazing. And it came out so well! I gotta see the final results. It went a ton better than I thought. Being around actual quality production people like Mark, Margaret, and Martin on the set was an actual thrill. Pretty damn cool.
After that, we went to Filmmakers (a nearby studio) and I was filmed again, this time in an interview format for Hunt For The Holocron (Martin's amazing movie). This was much more comfortable for me, despite the fact that now the camera was always on me. Basically, I had to simply discuss the writing process and what I did for the movie, and halfway through my muse had totally taken over and my speech and debate skills were keeping up. I think there were some great little segments there, which was nice and hopefully the rest of the team thinks so too.
Filmed twice in one day.... I've obviously made it big!
We went out to celebrate at Molly Brannagan's, the new Irish bar that opened in the long-abandoned Towne Fair center near Sesame Inn. The party included (among others) Margaret, Martin, Jessie, Nate, Bethany, and myself. The night was very interesting:
Wait: C-. We were in a line 30 deep for twenty minutes, and had to wait another 15 for a table. But what made it worse was that we had to wait for over an hour for Martin, Nate, and Bethany to get in. By the time they did get in and tried to order food, the kitchen had closed.
Decor: A. Every stone, brick, the entire bar, and everything on the premesis had been imported from Ireland and built on site by Irish craftsman. The bar itself was amazingly well done. There were different sections to sit in all around, with Irish sayings over the doorways, and a fire with comfy leather chairs for sitting and talking with friends. All in all I was extremely impressed.
Service: B+. The servers were jovial and many, and they all wore copious amounts of Irish shamrocks, blinking green necklaces, and ridiculously large Guinness hats, which admittedly I really wanted. Also, one cute waitress had these long green jewel system going down her long hair in the back. That distracted me for a great deal of time. Yikes. (sweat) But I digress. Our waitress was nice and friendly, but came infrequently. That had something to do with the fire-code-breaking amount of people in there, who were six deep the entire length of the bar. Insane.
Music: D-. The DJ was one of the worst I have heard in recent memory. I think (I hope) he was trying to pander to the 'Irish' and 'young' demographics, but he ended up alienating both. Alternating crooning Irish ballads with songs like "Jump, Jump" and "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" is not going to do it on St. Patrick's Day. The DJ actually played "Baby Got Back." The only reason he doesn't get a straight F in that category was because I ended up going nuts to Baby Got Back. Either way, totally fun.
Food and Drink: A-. Great pub burger and fries, and Guinness as fresh as it gets. The only (notable) minus was that Margaret and I ordered Irish car bombs, and they came in plastic cups! I have been back since to report that this is not their usual way of doing things - they were severely swamped during St. Pat's - but it is downright impossible to drop a plastic cup with Jameson's/Bailey's into another plastic cup of Guinness. I eventually ended up having to pour the two together and mix them, which was unsmooth but at least stayed down. That was an issue later because my body likes to either imbibe alcohol or eat... not both. Although it was touchy for a bit, it ended up being fine.
What a night!
Just remembering this reminds me of why I hadn't blogged in so long...
Back on schedule and ready to blog. Ohhh yeah.
That was a blog break! I feel guilty about not blogging in so long, but in looking back on it I realize that I had very good reasons. The upgrade/Julie took the whole of the weekend. As for Thursday...
What a day!
It started off by agreeing to be in Margaret's 30-second film for her class. Actually, Thursday was unofficially 'Margaret Day'. We were filming as early as possible, so I dressed in my finest dark pants and best shirt (which got me a lot of compliments during the day) and I was into work early at 7 AM. I met Margaret for lunch, worked my hours in the afternoon and left work at 4 and we were off to filming!
The location of choice was Dave's (a mutual friend/acquaintance) apartment complex in Oakland. This is an old building, pushing 100, and the rooms had sinking floors and an extremely questionable heating system that had two settings - 'full blast' and 'none'. But that was nothing on the basement. There was only one hallway, a claustrophobic lengthy hallway with offshoots to either side. The ceiling was low, with rusted pipes and loose wires everywhere along its length, and when the ceiling was visible it showed off its decaying asbestos. But most freaky of all was the lighting, which was dim, sickly, and came at wildly irregular intervals. Needless to say, this was an awesome location for a thirty second film on fear.
I've never acted before, so it was good that this was a non-speaking movie in which I was not the main character. Mark Spitznagel, who is just a wonderfully fantastic guy to spend time with, played the role of the person doing their laundry (in the scary laundry room at the end of the hallway) when they notice something doesn't feel right. Now, depending on which version of the backstory Margaret's going to go with, I was either a collection agent or a ghost. Hahaha. But my role was the same regardless - I stayed in a closet that was impossible to see, seeing as how it was both in dark shadow and was off to the left. As Mark walked down the hallway, Margaret followed with the camera behind and over his left shoulder. I had to time stepping out with Margaret going (very quickly) past the back of Mark's head to his right shoulder. Done right, it looked like I had appeared out of nowhere. Mark would freeze, and after a moment, I would step out of the shadows towards him.
We ran 5 or 6 takes and let me tell you, it looked so much better than I thought. The freaky lighting and Margaret's camera work were dead on, but Mark stole the show by acting in ways that were not caught by the camera. But even never having acted before, Mark's performance was so convincing that right away it stopped occurring to me that he was acting as a scared guy and he simply was a scared guy. That, in turn, made me be a scary collection agent, not just a guy acting as one. Tough to describe, but really amazing. And it came out so well! I gotta see the final results. It went a ton better than I thought. Being around actual quality production people like Mark, Margaret, and Martin on the set was an actual thrill. Pretty damn cool.
After that, we went to Filmmakers (a nearby studio) and I was filmed again, this time in an interview format for Hunt For The Holocron (Martin's amazing movie). This was much more comfortable for me, despite the fact that now the camera was always on me. Basically, I had to simply discuss the writing process and what I did for the movie, and halfway through my muse had totally taken over and my speech and debate skills were keeping up. I think there were some great little segments there, which was nice and hopefully the rest of the team thinks so too.
Filmed twice in one day.... I've obviously made it big!
We went out to celebrate at Molly Brannagan's, the new Irish bar that opened in the long-abandoned Towne Fair center near Sesame Inn. The party included (among others) Margaret, Martin, Jessie, Nate, Bethany, and myself. The night was very interesting:
Wait: C-. We were in a line 30 deep for twenty minutes, and had to wait another 15 for a table. But what made it worse was that we had to wait for over an hour for Martin, Nate, and Bethany to get in. By the time they did get in and tried to order food, the kitchen had closed.
Decor: A. Every stone, brick, the entire bar, and everything on the premesis had been imported from Ireland and built on site by Irish craftsman. The bar itself was amazingly well done. There were different sections to sit in all around, with Irish sayings over the doorways, and a fire with comfy leather chairs for sitting and talking with friends. All in all I was extremely impressed.
Service: B+. The servers were jovial and many, and they all wore copious amounts of Irish shamrocks, blinking green necklaces, and ridiculously large Guinness hats, which admittedly I really wanted. Also, one cute waitress had these long green jewel system going down her long hair in the back. That distracted me for a great deal of time. Yikes. (sweat) But I digress. Our waitress was nice and friendly, but came infrequently. That had something to do with the fire-code-breaking amount of people in there, who were six deep the entire length of the bar. Insane.
Music: D-. The DJ was one of the worst I have heard in recent memory. I think (I hope) he was trying to pander to the 'Irish' and 'young' demographics, but he ended up alienating both. Alternating crooning Irish ballads with songs like "Jump, Jump" and "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" is not going to do it on St. Patrick's Day. The DJ actually played "Baby Got Back." The only reason he doesn't get a straight F in that category was because I ended up going nuts to Baby Got Back. Either way, totally fun.
Food and Drink: A-. Great pub burger and fries, and Guinness as fresh as it gets. The only (notable) minus was that Margaret and I ordered Irish car bombs, and they came in plastic cups! I have been back since to report that this is not their usual way of doing things - they were severely swamped during St. Pat's - but it is downright impossible to drop a plastic cup with Jameson's/Bailey's into another plastic cup of Guinness. I eventually ended up having to pour the two together and mix them, which was unsmooth but at least stayed down. That was an issue later because my body likes to either imbibe alcohol or eat... not both. Although it was touchy for a bit, it ended up being fine.
What a night!
Just remembering this reminds me of why I hadn't blogged in so long...
Back on schedule and ready to blog. Ohhh yeah.
Labels: Caissa, Friendship
posted by Mat | 11:48 AM
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