justin_guber - @ 20six.co.uk

Faces In The Night

A while back a girlfriend of mine once said that if I ever appeared in the pages of Faces or Juice in one of those party sections she'd kill me.
That's me on the left, appearing in the latest issue of Faces at the Guinness Black Union Party together with my colleagues.

But since my ass got dumped by the girl I guess I shouldn't be expecting a hitman anytime soon.

15.6.05 09:57

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Lesbian cow study underway in Malaysia

Taken from Vegan Porn, courtesy of Effigy.

"Dave Noisy has found news that there is still a herd of wild cattle left in the world. There is one left, and only one, it's in Malaysia, and it would appear that its members are, for the most part, heterosexual. There is also one, and only one professor of animal welfare in nearby Australia. The two singularities are combining to research why domestic cows mount each other during fertile periods. That's right, as Professor Phillips says, "With domestic cattle the cows show mounting homosexual behaviour when they are on heat and the wild cattle don't show that.""

I then scrolled down to find this other post, which isn't really relevant to the 'Shocking Asia' section, but still odd:

"In college, I learned about the practice of surgically redirecting a bull's penis through the sidewall of his abdomen and letting him run around with the cows. They would mount the cows in heat, and just do their thing out the side instead of on her inside."

So this is what vegans do. Discuss lesbian cows and redirect bull cock.

15.6.05 10:02

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Read the classifieds lately?

Courtesy of Julia. Plenty more where that came from if you click the pic.

16.6.05 06:22

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Shrieking Women & Winking Men

One of the funnier sides of advertising which I haven't partaken to enough to get used to the absurdity of it all is the casting process.

The production company assigned for the TV commercial (otherwise known as TVC's by those in the industry who can't be fucked to use too many syllables) contacts a talent agency for possible models/actors/actresses that may be right for the parts we need in the TVC. They call up all those in their catalogue that might fit the bill. Emphasis on might because some times we're stumped as to how some of their selections got picked as potentials.

But that's not the funny bit. No, the funny bit is the casting videos.

After they've made their selections, they send us a video tape. On the tape are the potential talents. They tell us a bit about themselves, give us a profile shot, and then they begin to act.

Now, with TVC's the main thing the talents are tested on are the key scenes and expressions. Sometimes they're also asked to act a range of emotions to show their 'scope'.

Hehehe.

A month or two ago we were treated to a video of various men between the ages of 21-25, and you have seen nothing until you've watched video after video of various people doing their renditions of 'happy', 'sad', 'angry' and 'scared'. If it wasn't unethical I'd upload it for a laugh. Then came the kicker. The part required the character to smile and wink at the camera.

Imagine watching endless videos of men smiling and winking at you, non-stop, in many varied ways. And they're doing it very badly.

Today was a bit more of a treat: a video tape full of female models. Yum.

First their headshots as they said a little bit about themselves. Then their profiles. Then the full body shot, and almost all of them were dressed to show of their lovely abs and accentuate all their... bouncy, bumpy bits... ahem.

But the acting was the real treat: woman after woman, hands in the air as if hanging off a ledge, screaming their asses off as if they were going to die.

I felt like I was watching a snuff film.

There were screamers, squealers, whiners, yellers, all of them calling out for God to save them from whatever imagined ordeal they were in. I could sell this footage on the net and somebody out there would definitely pay the money to whack off to screaming women.

The weirdest thing about it though is that it's completely impersonal. Here were a bunch of ladies between the ages of 20-27 trying to make a career looking beautiful only to be judged by a room full of men and women making comments about them as if they were pieces of meat.

AD PERSON 1: That one's too skinny.

AD PERSON 2: What about her?

AD PERSON 1: She's got no ass.

AD PERSON 3: Is that supposed to be screaming?

AD PERSON 4: Shit. Gap tooth.

AD PERSON 2: We could put a cap on.

AD PERSON 1: Fuck it. Next.

Tape forwarded to the next girl.

AD PERSON 1: Whoah...!

AD PERSON 3: That's quite impressive.

AD PERSON 2: She looks too Chinese.

AD PERSON 3: So?

AD PERSON 2: They want someone more Pan-Asian.

AD PERSON 1: Pan-Asian my ass! Did you see that rack?

AD PERSON 4: She must be chilly.

AD PERSON 1: Thank you, Lord, for thou art merciful.

AD PERSON 2: She can scream pretty well.

AD PERSON 1: Oh, I'll make her scream. I'll make her squeal like two pigs on a honeymoon.

Boardroom goes deadly quiet.

AD PERSON 1: I have issues.

Advertising. One of the few jobs where you have to treat objects like women.

...

...wait. That's not right.

17.6.05 10:34

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Today I'm Officially 25 Years Old...

...and being the busy beaver I've been, I almost forgot it was my birthday this week.

It was my mother that reminded me last Friday. I just got back and she popped in and asked, "so what do you wanna do for your birthday?"

"What birthday?"

"You're birthday's coming up."

"Is it?"

I had to check the calendar on my mobile before I believed her.

I find it weird though that I completely forgot my birthday was this month. I'd like to think I wasn't keeping track of the dates, but I was. I truly forgot my birthday was coming up and this was the first time I've ever done that. I'm usually all psyched, "hehe... another way to dupe my parents into buying something via the cunning use of age whilst others buy drinks for me in my honour..."

Except in Malaysia, the culture is that the birthday boy is the one that buys drinks for all those that attend his birthday. A bit odd that. It's almost like paying your friends to turn up.

However, even with my indifference in age change it still feels good to get gifts, especially when you're not expecting them. My girlfriend got me a nice brown leather-ish bag (it could be PVC, I'm not sure) which is brill 'cos my backpack is dying a slow painful death. And tonight, I'm meeting my parents for dinner at KLCC.

Apart from that, I dunno what else to do. Possibly call all my friends out to the Loft on Friday. All the fuckers that don't turn up will no longer have an excuse. My parents have been asking whether I'd like to set up a dinner thing with a bunch of friends on Saturday but in truth, I don't think I have the time for that.

Things are getting hectic. And I'm getting haggard.

In alternate and completely unrelated news, I haven't been able to log on to Yahoo Mail in the past week (which pisses me off completely) and today MySpace says my password isn't my password. I clicked on 'forgot password'. So they sent me the password. To my yahoo e-mail. which I can't open. Fuckers.

20.6.05 03:37

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Almost Time...

...and I'm more than a little nervous, worried, anxious and concerned.

The schedule hasn't been completely finalized. Rehearsals haven't begun. Not all locations confirmed. And worst of all...

No camera yet.

I've decided to push the first day of shooting to 2nd July and see how things go from there. Haven't had a chance to go through all this stuff with my producer yet, but yes. I'm not confident enough that everything's prepared.

I also wouldn't mind, once getting the camera, to test it out by shooting a short film to include in the KSFM thing, if anything to see how the damn camera ticks.

If we get an effing camera.

Thing is, that's not the main thing that's worrying me. My biggest fear in all this is, quite simply, can I pull this off?

I think the fact that I have no confirmed third parties is effecting me somewhat. By third parties, I mean people I owe to get this movie done, either monetarily or by some of promise. If, let's say, Sony we're sponsoring the camera, in my mind I'd be telling myself, "I have to make this movie or Sony's going to kill me". Or maybe a cinema's booked at a certain date from now and money's been put down.

But then that get's me thinking: wasn't I making this movie for myself? Wasn't that the whole idea? Do I need to convince myself that I'm making this for someone due to some promise and to go back on it would mean I could get sued or lose a friend? That's kinda stupid, now that I think about it.

But the fact that there's so much pre-production planning going on gets me more and more worried. There's a lot of stuff to get prepared for me to shoot this movie, and I don't want to go into the production and screwing up royally.

And I've been having more and more worries about the script. The story I'm telling in this movie is very personal, but what if that's clouded my judgement so much that I can't tell whether it's any good? It's like working on a document you've proof-read five times before, and by the sixth time it's all just black letters on white paper.

Maybe it needs to be a bit more spontaneous. I need to get back into the mindset of 'just shoot the fucker' again. I want this movie to be as good as I can make it, just get it done and rejoice in the fact that I made a movie.

It's just the whole 'depending on others' thing that's freaking me out. I'm dependent on my cast and crew to make this movie because it's the biggest thing I'll ever shoot so far.

Don't tell the cast, but I'm scared.

...

...shit. Some of the cast and crew read this blog, don't they?

20.6.05 07:09

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Swimming With Sharks

I almost forgot how good this movie was.

Is.

I'm not sure of the tense. Fuck it.

For those not in the know, Swimming With Sharks is the story of a young, eager assistant (Frank Whaley) and his tyrannical boss Buddy (Kevin Spacey) in the film industry. Tightly written with razor sharp wit and insults that hurt deep to the core together with a good story, this movie is worth the buy.

If anything, it's worth it just to see Kevin Spacey steal the show. This is pre-Usual Suspects and he chews up every single scene beautifully, spewing bile such as, "If you were in my toilet I wouldn't bother flushing it!"

The movie also has one of those end is beginning cut back forth screwed timeline structure that every indie movie had post-Reservoir Dogs, but this is one of the occasions where it works in it's favour.

Interesting fact: the movie was written by George Huang, who was an assistant to some big time studio exec (who may or may not be Joel Silver) and this is the only movie of his that I know of. Was the big time studio exec so pissed off with the movie that he made sure he'd never work in the town again? After all, first rule of writing, write what you know.

And what brilliant writing it is. It reminded me of that feeling I had when I first got into the whole rush of indie movies and wanted to be a writer. I remember renting this movie and not returning it for so long I could've bought the damn movie but I'd watch it everyday for a week.

You'll never find this movie in Malaysia at a glance, but I highly recommend searching for it. Brilliant stuff. This is the type of indie movie I love.

If you look back at that period though, the early to mid nineties, there were a lot of great independent movies out. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are the obvious ones that come to mind, but there was also El Mariachi, Roger and Me, Clerks, Swingers, Slacker and Doom Generation to name but a few. Seems like now we're back to the blockbuster epics and comic book adaptations, which I love, but it'd be nice to watch some new movies that make me feel the way those 90's ones did.

21.6.05 04:56

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Effing Finally...

My WiFi is finally working in Starbucks. It wasn't working a couple days ago, much to my dismay, and I can now download Jenna Jameson mpegs at high-speeds whilst updating my MySpace page and other silliness.

As for today, hell on earth. The workload itself was a killer and I was completely lethargic for the whole day, but that wasn't the kicker. Since Mr. Faith-In-Ink left, some people have decided that I should be the writer for the account that pissed him off the most.

Without having the common courtesy to bloody tell me about it.

Suddenly account managers and art directors are coming up to me asking me about the client. I hadn't a clue. Suddenly my time is supposed to be 50% allocated to this, even though my time-percentage thingey doesn't allow for anymore than 15% on other clients besides the ones I'm currently working on.

Boy, was I pissed.

And the thing is, it wasn't the fact that I'd been dumped this client that pissed me off. What pissed me off is that the person(s) in charge couldn't even tell me, or my superior, anything about this, nor did anyone check my schedule for this week, let alone the next.

It's shit like this that makes me want to ravage people with turtles up the jacksy.

21.6.05 17:05

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Another day

Another day of coming in late.

Another day of office politics.

Another day of dumb ass deadlines.

Another day feeling lethargic as hell, spending RM20 on salad and coffee because anything below that price would be intensely fattening and quite frankly, I'm sick of people asking when the baby's due.

Another day sat in front of my shitty little OS8 iMac blogging, piles of work by my side on my desk but my brains too dead to even begin thinking of 'Buy Now!' headlines.

Another day spent trying to keep my eyes off some colleague's tits. Do women wear floral bras and tight white t-shirts on purpose? Do they want you to stare at the designs and make you wonder whether that's a rosebud or a nipple.

Another day wondering what else I have to get done during this week. And the next. And the next.

And strangely enough, deep down I know I enjoy all this. Even though it's killing me.

I wouldn't want another day of lying about in my bedroom, thinking up mass amounts of ideas and never following through.

I wouldn't want another day arguing with my parents.

I wouldn't want another day with nothing to do.

22.6.05 06:47

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These Worries Are VERY Real.

Will this movie get made? I'm not so sure at the moment.

There's this depressing, sinking feeling deep in my stomach that maybe, just maybe, I'm a little over my head. I can't really put my finger on what's worrying me exactly, but it is worrying. The thought of it all last night was giving me a frickin' migraine.

...is there an 'e' at the end of that? I'm not so sure. Still fucked at the moment.

But yeah. I'm worried. One of my main worries is the dissapearance of my producer, Ariff.

Ariff, I know you read this occasionally, where the fuck you at?! Pick up the phone, jackass!

I was hoping Ariff would be able to cover all the stuff that needs to be done over the past and upcoming week (along with the period I was in England) so that we could shoot by now. At the moment, I don't have anyone to bounce any ideas off. I have no wing-man. This troubles me, and my confidence in this movie is rapidly dwindling down to the point of paranoid negative thoughts. What kind of thoughts? Here're a few:

(a) The cast and crew have not been prepped. At all. Some are waiting. Others are wondering how serious I am about all this.
(b) We're behind schedule.
(c) Contracts. Lack of.
(d) What if this script is a hunking pile of shit?
(e) What if it this movie doesn't get sold or shown anywhere?
(f) What the fuck am I doing?

The thing is, I keep myself intensely busy. Supremely busy. And not just on one thing. From the moment I wake up, it's a large amount of hours working the advertising gig (which is now in office-politics hell) followed by the Y2k album (and a deadline that's getting closer and closer) and this movie (which I spend nights in front of a laptop on my bed trying to fight my need to sleep so I can finish up the schedule and all other pre-pro planning crap) as well as the FYI Entertainment stuff (got a whole bunch of stuff to design and I'm nowhere near finishing it).

With all this going on, I need some serious help if I'm going to make this movie. I don't want another 'Much Ado' scenario.

Ok. NOW what the fuck is he talking about?

My first play was called 'Much Ado'. Myself and my friends had taken over the CUSU Drama Society and after many meetings and talks, I realized that's all it was. Talk. Nothing was getting done, and if a play was going to be put on, then where's the fucking script?

So I wrote the script in two days: a re-write of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing' with a flurry of jokes, most of which were stolen from either Kevin Smith or Trey Parker/Matt Stone material. Then auditions. Then rehearsals. Set designs. Flyer designs. Posters. Programmes. Logistics. Health and safety officials. Promotion. Organization. 95% of all that crap was done myself.

And it almost killed me.

This was during my uni days, and I didn't attend a single lecture during this period. I worked my fingers to the fucking bone to get that fucking play done and in the end I was proud, but I was also very, very tired and a lot of the other aspects of my life were affected because of that.

In my second play I delegated a bit more, but not enough. In the end my co-director (who was actually more of my sounding board and muse), who we shall call American Badass Dave, told me a simple piece of advice,

"Dude, you need to delegate and take charge. You can't be doing all this shit by yourself."

Something along those lines, but that's the gist of it. I'm sure there was a 'dude' somewhere in the sentence.

I don't want to have to do all this shit myself. If I have to, I will. But I'm seriously considering either rewriting the script YET AGAIN to make the scope of it a lot smaller in terms of cast and crew and locations ('Swimming With Sharks' only had 3 main characters and 2 main locations. Why didn't I do that?).

Ariff, if you're reading this, pick up the phone, dammit.

23.6.05 05:05

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