justin_guber - @ 20six.co.uk

Grande Latte Enema

A friend of mine recently told me over lunch that she once had a coffee enema during a detoxifying week.

I never knew coffee was involved.

I wonder how they came up with it. Did a proctologist-cum-health-guru having a particularly bad Starbucks experience suddenly arrive at an epiphany when he exclaimed, "this coffee's so shit I might as well shove it up my ass!"?

Possibly.

She didn't touch coffee for 3 months after that. Understandable, really.

11.7.05 07:42

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Squish it with glee!

Anyone out there know a good freeware program to turn avi files into mpeg/quicktime?

12.7.05 08:45

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Doobie-Doobie-Doo...

When I first heard about 'Invader Zim' by Jhonen Vasquez, I was supremely worried that he'd be toned down and sanitized for Cartoon Network. Hence, I avoided it like the plague for quite a while, not wanting my memory of 'Johnny the Homicidal Maniac' and 'Squee' to be tarnished.

Then, whilst trying to research cartoons for an ad, I stumbled onto it.

And I loved it.

I now have a Zim inspired animatic (animated storyboard) for a pitch for a TV ad for candy. Presentations tomorrow. Hope it sells.

By God it's funny.

12.7.05 13:07

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S.H.H.H.I.T.

As part of my research for my future filmmaking endeavours, one of my recent initiatives has been to buy (at original prices, no less) local films and study them. Sometimes I don't make it past the ten minute mark and start pressing the forward button. This is one of those movies...

Have any of you guys seen a local movie called S.H.3.?
If you haven't, I don't blame you.

The title stands for Skateboard Hip-Hop Handphone. According to FilemKita.com, "The movie focuses on college student Khairul, who is a skateboarding freak who tries to gain the attention of Nelly. Khairul’s efforts to woo Sally is unfruitful and to top it all, he injures himself just before a major skateboarding tournament."

After trying to watch the movie, though, I can honestly say Skateboard Hip-Hop Handphone Is Terrible.

Some may say that my assesment of this movie is unfair due to the fact I haven't watched the movie as a whole. Don't worry, I will, and if it does turn out good after a second viewing I'll take my words back, but when the first ten minutes bore the shit out of you in ways no movie has ever achieved, then you know there's something wrong.

Sure, as per all local movies these days, the dubbing is horrendous (somebody shoot the sound engineer who's probably still splicing tape with a razor), the film transfer is attrocious, the title cards are like something out of the 70's (and not ina kitsch kind of way) and the movie's slower than a senior citizen trying to masturbate herself to orgasm with a Tesco's cucumber in the spring time.

The (lack of) speed in the movie is not a pacing issue. It's more than that. It's a syndrome I keep seeing time and time again in Malay movies: A scene that should only warrant about 1 minute of screen time (or less) is instead stretched to about 5 minutes. In a wide shot.

The scene I'm talking about is when the main girl arrives at college in her parents car. The camera is permanently on a wide shot as the car pulls up, she takes out all her luggage, one by one, and says goodbye to her parents. No time lapse. No cuts. Just a shot of an expensive car and some people taking out their luggage whilst the actress playing her friend has a tough time of trying to make her 'ooh's and 'aah's sound remotely interesting throughout this entire scene. It grates me. It pisses me off. It annoys unholy fuck out of me. It makes me want to vomit green bile onto the faces of innocent choir boys.

And they do this again. And again. And again. Time to hit the forward button.
My other gripe over this film is that it's supposedly a skate movie. And every skating shot looks like the director's never seen a skate video in his entire fucking existence.

One thing I will say is that I do admire the fact that the kids' skate abilities are presented as more realistic (although I have no idea whether this was intentional). Instead of being able to pull off every single trick in the book (courtesy of either Tony Hawk or Rodney Mullen doubling them) they hired kids with some level of skating abilities (much better than mine, I'll admit), but not of the supreme pro level. During the contest (where the good guy that nobody understands faces off to the skate bully... as if we didn't see that one coming) the hottest trick in the skaters' repertoir is a crooked grind. Not much, but that's usually what these skate comps are like.

But Jesus, they could have shot it a lot cooler.

Every skate shot during the comp is a wide shot with absolutely no feeling of action in it. No cool music, no funky editing, no moving shots, just static wide shots of the Kg. Batu skatepark empty as fuck with one kid doing a 50-50 about 50 meters away. Wow. Ain't skating cool.

And don't even get me started on the 'hip-hop' scenes. Please, if you're going to shoot a dance sequence, wouldn't you want the visuals to be in sync with the music?

Then there's your usual love story bullshit, your funny side character (watch him do funny facial gestures and fall off his board! Whoopee!) and your 'kepoh' girl. It's your typical over-stretched Malay love triangle jumping on the 'extreme' bandwagon but still lacking any redeeming audio-visual features whatsoever.

And it cost RM$1.5 million. The majority of it probably went to the editor for his 'cool' camera-click-click-cut-between-two-scenes-click-click-a-lot technique. Fuck off.

Maybe I should give it a chance. Maybe I should force myself to watch the movie in its entirety. I survived a half hour long session of dentists yanking out my wisdom tooth, I could survive this, right?

Or maybe I should shove it up a leper's ass, attach grenades on him and shoot him through a cannon into the fucking studio that made this insulting piece of shit.

14.7.05 09:03

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Can you feel it?

Outside, the rain practically engulfs the skyline. Through the windows you couldn't see more than 500 meters away. Everything else is a greyish tone, moving downwards.

Inside, the storm is just brewing.

There are tense faces everywhere. Look past the shiny, happy people and you'd notice: something's a-coming. It's that morbid dread that past mistakes and wrong decisions have all led up to this, the big thwack.

I feel a spanking coming. And I'm not talking about me.

15.7.05 05:49

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Technocalypse

Saturday was meant to be an easy day. I had some songs to mix down for Saiful before he made his way out of town and some copy to write and e-mail over to the office. I also had to make some labels for the CD's so I needed to buy a new ink cartridge or refill pack.

It should've been an easy day.

I woke up around noon after a well deserved 12 hour sleep-a-thon and got down to mixing. Then it was off to Starbucks to claim a free coffee and surf the net using their free WiFi whilst getting my office work done. An hour later, all the copy was finished and time to e-mail it out. All I had to do was connect to the wireless broadband at Starbucks.

Connect.

Come on, bastard, connect.

...hello?

I looked around and everybody else was happily surfing the net, playing games and chatting. My computer had detected the wireless network and was sending out information.

But it wasn't receiving jackshit.

Connect.

Connect, you bastard.

CONNECT, YOU FILTHY WHORE OF BABYLON!!!

Nothing.

Two hours later, and I was beginning to get pissed off. The new wing of 1 Utama had WiFi. I could connect there and e-mail this crap out. After searching for a parking spot (not an easy task on a Saturday in that gigantic monstrosity of a mall) I sat down on a bench and opened up my laptop.

Nothing.

I went to another area and opened up my laptop.

Nothing.

I walked around with my laptop open furtively searching for a good connection.

No-fucking-thing.

By the time my girlfriend came I was ready to rape the goddamn laptop through it's PCMCIA slot.

In her attempt to calm me down, she suggested an early dinner. We went over to Penang Mari and in a moment of clarity I called up Ariff Arris for a favour. The man said he'd meet me at Penang Mari so that I could transfer the files over to his computer and he'd e-mail them. Amen.

But that wasn't the end. In our attempt to chill-out, my girlfriend and I went back to my place to watch the Bone Collector whilst I refilled the ink for my printer.

I slotted in the ink cartridge into my printer and tried to print a page. Nothing.

My girlfriend slotted in Bone Collector into the DVD player. Nothing.

I tried again. Nothing.

She tried again. Nothing.

And I felt a fever coming on.

Goddamn laptop wouldn't work. Goddamn printer wouldn't work. Goddamn DVD wouldn't work. We tried Jersey Girl. Didn't work either. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

In the end, I got half a page printed, Bone Collector skipped ten minutes in and my body was shaking.

But I'm better now. And the electronic equipment has agreed to be nice to me.

For now...

18.7.05 05:02

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Feeling Shirty

So I got an e-mail over the weekend confirming my interview for Shortcuts, the TV show that'll be showing my short film "Some Like It White".

No, it's not a porno.

A lot more preparation than I thought would be necessary seem to pop up for this whole thing. When Amir called he mentioned it'd be best that I censor the 'naughty bits' of my short film myself. This still leaves me puzzled because I'm not sure exactly what to censor. It's on Astro Prima at night, and I'm not sure what the guidelines are exactly. Sure, I know I need to bleep out the naughty 'F' word, that's a given, but what about the rest?

What part of 'big, pink dick with foreskin' do I censor? Just 'dick', or 'foreskin' too?

Do I need to blur out the cleavage shots?

Do I need to bleep out the word 'cum'?

And will the line still be funny if I censored the word 'tits' in the line 'tits that would make you get down on your knees and beg for buttermilk?'

But that's not all. Like I said, Raymond from Red Communications e-mailed me with details. He gave me the questions they were going to ask so I could 'prep', which was nice.

I was also given guidelines as to what to wear:

"The shirt that you wear on that day should not be white, black, brown, have stripes, polka dots, checks or any fine flowery designs. Other that that you are ok."

That practically describes my entire wardrobe. I think I'm buggered.

18.7.05 08:12

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Act, Motherfucker! And other stuff too!

Tony Pietra, the dude who directed the first Malaysian short film I acted in ("Seeing Things") and also helped me in my latest short film "Some Like It White" is back in the game with a short film he's doing called "Offerings" with Alan Koay (he who wrote "Seeing Things" and journalist extraordinaire) and Studio Voxel (the guys from Flatline who did Pete Teo's "Arms of Marianne" video).

Interested parties can e-mail him in the e-mail below. He's a good man. And thorough.
OFFERINGS: Announcing Short Film Production & Casting Call

Tony Pietra in association with Studio Voxel is producing an independently-made 15-minute High Definition film entitled Offerings (no, its not a movie about Satanic sacrifices). Shooting will take place in 2-3 days during mid-August, 2005. All locations are within Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Offerings is a domestic love story with supernatural overtones and echoes of traditional Chinese culture & beliefs. Set against the backdrop of the Hungry Ghost Festival, it explores the relationship between a wife and her husband, with food being the emotional center of their love. An eerie & ghostly atmosphere envelops the film,
but it is ultimately a lyrical & moving tale of loss & healing. Dialogue is extremely minimal, as the story is mostly visually driven.

CASTING CALL: We are in search of 2 lead talents to play the following characters:

WIFE: Female, Age: 25-30+. Ethnicity: Chinese. Able to speak sufficient Mandarin.

A housewife who beams with mirth and vivacity in happy moments. Her love for her husband is expressed through the lavish meals she prepares for him. But during her period of mourning (which is for the majority of the film), she is a forlorn & tragically silent individual. Her pain & anguish are expressed through her eyes, her face, and her languidly stiff body motions. This role demands for an understated performance that conveys ultimate sorrow through subtle presentation (rather than explicit emoting).

HUSBAND: Male, Age: 30+. Ethnicity: Chinese. No specific dialects required.

An office worker who appears to have a slightly uptight disposition, but is in fact a gentle person who loves his wife a great deal, without really having to show it. Through simple gestures and a quiet sense of warmth, it is clear that their marriage is a strong one. However, his tendency for temper flares betray his amiable nature. During times of duress, this kind, tender man becomes capable of breaking things and hurting his wife emotionally. This he does out of impulsiveness, not heartlessness.

The above roles are open to both non-professionals & professionals. The two most important things are that you look the part, and that you can ACT! Interested parties can send a brief BIO-DATA & RESUME, a HEADSHOT/PHOTO, and optional extra words (anything else youd like to say, basically) to this e-mail address:
tony.pietra@gmail.com

Furthermore, as this project is an independent, low-budget effort, we're now in the process of gathering resources on our own. This includes raising funds for the film. We will appreciate all the help we can get, so if there's anyone out there who wants to be involved in ensuring that this flick gets made, and if you can somehow contribute in acquiring these resources (to achieve cost-effective production values, finding/providing locations, post-production facilities), please contact: tony.pietra@gmail.com

Once again, we are looking for anyone in the film production line (or related to it) who are interested in helping get this film off the ground ... in terms of resources, or to a degree, fiancially.

You can also reply to this bulletin. Or you can go to Tony's Friendster page (tony_pohlsen@lycos.com) and message him there. If you do the latter, you'll get the benefit of checking out some teaser posters for OFFERINGS in his photo gallery. It's a little visual hook that might get some of you folks attracted to this project!

Now, a little background information on the people behind this production:

Studio Voxel is an animation, live action, and multimedia production house headed by Mussadique & Jordan Suleiman. They're famous for their AIM & MVA award-winning music video for Malaysian artist Pete Teo, Arms of Marianne. It's a stunning piece of 3-D/composite animation that got the whole industry buzzing last year.

Tony Pietra is a TV-commercial editor turned director. His day-job directing resume includes TVC's & infomercials for Astro, corporate videos, and a boring educational program. But by night, he dons the cape of a true filmmaker! Well, he's trying to, making short flicks and stuff.

Tony's notable achievements have been two CDVC (Cyberjaya) award-winners: the culinary documentary "You Got a Life, You Got to Eat" in 2003, and the short horror spoof "Seeing Things" in 2004. His latest effort is "Forgiveness" the music video for Malaysian artist Shelley Leong currently playing on HITZ.TV. It was done with Studio Voxel.

Allan Koay is an award-winning reporter & film critic for The Star newspaper. He also covers the Arts & Culture section. "Offerings" is one of the many short scripts he has written, along with "Seeing Things" (Tony's previous collaboration with Allan). He also has two feature-length screenplays in progress. A future in cinema awaits him.

19.7.05 03:49

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Wonderful Marketing Strategies #4129

Now, what do you do if you're Victoria Secrets, you've already got a world famous catalogue that both women want for purchasing decisions and men desire for five-knuckle shuffles, and you want to market your latest collection on-line?

Why, set up an on-line strip poker game, that's what! --> pinkpantypoker.com. <-- It's good. Oh, dear Lord, it's good. Only two questions come to mind, though:

1. Am I just shit at poker, or is it set up so that you'll never see them strip completely? (Which, in a way, makes sense because they are, after all, selling lingerie and not naked women.)

2. Since when did Victoria Secrets sell men's boxer shorts? Or is the inclussion of two men in the game part of political correctness and sexual equailty? If so, what about the racial equality!? I don't see any slant eyes represented, godammit!

...

Did I say 'slant eyes'? I'm sorry. I meant occularly-challenged.

20.7.05 04:59

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2 Days.

2 days of thinking. Storming. Rationalizing. Sketching.

Ideas, ideas, ideas.

2 days. And still nothing.

And what's it for, pray tell? What am I antagonizing over? What have I spent 2 fucking days trying to come up with an ad for?

A shitty little blinky free gift that you'll get when you buy the clients product. A shitty little blinking thing.

And I can't think of an ad for it. Every single idea is unconvincing.

Because I'm not convinced. I've been using the damn thing for 2 days and it's utterly useless.

And I can see the rest of the team working on the mega-important-crazy-timeline accounts, and they're on the ball and tired and stressed as fuck. I volunteered to tidy up all the other tiny jobs we had 'cos I thought it'd be a stroll in the park.

2 days. Perhaps I'm experiencing writers block.

After day 2 (yesterday) I was fucked beyond compare. Fucked, and slightly wracked with the guilt that all I've got to figure out is this shitty little ad whilst everyone else is working on this intensely crazy fucker of a job, and they probably think I'm slacking because I can't come up with one-good-idea. I feel like I've wasted 2 days. I do not like unproductivitiness.

That's not a word, is it?

At least, after all the crap that was yesterday (spending my time in the office eating shitty instant noodles instead of a three course dinner courtesy of my girlfriend) I got to spend some time with my band, Triple 6 Poser, at Eddy's place. The second Ed saw me at the door he asked,

"Bad day?"

"Fuck, yeah," was my reply, "I could do with a shot of whiskey."

"Black label or McGregors?" was Eddy's response.

A couple of shots later I was much more relaxed, playing my guitar amongst the dudes and dudettes, going through the songs and having a laugh. Izuwan brought some Pepsi Ice, a strange blue thing with that extra feature that's become so popular in soft drinks these days: the ice factor.

Pepsi's doing it. 7 Up's doing it. Nestea's doing it. Even fucking Nescafe. It's this added 'thing' they put into the drinks whereby, after you take a gulp, your chest feels like it's gargling mouthwash. Some people like this icy sensation. Some don't.

And some like to experiment. And, as one of the experimentors (ooh, possible band name) I can safely say that Black Label and Pepsi Ice is wrong. It's disturbing to the tongue, your taste buds turn back to you and shout, "what in the name of unholy fuck are you trying to do?!"

We have a name for this cocktail. Henceforth it shall be dubbed, "Ye Blue Shit".

But even with the relaxing times with the band and friends I still had trouble sleeping. And a worse time trying to wake up. And my pants have ripped. At the crotch.

Fuck, I forgot my guitar for rehearsals too, didn't I?

Something extremely nice happening to me today would be a Godsend. I implore everybody out there to clap your hands and shout out 'I believe' so that maybe, just maybe, my very own tinkerbell will wake up from her poisoned slumber and give me a rim-job.

Unless someone else out there would be just as willing.

20.7.05 05:39

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