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The Visitor |
Almost There...
Phew.
Effing finally, after months and months of toiling (read most of the year) I finished the Y2k album last night.
Almost.
There are two things left that need to be done on my side: (a) record Landslide's vocals for his guest appearance on our hip-hop song (yes, we have a hip-hop song on our punk album. Gotta problem with that?) and (b) make any tweaks that the rest of the bandmates notice.
See, this whole week starting from last Saturday the only music to pass my ears has been the Y2k album, scrutinizing as much as I can. Sunday was spent listening to the fucking kick non-stop trying to fix the EQ on the bugger. And last night, just before rehearsals for our gig this Saturday, I passed a copy to the rest of the bandmates with a possible order and told them,
"Listen to it. Repeatedly. Write down anything you feel needs tweaking. I'm gonna listen to some other fucking music for a change."
After that I slipped in Dragon Red's debut album, 'Holocaust', into the car CD player and listened. Twenty minutes in I wished we had better equipment to record our album. If you see the Dragon Red album in stores, pick it up. It's good.
Tomorrow we have our band meeting to determine all the final details on the album before sending it off for mastering. Bearing in mind that's all just for the recording. We still need to figure out the CD cover design, details to put inside the cover, printing costs, 'tulen' stickers (a holographic sticker to prove it's an original copy even though pirates own the technology to make bootlegs of these stickers making their existence somewhat redundant), barcode registration, promotional materials, distribution, press, marketing, performing acts of fellatio and cunnilingus upon radio DJ's to get them to play our single and, last but not least, the launch and a tour.
Goddamn that's a lot of work.
On the bright side, at least I can now concentrate on my other creative endeavours, namely 'Ciplak', which still has a long way to go. There's the rest of the scenes to shoot, the action sequence, animated sequences, the trailer, promotional materials, press, festivals to submit, a premiere, etc. I also have about a night and a half to edit a Dragon Red music video from about 11 hours of footage. And there's that other thing. What's it called? Oh yeah, the day job.
...
Bright side my ass.
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1.12.05 06:55
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Pirates of the Caribean 2 trailer on Yahoo Movies
 Jack's Back.
Seriously. The first 2/3rd's of the trailer is all Johnny Depp before Orlando Bloom pops up, proving what I've believed for years: the Depp is the man. Keira Knightley doesn't even get a soundbite (but still lookin' as fine as always).
Opens July 7th. Can't wait. Arrr...
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1.12.05 08:29
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Snippety Snip
Robert Rodriguez once said (in his book 'Rebel Without A Crew') that editing is his favourite part of filmmaking because it's when you take all those little pieces you have and put it together. You're seeing the film form before your very eyes and the choice of shot, the slightest tweak, the adding or subtracting of a second can make a huge difference. I was watching the extras disc from the original Star Wars trilogy box set and they showed a comparison between the first cut, which was all masters followed by coverage, and the final cut they made where the pace was dictated by the edit, not the actors. I like that. And especially with non-linear editing, the process is a whole lot faster.
Faster or not, it still took me about five or six hours to transfer all the footage I needed for the Dragon Red video and edit it. I actually had a lot more footage, but they were all in VCD format so first I'd have to copy the files then convert them into avi to edit it. Took about half an hour to an hour each VCD so I only used the three best ones I had then combined that with the footage I took of them at a gig and during their rehearsals. The video's for the launch, but Adam (the vocalist) says he also wants to do a proper video and wants me to edit it.
But at least that's out of the way now. Fun as it is, I really want to clear up as much as I can so I can concentrate on my damn movie. Then again, editing other people's stuff usually opens up some new technique or trick I'll discover and I'll end up using that on my movie.
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2.12.05 06:56
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From the director of 'Sepet'...
You know you've made it when your movie poster has the line 'From the director of...' followed by your last movie.
And you know you haven't made it when your poster has 'Wes Craven Presents...' (no offence to Wes, but the movies he chooses to present are nowhere near the horror-meister's cannon of work... discounting 'Cursed', of course). That, or a recommendation from 'The Sun'.
I really enjoyed Yasmin Ahmad's "Sepet", even though I had quite a few gripes with it (the stick-the-camera-in-one-spot-and-capture-the-scene-wide technique, in particular), and judging from the Visitor's comments from the preview screenings he attended, "Gubra" should rock the catskills double-y so.
Do not ask where my predeliction for the term 'rock the catskills' came from. It's just a thing.
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2.12.05 09:18
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No more wax.
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2.12.05 10:17
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High Altitudes and Milk Maids Can Suck My Nuts
A friend of mine in the States recently went to Vegas. Her e-mail was full of nothing but praise for the place and how much fun she had.
I wish I could say the same about Malaysia's equivalent.
Over the weekend I went to 'that-place-up-in-the-mountains-of-Malaysia-that-has-a-casino-that-I-shouldn't-mention-by-name-in-case-they-find-out-'cos-they're-our-client-although-that-just-gave-it-away', high up above the clouds so that the weather is permanently Spring time. There are casino's, amusement parks, rides and the biggest hotel in Malaysia.
What a crock of shit.
The hotel booked us the wrong room, expecting 7 of us to sleep in one double bed. The manager had no idea what working in a hotel entails. She wasn't even sure whether she could get us blankets and pillows since some of us had to sleep on the floor. Her idea of fixing the situation was to get us two much smaller rooms which just fit a double bed in each and charge us RM$50 extra. Fuck that. This whole session of expressing our dissapointment took two hours. By the time we actually got to relax in our room, all of us very pissed off, it was 11pm.
We then decided to check out the Safari disco, only to find 40 year olds drunk out of their heads swooning at the sight of some Indon band with a skanky female lead singer as they went through some Canto-pop hit that involved a lot of shouting and hard consonants. To get to this stupid disco we had to go up 7 escalators.
After that, we tried to find the cinema, maybe check out a movie. The place where the cinema was had some of the tackiest things around it: a cheap ass Eiffel tower, Big Ben, KLCC towers, gondolas going through tiny rivers run by mannequins. We found the cinema, bought tickets for 'Aeon Flux' and went to find some dinner only to discover they can't even run a McDonald's properly.
And the cinema? Amcorp's cinema is better. Cramped up, tiny and the projectionist didn't tighten up the focus so the movie had a permanent blur.
Knowing that the people that run this place are my company's client infuriates me even further.
And if that wasn't enough, I come into work today, buy some milk from downstairs, try to make some coffee and discover the milk expired. 6 months ago. I went down to the store to complain. The guy didn't say a word. He just trawled through his fridge and, after, about 20 cartons of milk, found one that expired in 2006.
I swear, if I get fucked over one more time I'm gonna fuckin' kill somebody.
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5.12.05 04:12
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Attention Blog-Peeps!
Just a quick question: anybody here ever used Blogger and/or Tblog? I'm trying to figure out which one's easier to customize for a little project I have in mind. I need something free where it's easy to change the layout to whatever I want. Get your comments in!
And don't worry, 20six, I still loves ya and 'the Ballad' will remain here.
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5.12.05 10:41
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98.7932% done...
 Almost there.
Last night, through the wee hours, we recorded the Bionic Buddha-X a.k.a. Landslide of ex-Poetic Ammo fame and current Dragon Red super fame laying down his rhymes for his guest spot on one of our tracks. Poor guy didn't have a chance to write any lyrics till that night so we spent most of it with me looping the beat and him writing and trying to get his flow tight. Should sound the fucking shiznit.
Then Saiful wanted to fix up a vocal part on his little verse.
"What do you wanna change, dude? The timing's alright," I asked.
"I wanna change the line '50 watt Marshall' to '100 watt Ketner'," was his reply.
"...fine."
Now all I have to do is a final, final, final mix, getting rid of all the swear words (the word 'fuck' reversed still sounds like 'fuck' for some reason and it's pissing me off) and trying to figure out the mix of one of our songs in particular which is pissing me off. It's the very first original song we had as a band (we used to play a lot of covers a la 'Me First and the Gimme Gimmes') and I'm sick to death of it but everyone who's heard it has noticed that the mix sucks nut-juice.
Tomorrow it flies off to the mastering man for the mastering man to master. Two weeks from tomorrow we'll start printing. Two weeks from two weeks from tomorrow and we'll have a finished product. Launch will probably be in mid-January, followed by a little tour.
Snoogans.
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6.12.05 03:03
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AAARRGGHHH!!!!
FuckshitassbitchcockuckermotherfuckerFFFFFUUUCCCCKKKK!!!!!
My car got towed. At least, I hope my car got towed. The idea of a car thief stealing a Kelisa at noon just seems silly.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
I parked it at the side of the road for a couple of hours 'cos I knew I'd be late for work and finding parking would add another half hour to my journey time. I figured I'd park it by the office then find proper parking during lunch.
I went down to where my car was parked and instead I find an old lorry.
Godammit all.
I just called up the city council but they haven't received any cars by my description yet. I'm hoping when I call later it's there. If not, I'm fucked. Royally fucked. Supremely fucked. The payments are almost done on that fucking car. Fuck.
Then there's the whole hassle of going to the city council to pick up my fucking car and speeding things up will probably require bribery on top of the amount I've gotta pay anyway.
Motherfucking fuckery of epic fucking pro-fucking-portions.
I just don't want to involve my dad on this one. I'm already getting a lot of heat as it is with my hectic lifestyle and relaxed clothing choices for work and my refusal to renew my Identification Card to the fancy new chip ones until the absolute last minute (I hate the idea of IC cards to begin with) and my late hours and later waking hours. I've been accused of being abnormal by my parents. I don't need to be accused of being a road-dick too.
Ahhh... fuck me. Fuck me with large pointy objects that would cause pain to the most resiliant of choir boys. This is not a great way to start the day. Fuck all this, I'm going to Coffee Bean and treating myself to an overpriced sandwich.
FUCK.
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6.12.05 05:05
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Back from the DBKL
So I called up the DBKL and asked about my car after lunch. They said it was there, it'd cost RM$355 and I'd have to bring either my ownership documents of the car or my insurance policy.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck.
I explained that the car was under my father's name and I'd rather not involve him. He said I could get a letter from a lawyer or something (I didn't really understand this bit, my Malay not being too good) and I told him I wouldn't really know how to go about doing that.
"Hold on," he replied, "talk to the boss."
I explained my situation, how I didn't want to trouble my dad (read: I didn't want my dad to find out for fear of castration) and that I really needed the car.
"Answer me this," said the boss, "can you pay RM$155 right now?"
RM$155? I thought it was RM$355.
"Sure. Yes."
"Ok. Pop on over."
I got the details: my little car was towed to an area called 'Jinjang', notorious for it's Chinese-gangland-ghetto-ness. This should be fun. I called a cab and made my way, all the while wondering about this money business. Did he really say RM$155? Or was it still RM$355? I don't have RM$355. Was this RM$155 some under-the-counter shit? I couldn't care less. I just wanted my car back.
I got to the place and could see my car in the lot: my lil' red Kelisa, my Rosalinda.
I walked over to the police hut (taking off my shoes as I did so). The boss was sat behind the table, a huge 'healthy' (by Asian definition) man, intimidating. The other cops were sat around watching a Filipino soap opera. I filled out the forms, all the while wondering about the whole money issue. Why was it RM$355 if done officially and RM$155 when I had none of the documents to prove the car was mine, save for my car keys?
I gave him the forms and one of the cops shut the door. "This must be it", I thought, "this must be when they ask me for some 'tea money'". On the TV, some guy on a beach threatened a girl that he could get her to stop talking in two ways: cutting her tongue or kissing her.
I never enjoyed the process of bribing cops. I'd bribed cops in the past, my dad's bribed in the past, hell, every human being I know who drives a car in this country has bribed a cop. But it always freaked me out. The cops here aren't buff, muscular cops. But they ain't no Wiggum. If they ever made a 'Training Day' style movie about Malaysian cops I bet you the Malay cop would beat Denzel's ass any day screaming "King Kong tak ada tahi atas aku!!!".
The boss turned to the others, then to me... and gave me a receipt.
Eh?
"Go pay the fine and fees at the building across the street then come back."
...okay.
Maybe there was some guys there that I was supposed to give it to. I walked over to find an official counter for the payment of summons' and other such city council fines. The lady took my receipt, asked for RM$155, I paid her and she gave me another receipt to give to the boss.
Aha. Now I understand. This is the official payment. Now I've got to make the unofficial payment. I walked over to the cop hut, gave the boss the receipt... and he stamped it.
"There you go. Car's outside."
On the TV, the chick chose the kiss as opposed to having her tongue cut.
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6.12.05 08:30
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"Actor Pat Morita, whose portrayal of the wise and dry-witted Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" earned him an Oscar nomination, has died. He was 73."