Randomly on the front page of NY Times !

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/realestate/20COV.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

That picture is a loooong story, much too drama-ridden to fully disclose here- but I will give you the short version, along with names changed to protect…well, ME! It was a late-night shoot in a swanky apartment in Harlem - you know the type: new building, doorman with high-priced art in the lobby, and an elevator that opens to your place - you get the whole FLOOR. Anywho, I had coordinated crew and was running one of the cameras that night, and minus the typical on-set problems that plague low-budget shoots (laptop change, no real lights to use), everything was going smoothly. I made one fatal mistake that night that cost me my relationship with the producers: I turned off the on-camera mics, thinking that we were going to synch up the audio in post. Telling the producers this, we got right to it and shot for 4-5 hours.

Here’s where it gets stupid. Because there wasn’t any audio on the tapes, there was no immediate way for the Director to watch them. It had to be synched up first. For whatever reason, this got me several angry phone calls and I basically wrote off any further work with those guys. They were MAD. Perhaps it was because I asked for a day’s pay to synch it up myself, or maybe it was because the talent didn’t perform up to snuff and they needed someone to channel their dark energy towards. Who knows? I put it out of my mind a while ago - so now you know why it’s ultra-weird that this photo, of me, on a bad shoot, randomly shows up on the front page of the NYTimes’ real estate section. It’s something I wanted to forget.

My producer friend Jose first called me to tell me that I was getting famouser from this photo. Soon my family and friends knew. Now you, the blog-interested Internet, knows. If only they had posted a better picture of me! I have several. I even contacted the person who posted the article, asking to at least credit me, but they said “Unfortunately we often have very limited space for photo captions. And since the piece was about the homeowners (and the concept of renting out one’s home) and not the show, we had to focus on them in the photo caption. We did not have room to print any further information.” Fair enough. Anybody who knows me has seen it anyway.

Edit: I just got home from another long day doing Locations on Law & Order SVU. The head Teamster gave me a ride on his rig, which was ultra nice since I gave up our car to Z earlier in the day. I asked him what he wanted to do when he retired, and he said that he has enough to do already. He has something like 40+ years on the job and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Edit #2: My hedgehog was put down today, after a short battle against his lungs.  It was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I feel good that I eased his suffering.  I’m still sad, though.

E3 week makes me think: ‘How would I had covered it?’

It’s E3 week, and the trailers have begun to roll in.

While I am uber-excited about the coverage, I can’t help but look critically at a certain ‘underground gamer website’. Y’see, I interviewed there for a producer’s position in early June, and even though it was a tough sell (there were four different interviews, one after another), I was confident that I did a good job of selling myself. Now, I’m not bitter or anything (nor would I start e-drama on HERE of all places), but I can’t help wondering “what could have been”. How would I have covered the event, and what exclusive coolness would I have brought to the site? Was it good that I didn’t get the job? Is the new guy up to snuff? Wondering about crap like destiny and multiple universes is one of the things that separates us from the chittering squirrels running amok outside our windows.

Resisting….the urge…to criticize….coverage of E3 . . … . > urgh! While it’s nothing like the splendor of old, it seems that the industry still uses the event to release tantalizing new bits of information and juicy new trailers for their upcoming games.  As a gamer, I feel just as excited to feast on all the sweet new trailers and previews.  It feels sometimes like watching TV ads for Christmas toys around Halloween time…it’ll be a long time before we see the product and I can’t stand the wait. Better to squelch all emotion deep inside and unleash it a week before the game comes out.

Anywho, this week I’ll be running camera a few days in Park Slope, so I’ll have ample time to check out Halo 4: Electric Bugaloo or whatever the con has to throw at us when I get home from work.

Hey, that Penny Arcade game is 1/2 off this week! Awesome! Too bad it’s PC-only!

They cancelled my web series. :(

The web series I was set to produce fell through. The executive producer told me over email that due to “something”, they’re going to wait a couple of weeks before trying to knock it out. Something tells me that because of their initial hardcore “couple of weeks” deadline, somebody was being pinched a little too hard. Ah well. I still have contacts that are waiting for me to move on locations - which will be great if the project happens, and ultra-sucky for me if it tanks and never happens. It just makes my job a little harder / credibility a little thinner.

I’m really hoping this thing comes around, because the hook was killer and the locations are right up my alley. It sounded like a perfect scenario: a job I could tackle with a low (but decent) budget. Bad luck had to rear its bumpy head and spoil it all.

Next week I’ll be running an in-studio camera for a Catholic TV Station in Brooklyn. I met with the producer who will be sending a feed from Australia over satellite to the studio, where we’ll cap the beginning and end of his segments with a live interview or some such. That will be a fun gig - maybe 8 hours and then we call it quits. I’ve been telling my wife that “when it rains, it pours” for gigs, and this is no exception. I’m just hoping that unlike the web series, this job materializes and stays put!

Otherwise I’m busy as hell with PBC stuff. Not a day goes by (weekends, too) that I’m not hard at work on our videos, including some long-term ones that I occasionally have to let drift into “not going to happen anytime soon” land. This week we shot a new episode of Little Miss Gamer and I’ll be cutting it together by Thursday morning. Friday (which is, I guess, today), I tape a wedding.

Pride parade

So this week I went to the Pride parade in Manhattan with Z.  I give it 4/5 shiny rainbow stars.

No, seriously. The only thing keeping this parade from complete awesomeness was a lack of gay geek representation happening. I was told beforehand that there would be a ton of people marching underneath their own individual flags - every ethnicity and cause, all good things to fight for - yet all united under the banner of rainbow stripes. It was so true! There were the “know your status” people. Then there were the “our kids are good just the way they are” people. There was even one-man fights walking through, like the scoutmaster holding up a sign that said “80 year old ScoutMaster kicked out for being gay”. That was pretty powerful - actually seeing a victim of discrimination spreading awareness about something that effected his life. Maybe that’s part of what the parade is all about.

“Everyone remembers their first Pride” is apparently the thing to keep in mind once you’ve come back from Pride thinking about how insane it was and how unlike your regular life it was. There were whole floats full of sweaty musclemen in tighty-whities rocking out to a live DJ, and there was also a large flock of winged trannies rollerskating in and out of people waving rainbow flags. This is very unlike my normal day-to-day.

Why am I telling you all this? Naturally, I had my trusty HVX on hand and was filming the entire thing. Z has a great idea for another episode of LMG where she explores the subculture of gay gamers, so we shot the parade and got some interviews later on. It was kind of a last-minute deal so we didn’t have a press pass (thought it would be easily obtainable). I noticed others on the opposite side of the street getting the same “in the crowd shot” as me - we ARE the independent press! Shooting in the crowd as opposed to being in the parade itself, which is what the NY1 people and others were doing, has certain advantages and drawbacks.

The first advantage is the shot itself. I got more of a “yes I am part of the crowd” feel to the shots - occasionally the top of a head or a hand holding a digital camera would jump into frame, giving it a very real feel. Instead of the camerawork that was being done on floats or right next to the performers, this was the angle you’d get if you actually attended. Is it the best angle? Probably not - but was it ‘real’? Yes.

Disadvantages start with the stationary-ness of the shot. Once I found my hole in the crowd, I wasn’t going anywhere. The cameras inside the parade were getting interviews and trying different stuff. Although I don’t agree with interviewing the performers in the parade itself, they were the best suited to document the parade. It wasn’t their prerogative to do so, but the potential was there. The only real moment of lamenting I had was when the NY1 reporter got super lucky and in the middle of her generic schpeel about the parade (she was standing almost in the middle of the street), a beefy Wonder Woman and Supergirl came running up and did an impromtu interview with her. That must have been money. There was even a Batman and Robin on rollerskates that did some camera time.

Anywho: overall thoughts about the parade? Great time. Got great footage; it’ll all turn out well. Would I go next year? Hell yeah! We kept talking about how great it would be if the ‘Gamers Against Violence’ rally had used this parade as a venue instead of keeping themselves cooped up in that SoHo Holiday Inn. Perhaps there’s a documentary to be made about the gay gamers themselves, or maybe Z will convince them that they should start a float next year.

Epilogue: by the time it rained, we out.