chrryblssmninja

The UC Berkeley (actually, it was UC-wide) protest I helped shoot for CalTV. Some other groups tried to push their message there, but the main protest was a faculty and student strike about proposed budget cuts.





oh my gosh I have asked the camera department head to tell me when there's a session dealing with lighting, because wow my lighting was bad up there. I thought I put it to let in the least amount of light possible! And it was still like that! Yeah, it was noon, but still...

Any video people reading this, especially claennis: How do you get your colors and lighting look so good?

Happy Birthday, lessthan3stars!

I was walking to lunch a day ago and I spotted some fellow CalTV members filming. They needed people to interview. I volunteered. My mind was rushed and focused on food, so I was a little flustered, but fortunately, I had some props on hand.
see me starting at the 2:19 mark on this video

Basically, I pull an orange and a potato from my pocket and make them talk.




argh I am trying to finish application for Google summer internship

if I get the job, please do not direct complaints about company evilness to me I am lowly (possible) intern

but I hear they have the best cafeteria food, and it's all free

The commute I know already - I interned at NASA before (yeah, that NASA, haha) and that was in Mountain View too



I finally found Death Cab for Cutie's cover of "Earth Angel" from the Stubbs the Zombie video game soundtrack. I remember hearing it on the radio...I remember it being more atmospheric and haunting...or was that another indie cover of a similar '50's song...or maybe it was a live version...my memory is fuzzy...
still, this song is now stuck in my head. Or at least battling for headspace with that Katy Perry hot/cold song that is playing everywhere...please win, Death Cab, please win

busy busy busy

what I did on Friday at school:
11 AM -12 PM: did further editing on the llama caravan project
12 PM - almost 1: had dim sum lunch and I SPILLED VINEGAR ON MYSELF ARGH
1 PM - Music duet practice. VINEGAR SMELL IN CONFINED QUARTERS AACK
1:20 - I'm 10 minutes early for the Antropology undergraduate researchers reception thing. I run into the organizer and help her find the room and set up. She really smells the vinegar. But I get mango sorbet, yay
1:50 - arrive individual photoshoot for CalTV, but with a person before me, my session starts at 2
2:20 - arrive 10 minutes late for Music class, is okay
3:00 - go for more editing on llama caravan project, aack the first thing my supervisor asks me about is THE VINEGAR
4:00 - CalTV training session. They also happened to be looking for a song to use for a music video. So immediately pulled out my MP3 player (so fast I scared someone, like I was pulling out a pistol for a gunfight or something) and played that Andrews Sisters/DJ Unk mashup that claennis posted once. Copyright's no issue for this project (at least that's what they told me) so yay swing dancing hip-hop video yay! We're going to be working on getting people and I'm going to help with some (definitely not all) choreography and camera work and !!!!!!!!

some random pictures:
on Friday, BART had some problems because of a minor earthquake, so my dad drove me to school. We had some time to stop at the chocolate store Bittersweet. they had Michel Cluizel and Amedei samplers sets! -faints- But I just got one bar and this:


it's pretty good; the lavender isn't too acidic and the fizzy wasn't overly fizzy. lol I joked to myself that I looked like a lush drinking that on campus. But it smells nice. :)

It's really cold here now, at least compared to the hot weather we've had most summer. Even though it's bright and shiny outside, that means no clouds trapping the heat. I'm keeping my door closed to trap some air, and I'm using my desk lamp as a heat lamp of sorts.



ack this transition to fall is going to be hard...waah I liked wearing short-sleeve t-shirts all the time

my book stacks:


what I'm reading now for study breaks


study stuff


the chair I'm using

it's fun to rock back and forth in

I found this amusing for some reason


study aid


okay, back to study. What I'm reading now: "Patterns of prehistoric human mobility in Polynesia indicated by mtDNA from the Pacific rat."
This rat cannot swim more than a few meters in open ocean
hee

I'm only skimming flist right now, stopping at skip=260 or so. Only leaving quick comments. sorry if I'm skipping anything urgent or important. Leave a comment if I should see something (or...leave small picspam study breaks. haha.)

Happy Birthday, never_frugal!


foof. plorp. I'm tired. Schoolwork and stuff.
My parents' anniversary was Monday, so we went to the ultrahip Chinese restaurant Sino, which was pretty good, not too overpriced. Portions were big. Last night, I had to stay late in Berkeley for some CalTV meetings, so before that we ate at Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen. ULTIMATE JAMBALAYA WOO. I also tried some of my dad's penne pasta and their sauce (along with the little orange heirloom tomatoes) were just marvelous. yup. and beignets! nice. They were served in this bowl full of powdered sugar...so much that I choked a bit at first, all that powdered dust...I did the same thing with the souffle at Sino...
haha we don't usually eat out like this two days in a row. It just happened.

oh, and now the CalTV site is all new and improved and stuff. Here are all the projects where I've done camera work!.

random random links

via cleolinda:
Danny Boyle to direct a musical? awesome.
Jane Austen's "The Dark Knight" interrogation scene.
LINK OF WIN
Add cowbell and Christopher Walken to any song
NY Post critic smacks Rogert Ebert with a binder, Ebert's response.


Klinsi interview!
It's dubbed, so I don't know if my German flisters might find that annoying. There's probably an undubbed version on the site...I'd look for it if I wasn't tired right now
I only caught a bit of this on TV. I'll watch the whole thing when I have more time.

hey hey Jack Coleman (Noah Bennet on Heroes) is now a guest blogger on TWOP!

WAAH I MISSSED THE PUSHING DAISIES PIES WHEN THEY CAME TO SAN FRANCISCO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
They're hitting Denver today, followed by Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.
They do have some simple pie recipes on that site, though.

Gossip Girl!
pics of Blake Lively's 21st birthday
aww she invited everyone
via yaiyah: Leighton Meester singing "Bette Davis Eyes."
overproduced, but Leighton's voice is cool and low and surprisingly un-Blair-like.
Gossip Girls in talks to make appearance in 30 Rock flashback
this sounds fantastic! eeeee...one of the better stunt casting decisions I've seen about 30 Rock's second season

also, did anyone notice in the season premiere how Serena borrowed Dan's copy of Nylon Magazine? soo hilariously appropriate product placement. Hey, they're a pretty cool, hipster fashion mag, and they cover other things too. like a certain time-traveling island show.
I totally bought the issue with Leighton Meester on the cover. Seriously, back in May, I saw it on a rack, and I grabbed it right away.

Finally...
Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet?
and,
Karl Lagerfeld: Still not a ninja. For now..
GASP WHAT IF THESE TWO LINKS ARE RELATED

First, Happy Birthday to azuresquirrel!

- - -

This week has been filled with video production.
On Monday, my ethnographic film group had to travel to the Ecology Center in another part of Berkeley to film an interview for our film on Farmers' Markets. The interview ended up 50 minutes long, but it was packed with info that, even if not in the film, added a lot to our research. I just hope my multiple camera angles didn't turn out bad...After watching how the guy spoke, I tried to follow a plan of: wide shots of general topic questions where his giant gestures would be most helpful, and closer shots for more personal story things, with variety as appropriate as I can figure out while the questions are being asked.
Then, on Wednesday, I had to stay after 5 to shoot some b-roll for a CalTV reporter's story on a leadership club. Thursday morning, I shot two interviews, one with a nutritionist and one with a Nutri Sci professor, for this story you can watch here.
It's about eating healthy, and centers on author/professor Michael Pollan's recent on-campus talk about his new book, In Defense of Food. The lighting for those 2 interviews I shot wasn't the greatest - the professor just started talking and I couldn't adjust!- but it was a good, if tiring shoot.

And today, I just came back from an interview for a Video Production internship in the College of Natural Sciences. They need people to film videos (for promotion and UC Berkeley's Youtube channel) about the people and projects of that specific college. It's really exciting to me, because I could use a lot of creativity in creating these stories, and the interview was more like an introduction to the job and it's just really cool! And it could help me build up my video portfolio! [/geek] But it's not paid. The guy in charge said that he'd pay for my BART tickets, though, and the hours are totally flexible, even part-time if need be.
My parents want me to apply for a paid internship at this nifty little industrial design firm in Palo Alto that uses cultural anthropology to aid their design and marketing. The company's cool and it's related to my major but...I'm feeling less excitement about this one. But I guess I'll apply. Maybe I can do both somehow.

What are my future career plans? I want to use my anthro skills in making non-fiction/fiction films and written/visual works. And hey, small video tech jobs might be able to support me while my grander anthro or creative stuff is forming or searching for funding. but yeah.

I just saw a Toyota/World of Warcraft commercial.
Wow indeed.

This week has been jam-packed with studying and typing stuff and aggh aggh aggh. Even while watching TV I'd be reading articles for class. I was able to eat lunch with my friend Ray on Friday, but that was because it was Friday and I needed a break. I want to meet with more friends later.

One of the things that helped keep me focused on paper-writing: the complete Beatles in one hour. Because I need some noise when typing at school, and I already listened to the only interesting CD in this week's Spinner stream. It's crazy stuff.

My International Perspectives on Education class is finished yay! Well, I got an extension on the paper, and I'll be finishing that soon. But whee more free time. Maybe I'll do NaNoWriMo...

Also did some things for CalTV (because I just couldn't study all the time). On Monday, I was supposed to film something, but the reporter Natalie got the wrong kind of tape. Since I knew what it was supposed to look like, I ran all up and down Telegraph and University Avenue, trying to find a place that sold mini DV tapes. WHY ARE THERE NO MINI DVS IN WALGREENS OR OTHER PLACES WITH VIDEO HOW ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO USE THEIR CAMERAS? I later found out that there was a store that sold them, but I might have run past it. Yes, I was was running. On and off. For 45 minutes.
So she had to buy the tape later and get someone else to film the next day, since I wasn't available at the desired time. I did get to shoot the intro and student interviews for that report on Cal putting classes on Youtube. Whee I found the perfect location for the intro. Too much headdroom, though. -headdesk- Lighting...that couldn't be helped, really.

And then, yesterday, I met Roger Fan and Justin Lin from Finishing the Game.

Justin Lin directed movies ranging from Better Luck Tomorrow to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Roger Fan has played various roles in Lin's movies and elsewhere.

They were really cool people. Too bad, with two other CalTV crew there besides the host, all I really had to do was find an interview location and set up the camera and put away the camera while the others did the (necessary, I tell you) pre- and post- interview chatting with the guests. So during the interview I stood around and felt useless, just reacting to comments and looking over the camera. I was so quiet and almost fidgety and aack I probably came off as strange. And not the kind of strange I like.

But, watch the vid. You'll learn that M.C. Hammer helped get Better Luck Tomorrow get made, which in turn helped Harold and Kumar get made. And Lin spilled some news about the upcoming Fast and the Furious sequel. While I'm not a fan of the series, it was pretty exciting to hear something that hadn't made its way outside the studios yet!

I was like all quiet and keeping to the background and stuff. When Roger Fan started taking pictures of all of us while I was putting away stuff I was like ack!nervous.

I'm usually much more confident and talkative, but not having a defined job to do really broke that down.

I did manage to shake Justin Lin's hand, though. And when he was asking us if we were all Mass Comm majors, I told him I was an Anthro major interested in Ethnographic Film. yeah.

Oh and when they were talking about Asian representation and roles post-interview I really wanted to shout "Filipino!" But it would have been strange for the weird quiet girl to just start talking. I should should have done it anyway. -headdesk #23-

As for footie, I'm just catching up on scores, because it's been a very busy week and I couldn't get up for streams.
YAAAAAAAAY KOLO AND ROSA SCORED YAAAAAAY
aww Jens not even on the bench. -pouts-

finally, this song may cause spontaneous fistpumping.

ETA. aww...Celtic lost to Rangers, 0-3. I just started the Valencia stream and they're winning 3-1. whee Bremen 3-2 Berlin!

Ah. After staying up until 4 doing homework, I was just knocked out on my bed. Then I had a fantastIic dream. Well, I wasn't all that excited during the dream, but I woke up happy.

It was something about me in a college class, and our classes were in a mall. One class was in a giant movie theater, and I think we were divided by area of interest...humanities and social science people like me in the middle, math/tech/engineer people in the front, and the rest in the back. Well, while moving around the theater for activities, I saw that among the engineer group was none other than Miroslav Klose. Hee, I was trying to check all casual from different angles, and it was him! I think he was in a gray coat, maybe with a scarf. Anyways, I was nervous about asking him for his autograph, because I still have some bits of angst and grr remaining about the Bayern issue, even though I am officially okay with it.

So the class ended, and I left the theater with some friends. We were in this really bright department store, and a bunch of students were eating lunch in a hall. The hall was next to this wide area where a large circular opening in the ceiling revealed a second floor of pretty clothes. On that floor, Shiina Ringo was basically taking the Beyonce role in the first scene of that annoying American Express ad that aired twice last night. Except Ringo-chan was looking all cool and wearing something like this:


but her hair covered by a gorgeous white hat with black netting and ribbon. And then scene change! and she was in a nice winter coat, riding with a happy golden labrador in this tan sled-car one-seater thing in the forest. And then the shot was repeated with different people, like an expensive commercial.

So back in the hall, everyone was chatting and eating lunch, and my friends (at least, I felt they were my friends, I don't remember a specific face) were telling me that I should try and get Miro's autograph next time. Some girls nearby overheard, and I could tell that they thought I had a crush on him. I was first going to explain, "No, it isn't like that, he was my soccer hero and-" but then I thought, why should I care what they think? So I just continued eating lunch. There were a bunch of random arguments going on around us.

People I like rarely make an appearance in my dreams...at least the ones I remember when I wake up. It's usually just random people I encounter. And in this dream, two of my favorite people, Miroslav Klose and Shiina Ringo, made an appearance! I just woke up really refreshed and happy.

Oh, and some CalTV footage I shot on Monday is in the latest episode of Cal TV. It's the segment towards the end, with Stephanie talking about the NBC 11 visit. There's a story behind that...
Stephanie assumed that I would bring the key for the camera; I assumed that Stephanie would bring the camera. After some frantic calling and searching, we were happy that Rosa (the host) just happened to stop by with a camera. It was hard setting the lighting for that shoot...the lowest level was too dark, so I just stuck with the middle, even though you can see it's too bright. I also moved the camera too much, but the battery was dying and we just had one take. Hope I'm better next time!

hi hi! Just premiering the fun Werder icon I got from annesaname. I WATCHED THAT HAPPEN LIVE (well, streaming) YAY and some other things.

I filmed my first thing for CalTV! Well, it was just the intro and conclusion for a cool reporter's segment, but yay!!! But I've got these really strange, tiny red oval blisters from not switching the tripod enough while carrying it across campus. Badges of honor. yeah.

oh, more image experiments!







Feel free to take, make over, etc. and comments make me smile. :D

and jetaimerai, did you see the Singin' in the Rain stuff I left in comments on your journal?

Stay great, flist!