LA is a fake city

Today ended the third day I have been on the set of a student film. Jean, (pronounced like a French 'John' not 'Gene') is a friend from church who is also a student at AFI (American Film Institute). He is producing a film, "Amy Ling" and I said I was interested in coming out to help. I was part of the Art department, which basically sets up the set for every shoot, and I also worked the boom mic, which is that long mic that is held above the actors'/actresses' heads. It's tiring. Your arms start to hurt after a while.

It was really cool to see everything that goes on during a movie shoot. I have come to a couple conclusions.

1) Making a movie is hard work. The last 3 days have been 12 hour days. You work HARD. They have to set everything up BEFORE the shoot (lights, camera, set, props, EVERYTHING has to be perfect), and then DURING the shoot, they take a couple rehersals, and then do probably 4-5 real shots which they actually record. During the shoot, everyone has to be silent. Even if you're on the other end of the house. Or outside.

2) Everything is done out of order, so you really don't get a sense of the movie even if you've worked on it. I always read how directors, actors, etc. say, "Yeah, the movie came out great" after the screening, and I'm always thinking, "Weren't you there when it was being made?". But seriously, you don't know how it will turn out until it's all put together. Everything is shot out of order, there is no background music, and you don't really get a sense of the movie. All you see are individual scenes. I don't even understand how the director can keep everything in his/her head while the movie is being made.

3) Continuity is a big problem. Now I know why there are so many mistakes in movies. There are so many takes, and everytime, they try to make everything the same, but things slip through the cracks.

4) EVERYTHING IS SO FAKE. The set is so fake. You just make things 'look' like you want them to, but it's not real. Perfect example: the milk in almost all commercials is not real milk, because it would look blue under all the lights. They use Elmer's glue.

There are often things hiding behind tables or shelves that you're not supposed to see. The crew is just too lazy to move everything. The actors/actresses are one minute joking with you, the next they are in character. It's pretty impressive. All the lights are artificial. They use all sorts of lights, filters, mirrors, and whatnot to achieve the perfect look. If you only see the top half of a person in a suit, chances are, they are wearing jeans and tennis shoes. It's cool to watch, and very enlightening.

I now understand why LA is the way it is. The entertainment industry influences society here. So everything is based on appearance and is so artificial. I seriously have never seen so many 'beautiful' people in the same place in my life. But not everyone is fake. There are also a lot of really nice people here.

Only in Taiwan do they have Mercedes taxis.

These are some quclyty socks. Click to see the big version.

Chinese business sense

Just got back from the Chinese supermarket. Back in Ohio, when I go to the (one of three) Chinese supermarkets, I see only Chinese food. Well, some Japanese, some Korean, but whatever. Here in LA, the Chinese supermarket sells everything. Laundry detergent, bottled water, there's even a bank inside. They are trying to reach out to non-asians, maybe? I did see one white person there, though. Anyway, the point of this babbling is there is a section that sells American juice, milk, etc. It was virtually untouched. It was in its original pristine, everything-perfectly-stacked condition. Guess that's not their money making section.

Make a decision and stick to it. Either jump in or jump out when the train is departure, but not both.

Redirect

I moved my blog to calculon0.blogspot.com because the canaan.org.tw site was my church in Taiwan's server. If I start posting a lot of pictures on there, it'll eat up their bandwidth and my web space. Also, blogspot hosts my pictures for FREE. So I'll probably start posting my pics, a few at a time starting with the previous post. I'll probably post the regular pictures at photobucket or something for Stan, Melissa and Just who want the pics from Taiwan. Do you want just one big zip file with everything? Or do you want a gallery?

My car is still not fixed, but at least they have ordered the parts and will be working on it. I went to play beach volleyball (76 degrees in LA) on MLK Jr. Day.

Don't you love Taiwanese advertising?

Pictures, hold on

My car is still not fixed. I don't know how long it'll take, but hopefully by the end of this week I'll have it back. In the meantime, I got all the pictures from Taiwan and I'll put them up soon. I'm looking for a picture place online that I can start putting my pictures at.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. No school, whoohoo!

Check out this video Kyle sent me. http://www.funpic.hu/swf/numanuma.html

Welcome to 2005

I got back from Taiwan on Sunday night. I'll upload the pictures soon. Someone tried to steal my car while I was gone (it was parked at my cousin's place in West LA) but all they managed to do was to rip out my ignition.

This is the second time my car has been broken into. The first, back in Ohio, they tried to pick my lock, failed, broke my window instead and didn't steal anything. This time, they didn't steal anything, either, but they picked the lock. Californian car thieves are better, I guess.

Anyway, school has started, and it's pretty boring so far. I do have one funny professor for my database class, though. Half the things he says, he's kidding. But you can't tell when he's kidding and when he's not. He says even his research students have a hard time. It'll be an interesting class.

How many of you take showers at night? And how many that do are asian?

Apparently, Taiwanese people are very touchy about this topic and consider American showering habits to be very strange and disgusting to them. Well, if you could just see all the professionals going to work in the morning with their hair in disarray, you'll know why we shower in the morning.