Logan’s Run Online

(Nay, this post shall feature neither Doric nor Corinthian styles of architectural order. In fact, it won’t even feature Ionic styles–and that’s ironic.)

I went out to dinner a few weeks ago for my birthday at a restaurant close by UCF and named “Logan’s Roadhouse”. They’ve got semi-good barbecue and good appetizer rolls, so I figured it’d be a chill place to relax with my friends before my party. While there, one of them turned to me and said,

Hey, Logan! You’re eating at Logan’s! That’s ironic!

No, it’s not.

Irony isn’t coincidence, and far too many people mistake it for such. Irony is Mary Poppins singing “Stay Awake”. Irony is Regan’s bulletproof car causing a missed assassination shot to ricochet off into his chest. Irony is simply the incongruity of what’s expected–the cognitive dissonance, if you will, resulting from outcomes almost opposite and contrary to one’s anticipations.

Irony is giving up–almost two years ago at this point–meaningless one-night stands with the hopes of finding someone and something more worthwhile and, when encountering such a possibility, having my hesitation toward simple physical releases cause exactly what I was trying to prevent. I’ll admit I’ve done the hook-up thing before; who hasn’t? It’s a fun time while it lasts but ultimately cheats yourself out of the chance for pushing forward. Those few casual encounters I’ve had all ended up with me barely talking to the other person afterward, them and I drifting apart to nothing more than a casual “hey, what’s up” every few months. Is that really how one aims to go through life? It’s certainly not self-fulfilling.

So when the last “I like you, you like me” situation occurred, I aimed to push a different route, take it slow, see where things go. Unfortunately, my goals weren’t reciprocated, and my lack of “let’s have sex now” attitude caused us to both go our separate ways, becoming, at this point, exactly what my one-night stands became. Now isn’t that ironic?

Of course, this post’s sole purpose is not to share pity-evoking details of my life thinly veiled as a discussion on rhetorical concepts: I should fill you, my loyal reader, on what’s been going on in my life! So, in no particular order, here’s what you’ve got to look forward to from me in the coming few months:

• The TL retreat for 2010 TLs is coming up fast! I posted a year ago about my first one and I’ll definitely be doing the same this year; I’m really excited for this new group of TLs!
• I’ve finalized my courses for the fall/spring semesters and I’ll be diving deep into both my RTV-major and theatre minor classes; these should help me get familiar again with shooting regularly, script writing, editing, analysis, etc.
• I’m volunteering at the 2010 Global Peace Film Festival this September in Orlando; hopefully it’ll get me exposed to some people and give me some more experience with event logistics.
• My other writers and I have almost finished compiling the screenplay for my largest attempted film yet, a caper film set at college. This semester should see a finalized script and storyboarding begin.
• Four other plots I’ve been kicking around in my head will start to see the light of day soon, two of them being two “sketch comedy”-esque shorts that can hopefully be filmed and pushed out a lot faster than the more serious pieces. As a tantalizing preview, here’s some slightly-vague loglines for each:
  • Our favorite wizard’s alma mater gets into some trouble with modern bureaucracies
  • Suspenseful thriller set in NASA’s planned 2020 lunar outpost
  • A new English recruit is confused with years-old archetype traditions
  • (Horror film for October)
• I was recently informed by one of my Yale friends of a study-abroad documentary film program in Prague they offer every summer. Methinks I have something to shoot for next summer!

Logan’s tired of writing now; Logan has to play tennis in the morning. Logan out.

I mentioned the idea for this story in my previous blog post; it took me a few days to pen it out. There’s two (maybe three) important details about the story that I’m curious to see if anyone notices. I also have one question for everyone who reads it: how does it end?

“Mixx”

Ham! No, turkey. Lettuce, tomatoes. Wait, scratch the tomatoes. Add some onions. With cheese? Yeah, American. Footlong, too. Maybe a bit of oil and vinegar. Now that’s a good sandwich.

Waiting in the line to order, I was trying to figure out what I wanted for lunch. I think I must have gone over the menu three or four times before I decided.

Hello! Who are you?

I spotted him a few places down in line. All-American boyish looks, average hair like all the kids wear it these days. Jeans, t-shirt. Strikingly cute, but not my normal type. He was chatting with a friend of his, probably trying to decide the same thing I had settled on just moments before. I caught his eye briefly before stepping up to the counter; I think he was wondering what I was looking at.

—–

A few days later, I’m getting ready for the reception. I’ve spent a couple weeks preparing for it and I’m pretty sure I’m ready. I’m not really nervous, either, just excited. Walking into the hall to get started, I notice him again—he’s here, at the reception! I guess he was invited, too. Not that I mind, of course.

—–

Everything goes off without a hitch. Everyone in attendance loved it and had a great time! I’m glad it went well. A bunch of us decided to go to an after party and relax—I’m always game to celebrate.

John, Travis, Sara, Nikki, Patrick, Ted. OK, I don’t know that girl. Or that one, or the guy over there. Come to think of it, there’s a lot more people here than I thought and I don’t know most of them! This should be fun.

I wandered over to the kitchen to grab a drink—sweet tea vodka and lemonade—and sat down at one of the tables. They were playing a drinking game, some variation off euchre. I quickly joined in and made some new friends; one of the girls, Laney, was very chatty and very wasted. They taught me some new drinking games I had never heard of before and, as could be expected, I soon joined Laney in our euphoric stupor. Someone turned on a stereo and started playing some music—yeah, I think I can dance to this. Pretty soon everyone was on their feet dancing around, singing aloud, laughing and giggling. I was enjoying myself a lot until he walked in.

Shit, I’m drunk and he’s gonna think I’m an ass. I don’t even know what to say to him—should I introduce myself? Should I just go over and start talking? What if I play a drinking game with him, loosen things up first?

As luck would have it, Travis knew him and could tell I was being too indecisive, so he swooped in and brought me over to him.

“Jason, here’s the friend I was telling you about.”

I stood there, quavering at first, not knowing what to say. At least I know his name now.

“Hey,” I awkwardly said and offered my hand.

He replied the same and shook hands with me. We stared uncomfortably for a few seconds before he wandered off with his friends.

Dammit! What an idiot. Could I have been more awkward?! There’s no way he’d be interested in me after that.

Still, I had been down that road before—not knowing how to approach a guy—and finally figured that if I don’t take some risks in life, I’ll never get anywhere. So I walked up to him again.

“You look thirsty.”

Yeah, a stupid line. Maybe it’d work.

“Guess I am! What are you drinking?”

“Firefly. Want a cup?”

Thank god he said yes. We walked over together and I poured him a glass before we returned to the table. Laney was pretty far gone by now, to the point she was stumbling over both her words and her feet. She tried getting up only to dizzily fall back down, laughing.

“Maybe we should help her to a bed,” Jason offered.

“Good idea.”

We each take one of her arms and half carry her upstairs. When we reach the room she’ll sober up in we gently lay her on the bed and sit down next to her, exhausted from both the lifting and our own drinks. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I suddenly had the urge to kiss him—that’s not like me, jumping into things so fast. Still, it couldn’t hurt to go a bit further, so I put my hand on his thigh and looked up at him.

“You know, I thought you were cute since I saw you at Subway the other day. I think I have a crush on you.”

Jason simply smiled and said, “you’re pretty cute, too. Let’s see where this goes.”

He leaned in to kiss me—fuck my inhibitions, I wanted this too. I eagerly returned the advance, tongues entwining together. What shot through me next was this incredible feeling in my stomach: butterflies? Lust? Drunken toxins? Whatever it was, it was pure bliss and I sure as hell wasn’t stopping.

—–

After we finished playing our own round of “Seven Minutes in Heaven” Jason offered me a ride back home. That was sweet of him—romantic, too, him being all gentleman-like. When we got to my apartment door we hesitated for a second before kissing again—hell, we already made out, what’s wrong with a quick kiss good night? I told him I’d love to see him again and he just gave me one of his cheeky smiles before heading back to his car.

What a night.

—–

Fast-forward a week. I’m working at my desk when this guy comes up to me and introduces himself.

“Hi! I’m Darius. I’ve heard a lot about you!”

“Hopefully good things,” I responded.

He chuckled and explained yes, they were all good things. Apparently Darius was at the party a week ago but never got the chance to say hi to me. He saw me descend from the second floor with Jason right before we left and wanted to make sure that things went alright from that point on. Parties, whether high school, college, or otherwise, they never change. You always gotta be careful around who’s there, he reasons. Thanks, I tell him, but everything turned out fine. I wasn’t raped if that’s what he’s asking.

“Oh gosh, no, that’s not what I meant! I’m good friends with Jason; I know he wouldn’t do something like that. I’ve just seen people like Laney get into trouble before and hoped it didn’t happen to you, too. Glad it worked out for you!”

Darius walked away, leaving me wondering exactly who else was at that party and what, if anything, I missed.

Again, I ask: how does it end?

Right, so I’m currently working on a new film. The idea and basic plot has been floating around my head for a while (since last summer, actually) when my friend Raye helped me conceive it; this summer I’m glad to say I’ve finalized a scene list with the entire story arc and have now talked with some people to pen it down in a real story format with action and dialogue.

This means that, hopefully, by the end of the summer, I’ll have the longest screenplay ever I’ve helped to create! And then it’s off to storyboarding and such other fun aspects of pre-production. What joy!

(In case you can’t tell, all of this stems from YET ANOTHER change of my major; this time to Radio/Television Production. I think I’m still gonna graduate in four years with a major and three minors. Hot stuff.)

So after MONTHS of delays and procrastination on it, I’ve finally finished the editing on and shipped out my latest film, a short horror idea centered around a local DJ, “Radio”. Check it out up on YouTube (in 720p HD, no less!) over at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN0szeAZaJ4. Or, feel free to view it below!

If you’re interested in some of the technical principles I came across while shooting this, read on. The biggest problem I ended up having with this film was loss of my audio takes from the shoots: I shot the film in my camera’s 24p mode which wraps the 24 progressive frames in a 60i stream, thus necessitating a reverse telecine process to extract them out. When doing this in After Effects and rendering out the subsequent frames, I lost all my initial audio takes because AE’s default render options doesn’t include audio–I’ve since learned to ALWAYS check that audio rendering is enabled. I ended up recording all the audio in separate takes and dubbing them in afterwards–lip-syncing is almost impossible on film. The second thing I really learned about in making this film was the importance of storyboarding. Although I shot a lot of b-roll and had all of the shots I wanted, I realized both while shooting and editing that my mis-en-scene looked a bit capricious, as if I didn’t really have a grand idea at the time as to exactly how I wanted to scene to look. I realize now that, by storyboarding out the exact process and shots beforehand, it’ll probably make shooting go a lot faster and ensure in editing I know exactly what goes when.

So, partly because I’ve a slight ego and partly because I need to remember to update my resume and include all of my current accolades/involvements/etc., here’s a pointlessly-narcissistic post detailing my current life:

• CERT Team member
• CPR/First Aid/AED certified
• Ham radio license
• Knightcast–technical director
• Knightnews–videographer
• Honors College–team leader
• Urban Gaming Club–president
• Fencing–vice president
• Kars–expediting involvement
• (Hopefully) Crescendudes A Cappella group
• GLBSU Diva Invasion–shooting video and filming as part of CAB VPC
• CAB VPC

Have I forgotten anything? Remind me if I have. Looking at it all, I’m surprised I’m still in school.

Alright, so Campus Movie Fest was a couple of weeks back and my friends and I got together and made a pretty sweet film. At least, in my opinion it was pretty good. Of course, it didn’t win any awards or anything (not that I’m aware of; there could be some very obscure independent student film award in Indonesia that gives me 400,000 rubles and I won or something), but, then again, I didn’t make it for that purpose. More just to have fun and mess around. Honestly, a week with a free camera and Mac laptop. Who’d say no?!

Anyhoo, here’s the culmination of our week of creating a script, casting, shooting, editing, producing, directing, etc. Enjoy!

Make comments on the video’s page itself, not this blog post! Unless, of course, your comments are about this post and not the video…maybe I’d need some sort of “meta-post”…hmmm….

So last Sunday I fenced back home again for the first time in a while at South Florida’s Sabre Outreach Network’s December “Vidosa Memorial Cup” Fencing Tournament. You know, the SFSONDVMCFT.

I don’t want to not be humble, but just from the way I fenced I can definitely tell I’ve improved my game since I’ve left high school fencing. I’m now a lot faster in both movements and reaction, plus I know more advanced moves and how to really “play the game”–especially when dueling electric. My favorite highlight of the day? I beat this fencer I’ve never fenced before in my life 5-2! He’s a C-rated fencer (classifications range from E to A, with A being the highest and U being unranked) and I’ve not even gotten a rating yet. YEAH! I was SO happy when that bout ended; I couldn’t believe it.

Regarding the rest of my performance, I was really just ok–I didn’t even place in individuals because I lost my first DE (to a fencer who has also improved much since I’ve left) and my team didn’t even make it past pools during the team events. Oh well. I still had a TON of fun and basically got to fence for 8 hours straight, leaving me very, very happy.

I get to fence again this afternoon at my old high school’s final fencing practice of their trimester–after this, though, I can’t fence again until I’m back up at UCF and my normal fencing schedule resumes. Unless I can find another fencing club here in Boca…

I thought I’d post up some images from some of my latest escapades around campus, including the long-awaited “election night heist ‘08″. These are all hosted on ImageShack, so if you like them, please use the thumbnail code instead of linking directly to them. Hopefully, that’ll save on my disk space, too. Without further adieu, ENJOY!

First up is a pic from fencing a few weeks back. Apparently, three-on-three fencing isn’t a good idea:

Next, an awesome guitar I found a few weeks back over at Church Street Station here in Orlando when my parents came up for the weekend. I know Ricky’s gonna like this one!

OK, so I forgot to rotate this one. Oh well. Turn your head sideways This is my election night heist, BTW–made away with about 20 bags of Doritos-brand election chips, as well as a hat and a small button in the center:

LAST NIGHT! I walk into Knightro’s to grab some dinner, and who do I see but four a cappella carollers dressed up in 18th-century garb singing Christmas songs. Sorry I couldn’t get a video, but a picture’s worth a thousand words, right?

Finally, an awesome picture of my friend &%$#* on the 5th of November. What could be more appropriate on Guy Fawkes’ Day?

That’s all for now! Enjoy all of this! Take it in–and get more next week!

*Edit: Name obscured due to his wish of anonymity. He is legion?

Yep, it’s that time again! There’s a fencing tournament coming up this weekend and yours truley is competing in it. I’ll be 40 minutes from Orlando over in Cocoa Beach this weekend at the Bankuti Tournament. It’s USFA-affiliated, so hopefully I can get a ranking; at the very least, I’ll enjoy a full day of sabre fencing! Wish me luck and look for updates on how it went next week!

This past weekend I had a fencing competition in Gainesville (that’s UF for all of you non-Florida folks) and, I must say, UCF’s team did rather well. I don’t exactly know the results for foil or epee, or any of the women’s events (really, I only know what I competed in: mens’ sabre), but we beat UF’s sabre team pretty badly (apparently they only sent their B team instead of their A team) and were pretty on-par with FSU. USF, though, was very surprising as they totally kicked our asses. Their sabre team is really good. Guess I gotta do some more conditioning!