Rewind to the 34th Student Academy Awards: Sad & Laughable Save for Live Action Categories

June 9th, was the 34th Student Academy Awards Ceremony. I went despite the fact that I was not going to receive an award due to the fact that they decided to only award one award in my category that being Alternative, yet i went anyways. I had this super annoying guy sitting next to me and my friend Danny, so overly interested in making connections to the point of disgust. Sid Ganis, or as Danny calls him a Wolf Blitzer look alike, did his little opening speech and introduced the first presenter, Zooey Deschanel. By the end of her time presenting I wanted to put a muzzle on her. She thought she was funny, aka she wasn't funny by a long shot, she sounded like she was drugged up on vicadin or something, and she kept putting out personal commentary on the films. Basically she's an idiot. The second presenter was John Landis, he was awesome, funny, and also made jokes at the Academy's expense. All in all half of the work that won was really good and half was utterly laughable and a complete disgrace to their respective mediums. The winner from my category looked like a Coke commercial or some MTV bubblegum bull shit. The animation category, had some of the worst quality cgi I have ever seen, along with being of some of the most tired and hackneyed tropes in animation. Also, all of them had "morals" of feel goodery. Not to mention one was desecrating Art History, that one was from NYU's undergrad program, if I see them I'll make sure to slap them upside the head for anyone who's seen it and wanted to rip their eyes out. The films that were good were the live action shorts and the live action documentaries. All of them very well concieved for the most part and very well done. Apparently quality control is not a big thing these days for the Academy, well they have reduced the amount of judges fromt he actual academy to three members, so I guess that makes sense along with the overwhelming amount victories for schools on the East Coast (only one West Coast winner, Stanford in documentary, a category they typically win). Anyways, that was wrap up of the Student Academy Awards for 2007.

Oh ya and I apologize for the massive delay in this post. I was just so disgusted with it all I could not write in any way to express my anger until it cooled off for a few months.

I'm Back...

I'm back, finally back. Sunny Kali-fornia. LAPD beating down immigrants in MacArthur Park. Ah the sun, the scandals, how I miss thee. Anyhow, I'm back but not without incident of course. I had the worse plane ride back home. It consisted of sitting on the tarmac for 2+ hours and a final delay of over 3 hours. I'm going to get in contact with Delta's corporate cusomter service to try and get compensation, it was obscene. Not to mention not even the inflight programming was working, not to mention the poor people who bought movies on board that were instead given Norbit to watch, not the movie they choose, gagh.

My first year of grad school is done and it has been good overall. A lot of work but then I've also produced a lot of work and learned a lot of things. I kind of judge time by school years and not by years. So, this year has been good, actually pretty darn good. My film from last year has been getting screened here and there and is nominated for a Student Academy Award which is totally crazy. I have some largish projects I am verry interested in working on. I've had a chance to do a lot of reading. Been able to take a more active role in politics and talk more about it. Rather happy.

First to get a bit of biz out of the way. If you want to come to the Student Academy Awards Award Ceremony, you can request tickets, they're free but you do have to request them. It's only snail mail as well, no online ordering. The award ceremony is June 9th. You can find out more information at oscars.org. To RSVP for tickets you can print out the form from Oscars RSVP Tickets.

I never got a chance to post pictures from the Philadelphia Film Festival. So, here's two pics of me outside of the International House where it screened.

Here's a pic from the making of "I Will Make More Bolts of Linen." It's the final two pages of writing that I did to make it.

Here comes another pic but wait for it, here's some explanation. So, when I was doing some voice over for the Network Neighborhood Watch PSA which I will post hopefully soon, I had to check out a mic. Not a bad mic, a Røde. However, they forgot to give me the shockmount for it. This is the sort of mic you definitely cannot hold in your hand so I was like crap. I decided to bust a McGuyver and make one out of a Pringles can and some painters tape. Worker perfectly. Here it is.

And of course for something completely different.

This blog entry was posted on location with the men and women of postal enforcement.

Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next to Contend for Student Academy in Nationals

I just got word that my film "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next" is going to be going to the Student Academy Nationals. It ended up being the only film of the four contending in my category to move on to the nationals. So, D.D.A.T.W.C.U.N. will be coming to Los Angeles again with the potential for a Student Academy, which also includes a little bit of cash. I'm pretty shocked, I didn't think I would end up being the only qualifier from my category, I figure they'd move two forward but nope. So, I guess on June 9th we'll find out what happens. I will post the details about the June 9th screening when I receive the information. Wooohooo! Now back to work to finish a final before tomorrow morning, agh.

"Death, Destruction, & The Weather Coming Up Next" Going To Student Academy Awards Regionals!

I just got an email today from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, informing me that my film that I finished last year, "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next," has made it to the regional finals for the Student Academy Awards. 175 films were submitted and 16 were choosen to move on to the regionals in the 4 categories. The whole list is at the bottom. So, from here a maximum of three finalists are choosen to proceed to the nationals in Los Angeles.

The Regional Finalists will be screened on Monday, April 23, 6p.m. at the Northwest Film Center/Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium. I was pretty shocked to hear this news as well as excited. So, I guess we'll see what happens.


34th ANNUAL STUDENT ACADEMY AWARDS REGION 1 FINALISTS

A L T E R N A T I V E
DEATH, DESTRUCTION, & THE WEATHER COMING UP NEXT Emery C. Martin/California Institute of the Arts
THE GRANDE FINALE John Suits/California Institute of the Arts
LOUD SOLITUDE AND ALSO I SAID I WOULD NEVER LEAVE YOU Orly Shuber/University of Southern California
POSTMARKS Lisa Franek/San Diego State University

A N I M A T I O N
AFRICA PARTING Robyn Alice Yannoukos/University of California at Los Angeles
AQUALIBRAE Chanya Hetayothin/University of California at Los Angeles
CAMP BEAN, ALL THINGS WOODSEY Michelle Banta Tessier/University of California at Los Angeles
DOPPELGANGER Ki-Peum Lee/California Institute of the Arts
ICARUS AND THE TREE HERDER Ian Worrel/California Institute of the Arts
SUNDAY PARTY Sirirat Thawilvejakul/University of Southern California

D O C U M E N T A R Y
CROSS YOUR EYES KEEP THEM WIDE Ben Wu/Stanford University
LEFT IN BAGHDAD Peter Jordan, John Kane/Stanford University
LONG HAUL Erin Hudson/Stanford University

N A R R A T I V E
DEACON'S MONDAYS Destin Cretton, Lowell Frank/San Diego State University
HOUSE OF THE OLIVE TREES Thouly Dosios/University of California at Los Angeles
SVEN STROMSON BLUE Joseph Campanale/Chapman University