Action and Action archives part 2.

originally posted: June 7, 2009.

Honor, diplomacy, and the 'ultimate shamed ballplayer'

Since this show has been lauded once or twice on this site, I thought I'd throw in my two cents along with a couple updates and one 'funny or die' video that has me laughing to death.


When I saw the first episode of 'Eastbound and Down' it was presented by someone who told me that HBO had already pulled the plug on the series due to it's crass, lowbrow humor tarnishing their reputation, even though the first episode hadn't even aired yet. Now six episodes with Kenny Powers have gone by faster than six with David Brent, marking the end of the first season. I thought the makers would try to push a DVD release as soon as possible so as to get fans clamoring for a second season. About half of that assumption was correct. The DVD is being given a semi-quick release in about three weeks (June 30) but apparently it's been almost two months since HBO announced that it's been renewed for a second season, though there's no word yet and when it will air or if it's even been written yet.


I have yet to find a website that lists the special features of a DVD long before its release date. No word on this one yet, but I hope it includes this hilarious video I came across over at 'Funny or Die.' Though it has no direct connection to anything in the show, it was clearly shot on the set of 'Eastbound and Down' while Will Ferrell was in his Ashley Schaffer costume. I particularly like Ferrell's singing style and the sound editing in the last minute.

BAT FIGHT with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

To learn a more about the show's genesis, check out this TV guide interview with Danny McBride.

Action and Action archives part 1

Originally posted: yesterday.

More shameless self promotion

Last weekend some friends and I took part in Toronto's 24 hour film race. At 10pm on Friday night we were given a theme (payback) and a surprise element (Action - Spraying perfume / cologne). By 10pm the following evening we submitted a 4 minute short film which was written, filmed and edited all within 24 hours. Less than a week later, they screened the 34 entries at The Bloor cinema. After the screening, the audience voted ours as their favourite! In about four weeks, we find out what the judges thought and if we get any of the big prizes.



I have to give a lot of credit to our creative nucleus consisting of the lead actors (Jake Mednick as the sad blockee and Paul Bullock as the cock blocker) and the multi-talented Joel Harvey (director, cinematographer, composer and editor).

Fun tip: try to figure out what dirty words 2625 can make on a telephone.

Jazz Fest Craziness

There's no excuse for the lack of posts to this blog in the last few months. Most of my time has been dedicated to job hunting and fun having. My weakened blogging efforts have also been divided between this one, Action and Action, and hopefully I will soon be becoming more involved with Dork Shelf.

Now for the next week I actually have real work taking up most of my time, as this is the 10 days a year where I have guaranteed employment at the Toronto Jazz Fest. In an attempt to get back into a more productive mode, I'm going to be posting a blog a day during this period. Granted, these will be posts that I've already put on Action and Action, but give me a break, I'm trying.

Anyway, here's a compilation of footage I shot at last year's festival:

Toronto Extra Features

By going to University, I had the unique experience of recession-proofing my economic status by earning a post secondary degree in fine arts (film studies to be precise). For those of you who didn't come to this conclusion by the time you reached the end of it, I should tell you that the previous sentence was intentionally riddled with sarcasm, and I have been struggling to find regular work for quite some time now, leading to several odd gigs in order to make ends meet (my degree has also afforded me the time and vocabulary necessary for writing a blog with snotty, wordy, drawn out sentences ;)

Fortunately for Universal pictures, this recent down turn in economy has given them an extremely large hiring pool for Toronto 'background performers' in 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.' For those of you who aren't familiar with this film, it's an adaptation of a 6 part independent Canadian comic book that mixes elements of japanimation, Archie Comics and video games set around Toronto's Indy rock scene (primarily the Annex). The film stars Michael Cera in the title role and is being directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz). Many twenty-something 'scenesters' 'slackers' 'Indy' 'hipsters' 'bums' and others of the like (a segment of the population which inspired most of the comic's characters) came across one of the multiple craigslist calls for extras posted by the outsourced parties required for this large task. Since the story involves lots of crowd and party scenes (many set in actual Toronto locales, such as Lee's Palace and Sneaky Dee's) an above average amount of background people have been enlisted during this ongoing process.

For a promised six long but somewhat leisurely days of 'work' I signed up to be herded back and forth between holding areas and occasionally react to an often invisible oversized hammer. I consider myself somewhat fortunate that I was witness to the filming of a fight scene and got to see some pretty cool stunts and effects executed. Anyway, the sixth installment of the official video blog for the shoot was recently posted, where you can see the set where I spent 80 hours over the course of 6 days. You get a brief glance of yours truly among the extras at about the 1:47 mark, when the camera whips past a tall 'insider snob' in a denim jacket. My brief appearance in this video is just to tease my fans without letting them know too much about my involvement.

Blog Six - Fight! - Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World from Scott Pilgrim The Movie on Vimeo.

I was very surprised at the level of security and secrecy surrounding the production. Everyone had to sign a confidentiality agreement and an extra was even fired the second day for a twitter post referring to the film. What it contained and how it was found remained conversation fodder for the rest of the week. I guess this is all because Edgar Wright likes to keep tight control over the advanced press for this film, as shown in these video blogs he's been heavily involved in. I'm not sure how much I can say without getting in trouble, for example, I noticed there are very few images of actors in costume yet, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead wears a hat in the video, leading me to believe they want to keep Ramona's constantly changing hairstyle and colour a secret for now (since the books are in black and white, readers would never really know what colour she was rocking from issue to issue). Anyway, here are a few facts about my time spent on set which I don't think will put me in breach of my signed agreement.

1. This scene marks the reunion of Michael Cera and Mae Whitman who played his 'bland' girlfriend in 'Arrested Development.'
2. Edgar Wright is only 35 but looks 25. My theory is that this is due to the ora of stressless success he seems to exude most of the time, and the pop cult tees help too.
3. Despite the fact that I'm the only one wearing denim in the scene, it is in fact supposed to take place in Canada.
4. Michael Cera likes hummus.
5. Ms. Lippy's car is green.
6. There is a lot of downtime on set, so I read these books:

'Timequake' by Kurt Vonnegut
'Lullaby' by Chuck Palahniuk
'Brave New World' by Aldus Huxley
'V for Vendetta' by Alan Moore
'Preacher, vol. 1' by Garth Ennis

None of which I didn't see another extra reading at one point or another, which I believe attests to both the amount and ilk of all us 'individuals' in attendance. Good books too.
6. I kept thinking about this great animated music video from the 80's by a Toronto band called 'The Extras' which depicts a similar scene that Pilgrim is set in, only 20 years ago. Score another point for youtube, 'cause here it is:


Perhaps it's nostalgia, but I think this song and video both still hold up very well. One of the animators actually worked on Yellow Submarine. The making of video is also work checking out, and here's a link to The Extras' official site.

'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World' doesn't get released until the summer of next year, but look out for more Scott Pilgrim related posts on this blog (as I still can't seem to go anywhere in this city without encountering some aspect of it), assuming Universal does not find and neutralize me, but this will likely only happen in the event that I say something negative about the film... just kidding?

Happy Birthday Noel

My favourite songwriter* turns 42 today. May his day be spent in bed, watching football on the telly, wearing top clothes, drinking and smoking cigarettes with his girlfriend and daughter, which should get him nice and rested up before going back on tour next week and playing some of the greatest music in the world. I also really hope his ribs aren't still feeling the unfortunate incident that occurred in Toronto last September. We promise it won't happen again, please come back soon.



And just because you can't have one without the other (though Noel's oft rumored solo project may one day contradict this), here's the less articulate but equally as quotable Liam with his answers to the same query.



*this is just personal taste, I'll be the first to concede that he is by no means the greatest living songwriter and understand that most don't share my highest regards for the man, but you can't deny that he's written at least a couple that will live forever.

Cheers.

IT WAS ME!!!

Since the videos in the last post were clearly credited to a filmmaker who calls himself 'Noah Taylor' I'm deciding to drop the silly internet pseudonym of 'your best friend.' The fact that nobody ever commented on how presumptuous this name was is proof enough that a majority of this blog's readers are in fact my best friend, but I guess that was kind of the joke from the get go.

For those of you that didn't know it was me, are you shocked by the reveal?

And since this is a particularly self indulgent entry, let's keep it all about me by adding some videos of what else I'm up to these days.



So if anyone in Toronto is looking for a guy that looks like me to make a fool of himself on camera for little or no money, depending on how much I like your face, you know where to find me. The following clip is the first minute and a half of a short film I made which is currently in the final stages of post production.

Your Best Friend's Archives

Okay, still no current, original material at the time, but to follow that old 'Coke Bike' story I'm going to reach even further back for a couple film and video projects I did in 2006.

These represent perhaps my least narrative-driven phase to date. The first was made in the second semester of a first year film course where the project had to be shot on a 16mm Bolex camera, edited on an old steenbeck machine and contain no synchronized sound. The second video was made the following fall, my first spent out of school. This was shot on my old Sony Handycam and edited on iMovie. I'm not sure how to account for the dramatic shift in tone over such a short period of time. One would think that I was really stressed while in school or discovered pot sometime between making these, but I was not stressed in school and probably smoked equal amounts of pot while making each of these... okay, maybe a little more during the second one.




A Day in Withrow


In case you're wondering, the music used in the park video is 'Just Another Sucker on the Vine' by Tom Waits and it's the reason I could not post this video on youtube, as they immediately disabled the audio due to copyright law. I still don't understand exactly how this works and why I can post some things on youtube but not myspace, and vice versa. I guess they're changing their methods all the time to keep on top of things and whether or not copyrighted material gets passed them is mostly a matter of luck... bogus.